I still think most of you are on the wrong track. Did the "environment" create Judaism, or Christianity, or Islam? (which by the way weren't created in cold nor necessarily harsh environments). Do you really think the concept of "the rule of law" has a link with the ice ages? I think it is the human environment, or social environment, not physical environment, that is key. Civilization seems to me to be more about a process where groups of human beings, in very small steps over hundreds of years, figure out ways to live with each other with less conflict, more relative security. Mostly to protect themselves from other humans! There are few more agressive, warfaring, might makes right, domineering races in history than the Greeks, the Romans, then the Europeans. Most of what we call civilization is finding ways to curtail the conflicts between individuals, then small groups, then nations. Nobody has spilled more blood getting there than the White Tribes of Europe. As the scale of warfare became larger and larger, only those that organize on a massive scale, including sustainiing the logistics required, could survive. Ice ages are a drop in the bucket compared to a well organized army coming down on you like a ton of bricks once every generation. Warfare is only one of the human created environmental factors that favor the society that is best organized to sustain itself.

quote:

Originally posted by Spring:
The Live 8 concert last July 2nd, which focused on debt relief for African countries, was probably one of the most obvious functions of this type.

My opinion is most of these type programmes have more to do with making the guilt ridden left wing humanists of the West feel good rather than actually making a real contribution to sustainable development.

The concept of development aid, or foreign aid, was created in its modern form by the US government with its own security as its primary consideration. Most of you have heard of the Marshall Plan. The World Bank was initially (and still officially) called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) (and its sister agency the International Monetary Fund) to rebuild wartorn Europe after World War II so as not to repeat the mistakes made after World War I. By its nature, giving financial assistance to European nations, it assumed and required a capability to use that aid efficiently on the part of the recipients. Once the system was set up, and since it worked so well in Europe, the idea that that institution could replicate the results in Third World countries became accepted and worldwide foreign aid became a part of the international institutional landscape. I don't think, initially at least, that guilt had much to do with it. It is still assumed that monetary stability, economic progress and international harmony are the conditions for peace. It is supposed to be a virtuous cycle, peace creates progress, progress enhances peace.

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:

quote:

I read a book recently, "Guns, Germs and Steel", a very intellectual look at the differences in the way civilizations developed. One of the very interesting parts of the book was a discussion about why the Chinese did not sail to the western hemisphere or settle it first. The summary was that due to societal issues and the bias toward not going beyond the next hill in that culture, that they mostly stayed where they have been. The society issues did much to keep them close to home and gave no momentum to explore.

The pictogram/pictograph for china is pronounced "Zhong guo" in Mandarin (in other parts of the chinese empire it is pronounced "zhan go", etc.). It is loosely translated Middle Land, or Middle Country. The Chinese have always known (believed) that their empire was and is the center of the world. The words they use to describe Westerners in private roughly translate as "big nosed barbarians". Since they were already in the center of the world, there was no reason to go sailing out and about since they could only meet inferior beings that smelled bad.

quote:

My perception was that the idea of working together on a larger plot was not something they were comfortable with or knew how to manage.

I was confused and still am...

Likely as a result of my western mind set versus hundreds of generations of re-learned methods that don't work for the masses.

There isn't anything the slightest bit confusing about what happened in that situation.

Only Katie Couric and sociologists still think that culture trumps genes.
LD

PS Pretty sloppy work in the book "Guns, Germs and Steel". You would be better off starting with my favorite kids book, "Plague, Pox and Pestilence".

Zhong Guo literally: Center nation/country -- center of the world. Sort of like Mediteranean Sea -- Sea in the center of the earth. All of them do that. Zhong Guo Ren -- literally, "center nation person," or "China Man" have lots of names for outsider. Often Guey -- ghost -- is a part of the expression: Guey ren. They've had a name for Yankees since the Boxer revolution: Yang Guey (sounds like Yankee), means "Ocean Ghost." What the US did with the Japanese after what the Japanese did to the Chinese at places like Nan King (Nan Jing in Mandarin -- literally "Southern Capital") earned the honor of being called ocean ghost. Foreigners are often called wai guo ren -- "outsider country people" (ghost is a rude thing to call someone -- often reserved for Jio Guey -- "wine ghost", for instance). Another name for Americans is "may guo ren" -- "Beautiful nation person."

