"Q: ‘Is it true that the sickle-cell phenomenon has established Darwinian evolution as fact?’
Behind the question, of course, lies the assumption that observing
In one case it was found that out of 10 West African individuals carrying the sickle-cell trait and living in the UK, there were five who had the genetic predisposition to stuttering (which is known to be high in West Africa). The temptation to use natural selection explanations to link the stuttering gene frequency to child-hood malaria and sickling overlooks some important sociological facts.
First, most who have the stuttering tendency in Ghana in particular are left-handed, which is a major social disadvantage. Relatives heckle and bully the left-hander for doing household jobs with the ‘wrong hand’. The already nervous left-hander is then forced in the schools to write with the right hand, evoking a constant state of agitation.
The desire to excel against all odds is great, so left-handers are generally better at their studies. You will thus find a higher number of left-handers, and thus more stutterers, in any academic institution. If that institution is in northern Nigeria, for instance, 30 per cent of these stutterers will also be sicklers, simply because 30 per cent of the rest of the population are sicklers. This has nothing to do with malaria and selection, nor does the fact that of the five consultants in the haematology department of a famous African teaching hospital, 80 per cent had the sickle-cell trait.
I have indicated more than once that African anthropogenetics would be much better served by thinking along factual lines rather than theoretical evolutionary concepts. The same could certainly be said for science and medicine in general."
CMI/Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu
