Posted on 08/02/2010 3:00:32 PM PDT by reaganaut1
The recent finding that economic success in life is largely determined by what you learned in kindergarten has proven contentious (at least among our readers). So what if I told you that economic success was instead determined by what your ancestors did more than a millennium ago?
That is one implication of a provocative new study by Diego Comin, William Easterly (known for his skepticism of foreign aid programs) and Erick Gong.
The study gathered crude information on the state of technological development in various parts of the world in 1000 B.C.; around the birth of Jesus; and in A.D. 1500. It then compared these measures to per capita income today.
As it turns out, technology in A.D. 1500 is an extraordinarily reliable predictor of wealth today. Here’s a scatter plot showing the relationship between these two measures, in which each dot represents a different country:
As Mr. Easterly writes in an accompanying blog post, “78 percent of the difference in income today between sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe is explained by technology differences that already existed in 1500 A.D. – even BEFORE the slave trade and colonialism.”
What’s more, these differences in technological development between regions had actually appeared as far back as 1000 B.C. (Side note: The big counterexample is China, which historically outshone other countries in its adoption of advanced technologies, but then did not go through the Industrial Revolution.)
There are multiple ways to explain persistence of technological differences over multiple millenniums.
...
In this earlier paper, Mr. Sachs and his co-authors argued that geography can help determine a country’s destiny, since location and climate have significant effects on the likelihood of disease burdens, transportation costs and agricultural productivity.
(Excerpt) Read more at economix.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Federal grant money probably paid for this “study” and the author will undoubtably get the Nobel Prize... in keeping with the tradition of Obama/Gore/Krugman.
Not all warm places are easy. It seems to me that it would take plenty of brains to survive in the Kalahari, or to chart the islands of Polynesia. And it’s probably a lot easier to store food in Norway, than in the Amazon.
“by what you learned in kindergarten”
You cannot buy your friends.
A lot of glittering generalities here with few specifics to back them up.
It's interesting that you mention Polynesia. There was a book that came out at the tail end of the 90s called Guns, Germs and Steel. One of the hypothesis it also puts forth has to do with a culture's ability to thrive and evolve relative to its ease of access to high-quality protein. Apparently, absent the right kinds of protein, the brain's ability to use it's higher reasoning centers becomes compromised.
One of the geographic areas the author talks about is Papua New Guinea - yes, not exactly Polynesia, but right next door. The indigenous tribes in Papua New Guinea have compromised high-learning centers of the brain, and it's due in large part - according to the author - because of their inability to get consistent and quality sources of protein.
Perhaps Norway is a harsh climate physically, but it might also have abundant year-round sources of good protein that's high in Omega-3.
But you can buy something so close, you can't even tell the difference - perhaps that lesson came a bit later.
You are quite correct. There is a fallacious notion out there that farming in temperate northern climates somehow requires more foresight than farming in tropical climates, and therefore the northern farmer acquired greater intellect than the lazy tropical farmer who merely has to pick bananas off a tree.
This idea is completely false, and is spread by those who have no notions of the difficulties of tropical agriculture. Predators, plant and animal diseases, and crop destroying insects, as well as thin calcareous soils, and extended dry seasons followed by torrential wet seasons are just a few of the factors that make tropical agriculture far more difficult than temperate climate agriculture.
Also note that simply clearing a plot of jungle for planting is highly laborious
Seems like this study ignores the role of culture. In those societies where freedom and property rights were the norm, technology advanced. Why develop anything if the government will only take it away and redistribute it.
I didn’t have kindergarten when I went to school.
That must make me smart.
This study is obviously racist.
Interesting points.
Close only counts in horseshoes, and nuclear weapons.
There’s another thread on here about using insects as a souce of protein. Doesn’t New Guinea have lots of insects that could have been used as a source of quality protein,I mean,if we’re to believe that’s a good source of protein and all,then why would the New Guineans have suffered from a lack?(I’m being sarcastic over the idea of having to eat bugs)
“A lot of glittering generalities here with few specifics to back them up.”
HEAR ! HEAR ! ! !
The article under discussion is a masterpiece of soft science, conjecture, and “statisticulation” (lyin’ with stats).
Let me preface this by saying I read the book over 10-years ago, and I don't have a background in science, so some of the book was lost on me - but...
They do eat their share of bugs, but for some reason, the bugs they have access to, and in the numbers that they have access to those bugs, doesn't quite give them the nutrition they need. The book drew some fire from some of the vegans in the world, because it essentially says that absent quality meat & fish protein, brain development can be compromised. Like I said, it's a bit controversial.
Ping.
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