# Some Reasons are Off-Limits

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-reasons-are-off-limits/576788>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [April 1, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-reasons-are-off-limits/576788 "2011-04-01T14:32:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 16

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**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-reasons-are-off-limits/576788/16 "2011-04-01T16:05:15Z")

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I know you saw this, **Shodan** , but I think **Malthus** did a better job explaining the issue (in the Pit thread) than I have:

> [@Another Africa thread hijacked](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-africa-thread-hijacked/576767/22):
>
> I disagree. The focus of discussion is on what difference an event - imperialism - made on the trajectory of african history, not on the average intelligence of Africans.
> 
> I suppose one could argue that the average intelligence of a group is the important determinant of every historical “what-if” scenario, but the absurdity of constantly harping on this must surely be evident. It reduces what is different about different questions on Africa to a boring sameness - simply put, _every_ discussion on African historical questions would reduce to the same-old, same-old wearisome discussion about the Bell Curve.

If the question is ‘how would African history be different if not for colonialism,’ ‘they’re less intelligent than Europeans’ is not an on-point answer.

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