With all due respect to intelligence test desiginers, such tests are multidimensional. Puzzle-solving is strongly represented. Some components may try to measure cultural assimilation within their home culture (have we picked up our culture?). To some extent, this includes verbal skills, some common literary expressions, etc. Some critics have stated that IQ tests measure your ability to perform well on IQ tests. I don't think I'd be as harsh as that. But I might also be less likely to read as much into it as some other. I won't say that culture trumps genetics; but in smaller populations, genetic drift trumps selection... unless the selected trait is definitely lethal prior to reproduction.

What strikes me is that almost all of the countries raised in the study are facing significant cultural and economic stresses right now. China is suffering for its success -- the economic strains between the abject poor and the recently rich -- the entertainments and dissolution of traditional family ties. The US is suffering from the erosion of its traditional economic base: manufacturing and its technological engine (physics funding has been flat or declining since the dissolution of Star Wars). Africa -- well, we know what's happening there. Some of it seems like collective personality; some is culture, some is technological, some is economic. Some is more complicated: how the power base is played to by the UN, while people whom they ostensibly "serve" suffer from their efforts.

Back to the original question: I suspect that IQ is picking something up -- but I doubt its as simple as problem solving. I've already posited that I think it has to do more with what people expect to receive for their individual initiative. But its simply a broad brush stroke idea. More to the point -- I don't think there is ANY country listed in the IQ numbers who is coming from the economic and cultural changes without significant stress, and not a little distruction of cultural pillars.

Dan

Why does aid in Africa fail?
I want to tackle the question from another angle. When Vasco da Gama, Jan v Riebeeck and others first set foot at the Southern Africa coast between 350 and 400 years ago, What were the differences between Africans and Europeans.

Europeans could build boats, multi storey buildings, could document things, had literature, art and a lot of other things they thought was civilisation.

The Africans were living of the land, moved from place to place to find grazing for their cattle, they had winter and summer areas where they lived, had no written language, very little art except for San paintings that was mostly spiritual drawings, they had not domesticated wild animals, no engineering was present.

We are looking at huge evolutionary gap between the groups. Europeans settled all over Africa and started “educating the indigenous people and transferring their culture and believes to them. For the blacks their king was everything and he had to supply everything to them and they only did what he told them.

Long story short, a lot of their structures were broken down and they were pulled in the western way of living. The whole cultural system that existed for centuries was broken down. What everybody forgot is that evolution takes time and it cannot be put into fast forward mode. 400 years ago there was a huge cultural, socio-economic gap between the Europeans and the Africans and today it still exists. It going to take a lot of time for the Africans to catch up, with that I do not say that they are stupid, but there are historical differences that will only be taken care of through the evolutionary process.

What is important for me is to realise the differences and find a way to manage that. We cannot expect from any group or culture to change in a short period of 350 years, evolution cannot be hurried, it takes lots and lots of time.

Jaco,
Your thoughts about Africans being behind in the evolutionary cycle is an interesting one, but considering Africa is where humanity started (see the The Genographic Project by National Geographic and IBM), didn't they actually have a head start?

Lawn dart Quote "
The pictogram/pictograph for china is pronounced "Zhong guo" in Mandarin (in other parts of the chinese empire it is pronounced "zhan go", etc.). It is loosely translated Middle Land, or Middle Country. The Chinese have always known (believed) that their empire was and is the center of the world. The words they use to describe Westerners in private roughly translate as "big nosed barbarians". Since they were already in the center of the world, there was no reason to go sailing out and about since they could only meet inferior beings that smelled bad."

DO YOU KNOW HOW THE CHINESES ARE CALLING AFRICA?

THEY CALL AFRICA " THE NON-EXISTING COUNTRY".

quote:

Originally posted by Spring:
Jaco,
Your thoughts about Africans being behind in the evolutionary cycle is an interesting one, but considering Africa is where humanity started (see the The Genographic Project by National Geographic and IBM), didn't they actually have a head start?

Not sure that humanity started in Africa. Other findings show that humanity could have start in South-Asia or Europe.???????????

Jean,
The Genographic Project earlier this year doesn't quite agree with you. You might want to look into the results of their studies, which actually followed the DNA trail of humans not only to the their general beginning in Afica, but also to the actual region (now country) that apparently started it all.
Here are some results announced as recently as last month:

Early Humans Settled India Before Europe, Study Suggests

Brian Vastag
for National Geographic News

November 14, 2005
Modern humans migrated out of Africa and into India much earlier than once believed, driving older hominids in present-day India to extinction and creating some of the earliest art and architecture, a new study suggests.

The research places modern humans in India tens of thousands of years before their arrival in Europe.


