# Reasons Africa is "lagging behind"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711 "2010-06-18T21:17:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Dreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Dreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreen)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/261 "2010-07-09T22:04:31Z")
Triple posting because of this forum’s absurd edit rules. I’d also imagine there’s alot of variation among SS african ethnic groups. Hell, I’d imagine that nigerians, particularly southern nigerians, have IQ’s about the same, if not even higher than american whites, especially in the case of the igbo. And yet Nigeria is a hellhole in spite of probably having one of the highest average IQ’s among ss african nations. No doubt that correcting for absolutely everything else imaginable, there will be an economic gap between SS africa, europe, and east asia, assuming IQ differences wern’t changed. But I think it’d be pretty small. I’m quite convinced SES has very little to do with IQ. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/262 "2010-07-09T23:02:51Z")
> [@Dreen](#): > > Triple posting because of this forum’s absurd edit rules. Absurd to you, not to us. You’re obviously very bright. Welcome. Our reason has little to do with you and your sort. 😛 Again, you’re bright, not spamming the Board. ---
**Author:** ![Dreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Dreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreen)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/263 "2010-07-09T23:22:13Z")
Well, just why are these rules even in place? Also, thanks. And a quick correction: > [@](#): > > Now, do I believe SS africans have the same average IQ and personality subsets as do “westerners”? (in this case, it almost invariably means american and british whites, and a handful of other northern european majority nations) Of course. “Of course” should read as “Of course not.” Even in regards to personality, I don’t know who’d argue 100% similarity when you have things like the monsterous crime rates in South Africa. Then again, those seem to be disproportionately due to a handful of groups like the Zulu and Xhosa, who were hardcore warrior populations in pre-modern times. And I see very few SS african countries that seem to have general crime rates anywhere near as bad as SA. Say all you want about the congo, but alot of the violence you hear from that country seems to come mainly from marauding militia in the east. And as destitute as Ethiopia is, who’s ever really thought of that country as being crime-ridden? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/264 "2010-07-10T09:35:32Z")
> [@Dreen](#): > > “Of course” should read as “Of course not.” Even in regards to personality, I don’t know who’d argue 100% similarity when you have things like the monsterous crime rates in South Africa. I certainly wouldn’t argue 100% similarity in personality between populations (whatever that would mean). But your argument for it is bizarre. Crime rates are readily explicable in terms of public policy, social history, whether a nation even has a clear government etc. South africa for example has all the turmoil of moving from apartheid and has been ravaged by AIDS due largely to AIDS denialism by the state. But it’s difficult to explain in terms of genetics. South africa is home to many different population groups. Also, we in the West have not always been this peaceful. And there are caucasian countries with very high crime, Mexico immediately coming to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/265 "2010-07-10T10:40:03Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Also, we in the West have not always been this peaceful. And there are caucasian countries with very high crime, Mexico immediately coming to mind. The Causasian population of mexico is tiny, less than 10%. The vast majority are various mixes of Indian, Negro and Caucasian, with various sub-populations of those three groups and populations that are blends of only two of the three. Mexico can’t really be used as an example of a Caucasian country. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/266 "2010-07-10T11:32:57Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > The Causasian population of mexico is tiny, less than 10%. The vast majority are various mixes of Indian, Negro and Caucasian, with various sub-populations of those three groups and populations that are blends of only two of the three. > > Mexico can’t really be used as an example of a Caucasian country. I had thought that the majority of the population could trace their ancestry to europe, but I see after googling it’s not quite that simple (60-80% are of mixed european and amerindian decent. Plus up to 17% direct european decent). I take that example back. ---
**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:** [July 10, 2010, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/267 "2010-07-10T11:40:54Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > The Causasian population of mexico is tiny, less than 10%. The vast majority are various mixes of Indian, Negro and Caucasian, with various sub-populations of those three groups and populations that are blends of only two of the three. > > Mexico can’t really be used as an example of a Caucasian country. all the reports I’ve seen put the African portion of the Mexican gene pool at less than ten percent. Roughly half Euro, half Asian, with a touch of black. ---
**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:** [July 10, 2010, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/268 "2010-07-10T11:43:17Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I certainly wouldn’t argue 100% similarity in personality between populations (whatever that would mean). > > But your argument for it is bizarre. Crime rates are readily explicable in terms of public policy, social history, whether a nation even has a clear government etc. > South africa for example has all the turmoil of moving from apartheid and has been ravaged by AIDS due largely to AIDS denialism by the state. > > But it’s difficult to explain in terms of genetics. South africa is home to many different population groups. > > Also, we in the West have not always been this peaceful. And there are caucasian countries with very high crime, Mexico immediately coming to mind. If you’re talking about Europeans, Russia would be a much better example. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/269 "2010-07-10T12:38:32Z")
> [@Dreen](#): > > So I have a question for Chief- what are you arguing for in face of this? You seem to doubt that SS africa’s average IQ is really around 70. You seem to believe that it’s a tad too simplistic to act like SS africa’s failings are due so heavily to one narrow-focused interpretation of this IQ score. (an IQ of 70 is a hinderance, no doubt, but it’s not like it’s so dramatically hindering. After all, classifications of mental retardation nowadays are no longer based entirely on IQ scores around this range.) So just what are you arguing for? The dilemma I have with newcomers is their expectation that every point made so far be re-made for them. This is a rather complicated topic, and there is a search mechanism here you are welcome to use. May I suggest reading a broad variety of posts to get a feel for the body of thought.. Here are a few of my core propositions: 1. Where intelligence differences are found, whether they are between two individuals or two groups, both nature and nurture account for differences. 2. If one wishes to separate out the effect of nature, one needs to account for differences in nurturing. Because innate differences are also a driver for nurturing influences, this can be a difficult separation to make. As an example, a person of lower intelligence might skip a schooling opportunity, making them even less successful than they otherwise would be; their lesser success is a combination of nurturing layered upon nature. 3. Populations are loosely defined, for the most part, but there are broad categories which can be used by “lumpers” and one of those categories is race. While race itself is a very loose category, there is reasonable support for dividing sub-saharan Africans from Eurasians at a biologic level, and it is not difficult to show gene prevalence differences between those two broad populations. Further genotyping will help elucidate finer differences. Race–more specifically, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity–is not “purely social” _“We have shown a nearly perfect correspondence between genetic cluster and SIRE for major ethnic groups living in the United States, with a discrepancy rate of only 0.14%. Perhaps this is not surprising for the major groupings (whites, East Asians, and African Americans), since prior studies would suggest enough genetic differentiation between these groups to produce robust clustering.”_ [Here, e.g.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/) 4. Not every geneset is equivalent in functional significance, so various arguments around the extent to which a given population shares the same quantity of genes as another is not an especially useful tool for arguing that they are about the same in potential; two populations might vary only in the difference for a single FOXP2 mutation and be very very different functionally even if they shared every other base pair. 5. A maximum potential for intelligence (along with almost any other skillset) is governed by genes, and the extent to which that potential is reached is governed by an individual’s nurturing. 6. There is substantial evidence that SIRE clusters vary in their innate potential–at an average group level. While nurturing can never be absolutely normalized, representative cohorts can be reasonably compared while normalizing for putative nurturing influences. As an example, in the US American blacks from wealthy families underachieve American whites from poverty-stricken families on test scores. American blacks from educated families underachieve whites from poorly educated families. American whites underachieve American blacks for success in the NBA, despite whites having superior opportunity and both groups having equal motivation to become an NBA star (my presumption here being that both groups would abandon an NBA dream only when outperformed–that is to say, it’s a primary goal for both groups above all others for that subset which demonstrates enough talent to begin the pursuit of basketball). Back to Africa: I argue that there are genetic prevalence differences in genes coding for adaptive skillsets between groups populating sub-saharan Africa and other countries. Among those skillsets is intelligence, and this difference does drive and enable some of the success differences between sub-saharan Africa and other nations. A depth and breadth of intelligence at all levels is useful for creating and sustaining the infrastructure of a modern society. Countries which contain populations able to perform at higher cognitive levels will, on average, outperform countries containing populations performing at lower cognitive levels. That is obviously not the only driver for relative failure, and I have never argued that it is. Unfortunately, if one advances it as a contributing factor, the entire thread (to the legitimate dismay of **even sven** is derailed to an argument about IQ in general and population IQ differences in particular. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/270 "2010-07-10T13:16:38Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > If you’re talking about Europeans, Russia would be a much better example. Yep, certainly in terms of homicides / violent crime. (In terms of crime in general I’ve found it is quite difficult to compare different countries due to differences in reporting and recording crime, differences in defining crime etc.) > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > Unfortunately, if one advances it as a contributing factor, the entire thread (to the legitimate dismay of even sven) is derailed to an argument about IQ in general and population IQ differences in particular. There was the beginnings of a discussion on geographical, historical and political factors, but it got crowded out, as usual. My opinion on this is simply that it is not necessary to throw IQ into the mix. The state that Africa’s in is readily explicable in terms of the previous factors. With IQ, it’s necessary not just to show that there is a lower average IQ, but that a lower average is an impediment to growth of a poor country. The latter hypothesis is at least as contentious as the former. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/271 "2010-07-10T16:25:37Z")
