# Another Africa thread hijacked **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 1, 2011, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767 "2011-04-01T13:04:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 28
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/541 "2011-04-17T02:15:59Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > What Mexicans? > > Don’t you know the U.S. receive the poorer and less educated Mexicans? After all, a smart and educated Mexican don’t need to risk its life by crossing into the United States. > > So, no wonder the “white” folks make better tests than Mexicans in the U.S.. The Mexican immigrants read the test with an eye and watch for the “migra” with the other. Excuses, excuses. 😛 [channeling Omar] Yes, the Mexicans who stayed home were the ones who built the great civilizations. The immigrants to the US are a completely different people, not the descendants of the Aztecs, Toltecs, and Mayans. [/channeling Omar] ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/542 "2011-04-17T02:17:30Z")
I meant Mexicans in Mexico. Using them as an example is a bit silly, because many people in that area are multiethnic. However, Native Americans as a whole test lower, even those with an ancient history of agriculture, like the Maya or the Hopi. And are you really arguing that poverty is because poor people are stupid? Really? Social Darwinism doesn’t really work. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/543 "2011-04-17T02:24:23Z")
> [@random6x7](#): > > Isn’t it interesting, then, that Egyptians, Middle Easterners, and Mexicans have lower IQs than white folks who, as you may remember, did not invent agriculture ever? Modern Egyptians and Middle Easterners are more genetically related to ancient ones than modern white folks are to ancient Egyptians and Iraqis. Using the term Caucasian is overly generalizing. You’re putting in western Europeans (who got agriculture as late as 6 kybp) in the same category as Iraqis and Egyptians, while claiming that their cultural conditions led to greater complexity. Unfair, if Iraqis and Egyptians had great civilizations while Europeans were still figuring out that whole fire thing (yes, a joke). > > Fun fact: the term Caucasian came about because Blumenbauch thought that people in Armenia and Georgia were the prettiest, so clearly they were the original stock for Europeans. How scientific. > > You are also putting a lot of stock in what you call “civilization”, another term that has fallen out of favor. Yes, us archaeologists still use it, but not, I think, in the way you are. We use it for societies that are more materially, and often more socially, complex, but we certainly recognize that that doesn’t make it “better” or the people in it smarter. Australian aboriginals have been used since Europeans first started colonizing Australia as an example of “primitive” people. However, while their material culture is quite simple, there are well-established ecological reasons for this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no ecological determinist (any deterministic POV is limited), but it is well known that material complexity is not necessary in hot environments (the Inuit, for example, of course require more stuff to survive than someone in a much warmer place). Also, social complexity tends to come with the accumulation of stuff. Settled peoples get complex, and it doesn’t require agriculture (see the Kwakiutl, for an example). Hunter-gatherers actually work to prevent complexity, social strata, and the accumulation of material culture because it is anathema to their survival. They’re not being dumb, they’re doing what’s best for the continued life of their social group. Besides, again, you try surviving in a hostile environment. While you don’t need the gear that the Inuit did to make it in the Sahara or the Australian outback, you certainly need a ton of knowledge of the environment and the ecosystem. And then, of course, there’s aboriginal art and the concept of the Dreamtime. Anyone who can look at that and think that these people are stupid really needs to get their head out of their ass. > > ETA: **Tamerlane** , thank you for adding that. I don’t actually know much about African history beyond either deep prehistory or the ancient Egyptians, although I am aware that there were flourishing civilizations there. Do you happen to know any good resources on African history, so I can correct that? Thanks! It is weird how the descendants of people who created great civilizations don’t get much credit for it. The pseudoscience promoters have a variety of hand-waving explanations for this, but none of it stands up to scrutiny. It’s usually something like, "well the Italians of today were degraded by foreign immigrants into the Roman Empire. The original Romans were tall, blond guys who could be mistaken for Swedes. " Crazy. The earlier generation of racialists were quite convinced that Italians and Greeks were inferior to people of Northern European ancestry. It’s like, “Hello!? Are you out of your fucking minds?!” ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/544 "2011-04-17T02:35:15Z")