University of Cambridge researchers Michael Petraglia and Hannah James developed the new theory after analyzing decades' worth of existing fieldwork in India. They outline their research in the journal Current Anthropology.

"He's putting all the pieces together, which no one has done before," Sheela Athreya, an anthropologist at Texas A&M University, said of Petraglia.

Modern humans arrived in Europe around 40,000 years ago, leaving behind cave paintings, jewelry, and evidence that they drove the Neandertals to extinction.

Petraglia and James argue that similar events took place in India when modern humans arrived there about 70,000 years ago.

The Indian subcontinent was once home to Homo heidelbergensis, a hominid species that left Africa about 800,000 years ago, Petraglia explained.

"I realized that, my god, modern humans might have wiped out Homo heidelbergensis in India," he said. "Modern humans may have been responsible for wiping out all sorts of ancestors around the world."

"Our model of India is talking about that entire wave of dispersal," he added. "[T]hat's a huge implication for paleoanthropology and human evolution."

A New Model

Petraglia and James reached their conclusions by pulling together fossils, artifacts, and genetic data.

The evidence points to an early human migration through the Middle East and into India, arriving in Australia by 45,000 to 60,000 years ago, they say.

Their model begins about 250,000 years ago, when Homo heidelbergensis arrived in India toting crude stone tools. Digs in central India in the 1980s turned up skeletal remains of the species, and other sites revealed almond-shaped hand axes chipped from stone.

Meanwhile in Africa modern humans arose about 190,000 years ago, most archaeologists believe. These humans too developed stone tools.


Scattered evidence, such as red ochre—perhaps used as body paint—suggests early African humans also dabbled in the creative arts.

The new theory posits that as much as 70,000 years ago, a group of these modern humans migrated east, arriving in India with technology comparable to that developed by Homo heidelbergensis.

"The tools were not so different," Petraglia says. "The technology that the moderns had wasn't of a great advantage over what [Homo heidelbergensis] were using."

But modern humans outcompeted the natives, slowly but inexorably driving them to extinction, Petraglia says. "It's just like the story in Western Europe, where [modern humans] drove Neandertals to extinction," he says.

The modern humans who colonized India may also have been responsible for the disappearance of the so-called Hobbits, whose fossilized bones were discovered recently on the Indonesian island of Flores.

But Athreya of Texas A&M argues that the evidence for such a "replacement event" in India remains weak.

"You have to explain the reasons for the replacement, [such as] technical superiority," she said.

"The genetic evidence shows there were multiple migrations out of Africa, so there would have been multiple migrations into [India]. But I think these migrating populations didn't completely replace the indigenous group."

Early Art

Petraglia and James's report presents evidence of creativity and culture in India starting about 45,000 years ago. Sophisticated stone blades arrive first, along with rudimentary stone architecture.

Beads, red ochre paint, ostrich shell jewelry, and perhaps even shrines to long-lost gods—the hallmarks of an early symbolic culture—appear by 28,500 years ago.

This slow change is in contrast to what many scientists believe played out in Europe. Modern humans blew through the continent like a storm about 40,000 years ago, and Neandertals quickly disappeared.

The switch happened so rapidly—as evidenced by the sudden arrival of advanced stone tools and an explosion of cave painting and other art—that anthropologists call it the "human revolution."

"What we have is a much patchier, very slow and gradual accumulation of what we call modern human behavior in South Asia," Petraglia says.

"And that just simply means that culture developed in a slightly different way in South Asia than it did in Western Europe."

A dearth of fossils and artifacts in India makes Petraglia and James's research even more valuable, writes Robin Dennell, professor of archeology at the University of Sheffield, in a comment accompanying the study.

The subcontinent has produced just one set of early Homo sapiens fossils, found in a cave in Sri Lanka and dated to about 36,000 years ago.

Despite this, Petraglia hopes his analysis throws new light onto early human history in India.

"We're trying to give a wake up call to anthropologists … saying that we have to be looking at all parts of the world," he says.

"If we really want to tell the story of human evolution we've got to bring all parts of the world into the story."

Thanks Vic,

Very interesting, and insisting on the fact the first humans came from Africa.

Was it in the National geo magazine, I read something about the origin of the humanity. It had something to do with the apes, not the humans. One of a hypothesis was that an ape (close to the orang outan)in South Asia could be the first human ancestor.
Thanks...........cousin.

Sorry to pollute the thread.....post on without me.

Jean,
Here's an AR post from several months ago from right after I first ran across the Genographic Project. It really is a groundbreaking project and I enjoyed seeing how my personal DNA history tracked back across the eons.

