# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 41
**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 19, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711/41 "2010-06-19T22:12:11Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Actually, Northern Europeans (the ancestors of most white Americans) were quite backwards until fairly recently in world history. It took Northern Europeans centuries to reach the level of prosperity and organization that were standard in the Roman Empire. > > You’d have us believe that Pictish war chieftains somehow share in the achievements of the Tang dynasty because the two groups have some DNA markers in comparison. Not at all, and I don’t really claim that any particular subgroup from either Africans or non-Africans is either representative, or superior to another subgroup. In fact, I’ve given an example that, within Eurasians, it’s entirely possible the group who migrate to cities has a higher IQ than the group which does not. Nor do I pretend no non-genetic factors are at play. It’s the whole group average I’m talking about, for various skillsets, when nurturing is normalized. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reasons-africa-is-lagging-behind/543711)._