Yeah, seriously. I keep wondering how they think this all worked. Maybe the early (western) Europeans just really got around? As for real anthropologists, my favorite is Alec Hrdlicka, who fully accepted racial theory but just thought that eastern Europeans should be considered as smart as western. I wonder where he got that idea? The selection bias is interesting, too. My high school world history teacher was herself an anthropologist, but we only ever touched on Africa when we were talking about Egypt or the Ottoman Empire. To be fair, she taught us a lot more about Mesoamerica than I think is common, and you’ve only got so much time in a year. That doesn’t mean that Africans were sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the next big civilization to come along. I don’t know, just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it never happened. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/545 "2011-04-17T03:04:08Z")
> [@random6x7](#): > > ETA: **Tamerlane** , thank you for adding that. I don’t actually know much about African history beyond either deep prehistory or the ancient Egyptians, although I am aware that there were flourishing civilizations there. Do you happen to know any good resources on African history, so I can correct that? Thanks! I’m afraid back when I was studying these topics good general surveys of Africa were very hard to come by. I certainly never came by any ;). I had to read a lot of more specific pieces. The situation these days may be different, but I’m afraid I’m no longer abreast of current survey histories of Africa. > [@pinguin](#): > > Although you are right that gold was the main business of Ghana up to the discovery of the Americas, when theirs gold market fall down, you are wrong thinking that the slave business started with the Europeans. Again, Ghana ( the Sahel kingdom ) had completely disappeared by the mid-13th century, long before the discovery of the Americas. The modern nation of Ghana has only existed since 1957. Between ~1250 and 1957 there was no such thing as “Ghana” as a going concern. The modern nation of Ghana encompasses several former native polities, the Ashanti state most prominently ( who also dealt in riverine gold, but really prospered most through the slave trade ). At any rate I never said the slave trade started with Europeans. I said the slave trade really took off with the Portuguese contact and this is arguably true - it would appear the really intense trade kicks off starting in the 1500’s. Before that Muslim states were indeed importing black slaves for centuries. But the only period of heavy plantation labor occurred in the early centuries of Muslim rule in Iraq, before the partial collapse of the agricultural productivity in that region. It has been argued that the [Zanj Revolt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanj_Rebellion) was primarily centered on African slavery, but as that article has pointed out that notion has been challenged as problematic. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/546 "2011-04-17T03:04:40Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Excuses, excuses. 😛 Excuses of what? How many white people have you found it is really smart? Have you counted them? Let me say a simple thing. The largest masses of people are not vert smart at all. Not many people get outstanding ideas or are able to solve advanced problems in physics or mathematics! In fact, look at the society around you. A society of alcoholics or fat beer drinkers, drug addicts, porno addicts, violent people, ignorants, etc. etc. etc. How many Einsteins live in your neighbours? Ooops, sorry, Einstein was not part of the Arian race, anyways :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/547 "2011-04-17T03:09:55Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Again, Ghana ( the Sahel kingdom ) had completely disappeared by the mid-13th century, long before the discovery of the Americas. The modern nation of Ghana has only existed since 1957. Between ~1250 and 1957 there was no such thing as “Ghana” as a going concern. The modern nation of Ghana encompasses several former native polities, the Ashanti state most prominently ( who also dealt in riverine gold, but really prospered most through the slave trade ). > > At any rate I never said the slave trade started with Europeans. I said the slave trade really took off with the Portuguese contact and this is arguably true - it would appear the really intense trade kicks off starting in the 1500’s. Before that Muslim states were indeed importing black slaves for centuries. But the only period of heavy plantation labor occurred in the early centuries of Muslim rule in Iraq, before the partial collapse of the agricultural productivity in that region. It has been argued that the [Zanj Revolt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanj_Rebellion) was primarily centered on African slavery, but as that article has pointed out that notion has been challenged as problematic. That’s true. Anyways, you don’t have to convince me. I know a bit about the history of the region. In any case, what interest me the most about it is the origins of the Blues… Another topic, though. ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/548 "2011-04-17T03:27:13Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > In fact, look at the society around you. A society of alcoholics or fat beer drinkers, drug addicts, porno addicts, violent people, ignorants, etc. etc. etc. Socrates was a drunk. Henry VIII was a fat beer drinker. Everyone around the turn of the last century was addicted to drugs, most notably Freud. Having read some of the physicists of the early 20th century, I wouldn’t be surprised if they dabbled, too. Gandhi slept with virgins (snoozed, not screwed). Tycho Brahe lost part of his nose in a duel. Newton was really, really into alchemy. If he spent half the time on physics as he did on mysticism, we’d have antigravity and Mars colonies by now. Having flaws does not make you stupid, and lord knows plenty of smart people were highly flawed. I was kind of a philosophy major as an undergrad, and we spent our free time gossiping about the bad habits of the greatest minds of the West. And the Great Man theory isn’t a very good one, either. Is this board a portal into the 19th century or something? Thanks, anyways, **Tamerlane**. I’m sure there’s better stuff now… I hope, anyways. I guess I just need to stop being lazy and look for it! ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/549 "2011-04-17T03:45:41Z")
Excuse me. Henry VIII was a brute; not in any way a genious. And Socrates doesn’t even look an Aryan! In any case, regardless of race, most people aren’t genious. ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/550 "2011-04-17T04:00:15Z")
Meh, and most people aren’t idiots. For every Nikola Tesla, there are thousands of people who enjoy fiddling around and who gradually improve our knowledge. The genius may speed things up, but the world was gradually getting to the theory of evolution before Darwin ever stepped foot on a boat. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/551 "2011-04-17T04:32:13Z")
> [@random6x7](#): > > Besides, again, you try surviving in a hostile environment. While you don’t need the gear that the Inuit did to make it in the Sahara or the Australian outback, you certainly need a ton of knowledge of the environment and the ecosystem. And then, of course, there’s aboriginal art and the concept of the Dreamtime. The Australian Aborigines are actually an excellent example of natural selection favouring different mental traits in different [cultural/geographic environments.](http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/58aborigine.php) > [@](#): > > Sherilee has an astonishingly accurate visual memory. She scores 100 per cent on tests designed to measure how much individuals can remember of what they see. The only clue to the cause of her remarkable ability is her race: she is an aborigine, and aborigines have a proven ability to remember the exact location of objects that far exceeds that of other ethnic groups. They can find their way across deserts, locate water holes and identify animal lairs with an uncanny accuracy. They also perform about 50 per cent better on visual memory tests than, for instance, Caucasians. > > What is the aborigines’ secret? To some evolutionary psychologists, the answer is relatively straightforward. The aborigines were, for about 4,000 generations, or 80,000 years, hunter-gatherers in the deserts of Australia. > > That is enough time for natural selection to have worked on increasing the accuracy of aborigines’ memory, because if you could not find your way through the desert, or to the waterhole, you would starve, and so would your children. In the competition to stay alive, an accurate memory would – to put it mildly – have been an advantage. > > Are today’s aborigine children the inheritors of that process? It has certainly been speculated that their extraordinary visual memories are the result of genes selected over thousands of years by evolution. > > By Clive Harper, a professor of pathology in Sydney, may have discovered evidence that it is more than just a theoretical possibility. He found that the visual cortex – the part of the brain used in processing and interpreting visual information – was about 25 per cent larger in aborigines than in Caucasians. ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/552 "2011-04-17T04:52:44Z")
And how does that compare to other groups that do not rely on maps or the written word? Before widespread literacy, Europeans were fully capable of amazing feats of memory, such as having the Iliad and the Odyssey memorized. Brains are highly plastic. Is that increased size due to genetics or environment? If Sherilee adopts a baby from another culture when she grows up, would that child grow up to have a greatly increased memory? You need to answer these questions before you can claim that Sherilee’s abilities are mostly or all genetic. ---
**Author:** ![random6x7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8baadc/32.png) [@random6x7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/random6x7)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/553 "2011-04-17T05:13:00Z")
Aw, jeez, I really should put more research into my posts before I post them. **Chen** , your source also talks about finding Atlantis. Also, this is hardly new research. The relevant actual scientific articles I found were from the 1970s. A follow-up study by Betty Drinkwater found that aboriginal children without a tribal background do as well as white children in memory tests. Chalk another one up for the “we are not our genes” camp. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/554 "2011-04-17T05:33:32Z")
