Those damn ignorant racists at the New York Times!

[Heraclitus]

Well... when it comes to your comment about ALL the MANY schools actually dropping labs... yes you were!

Lol misdirection, I've acknowledge the school thing dude. I'm talking about the wider picture here.

[Heraclitus]

Did Heraclitus answer this?

I've checked this in the meantime Lynn appears to have used the refugee numbers and then adjusted them according to his own estimates.

Its reasonable to doubt his estimates, so the example is far less potent than I would have hoped. It can easily be dismissed if one so wishes.

[Barnabas]

Heraclitus, haven't you considered that some groups may not adapt as well as others to liberal capitalism?

You belong to a former soviet block country, you have the example of Russia, a nation that was a rural, serf based, poorly industrialized country, till they abandoned capitalism, and then they became the second most powerful nation on earth.

Perhaps some groups are not dumb, but would succed more under a more collectivist, authoritatian type of Gov

[Heraclitus]

As a side note, I find this idea that Arabs and other Mediterranean peoples have low IQ's bizarre. From the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumeria through the entire course of history, these low IQ groups like the Arabs and Greeks dominated Western culture. The Middle East was the most advanced area on the planet until the 18th century. How did the Arabs all go retarded?

And Hera, did you have any response to my point before... How is it that middling 2nd world Latin Americans, Greeks, Balkans, Iberians, Turks, Arabs, etc. all have about the same low IQ's in the 80's, but the wealthy Italians have 100+ IQ's. Did you ever pull up your IQ stats for the poor Eastern European countries?

I went and grabbed Richard Lynn (that's your boy, right) stats...

Bulgaria 87
Lithuania 91
Romania 94



Why do you not see a pattern here, Hera?

2nd rate countries (Latin America, Middle East, Spain, Greece, Serbia, Lithuania, Romania, etc. etc.) all have about the same IQ range 85-95 regardless of ethnic similarity or not (why are the Lithuanians not the same as the Germans? The Nazis considered the Lithuanians part of the Germanic race though they didn't even speak a Germanic language! Says a lot about perceived cultural and genetic similarity).

Then you take a look at the Italians who have no reason to be at all genetically different than the Spanish or the Greeks or the Arabs... yet they have a 100+ IQ. Italy also happens to be in the top 10 of wealthiest countries in the world.

Let's think about it... poorer countries, regardless if you're talking Latinos, Afghans, or Romanians, all have about the same low IQ... rich countries, even those like Italy with populations similar to surrounding low IQ countries, have high IQ's... add in the fact that richer countries have a better fed, healthier, and better educated population... it's obvious what is the cause of the disparities in IQ.

Now this is a reasonable argument.

The Jews are a example of a group that underwent rapid changes in IQ over the last k to 2k years. Why is it hard to imagine the Mediterranean regions undergoing change on similar time scales?

Also you are ignoring geography and technology. Agriculture in Scandinavia or Russia or Japan is hard due to climate. It needs all sorts of advances and special kinds of crops developed. To be fair agriculture in Mesopotamia was hard, however as Jared Diamond points out the area was rich in wild plant species suitable for crops. I've talked before about my pet theories of the interplay of geographic and genetic determinism so I wont repeat them here, I dig up the link and edit it in here.

Ok now about Italians being particularly genetically similar to the Spanish and Italians

It dosen't seem that impressive.

As to Mediteranean genetic unity in general. Albert do I really need to repost all those links about large Subsaharan Admixture in the Muslim world? Think about this reasonably. Muslims imported 20 million something Black slaves to their homelands. Southern Europeans, especially the Italians (who only got a colonial empire for a short while in the 20th century) did not.

Anyway you are cherry picking examples in arguing wealth>intelligence. Most Chinese are dirt poor, China is still a poor country compared to the West, yet it outperforms us and is just a point behind Japan. The United Arab Emirates is a wealthy country, they do poorly. Also if we must use Lynn's figures let me point out he did strive to pick representative populations not including recent immigrant labor.

Lynn's figures for Lithuania (like many others) have been criticized extensively on grounds that the test he used to get their numbers dosen't really correlate that well with IQ.