Welcome to the board, **Dreen**. Since you’re new here I you may want to review the rules. One of the most basic of these is that you’re not allowed to insult other posters unless you are in The BBQ Pit. So please leave out comments like “propagandistic creep” from future posts in Great Debates. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/272 "2010-07-13T23:41:19Z")
Just stumbled across the [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa#Determinants) on this very topic, I think it’s very interesting, and balanced. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/273 "2010-07-14T04:57:36Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Naw, we can be pretty sure evolution is not the reason for the rapid IQ increase within the 20th and 21st centuries. Evolution is driven by natural selection and a handful of generations is simply not enough, not in the safe environments in which most of us live today. Chen 019 seems to believe otherwise. He seems to believe that there has been some sort of leap in evolution over the last few thousand years (and especially the last few hundred years) that caused a nearly 50% increase in IQ in Europe (perhaps the black plague only killed stupid people). > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > You are in the minority (at least with doctors), and you would be making a bad decision. I know a LOT of doctors and very few of them seem to be very concerned with their doctor’s MCAT scores. I think the requirements of getting through a Neurosurgeon fellowship are rigorous enough that we are talking about the difference between really bright and borderline genius. I’d rather have a really bright guy with lots of experience than a genius with very little experience. > [@](#): > > N Korea might be starving to death, but it’s hard to argue they aren’t very intelligent. One can look at other markers such as their nuclear weapons and rocketry program, and find a proof case for a highly intelligent population. And one might look at their isolation from the rest of the world and argue that, without the exchange of ideas, trade or foreign investment, they have minimized their economic success. And you point is that there are not similar “markers of intelligence” in SS African nations? > [@](#): > > I argue that innate differences are precisely why we need Affirmative Action. > > If we recognize that populations are innately different in their average potential, and if we set a goal to create a just and diverse society where everyone has a seat at the table, and if we accept that for the foreseeable future our populations will measure that justice by groups such as gender and race, then the only mechanism to create a diverse representation is race- and gender-based AA. So your point is that the IQ gap justifies AA? Thats a novel conclusion. > [@](#): > > If, instead, we pretend that there are no innate differences and only opportunity creates the functional differences we see, we aren’t going to have any women firefighters. We aren’t going to be able to get black kids into medicine if they come from wealthy backgrounds; they’ll be asked to compete with eurasians from similar backgrounds and they won’t come anywhere near that level of competence–they aren’t currently competitive even with eurasians from disadvantaged backgrounds. > > Proposition 209, which banned race-based AA for UC schools in California, had a negative effect on matriculation percentages for black and Latino students by limiting consideration only to opportunity. Even though schools vigorously sought to end-run the ban (by using essays, for instance, to figure out a student’s race), black and Latino students were unable to compete when the only consideration was equal opportunity and not race or ethnicity. > > It is a dangerous and destructive mindset to make public policy based on bad science. The experience with the New Haven firefighters (Ricci v DeStefano) is a bellweather. Given equal opportunity, blacks will not compete on a par scholastically with eurasians any more than eurasians will compete with blacks for jobs in the NBA (hi, **you with the face!** ). > > It’s a lovely thing to rail (like **MrDibbles** and **orcenio** and **even sven** ) against “racists” who believe there are innate differences in populations. But when we take their suppositions and make policy out of them, we find we have worsened, and not improved, our world even where our intentions might have been good. I’m pretty pro-AA but I don’t think I am in favor of AA in an effort to do MORE than make up for past injustice. If you could prove to me to a certainty that all past injustice had been reversed and there STILL weren’t a lot of black doctors and lawyers I would shrug my shoulders and say that AA has achieved its original goal. We can’t shift the goalposts and say that AA is about diversity. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > What is your motivation in posting that I am hostile toward AA when I vigorously support it for the precise reason that, without it, we cannot hope to achieve anything close to diversity in medicine, law or most businesses? I don’t think the principal purpose of AA should be diversity. If diversity becomes the sole purpose of affirmative action, we should reframe the debate. I don’t know that I would support AA in that case. > [@Dreen](#): > > I thought I’d pop in because I came across this discussion like I invariably do with so many others- I google some paper relating to psychometrics or recent genetic research, or some concept, and I, invariably, find some jackass racialist trolls spamming some discussion board that’s often only meagerly related to nature-nurture issues. This is no exception. Welcome. I got yellow carded about a dozen times before I figured out the rules to the place. Now if I get a yellow card I usually see it coming. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/274 "2010-07-18T00:46:55Z")