Thanks, Spring, for spreading the news about the Genographics Project. The real guts of the project involves sampling of indigenous populations world-wide. Both mtDNA and non-recombinant Y chromosome mutations are useful in tracking the human progression over the globe. It does look like they moved from Africa into the near east, then into India, Europe, along the coast (beachcombing) down to Australia, up along the coast with some inland brances into Eastern Asia, etc. Some of the more rapidly mutating nucleotides can be used as faster clocks to track more recent migrations -- many of which occurred in Europe, through various Mongol groups, etc.

The "public" part of the project involves buying kits that contain two cheek swabs -- you rub the inside of your mouth with a swab for a few minutes, and the tip slides off into a preservative bath. The kit contains a serial number. You mail the kit in to a servicing station. The serial number is replaced with another tracking number, and processed (double blind) by "Family Tree DNA," a commercial group with academic connections. At no point (so far) are you forced to disclose who you are. You can log into the genographics site, enter your serial number, and get back your markers for your nrY (male) or mtDNA (female -- except if you are male, you can check "female," and get your mtDNA processed as well -- but they only do the nrY if you check "male"). The markers can be used to map the route of your male or female line to some resolution until you pop out in the part of the world you currently inhabit. If you want to volunteer contact info, that's up to you. If you want to request your info and samples be destroyed, that desire will be honored. If you loose your serial number, you have lost your investment... they have no way to know who you are. They have bent over backwards to protect your personal info.

Spencer hopes, and plans that, the $'s from the public part will go to the indigenous communities they got samples from. One reason they are still indigenous is that they are often desperately poor. The next big question is what form the support could be that would actually be useful and helpful. Some ways just throws money with no results; worse, some ways can cause significant dammage.

Besides the $'s, some of the public genetic info can be useful as well in tracking some of how people moved into the US through colonial years -- if info is volunteered.

The sampling of indigenous peoples is not by cheek swab, but includes blood samples, linguistic analysis, family stories and cultural histories of the region, etc.

Dan

quote:

Originally posted by DanEP:
One reason they are still indigenous is that they are often desperately poor.

Are you sugesting that they would necessarily move if they were more prosperous, or do I just misunderstand what you mean by the use of "indigenous"?

Dan I participated in the study last spring and it took about 6 weeks for my results to come back. There were no real shockers in there as it showed that my ancestors came out of Africa, into Central Asia, and then into Europe. I think it said that about 90+% of the people in England have my DNA history.
To learn about human migration, however, including how people got to Australia (by land and not across the Indian Ocean) as well as the common social concepts that still exist in the Siberian Russia and the native Americans in North America (Teepee's, following the animals for food) was amazing. For the first time, the pieces of the world's civilizations follow a proven path and the story truly fits together.

Perhaps the modern humans in India migrated there for the cat hunting and used their predecessors for bait.

I had to laugh reading this scientist fretting about what happened so long ago on the Indian subcontinent.

quote:

"I realized that, my god, modern humans might have wiped out Homo heidelbergensis in India," he said. "Modern humans may have been responsible for wiping out all sorts of ancestors around the world."

Duh, competition for resources; the more adapted and intelligent group wins, the less adapted group loses and the liberal observers whine. There is a news flash.

Charles,

I intend little by the way of causation in my statement that being indigenous means one is poor. Indigenous people are under stress from outside factors, economic, health-related problems, physical intrusion, cultural intrustion, better opportunity. The poorest folks seem to be the last ones to feel much of this -- except for war and famine when they happen to be in the way. However, it is a characterization with a very broad brush stroke (I am far from simply correct to have stated that). There have been lots of wars, lots of migrations, lots of cultural intrusions -- including linguistic -- that have changed the character of people we now consider "indigenous." However, there has been a perception that the rapid increase in mobility reaching into the "furthest parts" of the world will rapidly confuse a signal relating gene mutation markers to movements - right at a time when technology is emerging to get a finer snapshot of what those movements have been. Many of those factors are driven simply by increase in population sizes forcing more mixing.

A better characterization of people who are indigenous (unmixed) than "desperately poor" would be "vulnerable" to forces knocking at their door that are quite capable of wiping their legacy off of the face of the planet. I suppose a good wish would be to try to enable them to find a way to enter a more modern world -- knocking at their door -- in a way that doesn't simply cause them to disappear like Daniel Ninham's people (given the web, I'll let you browse for him - he was local to the area I now inhabit -- excelent example, btw of what I meant).

