Belowjob,
How are we not attempting to answer the question posed by the OP? If you feel that biological factors and divergent evolutionary paths have no importance then just say so.
You haven’t demonstrated any relevant biological factors. You haven’t demonstrated divergent evolutionary paths. You want to talk about Africa without actually knowing anything about Africa.
A couple of questions for you:
Is polygny a widespread practice in sub Saharan Africa?
What effect would the practice of polygny be likely to have on human evolution in a given population over a long period of time?
No. I buy the origin for the languages, but the genetics show that the Levantine Semites are closer to the Anatolian/Iranian peoples than they are to the Horn peoples
I find it fascinating, and plausible. Although migration into those areas is also possible, rather than both groups being originally located there.
Have you read any of my references above? There are several that demonstrate recent changes in different groups. This is the Williamson paper, but you could also consider the ones by Voight or Bruce Lahn. The implications of these changes aren’t fully understood.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030090
Apparently so and women do the majority of the agricultural work. I am trying unsuccessfully to find the article I saw yesterday about this in the context of farming in Africa. In terms of the effect on human evolution, anthropologist Peter Frost has a bit of a discussion here.
Perhaps to some Jews, but you don’t hear Lebanese calling themselves Semites as an ethnicity, typically.
Semetic is first and foremost a language group.
Then you don’t know many actual Turks or Persians.
Or rather, their general shared Mediterranean ancestry. And as Spaniards and Greeks and Italians are typically called “white” … but then this properly highlights the idiocies of such distinctions, as rather clearly Lebanese are being peeled off from Greeks for cultural reasons.
Fine, silly distinction to make, although perhaps not useless given the two racialists in the argument.
It’s clear that you don’t know enough about Africa to answer the questions I’ve posed.
Frost knows very little about Africa. His specialty is First Nations Canadians. His writings on Africa are pure speculation. It goes without saying, of course, that his knowledge of genetics wouldn’t pass muster with geneticists.
This is getting old-literally…most sub-saharan african states are now 2+ generations removed from colonial pasts.
The sad thing is, no matter how rich these places are in resources (like the Congo, Angola, etc.), almost none of the wealthn ever seems to stay in these places.
Take Nigeria-you look at the place, and wonder what happened to the $38 billion that came in from their oil exports.
I suspect most of it resides in bank accounst, in Switzerland.
Two generations plus?
The generation that saw independence is the generation at leadership age, although they are now slowly being replaced by the first generation post-independence.
That’s being marked, no surprise, by changes in attitudes, less obsession with the (very real) sins of colonialism and more focus, like in Ghana and other good performers, in getting own-house in order.
Pretty much what one could expect, I would say, if one takes a generational analysis as one’s point of departure.
Not really surprising. Weak states, weak governance traditions, and wealth being generated by a very small number of economic operators. That’s been a recipe for bad governance everywhere, not just Africa. Not really surprising that countries with a more diverse base (and I think better hung-together ethnic fabrics) like Ghana, even Senegal are doing better at building up.
Most sub-saharan states have the same group of leaders that led them to independence. Most of the resources in these states are controlled by multi-nationals and, usually, foreign companies. Very little of the wealth from these resources go back to the areas were they are generated. Sometimes this is due to mismanagement, corruption and collusion by the elites with foreign companies, in other cases it is due to agreements signed on by the colonial governments which the new African states were required to keep at the pain of sanctions.
In almost every other sub-saharan states what were, at independence, the young upcoming intellectuals are currently the old guard still maintaining their hold on power. The few states that have relatively young leaders have got there at the cost of war and civil strife. While there may be exceptions to the rule it does hold in the majority of cases.
Too bad. Their genetics says otherwise
Are you alleging that ethnographers don’t use Semitic as a category? Or that they’re wrong to? Because they do, and they’re not.
I know enough. None are what I’d call “white”
Shared Levantine Ancestry. The other ancestry for some of those is distinctly more Nordic - the Spanish, especially.
Only the last 75-100 years or so.
Are you alleging Greeks and Lebanese have shared ancestry here? Because you’d be wrong on the basis of the current genetic understanding.
It’s not a silly distinction when the *original *argument was to distinguish between European and African adoption/development of Agriculture. In that case, distinguishing between strictly European and strictly non-European groups is quite useful.
Correct.
Incorrect.
Most of the mineral wealth is extract, on a concession (government license) basis OR run by national companies (state firms).
The major difference between the two is national companies are more corrupt, less efficient, more wasteful and actually generate less benefit for their supposed mother country objective.
The national government controls the wealth; it being trivially easy to send some young lads with Kalashinkov’s round to exercise sovereignty over the mines.
The concessionnaires pay fees and then “walking about money” to the national government and its reps.
Quite, it gets skimmed off by national government, and as a concessionnaire, you’d be bloody mad to locate processing facilities in country, given the kleptocratic habits of said governments & officials.
Bollocks, it’s always due to corruption and rent-seeking. Foreignness has fuck all to do with it, national companies - the state monopolies put in place after independence are far worse all around than any multinational.