Aside from iq discussed above, there are personality traits that seem to have been particularly selected for. This is consistent with Greg Clark’s argument. > [@](#): > > However, the study finds significant psychological and behavioral differences between what the researchers call Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies and their non-WEIRD counterparts across a spectrum of key areas, including visual perception, fairness, spatial and moral reasoning, memory and conformity… > > The study, which reviews the comparative database of research from across the behavioural sciences, finds that subjects from WEIRD societies are more individualistic, analytic, concerned with fairness, existentially anxious and less conforming and attentive to context compared to those from non-WEIRD societies. > **[Psychological research conducted in WEIRD nations may not apply to global...](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-06-psychological-weird-nations-global-populations.html)** > > A new University of British Columbia study says that an overreliance on research subjects from the U.S. and other Western nations can produce false claims about human psychology and behavior because their psychological tendencies are highly unusual... > [@](#): > > In a time when the rich were taking over genetically people were becoming more > middle class in their orientation: time preference rates were lower, > hours of work longer, and numeracy and literacy increasing. Thus > the long delay between the Neolithic Revolution of 6,000 BC > which established settled agriculture and the eventual Industrial > Revolution may in part be explained by the time necessary for the > formation of preference consistent with modern capitalism… > > And we see in England, from at least the > middle ages on, that the kind of people who succeeded in the > economic system – who accumulated assets, got skills, got literacy > – were increasing their representation in each generation. > Thus it is plausible that through the long agrarian passage leading up to > the Industrial Revolution man was becoming biologically more > adapted to the modern economic world. [http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/capitalism%20genes.pdf](http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/capitalism%20genes.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Dreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Dreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreen)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/275 "2010-07-31T16:16:26Z")
This thread is abit old, but still worthy of discussion, so I’ll bump it. > [@Mijin](#): > > I certainly wouldn’t argue 100% similarity in personality between populations (whatever that would mean). It’d mean their average personalities are identical. > [@](#): > > But your argument for it is bizarre. Crime rates are readily explicable in terms of public policy, social history, whether a nation even has a clear government etc. Well, I mentioned how the zulu and xhosa were basically a warrior people until quite recently. That is indeed an aspect of social history, but it’s not like it’s purely environmental. > [@](#): > > South africa for example has all the turmoil of moving from apartheid and has been ravaged by AIDS due largely to AIDS denialism by the state. Apartheid and AIDS isn’t enough to explain the monsterous crime rates, especially the rape. I’m not arguing this is deep-seated, though. > [@](#): > > But it’s difficult to explain in terms of genetics. Obviously not purely of genetics. It’s a roughly even, though variable, combination of genetic and environmental factors. > [@](#): > > South africa is home to many different population groups. That’s why I mentioned the zulu and xhosa as being seemingly the most crime prone, though I’ve heard of zimbabwean refugees and nigerian crime syndicates stirring up alot too. I don’t think they’re committing mass rapes, though. > [@](#): > > Also, we in the West have not always been this peaceful. I know that full well. For many racialists, you’d think europe has always been like it is. And it’s not like petty crime still isn’t rampant in many areas. > [@](#): > > And there are caucasian countries with very high crime, Mexico immediately coming to mind. Mexico isn’t a good example- it’s majority “mestizo”, who are of mixed amerind and white descent. I’ll get back to Chief’s longer reply later. Also, Chen, can you actually formulate your views on this issue instead of copy and pasting? ---
