re: #131 Obdicut

This is absolute crap, I hope you know. That’s not how evolution works.

Of course it is exactly how evolution works. You have a new challenge in the environment, alcohol. You have differences between individuals in tolerance to alcohol. Those who drink to excess and ruin their livers, or get drunk and die in an accident or a drunken fight, reproduce less. Those who can get the benefits of the calories from, say, grapes that can’t be stored as grapes, without losing their livers or their lives, do survive.

Over time, just as with lactose tolerance, a degree of tolerance to alcohol builds up in the population.

It is no accident that the French have less of a problem with alcohol than the Russians. They’ve been at it longer.

Individual variation continues to exist alongside group differences. There are French alcoholics, and many a Russian drinks in moderation.