And yet, how does this explain absolute geniuses like Thomas Sowel?
I'll accept your argument about memes and brain development. I haven't studied that in quite awhile and don't have time to do the homework to confirm or counter. But what I'm suggesting is that what you describe explains why, as a whole, blacks fare worse than other races, it does not explain why so many can't do basic math.
I suggest there is a cultural issue, mainly tribalism, that contributed to the lack of Sub Saharan development. Your explanation might very easily be the cause of that lack of cultural development, but we've seen successful black people who grew up in middle class neighborhoods instead of the hood, and they do just fine. I call many of these good friends.
Again, I'm arguing for basic learning skills that 90+% of all races should be able to do.
John Locke was one of my heroes. He didn't understand the brain as well as you do, but he understood a lot of other things. The theory of Tabula Rasa helped shape the Western Culture all here are so proud of, and there's no room in there for saying some people are too stupid to learn.
Instead, I agree with studies that show blacks in America have a wider range of outcomes, but can reach similar heights and depths as other races. Whites tend to cluster a lot more around the average.
Well, there are a few reasons. First off, we're talking about populations, not individuals. What can be said to be true about a population, doesn't necessarily apply to individuals. For example, even if the average black person is much less intelligent than the average Asian, it doesn't change the fact that intelligence is normally distributed about that mean, so there will be exceptional individuals in that population, just much less than the other races. For example there may be 1 genius for every 100,000 black people, but there might be 10 for every 100,000 Asian people. The second reason is that most African Americans have a bit of white in them, which actually increased their IQ relative to native Africans.
I suggest there is a cultural issue, mainly tribalism, that contributed to the lack of Sub Saharan development.
Culture is a reflection of genetic predisposition, not an overlay on top of it. It's actually a matter of environment more than culture. In Africa, food is available year round, and it's always warm enough to be comfortable. This means that there is no evolutionary pressure to create memes like agriculture, as you always have food. Conversely, our ancestors evolved in the frozen north, meaning that food isn't available for 6 months out of the year. This actually induces things like the invention of agriculture, and even further developments such as writing. Writing originally came about to pass down information around agricultural learnings (like the best time to plant, superstitious rituals, how to store food without it becoming rancid or toxic, etc). It has nothing to do with culture, they just never had the need to invent such things, so they didn't.
I don't disagree with your main point and find some of what you said extremely interesting.
I'm not 100% with you on food being available year-round in Africa - not sure what you mean, can you expand?
Secondly, I love the idea of environmental restriction breeding human development, but if that were unilaterally true, why aren't the indigenous Eskimo populations proportionally more advanced than European-evolved humans as the latter are toward African populations? Certainly they evolved amongst the most difficult conditions, no?
Sure, basically humans are actually scavengers by nature, and only evolved to hunt later in our evolution. In Africa, there is always something to hunt or scavenge, even during the hard periods of the year, which is the dry season. Basically, it's almost impossible to starve in Africa if your population is in balance with the carrying capacity of the land. Recent famines in Africa are actually due to modern food aid causing explosions in population, which causes starvation when that aid ends. They actually have tons of arable land, but little infrastructure and know how in order to utilize it.
With regards to Eskimos, there is actually a balance required. Agriculture isn't really possible that far north as the growing season is too short (and not that productive due to lower light levels) so they wouldn't have invented it. You see the same phenomenon in places like Mongolia. They have a strong hunting and herding tradition, but not a very strong farming tradition due to the area not suited for crop production.
"With regards to Eskimos, there is actually a balance required. Agriculture isn't really possible that far north as the growing season is too short (and not that productive due to lower light levels) so they wouldn't have invented it."
Fair enough, my understanding of your point was that the greater the environmental restriction on a human population, the more cortical development they experience and thus the more intelligent and advanced they can become- I just don't think it's that simple. Africans, for instance, may have not had the food shortages necessary to develop agriculture; but there was more than enough incentive to develop more sophisticated means for shelter, cleaner water, etc. Yet the population still (to my knowledge) experienced no civilized development of any kind for thousands of years.
And since they never had the need, they never developed the capacity. If all of my problems are essentially solved for me, what need have I of the cognitive ability to solve problems myself?