Pure fiction
There is not a single concession in post-indepence Africa that has not been subjet to renegotiation.
The only sanctions (on a national basis) that have arisen are from outright expropriation of investments - nationalisation - without payment for the invested assets.
Popular activity in the early 1970s, ended up as a disaster.
Now, I have some sympathy for the late 1960s pressures on firms to Africanize. Pure racism kept quality people out of positions. Thing of the past now, but nationalisations in that era were understandable given the history. Ended up being a right bloody disastrous tool, but understandable.
Nowadays, your average multinational wants as much of a local workforce as possible, rather cheaper. Of course, given disastrous educational systems and massive corruption in diploma granting, getting to that point is damned hard in some countries. (Others, with better governance, it’s a quite achievable objective - most of West Africa is fine in this respect, Central Africa, ex-Gabon, bloody hell…)
Fine provide me a cite on the genetic coherence of Semitic language speakers.
Not that ethnicity = genetics, … well indeed, that’s the whole bloody point, ethnicity does not = genetics. Nor language.
I shall be very intrigued to see a genetic coherence of Southern Yemenis with Northern Syrians, never mind the range of Arabic language speakers across that world.
I’m not commenting on “ethnographers.”
In any case, you’re rather bought into your own meaning of White. Fine, although I find it queer to see Nordic ancestry claimed for the Iberians (presumably as a substantial influence, of course we all know about the Gothic invasions). (and re Levantine and Greek shared heritage, I rather suggest a reflexion on the classic age interactions, the Sea Peoples, and others very evidently banging about the Eastern Med)
This really isn’t terribly enlightening.
Strikes me as right silly insofar as neither term strike me as particularly meaningful in talking about populations living 15 thousand odd years ago, and not necessarily in the same spots as the modern descendants.
I believe it came up in reaction to someone making the remark about “White” Africans. Understand how that might push buttons, but doesn’t make European versus Levantine re Cathage a
The very proposition of “strictly European” and “strictly non-European” relative to the Mediterranean basin is what I object to as not useful at all, and most particularly relative to Carthage.
On the other hand, regardless of whether one takes your line of thought or mine, we still end up in the same place relative to the racialist analysis I dare say.
Cite 1, see the below bits on Phoenicians for more.
I didn’t say the Semitic ethnicity exactly overlaps the language. In fact I said quite the opposite - that there seem to be three main branches of Semitic speakers: a Levantine/Peninsula one(the ethnic “Semites”), a Mesopotamian one (“Akkadian”/“Assyrian”) and a Horn of Africa one (“Ethiopian”). Of course, all sorts of admixtures happen (like the Crusades - the reason there are bits of Lebanon where they have blonde hair). But they are not the Lebanese norm, nor the Phoenician one: these guys are. As to the Sea Peoples: [
](DEMOCRACY IN LEBANON - Who were the Phoenicians?)
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I haven’t really been concerning myself with modern descendants, I’ve only addressed it when others raised it.
No doubt. Anyway, I think it’s all very interesting science, as a geography & archeology student it interests the hell out of me.
Frost is probably right about polygyny increasing selection for men. Also, about high food self-sufficiency among women and correspondingly high polygyny rates among men. See Cochran & Harpending discuss some of the possible implications here:
Based on what? The admiration of one fabulist for another?
There are a number of African ethnic groups where a man’s opportunities for marriage depended on whether he could raise enough cattle or grow enough crops to pay the price for a bride. Men with no resources couldn’t marry at all. Men with lots of resources could and did have multiple wives and correspondingly larger numbers of offspring.
I’m guessing the racialist pseudo scientists ignore this basic fact of African cultures because it makes their argument fall apart. Or maybe ignorance is bliss.
Heh @ pseduo scientists. I’m providing peer reviewed articles, you’re providing personal opinions.
None of the peer review has been done by people who have any expertise in Africa. That’s why your sources make such fundamental errors when they attempt to talk about Africa.
The OP asked about African history, politics, economics, and development. You haven’t addressed any of that.
What you have done is try to use this inquiry to advance your pseudo scientific racialist ideology. Your laughable, absurd position is that you don’t need to actually know anything about Africa to diagnose the sources of Africa’s problems.
Actually, here is what the OP asked:
I’ve simply concurred with Wesley Clark’s point at post #7, that colonialism is not to blame for the ongoing problems. There is a growing body of research showing the importance of cognitive abilities in economic growth and development (see below). I’m just repeating the observation of James Watson that the testing shows average group differences so the ongoing problems aren’t necessarily due to colonialism.
http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf
You haven’t demonstrated any of your claims.
You have demonstrated a stunning degree of ignorance on the subject matter. Which I suppose is why you’ve repeatedly tried to change the subject to the test score gap between black Americans and white Americans.
You’re a blind ideologue. You have one unproven theory which you attempt to apply to a variety of circumstances where it isn’t relevant.
Since the OP specifically asked about colonialism in Africa, and you don’t know anything about colonialism in Africa, your contribution adds nothing to the debate.