Vic,

I've been deeply moved by this project as well. It isn't the first of its kind, but it is one of the most encompassing -- including primary investigators from all over the planet, each responsible for a number of questions, and for collecting and processing the samples. There is a governing board that includes people like Maeve Leakey and Sir Colin Renfrew. Chris Tyler-Smith is one of the PIs... and failing to name the others is my fault -- no disparagement of their talents. It is one of the largest studies of its kind, funded in large part by a grant from the Waite family group, with participation from IBM (hardware, servers, software, and participants from IBM Research at Yorktown Hgts). The hope is to get as much raw material as possible. All of the raw data is considered public. There is no intention of using the results in any way that one could obtain personal gain from it (medically or otherwise). While it might be hoped that some of the data may someday help solve medical problems -- indigenous groups, and those who advocate for them, are very sensitive to people making $'s off of their heritage. The Genographics Project is trying very hard to share what they believe is world heritage, with no personal gain from the data, and to respect the interests and rights of the people who are sharing the heritage that literally flows through their veins and in the words they speak.

As I mentioned, I've been very moved by the kind of info that has come from prior studies, and from what hopefully will emerge from this study. Lots of exciting questions and answers!

Dan

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:
Perhaps the modern humans in India migrated there for the cat hunting and used their predecessors for bait.

I had to laugh reading this scientist fretting about what happened so long ago on the Indian subcontinent.

quote:

"I realized that, my god, modern humans might have wiped out Homo heidelbergensis in India," he said. "Modern humans may have been responsible for wiping out all sorts of ancestors around the world."

Duh, competition for resources; the more adapted and intelligent group wins, the less adapted group loses and the liberal observers whine. There is a news flash.

Perhaps competition -- but it could have been more like what happened to the Tasmanian aboriginies. Culture has a huge impact on how culture meets culture... it isn't all tech.

Dan

Spring
I do not have a problem that modern man's development started in Africa. I also agree with the movement that took place. But once the people started moving evolution took place at different rates. Evolution is change over time. There will be no change unless it is necessary. There are many factors that will enhance change, environment, which includes the following, climate, food sources, population, geologic changes and many more. Change will only take place if there is a need to change. Some species did not change over time (evolved) i.e., Coelacanths, six gill sharks, reptiles and insects. (Wish evolution got rid of flies.)

In the human world different groups evolved quicker than other groups. I think it was a matter of adapting with your circumstances or become extinct. Many years ago knowledge and information did not spread as quickly as today. That explains the differences in cultures and groups. Once travel became easier and quicker technology started spreading and cultures started learning from each other. This exchange of information caused certain cultures and groups to start evolving quicker to catch up and other groups at a slower pace, depending on the need of that group to change.

This brings me back to Africa. The original indigenous people of Africa was mostly found in Central Africa with groups like the San , who was hunter gatherers, exploring the southern parts of Africa, they were eventually driven out by the pastorals that moved down from central Africa and Europeans. ( a aged old phenomenon, the Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis). If you look at the Africans you will realise that evolution took place differently in the various groups and cultures.

One can ask yourself , where would Africa have been if the Europeans never arrived here. I believe evolution would have taken place a lot slower. When a higher evolved group move in with a less evolved group the latter groups evolution will be quicker, but it will still takes time.

The culture and values of a group will not necessary change to be the same as the other group’s. Deeply entrenched ancestral believes of the African people is difficult to change. That brings a big difference in the values of African people and Western people. This culture was developed over 500 – 800 thousand years, it is not going to take 3 centuries to change it. Hopefully it would also not take another 500 thousand years.

Jaco,
I fully agree with your premise and very much lean to what anthropologists call the "Out of Africa" theory.
First of all, it has generally been thought that in terms of evolution, species that have a warm and fuzzy environment, and are met with few challenges or obstacles, change little over time. On the other hand, if that same species were put in a different environment and faced different stimuli on a constant basis, the stage would be set for selective breeding and evolution that would adapt that species to handle its new challenges. A fish that moved up on the beach grew legs, for example. This thought process is not at all new or unusual, but what is unique is its application towards humans.
What I think happened in Africa is that humans that stayed home in the warm climates saw much less evolutionary change over the last 10-20,000 years. On the other hand, those that migrated northward into Asia, and ultimately Europe, faced a variety of new obstacles that forced evolutionary changes that were not seen in those human relatives that remained in Africa. It is with this concept in mind that I think we can account for the material differences in physical and mental characteristics of humans scattered around the globe. Humans that remained in warmer climes followed an evolutionary path in their physical stature that is consistent among a wide range if species in that they grew taller and thinner than humans that found greater longevity by being shorter and more heavy-set if they lived in very cold climates (Eskimos). Humans that migrated and faced challenging social and enrionmental issues developed different skills and cognitive abilities that were different and more advanced than those that remained on the warm plains of Africa. Hence, I think we can combine the results of the National Geographic study with the results of the many studies on the racial differences in intelligence, we come up with a pattern that fits, and is basically undeniable if considered with rational scientific research, as compared to political correctness.
It's an interesting study and I'm glad to be a part of forum with the sophistication to discuss it objectively.

