[allmendream]

Once again it is cultural more than genetic. Those who had the personal initiative to come to the USA have a culture that enables them to excel outside of Africa. African nations are backwards because of a culture of tribalism and corruption.

The discrepancy we see in IQ scores between the average African American and the average European American is mostly due to culture. If it was genetic one would expect that the American blacks who are of mixed African and European descent would do better than those straight out of Africa blacks, but they do not.

[puroresu]

We clearly disagree about this. First of all, forty percent (assuming that number is correct) is a significant number. It isn't something that can be disregarded, like three percent could. Second, there's no way to determine how many of the cultural factors are themselves affected by genetics. We keep being told that poor performing groups have a bad culture. Indeed, they probably do have a bad culture, but the question is why do they have a bad culture?

More importantly, why do they always seem to have a bad culture? Out of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, why are there not a few where they have a "good culture" and where the populace has created an economic miracle like Japan or Taiwan?

Yes, culture and political systems can seriously harm development. The people of the Korean peninsula are of the same ancestry, yet the South is thriving and the North is dead in the water. The cause for the difference is obvious. This was why China stagnated under Mao while free Taiwan boomed. It's why West Germany succeeded and East Germany collapsed.

But where in Africa do you find anything similar? Do the Bantu in one nation produce nanotechnology and send satellites into orbit, while the Bantu in a neighboring, more repressive land live in poverty? Prosperity in Africa is largely determined by how great the white presence is. South Africa had the greatest white presence and became the richest nation there. Rhodesia had the second greatest white presence and became the second richest nation.

Why do these same patterns exist everywhere? If culture is divorced from genetics, then why is there no land on earth where the black population has chosen a good culture and the white population has chosen a bad culture, and the result is that blacks are the intellectual, financial, and cultural elite and whites are the ones needing affirmative action to pass entrance exams? All these culture arguments seem to go around in circles. American blacks have a bad culture (we're told) so they don't do as well as African immigrants (allegedly). Then we're told that those African immigrants had a good culture back home, despite the fact that their nation as a whole had a bad culture, so they came to America to get away from that bad culture and its fallout. But why are there no nations in Africa with a good culture that has produced a European or East Asian style success story?

Your argument would be logical if, say, Zaire was a leader in robotics and microchip technology, while nearby Cameroon was impoverished under a corrupt Maoist style repressive regime. You could say, yes Nation A is poor, but Nation B, with a different culture and political system, is thriving, even though the people of the two nations are of similar ancestry. Therefore, it isn't genetics, it's culture.

BTW, the black populations of European nations are almost entirely composed of African or Caribbean immigrants, yet they have created the same types of neighborhoods there as blacks have in America. No-go zones for whites, where the people vote as a racial block for candidates promising affirmative action and more welfare programs.