Why is African so poverty stricken?

[Handy andy]

Some family groups are on average smarter than other groups, some also have better educations and appear smarter, where as in real life, they are thick as two short planks. Why should this not be the case in with different races, as well. On average we are all human and behave in similar ways, but we all have inherited abilities from our parents. Hitler went down the line with Eugenics and selective breeding to produce a master race. In one of the Scandinavian countries prior to WW2 I think practised sterilisation of any one with deformities or coming from unwanted social groups, criminals, gypsies etc. They have a very healthy population today with few heriditory diseases. I am sorry I do not recall the country, but you can check.

 

By focusing on race and intelligence are people suggesting a controlled breeding program to improve the breeding stock. Or maybe genocide sterilization to selectively breed only from the stronger brighter members of a society. Is this not normally covered by female animals under normal circumstances selecting only males who they think will be useful to them. Males who are going to be failures don't get much choice. Is Eugenics or enforced sterilisation not just forcibly improving the gene pool, which will if left to its own devices slowly improve.

[Ten oz]

Some family groups are on average smarter than other groups, some also have better educations and appear smarter, where as in real life, they are thick as two short planks. Why should this not be the case in with different races, as well. On average we are all human and behave in similar ways, but we all have inherited abilities from our parents. Hitler went down the line with Eugenics and selective breeding to produce a master race. In one of the Scandinavian countries prior to WW2 I think practised sterilisation of any one with deformities or coming from unwanted social groups, criminals, gypsies etc. They have a very healthy population today with few heriditory diseases. I am sorry I do not recall the country, but you can check.

 

By focusing on race and intelligence are people suggesting a controlled breeding program to improve the breeding stock. Or maybe genocide sterilization to selectively breed only from the stronger brighter members of a society. Is this not normally covered by female animals under normal circumstances selecting only males who they think will be useful to them. Males who are going to be failures don't get much choice. Is Eugenics or enforced sterilisation not just forcibly improving the gene pool, which will if left to its own devices slowly improve.

Implying that Hilter's eugenics campaign was a success and that there is a healthier population out there today as a result requires a citiation. "I don't recall, but you can check" really doesn't cut it.

 

Hilter killed millions of Jewish people. He did not selectively breed them. He murdered them. Today Israel has the 8th highest life expectancy in the world. Higher than the scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Edited May 16, 2017 by Ten oz

[Lord Antares]

Re: IQ, the measure is problematic for a lot of reasons and as the biology associated with the measure is unknown we are not really clear what the measure is really telling us something about.

 

But it must mean something if the results from different studies match consistently.

 

 

Yet again, even if true, it does not explain the vast disparity and the success in at least some countries.

 

It does. Some countries have larger average IQs and a different culture. I feel like generalizing Africa is a huge problem for you in this discussion, so fair enough - we will not generalize it.

 

Here are the results for the first 3 maps I ran accross:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, different parts of Africa have different averages. This is true for all continents, not just Africa. But Africa CLEARLY has the highest percantage of the low ones. Coincidentally, (right?) the countries which are higher in IQ are the more developed ones. It could very well be that the people there have lower IQ BECAUSE the conditions are poor and the country is undeveloped, not the other way round, but the issue persists that it is undeveloped.

 

Also, as you can see, the Balkans have lower scores than the rest of Europe and are less developed. As someone who lives in the Balkans, I can only say that it matches my observation, so to me, it clearly has some validity, even if it is anecdotal from my side. The results seem to point that the countries with lower IQs are less developed. Or, that the countries which are less developed has lower IQs, whichever sounds more right to you.

 

So, objectively speaking, it would seem that someone born in China has a higher chance of having a high IQ, whereas someone living in (pick a country in) Africa has a higher chance of having a low IQ, just like the OP said.

[Ten oz]

@ Lord Antares, United States have poeople from many different backgrounds: Native, African, Indian, European, etc, etc. about 50 million people in Unite States have Africa heritage. Yet according to your charts United State is basically the same as most all of Western Europe. Within the United State our most developed cities are also amongst our most diverse. New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and etc have very large immigrant populations. Very diverse populations. Same is true throughout Western Europe. Places like Paris and London are more developed than areas which are less immigrants.

 

IMO geopolitical factors are a larger component than genetics for why different parts of the world are more or less developed. People from every country in the world have proved they can thrive when given opportunities.

[Lord Antares]

@ Lord Antares, United States have poeople from many different backgrounds: Native, African, Indian, European, etc, etc. about 50 million people in Unite States have Africa heritage.

 

 

It could very well be that the people there have lower IQ BECAUSE the conditions are poor and the country is undeveloped, not the other way round, but the issue persists that it is undeveloped.

 

 

 

'IMO geopolitical factors are a larger component than genetics for why different parts of the world are more or less developed. '

 

They might or might not be. We don't know that. That's why I'm saying you can't dismiss genetic factors just because it seems racist. You can dismiss it for valid reasons, though. It's not that simple of an issue.

