Are Europeans smarter or just luckier

A look at how Geography influences destiny

Published on October 25, 2003 By Draginol In History

I've been having a fairly heated email discussion with regards to whether different races of humans have significant intelligence differences. On one side there are people who believe that natural selection over the past 50,000 years has shaped humans in different regions of the world to adapt to local environmental factors. The net result is that Europeans and Asians had environmental factors that called for higher intelligence. I don't happen to agree with that. I do not think enough time has passed for natural selection to generate measurable differences in intelligence from region to region.

One prime example they provide is that Asians accomplished much more in Eurasia than they did when they migrated into North and South America.

Bill writes:

Asians were the ones who originally peopled both North and South America. So you have an apples and apples comparison. The Asians who stayed in Asia went on to build civilizations of advanced technology and sophistication. The Asians who crossed into North America had no selective pressures and were largely hunter/gatherers right up to the arrival of European colonists. What pressure did the Asians is Asia face that the Asians in North America didn't face? Answer: Caucasians.

Sorry, I don't buy that one bit. For one thing, the "Asians" that came into North America only did so 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Did natural selection generate significant intelligence differences in 10,000 years? I kind of doubt it. I have a better explanation: Environment.

What did you have for dinner tonight? I went to Panera bread where I had Asiago Roast beef. Beef, from cows didn't exist in North America. In fact, there were zero large grazing animals in North America capable of being easily domesticated (try domesticating a buffalo). And that bread? Whether it's from wheat or rye both plants are native to Eurasia. North America got screwed there too -- zero big seeded plants native to North America. The best North America got was corn which is a pretty piss poor cereal. And in fact, corn demonstrates that the native Americans had a lot of skill with domestication because corn was very hard to domesticate compared to wheat.

In fact, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, you name it, all from Eurasia. Horses? Eurasia. How far would the Eurasians gotten without oxen and horses? How well would mass agriculture get without wheat, rye, apples, olives, and any number of nutritious and easily domesticated plants?

But wait, the fun doesn't stop there. Eurasia is a nice big WIDE land mass. That means a big area of the same growing season that allows different people to learn what works and doesn't and try it elsewhere and so forth. North America is comparatively skinny.

My point is, it's not that Eurasians are smarter. It's that they happened to win the lottery in natural resources.

Comments

Technician

on Oct 26, 2003

The story of Western civilization, has more to it than Agriculture but I conside it is a factor.

The inventions are the key factor,
Sure one can make a case the important inventions come from managing crops and live stock but what
about Wars.

Horses were in North America first, they died off in North America during the last ice age.

Nativa American were already here.

Remember that both corn and potatoes are North American crops unknown in
Europe.

Draginol

on Oct 26, 2003

Horses died off in NA around the time when the native Americans first arrived.

Corn and Potatoes are not very nutricious. You can't live on them.

Aetius

on Oct 27, 2003

Intelligence is somewhat difficult to quantify, but nutrition is an important factor. The average IQ has increased dramatically the last 200 years due to diet improvements. But I don't think nutrition or other local environmental factors like disease are the cause of a lack of technical development. There are domestic animals the are unique to the Americas: Llamas. Potato and maize, while not perfect, can be used as a basis for agricultural economy, as happened for Incas and Aztecs. So obviously a lack of agriculture is hardly the problem...

I think it is more likely to be the isolation of the Americas from the rest of humanity that is a more important factor in the relative lack of development. Africa (north Africa mostly), Europe and Asia were all interlinked through trade which meant that ideas spread gradually. If one area suffered from something and regressed many ideas was saved and worked on in other places. The long history of writing amongst many diverse peoples also allowed ideas to be rediscovered if lost (e.g. Latin that has been continuously understood as opposed to the Mayan writing which had to be rediscovered). Another thing is that if you consider that technical ideas are somewhat proportionate to population and the the relative size of Afro-Euro-Asian population to the population in the Americas it is pretty much given that most ideas will appear in the more populated part of the world. Ideas that build on other ideas will also mostly appear in that part of the world, which will eventually lead to rather large differences. The presences of large old cities of course facilitates this, since it allows development of specialisation that leads to sophistication. The Americas did have some large cities, but they were few and far apart compared to China, India and the Med-area.

Solitair

on Oct 27, 2003

Not sure where the discussion is going. Is this a question as to why Europe dominated the world in the 1400-1900 time period or a suggestion that modern Europeans are more intelligent? The latter I don't believe is true and have seen no information to support it.

I would argue that the biggest factor is advancement and creativity is cultural. Doesn't matter how bright or intelligent peopel are if the culture is not interested in the ideas and chages. European culture from the renassaince period onwards was very receptive to change. All it took was a single person to design a new machine, or have a new idea and society accepted it and asked what if. In other parts of the world society just wasn't interested in change. This was particularly true in Africa and Asia, and probably was also the case in the Americas.

As for where the future lies, I'm not sure. I think that the western world is getting tired of progress. Large sections of the population have absolutely no interest in science. Even worse, they have no copnfidence or interest in what science can do to improve their lives. There are popular backlashes against many technology improvements. Sure the top creative layer will survive, but only because science still creates big money. But look at funding for basic research, it'll been falling steadily for a few years. In a few more there may be no new ideas coming along at all, just rehashing and development of old ones.

So in another 100 years we may be discussing why japenese or Russians are so much more intelligent.

Paul.

John

on Nov 26, 2003

Are Europeans smarter or luckier? Who gives a shit? All I know is I would rather be here than in Europe.

Richard

on Jun 04, 2004

This is the thesis of "Guns, Germs and steel", an extremely convincing book by Jared Diamond.
'Geographically lucky' could be the subtitle and the fact the Eurasia is wide is key. Anything learned in growing or other area of knowledge could go east to west or west to east very easily and work.
Knowledge could move easily in Eurasia, not so in other parts of the world.
Race has nothing to do with it, peoples adapt to what the environment gives them.

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