Spring
I am 100% with you. Evolution can only take place if there is a reason for change/survival

Political correctness is the biggest problem in the world, JMHO. if we face the facts of life and learn to live with the pros ond cons of it, life will be a lot easier

quote:

Originally posted by Jaco Human:
Evolution can only take place if there is a reason for change/survival

This reminds me of a discussion I had with an Ethiopian gentleman a couple of years ago in Addis. I came into contact with him while organizing some car insurance there, and he helped us out quite a bit. He was also a highly educated man, and had been around quite a lot. In his opinion, the reason that Africa in general, and the majority of Africans had "fallen behind" the rest of the world was due to its climate. In most of sub-saharan Africa, the need for cloths and shelter was far less then in more northern climates where there is snow/cold, or extreme heat etc. The same goes for food, and the need to plan ahead. Generally, in many parts of Africa food could be gathered without too much hassle. And staples such as cassava don't take a lot of work to grow either. This lack of need when it comes to planning ahead for cold winters or extremly hot summers in the desert etc. has been like that for thousands of years. Forget the troubles now in most of Africa due to over-population, because in the big picture this has happend in such a short timespan that "evolution" hasn't had time to catch up.

His veiw was maybe a bit simplified, but sounded like common sense to me. And I must admit that we did notice a differance in the way local people thought and behaved when we compaired people in the northern, harsh desert regions to the more temperate central regions of the continent. It seemed to us that most of the people who lived in harsher areas were a little bit brighter, as they had to be to survive. And this was maybe due to selective evolution having taken place over thousands of years?

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:

quote:

Originally posted by Spring:
The Live 8 concert last July 2nd, which focused on debt relief for African countries, was probably one of the most obvious functions of this type.

My opinion is most of these type programmes have more to do with making the guilt ridden left wing humanists of the West feel good rather than actually making a real contribution to sustainable development.

Seems to me that "Sir" Bob Geldof made things worse by making it clear that many people in Africa can sit on their asses and wait for the western world to come and feed them. This had never been so apparent in Africa until Geldof got his sticky fingers into this "nobel cause" of helping the poor africans...

Several educated Ethiopians (including the one I mentioned in the post above), told us that the best thing for their country would be for all foreign aid to withdraw, and thus force them to sort things out for themselves. Which is possible for both this country, and many others, if they have to.

However, it is in the interest of the people working for the various aid programs that things continue as they are. Or else they'll be out of a job.

Population of Africa

1800 - 90 million

1950 - 225 million

2005 - 875 million

Regards,

Terry

quote:

Originally posted by T.Carr:
Population of Africa

1800 - 90 million

1950 - 225 million

2005 - 875 million

Regards,

Terry

A great portion of that population increase since the 50's is due to the west "helping" with western medicine.

I guess the "help" kind of backfired...

A lot of things respond to selection pressure besides genes. Bantu speaking people developed an iron-based technology, and spread most densely through arable regions with branches ultimately into much of Africa, displacing prior populations.

One thing that prompted European expansion was the cutoff of the silk road. Since a number of cities had become wealthy and powerful on such trade, opportunities to re-establish trade via alternative routes motivated navigational and nautical innovation. That has been called evolution, revolution, or just plain innovation. But it wasn't genetics -- not in two generations.

Another anecdote: I've had a chance to work with people from many places, including a number of Ibo, Chinese and Korean folks, Indian (from at least three language groups), Persian (Iranian -- Farsi speakers), not to mention Eurpeans. I suppose I saw a select bunch of these people... but underneath that is that the variation in sample means does not reflect the population standard deviation. Individual talent can easily outpace population averages. Any community is likely to produce some strong intellectual firepower. The question is: how is that firepower put to use? Why wasn't it used to conquer the world?

Why do we have all the cargo?

Dan