# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/141 "2010-06-22T09:38:44Z")
Bearing in mind what **Chief Pedant** is trying to give credence to here, I’d find it highly surprising if he has seen the documentary series **Racism: A History** , but he should watch [part 3 here, and pay special attention to the section at 10.10 to 12.23](http://documentaryheaven.com/racism-a-history-3/), while pondering on what he is supporting with his present beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/142 "2010-06-22T09:47:18Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > The movie isn’t bad, but it has very little to do with the book. Diamond’s work is a little overblown, but there’s a lot more depth to it than what you have down. Essentially, Eurasia had a number of advantages over the other continents–food biodiversity, domesticable animals, climate, and so forth. As has been indicated in other posts, Diamond isn’t preaching utter predestination, but he does make a very good case that physical environment played a huge role in Eurasian world dominance. And the different environment also gave rise to new selection pressures. This is the thing Diamond omits - you need to read a book like ‘The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution’ which covers recent genetic research. > [@](#): > > Here we have presented a comprehensive scan for selective sweeps across the human genome. Several general patterns emerge from the analysis. We find much more evidence for selective sweeps in Chinese and European-American populations than in the African-American population. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that, as anatomically modern humans migrated out of sub-Saharan Africa, the novel environments they encountered imposed new selective pressures, which in turn led to an increased rate of population-specific selective sweeps [54–56]. [PLOS Genetics](http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030090) ---
**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:** [June 22, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/143 "2010-06-22T10:36:39Z")
Thought I’d throw in my 2c, the same basic thing I’ve said on similar threads: Africa’s poverty is self-perpetuating. There’s no mystery as to why it continues. There are many, many countries around the world that are emerging from poverty, but in pretty much every case those are countries that have direct access to the ocean, or friendly neighbours, and usually someone nearby that’s wealthy that they can trade with. Many african countries don’t have these things. So it takes a herculean government decades to pull such countries from poverty, while only one term of a corrupt regime to reset it. And note that striking oil / diamonds is not necessarily good news for a developing country. Such finds can just fund bad governments and rebellions (which are more frequent in poor countries), as well as inflate the currency; thereby devaluing all other economic activity. Viewed this way, the most significant development for the region is the rapidly increasing trade with china. ---
**Author:** ![Oliveritaly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oliveritaly/32/15233_2.png) [@Oliveritaly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oliveritaly)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/144 "2010-06-22T12:02:03Z")
[quote=“IdahoMauleMan, post:90, topic:543711”] Hi Susanann, Welcome to the Straight Dope. I look forward to many of your posts. … QUOTE] Out of curiosity, and it’s likely I’m missing something, why welcome her? Her profile lists a join date of 2002 and nearly 1700 posts. On topic I wish she’d come back into this debate. While I completely disagree with her viewpoint, I was fascinated to read it. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/145 "2010-06-22T12:30:58Z")
[quote=“Oliveritaly, post:144, topic:543711”] > [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Hi Susanann, > > Welcome to the Straight Dope. I look forward to many of your posts. > > … QUOTE] > Out of curiosity, and it’s likely I’m missing something, why welcome her? Her profile lists a join date of 2002 and nearly 1700 posts. > > On topic I wish she’d come back into this debate. While I completely disagree with her viewpoint, I was fascinated to read it. Who says it’s a her? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/146 "2010-06-22T12:34:02Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Who says it’s a her? “ **Susanann** ” is not exactly a username that reeks of testosterone. ---
**Author:** ![Oliveritaly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oliveritaly/32/15233_2.png) [@Oliveritaly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oliveritaly)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/147 "2010-06-22T12:36:19Z")
Regardless of the posters sex, the question still stands. I am honestly just curious Idaho, meant no offense what so ever. I’m assuming I’m missing something here. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/148 "2010-06-22T13:46:43Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > As for the ancient Egyptians, they were Mediterranean. Right. I wasn’t going to respond, but some things are too much: What the hell is “Mediterranean?” What did the Ancient Egyptian population have in common with Anatolians, or Mycenaeans, or Minoans, or Appenines, or Terramare people, or Iberians, or the Urnfield Culture? And why does the Neolithic Cardium Ware Culture spread as far as Spain from the Levant, but doesn’t leave a trace in Egypt? And beyond that, are you ignorant of the Nubian ancestry of the ancient Egyptians, or just glossing over it? The roots of Ancient Egypt are in the Sudan, not the Mediterranean. Yes, it is foolishness to believe Cleopatra was Black or Athena was an African goddess, but that doesn’t mean all evidence of an African origin for Ancient Egyptian culture is bunk. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/149 "2010-06-22T15:02:18Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Bearing in mind what **Chief Pedant** is trying to give credence to here, I’d find it highly surprising if he has seen the documentary series **Racism: A History** , but he should watch [part 3 here, and pay special attention to the section at 10.10 to 12.23](http://documentaryheaven.com/racism-a-history-3/), while pondering on what he is supporting with his present beliefs. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll put all three on my list. I’m having trouble finding links to how to order them, either Netflix or Amazon. Can you help? Note that my concern is not whether or not something is “racist,” or how populations behave toward one another. It’s whether or not genetics contribute to differences in population skillsets. The savagery of one population toward another does not move me in one direction or another anymore than lions eating lambs moves me from a position that the differences in those two populations are genetic. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/150 "2010-06-22T15:37:37Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > It’s whether or not genetics contribute to differences in population skillsets. _Of course_ genetics contribute to differences in population skillsets. It’s the racists’ straw man that anyone has ever claimed that there are no (generalised) innate differences between different populations (I’m not accusing you of doing this). The issue, for this thread at least, is whether genetic differences may be a significant factor in why africa is dirt poor. The answer is: perhaps it is, but I’ve yet to see any evidence in support of this\*, and OTOH it’s pretty easy to explain africa’s poverty without needing to invoke such a theory. - But wait, one may say: What about the evidence that blacks are less intelligent? Well, leaving aside whether this has been shown (and I’m holding myself back from talking about that topic), what good is a high proportion of smart people for a dirt poor country? Countries like this aren’t going to get out of poverty by exporting string theories. All it means is a higher proportion of people leaving to be doctors in the rich world. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/151 "2010-06-22T16:08:26Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > But I maintain the key point: Where you find differences and can show opportunity has been normalized, it’s genes. And we are still waiting for the very first place where opportunity has been normalized. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/152 "2010-06-22T17:18:01Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > And note that striking oil / diamonds is not necessarily good news for a developing country. Such finds can just fund bad governments and rebellions (which are more frequent in poor countries), as well as inflate the currency; thereby devaluing all other economic activity. Absolutely true. If history teaches us one thing, it is that suppliers of raw materials are rarely the big successes in capitalist systems. Producing finished goods is how a society makes money. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/153 "2010-06-22T18:37:33Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > **Susanann** has only made one really good point–corrupt government. However, you cannot blame the “government” instead of putting the blame where it belongs: the African people themselves. The people can change their government any time they want. _ **“No government can sit in power without the consent of its people”** _ ---
**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:** [June 22, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/154 "2010-06-22T19:15:39Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > The people can change their government any time they want. > > _ **“No government can sit in power without the consent of its people”** _ Is this a joke? Must I list the many countries around the world (not just in Africa) where the people have spoken, and those in power have ignored / repressed? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/155 "2010-06-22T21:17:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Some say that Africa needs is a strongman that is really strong enough to do something good with his country, even if he has to kill a million people to do it. One-person absolute rule doesn’t have such a great track record anywhere in the world. The countries that are doing well now don’t tend to be the ones that have that type of government. It’s been tried in various African countries, and not worked out so well. Ask anybody who lived in Zimbabwe under Mugabe, Uganda under Idi Amin, or Zaire under Mobutu Sese Seko. Obiang of Equatorial Guinea isn’t quite as bad, but he’s basically put the country’s treasury under his personal control, and it doesn’t seem to be working out for the average Equatorial Guinean. There’s no guarantee that what the strongman believes to be “something good with his country” is what anybody else would think of as good. The Khmer Rouge thought they were doing something good with Cambodia. Mugabe thought he was doing the right thing for Zimbabwe with his land reforms. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/156 "2010-06-22T21:56:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Since the statement to which you are responding has already received Moderator attention, I expect you to refrain from bringing up the subject again. > > Drop it. > > [/Modding] Understood. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/157 "2010-06-22T23:26:17Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > However, you cannot blame the “government” instead of putting the blame where it belongs: the African people themselves. > > The people can change their government any time they want. > > _ **“No government can sit in power without the consent of its people”** _ Consent can be extracted at the point of gun, by providing food to the starving, or simply buying it from just enough people. Idealism is a luxury for those who have enough to survive. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/158 "2010-06-22T23:26:20Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > And we are still waiting for the very first place where opportunity has been normalized. And it sounds like you can comfortably settle back and wait, because under the typical definition of “normalized” requested here, it is highly unlikely to ever occur. In the past, folks argued that elements such as family income and parental education were the reasons blacks underscored Eurasians so prominently on the US SAT exams, for instance. Yet when those factors were looked at, it turned out that children from highly-degreed black parents barely scored on a par with white children of parents who did not finish high school. It turned out that children of black families making upward of $100,000/yr underscored children of white families making less than $10,000/yr. Suggestions were then made that factors such as crummy self-esteem, low teacher expectation and inadequate grandparenting might be the problem–or perhaps the problem lay in some unrecognized factors. Unfortunately, even if you take the cream of the academic crops–medical and law students, say–who have already overcome those obstacles to get into college in the first place–you still find black students lagging far, far behind on pre-graduate exams such as the LSAT or MCAT. Perhaps some sort of post-slavery secret negative influence is the culprit… But no; if you look around the entire world at other cultures and nations, post-slavery or not, you still see the same basic general pattern. If you were to look at immigrants into the UK, you’d see the Chinese on top and the black immigrants on the bottom. There would be no country and no system to which you could turn to find the general pattern in the opposite direction. So you end up arguing that–universally–blacks in modern societies have unidentified external obstacles in their way, and that the failure (in the US, for instance) to eliminate–or even narrow–those gaps in twenty years of very directed trying must be due to a persistent failure to “normalize” opportunity. On the other hand, in other endeavors such as professional football and basketball (hi, **you with the face**!) you have to argue that opportunity has been over-normalized somehow, with perhaps a loss of interest on the part of lazy whites for the fame and fortune of the NBA, with white interest shifting instead to those fabulous corporate drone jobs. I don’t see it, but you are right, **Tom** , that many are still waiting for the Great Normalization that will demonstrate once and for all equal potential among all populations. Apparently it just cannot be a reasonable, or primary, explanation for disparity that Nature would not deal out the same deck of genetic cards to all. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/159 "2010-06-22T23:34:07Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > And it sounds like you can comfortably settle back and wait, because under the typical definition of “normalized” requested here, it is highly unlikely to ever occur. > > In the past, folks argued that elements such as family income and parental education were the reasons blacks underscored Eurasians so prominently on the US SAT exams, for instance. Yet when those factors were looked at, it turned out that children from highly-degreed black parents barely scored on a par with white children of parents who did not finish high school. It turned out that children of black families making upward of $100,000/yr underscored children of white families making less than $10,000/yr. And this does not suggest something different to you than your favorite thesis? We have blacks who are sufficiently capable that their income is among the top percentiles in the nation, yet we are deciding that they have problems because of test scores. It seems to me that this shoulf be the clear clue that testing does not accomplish what you claim for it. Since the long held belief of the psychometrists has been that test scores are relibale because that correspond so closely to predictions of success, what are we to think of tests that appear to mis the mark so clearly. I would posit that we are still looking at situations where tests are an indicator of culture rather than some hypothetical and never discovered _g_. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2010, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/160 "2010-06-22T23:37:49Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > - > > But wait, one may say: What about the evidence that blacks are less intelligent? > Well, leaving aside whether this has been shown (and I’m holding myself back from talking about that topic), what good is a high proportion of smart people for a dirt poor country? Countries like this aren’t going to get out of poverty by exporting string theories. All it means is a higher proportion of people leaving to be doctors in the rich world. Modern successful nations require a vast infrastructure, every component of which itself requires a depth of reasonably high cognition. A few smart people could, perhaps, import some more brains and maybe develop a resource or two, but large-scale manufacturing, or commerce, or transportation, or communication infrastructure…on and on…require a pretty good bench of cognitive support. And I agree that brain drain is a serious problem. Highly intelligent and successful blacks from sub-saharan Africa often have no choice but to bail for St Elsewhere. I would. That diminishes the residual genetic brain pool even further. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711.md?page=9)