Also why the **** should anyone care what the Nazis thought on race Albert?

[Heraclitus]

Heraclitus, haven't you considered that some groups may not adapt as well as others to liberal capitalism?

You belong to a former soviet block country, you have the example of Russia, a nation that was a rural, serf based, poorly industrialized country, till they abandoned capitalism, and then they became the second most powerful nation on earth.

Perhaps some groups are not dumb, but would succed more under a more collectivist, authoritatian type of Gov

This is a very interesting argument, I would love to discuss this!

The Incas immediately come to mind. They basically had a state run economy before the Spanish came along.

[Heraclitus]

Source please.

You didn't know this? Anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African..._United_States

It is estimated that the current population of African immigrants to the United States is about 881,300.[2] Countries with the most immigrants to the U.S. are Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Somalia, and South Africa.

Additionally, according to the U.S. Census, 55% of immigrants from Africa are male, while 45% are female. Age groups with the largest cohort of African-born immigrants are 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54 with 24.5%, 27.9%, and 15.0% respectively.[2]

Lets say that 90% are pure SubSaharan Blacks. That leaves us with 0,8 million people, Africa has a population of 1000 million. If we suppose SubSaharan IQ around 80 this means that the 95th percentile is about en pair with Asian IQs. If we take the 98th we beat Jews. Now how large a fraction of the 98th or 95th percentile do you think would leave Africa if they can? Also why go anywhere else but the US if they have a choice? Once you crack the numbers you realize you need relative low percentages of them choosing to do so in order to explain the high performance of US African immigrants.

Is it really that hard to imagine the US gets the best and brightest while those with less resources head for Europe or the Middle East?

[Heraclitus]

If Heraclitus is so confident that a decade from now most people will agree with him, why does he think the human race is doomed?

How many Americans oppose affirmative action, how many Americans want to reduce immigration from Mexico? Yet neither is going away in the near future.


And to flip this around, how many scientist belive we need to impliment radical change to stave off global warming? Yet how little have we done so far.

If 20% of Joe Plumbers, 50% of university educated people and 90% of experts agree with me in 10 years it won't mean anything will actually change on the policy front for a long long time. I have a feeling too little will be done too late.

[Barnabas]

Spaniards and Italians don't look alike, I live in a country in which the majority of the population has both spanish and italian ancestry, and if you are used to seeing them very rarely you would confuse an ethnic Spaniard for an ethnic Italian.
Italians have some (I am inventing terms) adriatic (yugoslav like), central european, and eastern mediterranean (magna grecia derived) features that spaniards don't have. There are more light italians than light spaniards, and Spaniards have straighter hair generally.

Some people, like the Argentine Ginobili can only be italian, and the footballer David Villa can only be a spaniard or portuguese, off course I am talking of unmixed people.

Heraclitus, yes, I was thinking of the Incas. But also of Russia. If genes determine behaviour in some ways, then some groups of people could tend more towards individualism while others more to collectivism because of behaviour that was selected when those groups were still hunter gatherers or herders.
I don't really believe that but I wouldn't openly deny it.

I think you have to look for a different explanation other than black admixture to explain the decadence of the muslim world. It really does not explain anything. Cordoba did not fall to the Spaniards because of black admixture. Baghdad did not become a medium city of 200.000 people by the XIX century because of Black admixture, the same I could say about Istanbul, Damascus or even Egypt which has throught all of its history received both sub saharan and asiatic immigrants with both groups compensating each other.

I would rather blame Islam and Vasco da Gama.

[Heraclitus]

I think you have to look for a different explanation other than black admixture to explain the decadence of the muslim world. It really does not explain anything. Cordoba did not fall to the Spaniards because of black admixture. Baghdad did not become a medium city of 200.000 people by the XIX century because of Black admixture, the same I could say about Istanbul, Damascus or even Egypt which has throught all of its history received both sub saharan and asiatic immigrants with both groups compensating each other.

I would rather blame Islam and Vasco da Gama.

