Discuss!
Well seeing as this current economy is nothing like Capitalism as we here know of it- I think its better to say that central banking and government intervention is racist.
What can one think when their are price floors on employment, When there are unions that ristrict the supply of labor, When the education recieved by most minorities is fraudulant, when there are some racist pigs in the business community?
This is like saying a teaspoon is racist.
Sounds like more zombies to me.
The market is a process, not a thing…hence it can’t be anything. All it can do is dissolve assertions of “things” which aren’t things at all, but nonsense - such as society or systems that are taken as things, but are in fact only metaphors.
That is of course because white people are more intelligent than dark people…due to the climate . Climate is the main factor in the pigmentation differences between humans across the planet. The real question should be is why are some countries so less advanced and so less technologically advanced as others.
“That is of course because white people are more intelligent that dark people…due to the climate . Climate is the main factor in the pigmentation differences between humans across the planet. The real question should be is why are some countries so less advanced and so less technologically advanced as others.”
So…
Weather changes skin color
Something unsaid about weather causing differing intelligence
White people are more intelligent than dark people because of the weather. Win.
I hope this wasn’t a serious post.
“You didn’t actually think no one has formulated a theory on that, did you?”
Actually I think Max Weber was the first to construct theories upon the reasoning behind varying advancements in parts of the world.
Humans evolved in different climates across the globe. Different climates select for different genetic traits. IQ is not spread equally across the globe. IQ and income are correlated. I don’t see what the problem is with his argument.
“IQ is not spread equally across the globe.”
Evidence? Even if they are not spread “equally,” why assume that weather is responsible for such an imbalance? Just because it effects physical appearance doesn’t necessarily mean it effects intellectual development.
“IQ and income are correlated.”
Not necessarily. Picture your favorite musical artist and cross that with a PhD. graduate. There are celebrities, writers, singers, etc. who make more then people who have received decades of education.
The climate is almost always the fundamental determining factor in why life in different places on Earth is different. It determines what plants will grow, and that determines what animals are around to eat them. It determines the shape of the landscape itself, and affects its chemical composition. If it affects absolutely everything else about life, it probably affects the biological, congenital factors - whatever they may be - that contribute to an “IQ” measurement in humans as well. You have to introduce an element of unobserved complexity to explain why it would not.
Homo sapiens, like the hominids before them, probably first appeared in Southern Africa, before migrating to cover the rest of the world. This means that the species was heavily naturally selected to survive in the Southern African climate, which happens to have a reputation for being one of the most easy-going and pleasant for humans in the world, with the temperature rarely dropping below freezing in most places, nor being extremely high, very little violent weather, rainfall is sufficient but not excessive, there isn’t a real ‘winter’ etc. No need for seasonal agriculture. The populations which left had to become selected for their new environments. Some of those selections would certainly be related to cognition and intelligence; more intelligent people are always the most capable of adapting to new environments. Harsher environments will require higher intelligence in order for human populations to adapt.
Also consider that the Homo sapiens migrating into Europe and western Asia were coming into contact with older hominid populations which had migrated earlier, and that the populations became interbred. It has recently been established that all modern human populations, except Africans, have elements of Neanderthal in their genes. This sort of interbreeding would drastically reduce the time needed for modern humans to acquire cognitive traits more appropriate for harsher and more diverse environments.
It was established long before Homo sapiens, long before any hominids moved out of Africa, that the main weapon in the hominid survival arsenal is extremely high cognition and intelligence relative to its competitors and potential predators, and not any other primary factor.
Of course, it is only a statistical correlation. Besides, years of formal education hardly has anything to do with “intelligence”; certainly not the congenital factors alleged to be behind it.
Anyway, it is also true that the populations in China or North Korea have a statistically higher IQ than Caucasians, but a lot of them are extremely poor and miserable at the moment relative to most Caucasian people. Intelligence does not constitute prosperity or happiness in itself; they are merely correlated statistically when measured across huge numbers of people and long time scales. I don’t think that alleged racial genetic factors determining ‘intelligence’ are important enough for individuals to care about directly in their own interactions with each other, since they are just a few of an unknown number of factors affecting entire populations of tremendous size and complexity; but that doesn’t mean that they do not exist at all, and that they aren’t going to have indirect effects on a large scale at the end of the day.