> [@random6x7](#): > > Aw, jeez, I really should put more research into my posts before I post them. **Chen** , your source also talks about finding Atlantis. > > Also, this is hardly new research. The relevant actual scientific articles I found were from the 1970s. A follow-up study by Betty Drinkwater found that aboriginal children without a tribal background do as well as white children in memory tests. Chalk another one up for the “we are not our genes” camp. Heh, did they find it? 🙂 The research on the larger visual cortex is from [1987](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1261675/) & [1994](http://www.google.co.nz/url?q=http://www.columbia.edu/~rlh2/JerisonFest2001.pdf&sa=U&ei=c3uqTa65A5L4sAPqos35DA&ved=0CBMQFjAA&sig2=DHpdjTjowUo5PgpHdrVHxA&usg=AFQjCNGPls3CwhdWNZpGNLquoG2Np8nDeQ). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/555 "2011-04-17T06:14:40Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Heh, did they find it? 🙂 > > The research on the larger visual cortex is from [1987](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1261675/) & [1994](http://www.google.co.nz/url?q=http://www.columbia.edu/~rlh2/JerisonFest2001.pdf&sa=U&ei=c3uqTa65A5L4sAPqos35DA&ved=0CBMQFjAA&sig2=DHpdjTjowUo5PgpHdrVHxA&usg=AFQjCNGPls3CwhdWNZpGNLquoG2Np8nDeQ). That actually shows that the writer of the article from The Sunday Telegraph you posted was not telling the whole truth. The researchers only report that this \*\*might \*\*be an adaptation, but it is not conclusive, and if this is supposed to be a reason to divide people, in reality it does not. For starters the paper ignores Experience-dependent plasticity, and as they do report that other areas of the brain developed less than the visual area, it is then more logical that the explanation why the visual area is more developed is related more to interactions with the environment. > **[Experience-driven brain plasticity: beyond the synapse](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1550735/)** > > The brain is remarkably responsive to its interactions with the environment, and its morphology is altered by experience in measurable ways. Histological examination of the brains of animals exposed to either a complex (‘enriched’) environment or ... ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/556 "2011-04-17T10:30:03Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > The Australian Aborigines are actually an excellent example of natural selection favouring different mental traits in different [cultural/geographic environments.](http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/58aborigine.php) The Australian Aborigines evolved to survive in a stone age environment. Unfortunately, most of them are less able to learn the skills necessary to thrive in a modern, high tech environment. Their deficiencies in this respect are almost certainly innate. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/557 "2011-04-17T11:17:27Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > The Australian Aborigines evolved to survive in a stone age environment. Unfortunately, most of them are less able to learn the skills necessary to thrive in a modern, high tech environment. Their deficiencies in this respect are almost certainly innate. So, according to you, Aborigins are inferiors? I bet it is easy to say terrible things about Aborigins, given they don’t have the power of other ethnic groups in your country. Try to do the same against a minority in your own country. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/558 "2011-04-17T11:20:06Z")
> [@random6x7](#): > > Meh, and most people aren’t idiots. For every Nikola Tesla, there are thousands of people who enjoy fiddling around and who gradually improve our knowledge. The genius may speed things up, but the world was gradually getting to the theory of evolution before Darwin ever stepped foot on a boat. Telsa was an idiot, at least after he made his major inventions he became mad. By the way, never forget that social darwinism, eugenics and Darwin were the foundations of the Nazi party, the holocaust and all the things that followed. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/559 "2011-04-17T16:17:27Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > By the way, never forget that social darwinism, eugenics and Darwin were the foundations of the Nazi party, the holocaust and all the things that followed. Darwin had nothing to do with the Nazis. “Social Darwinism” was a philosophical movement that took concepts misunderstood from The Origin of Species and misapplied them to social theories in a non-scientific manner. The only “social Darwinist” with whom Darwin had any corerespondence once sent Darwin a copy of his latest book “based” (wrongly) on his misunderstanding of Darwin’s theories and Darwin never even bothered to open it. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/560 "2011-04-17T16:51:24Z")
Darwin may have nothing to do with the Nazis, but the Nazis loved him. That’s all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767.md?page=27) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767.md?page=29)