I'm not saying the influx of Black slaves caused their decline. It is a however a important thing that seperates Mediterranean populations.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22956855/P...terranean-gonz

According to the more accurate latter method, Sub-Saharan African admixture is ~13% in North Africa and "imperceptible" (~0.01%) in Southern Europe:





These are not genetic differences that can be papered over.

[Barnabas]

Why that and not endogamy (marrying the daughter of your paternal uncle as the ideal marriage) or polygamy (perhaps the wrong people, brutish successful warrios, have been having too many kids the last millenium)?

[Heraclitus]

Why that and not endogamy (marrying the daughter of your paternal uncle as the ideal marriage) or polygamy (perhaps the wrong people, brutish successful warrios, have been having too many kids the last millenium)?

That sperate them too to a degree, however endogamy was widespread in nearly all Middle Age cultures. Also why would Brutish warriors be having more kids than anyone else in patriarchal polygamy? However such a dysgenic change is possible I admit.

I do agree with the wider idea of dysgenic patterns being linked to the decline of the Islamic world but I haven't stumbled upon the mechanisms for this not even any convincing evidence yet so I don't bring this up.

However the effects you mention are smaller than the 10% Black admixture in terms of pure genetic distance (not necessarily phenotype difference) which is what I am arguing about with Albert.

[Barnabas]

Because it was the warriors and conquerors (not only arabs but mongols and all the kinds of turks) who were rewarded with many women.

How could 10% black admixture be that bad? I bet there are hundreds of thousands of white anglo saxon protestants with over 10% unnoticeable black admixture.

Even If racial differences in iq existed, I would still expect someone with three "average" white grandparents and one " average" black grandparent to have the same iq as an "average" white person.

[Heraclitus]

Because it was the warriors and conquerors (not only arabs but mongols and all the kinds of turks) who were rewarded with many women.

How could 10% black admixture be that bad? I bet there are hundreds of thousands of white anglo saxon protestants with over 10% unnoticeable black admixture.

Even If racial differences in iq existed, I would still expect someone with three "average" white grandparents and one " average" black grandparent to have the same iq as an "average" white person.

You are not getting this.

Ancient stable admixture population through natural selection and fixation basically become new populations over time.

However the effects you mention are smaller than the 10% Black admixture in terms of pure genetic distance (not necessarily phenotype difference) which is what I am arguing about with Albert.

I'm not arguing North Africans are more like SubSaharan Africans than "pure" European populations. I'm just arguing they are genetically very different from Southern Europeans.

First the Mediterranean and then politics and religion have been a major barrier to gene flow through history and differences in Black African admixture are just one clear proof of that.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'm not saying the influx of Black slaves caused their decline. It is a however a important thing that seperates Mediterranean populations.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22956855/P...terranean-gonz

According to the more accurate latter method, Sub-Saharan African admixture is ~13% in North Africa and "imperceptible" (~0.01%) in Southern Europe:





These are not genetic differences that can be papered over.

You're not proving anything with this. Look how low Turkey is... you make no mention of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, anything... just North Africans. OF COURSE North Africans have black admixture or else the popular misconception that Moors were all black would not exist. There were some black Moors and Berber admixture with black Africans is probably much older than that because Berbers as far back as ancient times had contact with West Africa. And Egypt was briefly ruled by Nubian pharaohs in the 8th century BC.

[Al B. Sure!]

And Spain is bull****... and for some reason there's no mention of Portugal.

Why should there be more Black admixture in Spain? Not just because of the Arabs/Berbers/Moors that occupied them for 700 years but also because Brazil and Latin America weren't the only places slaves were sent.

http://old.antislavery.org/breakingthesilence/slave_routes/slave_routes_portugal.shtml

Portugal as the hub of business, with goods and slaves traded through its capital Lisbon, with most slaves working in cities such as Lisbon, Évora and areas such as the Algarve. By the mid 16th century there were over 32,000 African slaves in Portugal, with the majority owned by the aristocracy, officials and religious institutions.

From wikipedia:

By the year 1552 black African slaves made up 10 percent of the population of Lisbon.

And though they were substantially rarer, Black Africans wound up throughout Europe. Some famous Europeans of African-descent include Alexander Dumas and Alexander Pushkin.