I was being serious but I did not explain myself very well. It is not so much the differences in skin pigmentation as it is the history of development with regards to specific regions compared to each other. Easten Asia for example, which is neither white or black (European or African), is in my opinion, the fastest developing region in the world. Still to this day that region remains on the cutting edge of technological advancement.
But in the last 100 years this divide based on regional differences is no longer as apparent. Due to advances in transport (airplane) people have been able to move all around the world and it can be seen that when you take a person from a region that is not so technologically developed and educate him in a more advanced society. The person will perform better than people from his original country. But he will most likely not perform as well as people in the more developed country, even though he was brought up there.
It would be interesting to see a person adopted from a poor country at birth (eg. Liberia) and given to intelligent and wealthy parents in Eastern Asia. If the baby would grow up to be just as intelligent as other people, for example grows up to work on designing chips at HTC in Taiwan. This would then prove that intelligence is not specific to skin pigmentation but that other factors play a role and intelligence is not in fact genetic.
" If it affects absolutely everything else about life, it probably affects the biological, congenital factors - whatever they may be - that contribute to an “IQ” measurement in humans as well. You have to introduce an element of unobserved complexity to explain why it would not."
Evidence for this assertion? Basically you are saying “Well gosh, it effects so many things…well then why not this!?”
“This means that the species was heavily naturally selected to survive in the Southern African climate, which happens to have a reputation for being one of the most easy-going and pleasant for humans in the world, with the temperature rarely dropping below freezing in most places, nor being extremely high, very little violent weather, rainfall is sufficient but not excessive, there isn’t a real ‘winter’ etc.”
Just because it happened there doesn’t mean it was meant for there. This is what I hate about evolution, or well the improper interpretation of it. Evolution is not “planned.” It is random mutation. The fact that humanity started in Africa does not necessarily equate any beneficial environment qualities to the region. It was chance that humanity started there. It could of just as well been Mexico or South America or South East Asia.
" No need for seasonal agriculture. The populations which left had to become selected for their new environments."
Again with this “planned” motif. Just because a gathering of homo sapiens leaves Africa does not mean they become “selected” for anything. Why would they leave in the first place considering the rosey picture you are painting of South Africa?
“Some of those selections would certainly be related to cognition and intelligence; more intelligent people are always the most capable of adapting to new environments. Harsher environments will require higher intelligence in order for human populations to adapt.”
Again, you show no evidence to support this. New environments do not demand higher intelligence. It can lead to thicker skin, fat retention, enlarging or decreasing in the size of the nose, fair/dark skin, and other random mutants that can happen but there is nothing to suggest that intelligence is a must. Even if I were to concede this point to you, that new environments demand higher intelligence, Europe, portions of the Americas and East Asia are not new environments so why suppose that your viewpoint of “new environments demands higher intelligence” is still relevant to today?
“It has recently been established that all modern human populations, except Africans, have elements of Neanderthal in their genes.”
I would like to see this evidence.
“It was established long before Homo sapiens, long before any hominids moved out of Africa, that the main weapon in the hominid survival arsenal is extremely high cognition and intelligence relative to its competitors and potential predators, and not any other primary factor.”
Yes, humoids are smarter then animals. That’s not the argument going on here.
“Of course, it is only a statistical correlation. Besides, years of formal education hardly has anything to do with “intelligence”; certainly not the congenital factors alleged to be behind it.”
So then you would conclude that a baby is just as intelligent as a 30 year old individual?
Stephen,
You might be interested in the following articles (see link-2009 articles).
Wicherts, J.M., Borsboom, D., & Dolan, C.V. (2009). Why national IQs do not support evolutionary theories of intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 91-96.
Wicherts, J.M., Borsboom, D., & Dolan, C.V. (2009). Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 104-106.
http://sites.google.com/site/borsboomdenny/papers
Richard
That wasinteresting thanks.