Galton, more than a hundred years ago, wrote a very interesting book on the worth of the different races. Astonishingly, his classification closely matches current IQ estimates. He has a chapter on the Greeks of Attica, that he considers the best of humanity has produced. I find it reconforting that my opinion, formed before learning about Galton's, is to similar to his one. He considers that Attica's high level was reached not by eugenic methods, but by selection (selective immigration), and considers that Attica's rapid decline was caused by moral causes
."...morality grew exceedingly lax; marriage became unfashionable, and was avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans, and consequently infertile, and the mothers of the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class. In a small sea-bordered country, where emigration and immigration are constantly going on, and where the manners are as dissolute as were those of Greece in the period of which I speak, the purity of a race would necessarily fail. It can be, therefore, no surprise to us, though it has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that the high Athenian breed decayed and disappeared."Attica is a very bad omen for us.
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Galton is not very popular nowadays. Of course eugenics is the opposite of "politically correct". PC doesn't bother me but (a) the Nazis used eugenics to further their cause and (b) in the US, Galton's disciples used the supposed lower intelligence of the Jews (based on English IQ tests administered to immigrants - the presence of exceptional geniuses among the Jews, known even then was explained away by saying that the Jews had a broader distribution but their mean was lower)was used as an excuse to stiffen the immigration laws following WWI. In this way, Galton (though himself innocent) may have cost the lives of millions of Jews.
Galton was a polymath in a way that no modern scientist (each of whom chews away at at tiny fragment of a problem in an isolated field) can be. But I'm afraid that his speculation into the breeding of the ancient Greeks, unsupported by any kind of proof, falls short of science altogether.
I think we are rational enough to allow that Darwin and Galton and Richard Wagner had nothing to do with the Holocaust or with American laws restricting Jewish immigration. I thought about how could serious scientists write that Jews had low IQ, and my conclusion is that they were lying. Great scientists can be antisemites and many are.
Galton's speculation about Attica is just that, speculation. I would like if his effort could be repeated with modern methods, say by La Griffe. Intuitively, Galton did a fantastic job.
Smart women in Europe are having fewer kids and they have a longer breeding cycles. I think that predicted IQ declines in Europe (of say 1-2 IQ pts per generation)are overly optimistic. Unless technology or some social revolution inervenes, the future looks very grim indeed. Otherwise, it won't take many more generations for living standards in western countries to be on a par with those in 3rd world countries.
Smart women in Europe are having fewer kids and they have a longer breeding cycles. I think that predicted IQ declines in Europe (of say 1-2 IQ pts per generation)are overly optimistic. Unless technology or some social revolution inervenes, the future looks very grim indeed. Otherwise, it won't take many more generations for living standards in western countries to be on a par with those in 3rd world countries.
The line from Galton to reduced American immigration quotas was pretty straight and direct with not too many steps in between.
The "lower" Jewish IQ's disappeared in one generation, as soon as the immigrants children learned English. The liberals are still waiting for the black IQ gap to disappear any day now after enough money is spent - after all it did the last time. It is not for nothing that Obama's motto was "hope".
If the American people was less puritan, the problem of a large Black population would have disappeared a long time ago. Since much of the Black young males are in jail, Black girls are underserviced. The Black population should increasingly mixed and "whitened". IQ and behaviour gradients should soften and racial tensions relax.
J, you are an optimist.
Anon.
It happened in Brasil, before my own eyes and in my generation.
There are no sins south of the equator.
Anon.
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