[Yarn]

RealRockingham:

2) Yes. And would you agree that the physical differences that have emerged over that time are quite significant, despite having evolved over the last 70 000 years?

Yes. By the time the west began conquering the rest of the world, massive discrepencies in immune systems had evolved into being between Eurasians and Africans on the one hand, and Americans and Polynesians on the other.

These discrepencies grew as a consequence of Eurasians and Africans being hit with a lot more epidemics and plagues than other humans. These diseases caused population shock events that allowed significant amounts of evolution to occur over very short time frames.

It therefore does not follow that evolution which lacked such shock events could take place as quickly. However, superior strength among Africans suggests that it can. At least through degeneration.

Would you further agree that this indicates that significant mental differences emerging over that time are at least possible?

Yes.

3) Yes. And the most adaptable of all... the cream of the crop, you might say... would have been the ones to survive the migrations into Eurasia. Given that Europe is closer then China, it would explain why Mongoloids are smarter then Caucasians- their ancestors had to travel over a larger distance, thus necessitating greater adaptability.

I have read that native Americans colonized the entire American super-continent within a 1000 year timeframe. Long distance migrations can occur fairly quickly. That isn't say that significant evolution can't occur during them. But it could only occur if there were fairly intense pressure pushing for them.

I don't see how it is vastly harder to live as a hunter and gatherer on a, in human timescales, very gradual trip North or East than it is to live as a hunter and gatherer in Africa.

Since humans first evolved in Africa, it is easier for us to survive there in someways. In much of Africa for example, you would not need as much clothing as you would in moderate and sub-arctic environments.

On the other hand though, African wild life has posed a danger to Africans for as long as humans have existed. In other continents, humans did away with the most dangerous wild life fairly quickly because such wild life didn't have time to evolve to be cautious around people. Africa's most dangerous animals evolved along side proto-humans and so had time to adapt.

If we assume that greater difficulty faced the Mongoloid ancestors, we can assume they have fewer “founding fathers” which would explain their homogenity relative to Caucasians.

I can certainly see how the steppe environment awards intelligence to hunter and gatherers. But does it do so much more so than does the sub-Saharan African environment?

True, the steppes are a more marginal environment. But that itself doesn't insinuate anything relevant. If there is less food and less people, ceteris paribus, the importance of intelligence doesn't increase. It is the ability to cope with complexity that must be promoted in order for intelligence to be promoted.

What of the conquests?

For a long time primitive steppe warriors would periodically reak havoc on far more advanced civilizations. These warriors were the best horsemen rangers in the world. They rode upon the world's fastest horses. However, they sucked as infantry men.

Their extreme proficiency with their specialized method of combat was explanable from the lifestyle of their homelands. Their ability to win battles was a consequence of their enemies being either like they were but less skilled, as in the ME where horses were less important to daily life, or else meelee oriented.

However, it also has flaws. And it makes the assumption that technology, geography, and the resultant civilisation(or lack thereof) has no effect on our genes.

Not quite. In the book's introduction, Diamond speculates that New Guinaens are genetically more intelligent than Europeans.

All of the Eurasian developments he described created positive feedback loops selecting for increased intelligence and various personality traits (e.g., altruism, rule-following, etc.).

Rule-following requires less thinking. It dissaudes intelligence by punishing innovation and deneccessitating it.

Altruism is less important where coercion is greater. Rule-following does require us to govern our impulses, but that is not the same as altruism. Altruism is a certain kind of motivation, and for most of human history, authority has relied on fear of punishment to motivate obedience rather than on compassion and nobility. At least from the average person.

For another, it fails to explain the success of Native American states compared to those of West Africa, the Sudan, and Ethiopia.

Diamond alleges that more advanced societies became dominant not by offering better standards of living, but by conquest.

Lets talk about Ethiopia. Ethiopia is out of the way and difficult to conquer owing to its strong natural defenses. The Hykosos didn't conquer Ethiopia. The Egyptians didn't conquer Ethiopia. The Assyrians didn't conquer Ethiopia. The Persians didn't conquer Ethiopia. The Greeks didn't conquer Ethiopia. The Romans didn't conquer Ethiopia. The Muslims didn't conquer Ethiopia. Yet all of these peoples conquered Egypt, and few of them didn't benefit the territories they conquered by spurring technological advancement.

Ethiopia was never conquered until the Italians took it in the 30s.

Ancient Ethiopia conquered Egypt.

If Ethiopia exchanged so much with Eurasia, then why didn't coffee didn't spread further than Yemen until the 15th century?

Mali for example, “had farmlands where beans, rice, sorghum, millet, papaya, gourds, cotton, and peanuts were planted. Cattle, sheep, goats, and poultry were bred.”... they also had access to camels, and were influenced and had contact with Eurasian civilisations. Yet, despite all of these advantages(a better crop package, pack animals, the wheel, domesticated animals, access to the legacy of Eurasian cultures), Mali and other West African, Nubian or Ethiopian empires like it, never even came close to the Maya, Inca, or Aztecs in terms of accomplishment.

You could argue that Central America offered a more competitive environment for civilizations than West Africa. During the Mayan era, Mayan civilization was was comprised of a number of competing sovereign city states. When the Aztecs were at the peak of their power, Mexico was divided into a number of strong independent states.

I vaguely recollect that the Incans conquered cities to create their empire. This suggests that city state competition may have played a part in their development.

I don't know of any West African competition. But it seems to me perfectly plausible there was some.

I find your Mali example more formidable than your Ethiopian one, but I will need to do more research before I can fully evaluate it. My knowledge of the relevant histories involved is relatively weak. I have some graded homework to do, so the aforementioned research will have to wait for the moment.

What does explain the disparity is that the Amerindians are descendants of the Mongoloids, who were subject to natural selection favouring larger brains on account of their climate and the neccessary adaptability to cope with it. The Amerindians seperated from the Mongoloid gene pool before the process of natural selection had fully worked its elevation of their IQ and their adaption to the climate- this is evident in the lack of epicanthic folds in Amerindians.

What is it precisely about the steppe environment that is supposed to have so greatly boosted intelligence?

6) I don’t quite get your meaning. Are you saying it will be difficult to find the gene/s responsible for genetic differences, or that socio-economic backgrounds obscure he existance of mental differences?

I meant the latter. Though the former is also true at the moment. The science of genomics is a rapidly developing field, but we still don't know what most genes do.

7)Hmmmm.... sources for this? According to my source(Closing the Black/White IQ Gap?: James Flynn and Charles Murray search for a solution. - Reason Magazine), their are actually 2 valid ways of analysing the data. According to one, the IQ gap has not significantly narrowed. According to the other, it has, by about 5 points.

It has narrowed less than I thought it did then. It was something I heard second hand as a general statement.