 

 

People from every country in the world have proved they can thrive when given opportunities.

 

Define ''thrive''. I cannot really apply that word for Sudan or Papua New Guinea.

[Handy andy]

Implying that Hilter's eugenics campaign was a success and that there is a healthier population out there today as a result requires a citiation. "I don't recall, but you can check" really doesn't cut it.

 

Hilter killed millions of Jewish people. He did not selectively breed them. He murdered them. Today Israel has the 8th highest life expectancy in the world. Higher than the scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

 

I referenced a Scandanavian country, not Hitlers Germany. I think it was Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden

 

I wonder if the healthier Israeli population is a result of only the fittest and brightest surviving the holocaust.

 

During war times does it take brains to volunteer and charge across fields into hales of machine gun fire. Do the brighter ones find something better to do, and survive the war, does war increase IQ's by culling those that don't think or are taught not to think it is a bad idea to get shot for some belief system or another.

[CharonY]

Antares:

I will try to summarize some of the largest issues with the statements above and note that no, you cannot just handwave those away by talking about averages.

My main point is that IQ is multifactorial and has little explanatory power. With all the unknown surrounding this value my contention is that you cannot use it reliably use it as the main or even sole explanation. This is based on a number of rather simple observations that you have not addressed in any meaningful way (other than trying vaguely associate development with IQ). At the heart is the issue that correlation is not causation and I will try to explain a final time.

 

If the model is true that A) IQ is highly genetic and can be traced along racial lines (a highly contested assumption) and B) said IQ is directly correlated to economic wealth and C) the distribution proposed by Rushton et al. is correct (i.e. Asians being the most, Africans being the least intelligent), then the world should clearly show that all Asian countries are the most developed, probably followed by Middle Eastern, European and then African countries.

 

We can clearly see that much of Asia is doing less economically well however. In addition, if you look within populations you will find strong disagreement with the assumption, as e.g. indigenous Americans (which show admixture of Asians and Europeans) who fair less well in IQ tests. Or even if you just stay on the African continent, your maps shows that Botswana has some of the lowest scores, but it is doing rather well. So in other words, if we wanted the model to be true we are forced to use an extremely coarse grain on the world and that would a warning sign that the explanatory power is likely to be very low.

In addition, there is a host of (modern) literature out there that show clear disruption of this cut and dry narrative of simple connection between race and IQ, though I will say that the matter is far from solved. What it does mean is that there is more to it and that without understanding mechanisms we should be careful in extrapolations.

 

What I am saying, since the early posts, however, is that individual history is likely to have much higher influence on the outcome. Take China, a country with some of the highest IQ scores. Now go back to the 70s or 80s (i.e. time frames where genetics plays no part). Then tell me how developed the country is. The key element is not that they got smarter, but that they started opening up to a capitalist system. Likewise Bostwana did well, not because their average IQ is higher, but because of resources and good governance (despite being cut-off from much of the booming Western markets) after gaining independence. Also the influence of colonialism has been ins some cases extreme and are likely to be major contributing factor.

 

And because of all these factors that my take is that these overarching one-dimensional narratives are really just propagation of a confirmation bias rather than genuine curiosity in the subject. It is a bit like focusing on the icing and declare how important it is whilst not realizing that there is no cake beneath. Complex subjects deserve some time to be researched upon. Otherwise it is precisely the same as all these aether posts on the forum.

Edited May 16, 2017 by CharonY

[Lord Antares]

OK, that was a good point about China in the 80s. I will add to that the fact that India used to be one of the most developed civilizations in ancient times, whereas it's doing very poorly now. Greece is also a shadow of what it used to be. I acknowledge this.

 

You also made some strawmans, however:

 

 

If the model is true that A) IQ is highly genetic and can be traced along racial lines (a highly contested assumption) and B) said IQ is directly correlated to economic wealth and C) the distribution proposed by Rushton et al. is correct (i.e. Asians being the most, Africans being the least intelligent), then the world should clearly show that all Asian countries are the most developed, probably followed by Middle Eastern, European and then African countries.

 

This is incorrect. Why would the results show that ALL Asian countries are the most developed? Where did anyone mention that a few countries in a continent doing well means that all must be doing well? If you're implying that all of the nations are genetically the same, they aren't. But OK, I see your point now. Neighboring countries are more similar genetically to one another than countries from other continents. This is an overgeneralization. It's a valid point but I don't think it must apply. For example, Egyptians are a lot different than their more southern neighbours. Compare how well they did throughout history.

 

But as we agreed above, the issue is more complicated than that. Egypt is also one country which should be doing better now if only genetics were at play.

 

Maybe it's the other way around then, as I mentioned before? Maybe the people have lesser IQs because they are provided with lesser education and culture, rather than the other way round?