And yet, how does this explain absolute geniuses like Thomas Sowel?
I'll accept your argument about memes and brain development. I haven't studied that in quite awhile and don't have time to do the homework to confirm or counter. But what I'm suggesting is that what you describe explains why, as a whole, blacks fare worse than other races, it does not explain why so many can't do basic math.
I suggest there is a cultural issue, mainly tribalism, that contributed to the lack of Sub Saharan development. Your explanation might very easily be the cause of that lack of cultural development, but we've seen successful black people who grew up in middle class neighborhoods instead of the hood, and they do just fine. I call many of these good friends.
Again, I'm arguing for basic learning skills that 90+% of all races should be able to do.
John Locke was one of my heroes. He didn't understand the brain as well as you do, but he understood a lot of other things. The theory of Tabula Rasa helped shape the Western Culture all here are so proud of, and there's no room in there for saying some people are too stupid to learn.
Instead, I agree with studies that show blacks in America have a wider range of outcomes, but can reach similar heights and depths as other races. Whites tend to cluster a lot more around the average.
Well, there are a few reasons. First off, we're talking about populations, not individuals. What can be said to be true about a population, doesn't necessarily apply to individuals. For example, even if the average black person is much less intelligent than the average Asian, it doesn't change the fact that intelligence is normally distributed about that mean, so there will be exceptional individuals in that population, just much less than the other races. For example there may be 1 genius for every 100,000 black people, but there might be 10 for every 100,000 Asian people. The second reason is that most African Americans have a bit of white in them, which actually increased their IQ relative to native Africans.
Culture is a reflection of genetic predisposition, not an overlay on top of it. It's actually a matter of environment more than culture. In Africa, food is available year round, and it's always warm enough to be comfortable. This means that there is no evolutionary pressure to create memes like agriculture, as you always have food. Conversely, our ancestors evolved in the frozen north, meaning that food isn't available for 6 months out of the year. This actually induces things like the invention of agriculture, and even further developments such as writing. Writing originally came about to pass down information around agricultural learnings (like the best time to plant, superstitious rituals, how to store food without it becoming rancid or toxic, etc). It has nothing to do with culture, they just never had the need to invent such things, so they didn't.
I don't disagree with your main point and find some of what you said extremely interesting.
I'm not 100% with you on food being available year-round in Africa - not sure what you mean, can you expand?
Secondly, I love the idea of environmental restriction breeding human development, but if that were unilaterally true, why aren't the indigenous Eskimo populations proportionally more advanced than European-evolved humans as the latter are toward African populations? Certainly they evolved amongst the most difficult conditions, no?
Sure, basically humans are actually scavengers by nature, and only evolved to hunt later in our evolution. In Africa, there is always something to hunt or scavenge, even during the hard periods of the year, which is the dry season. Basically, it's almost impossible to starve in Africa if your population is in balance with the carrying capacity of the land. Recent famines in Africa are actually due to modern food aid causing explosions in population, which causes starvation when that aid ends. They actually have tons of arable land, but little infrastructure and know how in order to utilize it.
With regards to Eskimos, there is actually a balance required. Agriculture isn't really possible that far north as the growing season is too short (and not that productive due to lower light levels) so they wouldn't have invented it. You see the same phenomenon in places like Mongolia. They have a strong hunting and herding tradition, but not a very strong farming tradition due to the area not suited for crop production.
Good context on Africa, thank you.
"With regards to Eskimos, there is actually a balance required. Agriculture isn't really possible that far north as the growing season is too short (and not that productive due to lower light levels) so they wouldn't have invented it."
Fair enough, my understanding of your point was that the greater the environmental restriction on a human population, the more cortical development they experience and thus the more intelligent and advanced they can become- I just don't think it's that simple. Africans, for instance, may have not had the food shortages necessary to develop agriculture; but there was more than enough incentive to develop more sophisticated means for shelter, cleaner water, etc. Yet the population still (to my knowledge) experienced no civilized development of any kind for thousands of years.
And since they never had the need, they never developed the capacity. If all of my problems are essentially solved for me, what need have I of the cognitive ability to solve problems myself?