As usual, the debate about which race is smarter misses the important
issue. The so called "smarts" of humans is made of different features.
Some people are smart at music, others are good at math, some are poor
spellers but can write well. In other words, we each have many ways we
are smart and dumb at the same time. Each race was genetically created
under different conditions. These conditions generated the obvious
characteristics, but they also caused the race, on average, to be smart
in different ways from the other races. As a result, each race had the
kind of talent needed to survive in its own birthing environment. When a
person moves from this environment into a different one, the smarts that
were useful may no longer apply. As a result, the person may not look as
"smart" to other people in the new environment. Fortunately, we all can
learn and can make up for some of this basic deficiency. The situation
says nothing about which race is superior. It means only that all races
were superior in the environment that created them. We, as individuals,
only have to make the best of this situation when our environment
changes. We can see the consequence of this effect in the US at the
present time, when a significant number of people support obviously bad
policy for really dumb reasons. It would be interesting to know where
and why these genes were created.
Ed
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Jones Beene wrote:
Jeff Fink wrote:
I read somewhere a long time ago that the offspring of interracial
unions
are, in general, bigger healthier and smarter than "pure breds".
Does any
one know the source of that, or if it has been proven.
It's called "Heterosis" or more simply "hybrid vigor" ... if it were
not true in the plant world, most of us would be starving today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigor
There are observers who will come close to repeating Watson's logical
error with the premise that the world dominance of the USA is based on
intellectual "vigor";
Let's not forget that the entire human race has a microscopic fraction
of the genetic diversity found in almost every other species (cheetahs
being one notable exception). The races may look very different to
*us*, as humans (with our powerful evolved-in ability to distinguish
between individual humans), but from the point of view of the genome
we're all very similar.
It's not at all clear that there's enough genetic diversity in humanity
to produce any kind of interesting "hybrid vigor" effect, regardless of
what representatives are chosen.
There are also very few "purebred" humans, on any continent, and
certainly not anywhere on mainland Europe, where there's been trade with
the four corners of the earth for centuries out of mind.