**Author:** ![Dreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Dreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreen)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/276 "2010-07-31T17:39:39Z")
Back to Chief: > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The dilemma I have with newcomers is their expectation that every point made so far be re-made for them. This is a rather complicated topic, and there is a search mechanism here you are welcome to use. May I suggest reading a broad variety of posts to get a feel for the body of thought.. I apologize for that, and I also apologize for getting back to you so late. However, you could have possibly just linked one of your previous posts, and it’s hard to look specifically for these things. > [@](#): > > 1. Where intelligence differences are found, whether they are between two individuals or two groups, both nature and nurture account for differences. Of course. But the hereditarian/racialist outlook is that nature is the main factor- so much so that these IQ differences are pretty much fixed. You seem to lean heavily towards that, in spite of your proclaimed agnosticism. > [@](#): > > 1. If one wishes to separate out the effect of nature, one needs to account for differences in nurturing. Because innate differences are also a driver for nurturing influences, this can be a difficult separation to make. Of course. But you can never act like environmental effects are so homogenous. See pages 80-81 for this: [The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy - Mark Snyderman, Stanley Rothman - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=DAYO1Nggh3EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=snyderman+and+rothman&hl=en&ei=4VhUTJ-7Mo2EnQf83KT3Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false) > [@](#): > > As an example, a person of lower intelligence might skip a schooling opportunity, making them even less successful than they otherwise would be; their lesser success is a combination of nurturing layered upon nature. But would this school difference actually alter their intellectual ability or merely fill allow maximization of whatever is there? Be specific. > [@](#): > > 1. Populations are loosely defined, for the most part, but there are broad categories which can be used by “lumpers” and one of those categories is race. Ok. You might find it worthwhile to know that, under the current way it’s significance is viewed, I do not care whether race exists or not. Let me ask you something- if race exists, does that mean an automatic causational factor in phenotypic differences? If it doesn’t, will that mean it suddenly stops existing? > [@](#): > > 1. Not every geneset is equivalent in functional significance, so various arguments around the extent to which a given population shares the same quantity of genes as another is not an especially useful tool for arguing that they are about the same in potential; two populations might vary only in the difference for a single FOXP2 mutation and be very very different functionally even if they shared every other base pair. What do you mean? > [@](#): > > 1. A maximum potential for intelligence (along with almost any other skillset) is governed by genes, and the extent to which that potential is reached is governed by an individual’s nurturing. You seem to act like IQ’s expression is only governed by environment hindering it’s proper expression- as if environment can’t actually alter it’s expression. That is false. > [@](#): > > 1. There is substantial evidence that SIRE clusters vary in their innate potential–at an average group level. Definte, exactly, what you mean by “innate”. I agree different ethnic groups (SIRE is a pointless phrase) differ significantly in a whole array of traits for variable genetic and environmental reasons. But please define innate. Innate is something I’d think of as being pretty much fixed. > [@](#): > > While nurturing can never be absolutely normalized, representative cohorts can be reasonably compared while normalizing for putative nurturing influences. Yes, that is, to a sizable extent, what I meant- and likewise Snyderman and Rothman- meant by environmental influences not being homogenous. In other words, you can’t treat the effects of a middle class upbringing, however that may be defined, as an all around, narrow focused effect that should have the same effects on everyone no matter what. Your next examples are ones I’ve addressed. > [@](#): > > Back to Africa: I argue that there are genetic prevalence differences in genes coding for adaptive skillsets between groups populating sub-saharan Africa and other countries. Among those skillsets is intelligence, and this difference does drive and enable some of the success differences between sub-saharan Africa and other nations. A depth and breadth of intelligence at all levels is useful for creating and sustaining the infrastructure of a modern society. Countries which contain populations able to perform at higher cognitive levels will, on average, outperform countries containing populations performing at lower cognitive levels. I agree with all of this. But it really helps to bespeak of what sort of gradients we’re talking about. The average IQ of SS africa, even in your view, is probably far higher than the “around 70” figure. Now, in many cases, that figure is probably accurate- but it says absolutely nothing of their potential free of the extreme influences that cause that score, like out and out poor education, disease, malnutrition etc. That’s a phenotypic score. Free of that, I’d peg the average IQ of SS africans, continent wide, as being from the high 80’s to mid 90’s. While there will indeed be a certain cutoff for how far one population can go with an average IQ score in that range, even with something like the industriousness that allows east asians to heavily outperform relative to their IQ scores. Everyone has limits, but if combined with that, and using IQ and those personality aspects as the only factors in their success, I’d imagine that most of SS africa would be doing just fine. What makes the issue of african IQ scores so pertinent, however, is that those scores make up a huge fraction of the supposedly high correlations between IQ and various indices of international performance. If their genotypic IQ scores really aren’t that low- and the people who push off that figure can’t make up their minds as to what it means- then the correlations become alot smaller. There’s also the subtext of how apparently, a population has to have a really low IQ to perform as badly as what’s seen in SS africa today. And honestly, with how bad SS africa is, I think they generally do even worse than what would be expected of a genotypic IQ of around 70. > [@](#): > > That is obviously not the only driver for relative failure, and I have never argued that it is. Unfortunately, if one advances it as a contributing factor, the entire thread (to the legitimate dismay of **even sven** is derailed to an argument about IQ in general and population IQ differences in particular. Well, who originally brought it up? Was it Tristan alluding to how some do so or Chen spamming? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/277 "2010-07-31T23:40:52Z")