The fact that black people of African descent are doing ''better'' in America in Europe supports this notion. So it isn't genetics, or at least not to that great of an extent?

 

OK, we're making progress.

[CharonY]

Maybe it's the other way around then, as I mentioned before? Maybe the people have lesser IQs because they are provided with lesser education and culture, rather than the other way round?

The fact that black people of African descent are doing ''better'' in America in Europe supports this notion. So it isn't genetics, or at least not to that great of an extent?

 

 

I would be careful about "culture" as it is often used in a poorly defined way. Often, it is seen as something inherent to a population, without taking its massively changing background into account. For example, cultural traditions may exist for a very long time, but their context can have massive differences, depending on when you study them. Cultural values, as another example, tend to shift massively even from generation to generation.

 

That being said yes, I think most of the people asking the question why certain nations do not do well should turn it around and consider why most modern Western Nations are doing well now. As this appears more to be the aberration. And one could ask what happened that they eventually got successful. Looking at world history it was by no means an obvious trajectory and it took a long while to catch up with with the Islamic world. One important aspect in that regard was that the latter were very well tapped into a trading network (such as the silk road). During ancient and medieval ages African empires and kingdoms were certainly a challenge for their European counterparts. So clearly it is not that African development was lagging behind a projected trajectory. If we look at the world stage and compare the largest empires Europe was clearly not a dominating power since the fall of the Western Roman empire, especially compared to say, the Asian empires.

 

So from that viewpoint one could instead ask why European nations eventually became so successful. Again, I advise against any projections that assume something inherent that just wanted to break out (as it would not explain the millennia of not being the top dog as well as just being bad science). Now, obviously this question, just as OP's cannot be simply explained in a post or with a singular argument. Again, it is assumed to be a an interplay of a large number of factors over a significant time frame and include a wide array of economic developments, institutional developments and influx of wealth from the New World. Essentially the influx of gold and silver allowed the European nations to tap into Asian markets that were up to that that time (i.e. end of the 15th century) closed to them. This led to an increased development and expansion of mercantile powers and empires and, as some historians argue, this development provided the basis for the eventual Industrial Revolution. Note that this is a very abridged and incomplete narrative, but it is meant to state that European hegemony was not an obvious end point (and who knows how the future is going to be) and that a confluence of factors led to the point we are now today. In other words, nations are not economically less developed just because that is what they are or some inherent traits, it is rather that Europeans pulled ahead because of the mentioned (and other) factors.

 

But again, to gain any real insights there is whole discipline that deals with that matter and one would be hard-pressed to get clear answer from reading only a few books (and now, Jared Diamond's is not one of them).

[nec209]

 

I would be careful about "culture" as it is often used in a poorly defined way. Often, it is seen as something inherent to a population, without taking its massively changing background into account. For example, cultural traditions may exist for a very long time, but their context can have massive differences, depending on when you study them. Cultural values, as another example, tend to shift massively even from generation to generation.

 

That being said yes, I think most of the people asking the question why certain nations do not do well should turn it around and consider why most modern Western Nations are doing well now. As this appears more to be the aberration. And one could ask what happened that they eventually got successful. Looking at world history it was by no means an obvious trajectory and it took a long while to catch up with with the Islamic world. One important aspect in that regard was that the latter were very well tapped into a trading network (such as the silk road). During ancient and medieval ages African empires and kingdoms were certainly a challenge for their European counterparts. So clearly it is not that African development was lagging behind a projected trajectory. If we look at the world stage and compare the largest empires Europe was clearly not a dominating power since the fall of the Western Roman empire, especially compared to say, the Asian empires.

 

So from that viewpoint one could instead ask why European nations eventually became so successful. Again, I advise against any projections that assume something inherent that just wanted to break out (as it would not explain the millennia of not being the top dog as well as just being bad science). Now, obviously this question, just as OP's cannot be simply explained in a post or with a singular argument. Again, it is assumed to be a an interplay of a large number of factors over a significant time frame and include a wide array of economic developments, institutional developments and influx of wealth from the New World. Essentially the influx of gold and silver allowed the European nations to tap into Asian markets that were up to that that time (i.e. end of the 15th century) closed to them. This led to an increased development and expansion of mercantile powers and empires and, as some historians argue, this development provided the basis for the eventual Industrial Revolution. Note that this is a very abridged and incomplete narrative, but it is meant to state that European hegemony was not an obvious end point (and who knows how the future is going to be) and that a confluence of factors led to the point we are now today. In other words, nations are not economically less developed just because that is what they are or some inherent traits, it is rather that Europeans pulled ahead because of the mentioned (and other) factors.

 

But again, to gain any real insights there is whole discipline that deals with that matter and one would be hard-pressed to get clear answer from reading only a few books (and now, Jared Diamond's is not one of them).

 

And some can say Africa was never free the British they came and exploited them, took resources and kept them in poverty.

 

Say if it was not for the British they would not be in mess they are today.