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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5412 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

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Could you rephrase this? It sounds interesting but reads to me like "I'm skeptical of HBD because every single black country has a low IQ, and every black minority population in other countries also has a low IQ." To me this sounds like pretty good first-glance evidence that the HBD story makes sense, even before you look at the genes themselves. Forgive me if I'm tired and completely misreading you.

[The poorly run dysfunction country] problem is shared with a few other areas that are not majority black

Could you give a few examples? I'm under the impression that the IQ in say, Afghanistan, is quite high despite the institutions in those areas being incredibly dysfunctional forever. (EDIT: Woah, dead wrong alert. Afghanistan looks to be in the mid eighties. This table looks to be sourced to Richard Lynn's work.)

But nearly the entire world, including the pure indigenous populations of the Americas, scores notably higher than pure blacks do, on average. [...] Unless there's some selection effect for all nonafrican populations but not subsaharan africans that I've missed(and before "Ice age", humans were already pretty widely dispersed by then).

I left this out because it's pure speculation, but the "Cold Winter" hypothesis is the one you run into the most. Populations incapabale of planning many months into the future died off any time their migration crossed a temperate climate. For example, this also explains why Mesoamerican civilizations which were also tropical or subtropical have such a high IQ and had sophisticated premodern science and maths. (Their ancestors had to pass through Siberia and over the Bering Strait.)

Populations incapabale of planning many months into the future died off any time their migration crossed a temperate climate.

Did the path taken from africa to europe really pass into 'cold winter' areas? Africa -> the Levant -> Turkey -> Greece ends in europe without passing through any places that even really receive snow. Plus there are temperate climates in Africa. Are there really any climates on the way to Europe from Africa that you couldn't find i.e. in the temperate regions of south africa? If so, why aren't i.e. Zulus as high average IQ as white europeans, considering their ancestors would have had to make similar migrations? And furthermore, 'cold winters' aren't the only source of long famines. Couldn't there be plenty of (and different types of) causes of famines in the tropical parts of africa to encourage selection toward individuals capable of long-term planning?

Did the path taken from africa to europe really pass into 'cold winter' areas? Africa -> the Levant -> Turkey -> Greece ends in europe without passing through any places that even really receive snow.

Europe itself was the cold winter area, leading to a population bottleneck. Pop-sci link.

The more dubious and interesting question would the Middle East and India. It's worth noting though that populations do not move in a linear direction, and those regions have at various points gotten heavy admixture and even outright population replacement from the north -- especially after 3500 BC or so.

If so, why aren't i.e. Zulus as high average IQ as white europeans, considering their ancestors would have had to make similar migrations?

I'm completely ignorant of Zulu history, but I'm not really seeing devastating unsurvivable winters anywhere along the migration path. As for the temperature on the highlands and mountains I'm assuming they would descend for winters like foragers, nomadic farmers, and pastoralists have throughout history. Are there any mountain ranges that would take multiple years to cross to South Africa? How was the ice age in middle Africa, I thought pretty mild?

And furthermore, 'cold winters' aren't the only source of long famines. Couldn't there be plenty of (and different types of) causes of famines in the tropical parts of africa to encourage selection toward individuals capable of long-term planning?

Maybe. I'd be interested in seeing if there was a population bottleneck akin to what happened in Europe above.

Nepal, Guatemala, and Nicaragua are the three non-black countries in the bottom ten in the world by IQ score. All three are desperately poor, badly run countries that plausibly have environmental factors causing loss of IQ points in kids that grow up there. And really 7/10 countries being African sounds not too far off from a sample of 3rd world countries.

The main thrust of my argument is that since non-black is not a monogenetic group, and black isn't either, the pattern of every non-black group outperforming every black group demands an explanation. I'm aware of the cold winter hypothesis, and that's why I included southeast asia- why does the dumbest country in SE Asia(Indonesia) have an average IQ roughly on par with the smartest country in subsaharan Africa(Sudan)? Since we know that childhood malnutrition and parasite burden and all sorts of other things black countries usually do badly on lower IQ, it accords with available evidence to suggest that the average IQ of blacks would be in the eighties if they lived in countries that were as nice as Thailand or the Philippines. To my knowledge, it doesn't require a cold winter to reach either of these countries from Africa, and neither of them has undergone some kind of selection effect for high IQ, and if anything biased sampling probably makes Africa look relatively better than more urbanized SE Asian populations rather than explaining the gap.

To my knowledge, it doesn't require a cold winter to reach either of these countries from Africa

All of these countries had quite dark-skinned populations several thousand of years ago. Then, populations originating from territory of modern China came and largely displaced them, sometimes without a trace of preceeding population. A large fraction of area of modern China was permafrost or under glaciers at some point.

Why do you think Indonesians literally living at equator have such light skin?

A diet based almost entirely on rice would tend to lighten the skin over generations, but the Chinese replacement also makes sense.

In general, it almost never occurs that some recent non-African population had its ancestors follow shortest path from Africa.

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