> [@Dreen](#): > > . . . or Chen spamming? Let us not characterize other posters’ contributions as “spam” or “trolling” or in other ways denigrate their efforts. If one has a specific criticism, level that, but leave the personal remarks out of it. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Dreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Dreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreen)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2010, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/278 "2010-08-01T04:07:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > > [@Dreen](#): > > > > . . . or Chen spamming? > > Let us not characterize other posters’ contributions as “spam” or “trolling” or in other ways denigrate their efforts. > > If one has a specific criticism, level that, but leave the personal remarks out of it. > [/Moderating] Many of Chen’s posts consist of him copy and pasting various studies and little else. He won’t articulate any of their points, or even those for himself- he merely drops in to cut and paste quotes from various studies and lets them speak entirely for themselves. People like him- and possibly some of them are just alternate names of his- have become rampant in the past couple of years on various discussion boards dealing with nature-nurture issues. Often even general “anti-racist” discussions. Frequently, whenever I come across those discussions, usually in the forms of comments on news articles or blog posts, I’ll find some racialist trolls spamming and copy pasting the same things over and over again. The subtext is pretty much “HAH! These foolish liberals won’t be able to handle THIS! So I need not actually debate- I can just play the role of an exhibitionist, a propagandist, a spammer, a purveyor of shock value etc. and say nothing else.” It’s creepy and does no real credence to any side in this debate. Hell, many times, if I google the name of a particular study in this area, or look up the origin of a particular quote, I’ll find probably half a dozen results from their spam. Chen is easily one of the most frequent names I see- others are Chuck, Galtonian, Viewer and Observer. Some of them could very well be the same people. I imagine these people actually get off on this. And yes Chen, I’m actually pretty well read in this area, so your copy-pasting of various studies and quotes won’t do you much overall good. I can _actually_ respond to them, as I’ve done in my posts on this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Dreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Dreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreen)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2010, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/279 "2010-08-01T04:11:56Z")
Check this case out: [http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/average\_brain\_size\_for\_the\_thr.php](http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/average_brain_size_for_the_thr.php) > [@](#): > > It is simply not true that I’m pulling racists out of the woodwork. What you don’t see is this: When I look up Obsever’s IP address and figure out who he is, I see him all over the internet doing on other blogs exactly what he is doing here. Same with some of the other commenters (some of which I filter as spam because they are so over the top). I am not drawing these people out. They are systematically trolling the blogosphere … every day … for anti-racist discussions. They then show up and dump what you see being dumped here, everything from the Gish Gallop of references to the horrid racist remarks of Mike’s > > It is not possible to have a discussion about these issues without this happening. There is no benign racism on my part. This is just me talking about race, biological perspectives on race, and racism … topics I write about and teach about and run seminars for teachers about and so on … on a blog where people can comment. Then they show up. Unsurprisingly, Observer bombarded the comments here. I’m sorry, but what kind of person, exactly, would get off on this? What kind of service do you do by playing the role of a propagandistic troll who’s way of your getting message out is shock value? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/280 "2010-08-01T23:50:08Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Aside from iq discussed above, there are personality traits that seem to have been particularly selected for. This is consistent with Greg Clark’s argument. > > > [@](#): > > > > However, the study finds significant psychological and behavioral differences between what the researchers call Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies and their non-WEIRD counterparts across a spectrum of key areas, including visual perception, fairness, spatial and moral reasoning, memory and conformity… > > > > The study, which reviews the comparative database of research from across the behavioural sciences, finds that subjects from WEIRD societies are more individualistic, analytic, concerned with fairness, existentially anxious and less conforming and attentive to context compared to those from non-WEIRD societies. > > [http://www.physorg.com/news197123539.html](http://www.physorg.com/news197123539.html) Nothing in that abstract even suggests any grounds to suspect that the differences in question are **hereditary.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711.md?page=15)