I've been thinking for a very long time about the persistent failure of attempts to bring the Australian aborigines into the modern world. Disregarding the fact that there have been numerous instances of individuals who have reached high levels of education and career success. The reason I disregard this fact is that any aboriginal individual who would be put up as an example of this is without doubt someone who has part aboriginal blood and isn't 100% pure aboriginal. By this I mean they have aboriginal/western blood.
So I did a Google search to test a theory that claims aborigines are not as evolved as their European based cousins. I couldn't find any explicit expression of this concept but I did find many references to the idea that aborigines have evolved differently but are not less evolved. This thinking is so dangerously close to racist ideas that nobody wants to be associated with such.
And of course I'm not going to put myself up as a target by stating anything like that.
But....
consider this quote from a professor who has just been awarded an Queen's Birthday honor,
And you might well miss the critical phrase which I have highlighted.
So it's ok to mention that aboriginal bodies are not (as) evolved as Europeans, is it too much of a stretch to say that maybe their brains are not similarly evolved as well?
7 comments:
We dance around this all the time don't we? If you happen to suggest that a certain level of intelligence hasn't evolved, you are assumed to mean it as a comparison to white people. Yet, judging by the physical characteristics of a good portion of the students at our universities in town, I'm guessing that brown and yellow people have great intelligence as well. If we can breed dogs and horses to have various physical, mental and temperament characteristics, how can we ignore that people who have been kept to a limited gene pool wouldn't also share certain characteristics beyond hair, eye and skin colour and that some evidence to the breeding will be found in mental capabilities. This does not mean they aren't intelligent - they simply may not be academics.
Jeannie, before we even attempt to contemplate intelligence and race, which is a can of worms in itself, re: The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, we should consider accepting that there is a different type of evolution that has occurred because the Australian Aborigines have been isolated for around 50,000 years.
Lexcen,
I see no reason to think this has more to do with genetics than culture, and if in traditional Australian aboriginal culture, there is little to no emphasis in getting education when it comes to things like science and mathematics, and most of them, still live in traditional aboriginal societies, coupled with the fact that I don't think there are that many people in the world with Aboriginal heritage, it becomes rather obvious why there are few them who are noble prize winners. Also for intelligence and race, the the late Stephen Jay Gould wrote a book called "The Mismeasure of Man" in which he refutes the claims made in the "Bell Curve." Now having more trouble not getting fat when consuming lots of glucose, is a sign that they evolved somewhat differently to cope with a different environment than most people, but its not a sign that they are radically different than most people in a fundamental way. Human beings like all animals have evolved differently in different environments, and its hardly racist to say that black people are more adapted to a hotter climate, and whites are more adapted to colder climates, but it does not make the two groups separate races.
Damien,
Thanks for your comment. I'm well aware of Stephen Jay Gould's criticisms of The Bell Curve. I'm not really focusing on intelligence but rather the possibility that the aboriginal brain has evolved differently as much as their bodies have obviously evolved differently. Consider that after 200 years of settlement in Australia,aborigines are still living in enclaves that are far removed from their traditional nomadic/hunter lifestyle. 200 years is long time for their culture to hold back any ability to integrate into western society. They have either rejected their nomadic/hunter lifestyle or abandoned it or lost it.Attempts to educate them end usually end in failure. Attempts to assimilate them have also failed otherwise how do you explain the continued existence of aboriginal communities that depend on welfare to exist, where life expectancy is limited to around 40 years of age, where sexual abuse of women and children is rife, where alcoholism is in epidemic proportions? These are not traditional communities but dysfunctional communities that defy to respond to any and every policy aimed at improving their lifestyle. I think it's failure to recognize that there is something different about the aboriginal brain that is at the core of the continued failures of public policy. I think references to aboriginal culture are merely futile attempts,clutching at straws to explain the problem. My argument is that if we accepted that aboriginal brains have evolved differently then we might be able to solve what has been up till now an eternal problem.
Lexcen,
I really don't think you would find that many differences between the brains of aborigines and anyone else. I don't think its grasping at straws to say that their culture has something to do with their current situation. Now, there probably is a genetic component to some of this, from what I understand, certain groups of people are more genetically prone to alcoholism than others. But that still doesn't rule out the role of upbringing, and culture.
In addition, Its not uncommon for policies created by the state to help people, to end up doing the exact opposite. Talk to Thomas Sowell, about the effects the American welfare system has had on the black family.
Thomas Sowell - Welfare
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