Many years ago, humankind began in Africa. These earliest humans spread out in all directions, and some of them ended up in Europe. Over the course of a few thousand years, these European versions of the human changed, and became substantially different than any other humans. They built ships, sailed the seas, discovered fundamental truths about the universe they lived in, created the discipline of science that has so enriched and improved all our lives. And one day, thousands of years later, they returned to Africa.
What did they find there? A culture in many ways as advanced as their own, as would be discovered in the Far East? A "great" religion, as would be the case with the Mohammedans of the Middle East? No. They discovered the inhabitants still living in primitive barbarism, jumping up and down and eating each other. Of COURSE Europe was where evolution flowered. How anyone can look at human history and not immediately and instinctively know this is beyond me.
Please, feel free to discuss. :) I'll look back in on this thread tonight and see how many hysterical denunciations I manage to attract. Oh, and by the way, I'm NOT a racist. I don't care what color you are, what country you come from, or what fairy tale you believe in so long as you don't want to use the power of the state to make me live like you do. That's why I like FREE Republic so much.
The real answer to human origins may have unpleasant results for the "were all equal" crowd. First, the genetic similarity is found to have ignored the fact some genes matter more and some matter not at all. Then it develops that the "Neanderthals died out" theory may not be right. We'll soon see just how much our tendentious left wants to "celebrate diversity."
The facts are a hard master, which is why liberals are so loath to confront them. But on the highly charged subject of race most of the world (both conservative and liberal) has forbidden the logical examination of the evidence. The evidence leads to some very uncomfortable conclusions.
I think you have confused the flowering of Western culture with the biological evolution of the human species. No doubt, we in the West were among the first to begin making serious intellectual and technological progress. But it wasn't too long ago that our own ancestors were just as primitive as those living elsewhere. Yet we are the same species. Our cultures are vastly unequal, of course.
Recognize that until about 1550, the most technologically advanced, educated, and wealthiest people were the Chinese. Had they heeded the advice of Zheng He and not turned inward, allowing the less advanced Europeans to explore and colonize the world, North America might be populated by their decedents. Europe might very well have become a third world backwater.
The privileged lives that Europeans and their American brethren enjoy today have as much to do with blind luck as with hard work. I for one am glad I was born lucky.