A lack of certain genes may lead to lower intelligence, combined with a higher incidence of learning difficulties, in black people
It is possible that by remaining in Africa, the ancestors of present-day black people missed out on acquiring genes related to intelligence
For at least a couple of centuries, the idea has been circulating that black people are, on the whole, less intelligent than those who are of white, European ancestry. In the nineteenth century, for instance, Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, wrote a book called Hereditary Genius. In the chapter entitled ‘The Comparable Worth of Different Races’ he wrote;
The number among the negroes of those men whom we should call half-witted men, is very large. Every book in America alluding to negro servants is full of instances. I was myself much impressed by this fact during my travels in Africa. The mistakes the negroes made in their own matters, were so childish, stupid and simpleton-like, as frequently to make me ashamed of my own species (1).
Galton estimated that the black people with who he came into contact were roughly ‘two grades’ lower than equivalent white people, which in modern terms is about 15 points on the IQ scale.
Although of course we no longer use the expression ‘half-witted’ as a clinical description of those with learning difficulties, it remains the case to this day that a far higher proportion of black children are identified as suffering from learning difficulties than are white ones. It is also the case that black school pupils tend to perform less well academically than white ones. Today, the trend is to attribute such things to racial prejudice on the part of teachers and psychologists, but in recent years evidence has emerged which suggests that there may be more to the matter than racism. It is altogether possible that genuine genetic differences are implicated in the matter.
The field of genetics has precipitated a resurgence of what some call, disparagingly, scientific racism. We must bear in mind that it is only in the last few decades that scientists have been able to pry into the mysteries locked away in the DNA molecules which lie at the heart of almost all the cells in our body. These advances in understanding are now coming thick and fast, making some books on human origins out of date almost as soon as they arrive in bookshops. It is upon the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and west Asia before our own species, that focus has fallen over the last decade or so. Popular books on genetics published in the 1990s and even later make firm, but erroneous, statements such as that breeding between Neanderthals and early modern humans was improbable (2). As recently as 2007, a book published by the Natural History Museum in London contained the following sentence,
There is also no evidence that modern Europeans inherited genes from Neanderthals, as would be the case if Neanderthals were simply a European population within a broader, worldwide species of archaic humans (3).
It is now common knowledge that mating did take place and has serious implications for the idea of scientific racism.
Analysis of DNA has revealed that it is possible to predict accurately, simply by examining genes, the risk factors for developing schizophrenia and discover that these are far higher for those of black African heritage than for white Europeans or Americans. Many other real differences between ethnic groups have also been found. There is for instance, evidence of a similar trend with Alzheimer’s disease (Barnes & Bennett, 2014). Perhaps of the greatest significance is the realisation that our own species, Homo sapiens, certainly did mate with Neanderthals and that as a result, everybody other than sub-Saharan Africans has Neanderthal genes. This has proved to be a controversial revelation and the full implications are still becoming apparent. Some of the genes which are now being identified relate to the architecture of the brain and of course an old claim of what one might perhaps call traditional scientific racism is that the brains of black people are usually smaller than, or different from, those of white people or Asians. Already, there have been skirmishes on this particular frontier of research.
Some of the genes which Europeans and Asians inherited from the Neanderthals are uncontroversial. To give one example, when modern humans first encountered those already living in the Middle East and Europe, they soon came into contact with all kinds of pathogens to which they had no resistance; bacteria and viruses, in other words, which they had never come across in Africa. From the point of view of survival, it made perfect sense for nature to insert, after a few generations of interbreeding, a gene which beefed up the Homo sapiens immune system and enabled it to cope with new threats. Sometimes, this boost to our immune system is too effective and our bodies react to harmless intruders such as grains of pollen or specks of dust, giving us the modern disorder of hay fever. This is a minor irritation when compared to the advantages of a fully tuned system for dealing with germs.
One particular gene which 70 % of Europeans and Asians have is a variation of microcephalin. This protects against the disorder of microcephaly and is connected with the growth and architecture of the brain. Babies with microcephaly are born with heads much smaller than average. The outlook for such children in terms of life expectancy and intellectual ability is poor. The commonest cause of microcephaly is genetic disorders.
Another gene which helps the brain develop is a version of the ASPM gene. This is found in just a quarter of the world’s population. In 2005 a researcher at the University of Chicago called Bruce Lahn found that these two variants of the genes had only been around in our own species for 40,000 years and 6,000 years respectively (4). A paper published that year claimed that this was evidence of the continued evolution of humans, as it was asserted that the gene had spread so quickly that it must confer some positive advantage to those inheriting it (5). This simple discovery soon exploded into a raging controversy, with those connected with the research or even writing about being accused of racism (4).
The ‘problem’ was that both these genes were far more common in those of European ancestry than they were in people whose origin was sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, Neanderthal DNA, which everybody outside Africa has, is almost wholly absent in sub-Saharan Africa. The question was raised as to whether it might be possible that these genes had had some effect on culture and civilisation. The variant of microcephalin appeared to have become established soon after modern humans colonised Europe and the other gene, the variant of ASPM, could be traced back to the time of the first cities in the Middle East. It was speculated that these genes had caused a flowering of human intellect and that, by implication, those who remained in Africa had not benefited from this boost to their brain power (4).
One thing about which there is no doubt at all is that modern humans living outside Africa inherited genes from the Neanderthals which related in some way to the structure and possibly functioning of the brain. It is not clear precisely what role these genes play. The genes relating to microcephalin and ASPM have both survived and been handed down for tens of thousands of years. This being so, it is highly likely that they must confer a positive benefit on those who inherit them. A study was conducted to see if the genes correlated to either skull size or general mental ability in various populations throughout the world, but no such connection was found (6).
There must surely be some advantage though to possessing the two genes mentioned above. After all, 97 % of the Neanderthal DNA which modern humans acquired in the distant past has been ditched long ago; why should just a few of these genes linger on? Despite the failure to identify any increase in intelligence using standard methods for testing, there may still be an effect on the brains of those with microcephalin and the ASPM gene. In Europe and America, there is a pronounced distaste for experiments which involve mixing human DNA with that of animals; particularly primates. In China, such squeamishness is unknown. As a matter of fact, there have for years been persistent rumours that Chinese scientists created in 1967 a ‘humanzee’, that is to say a cross between a human and a chimpanzee (7).
It was reported in 2019 that almost a decade earlier scientists in China had managed to insert the human microcephalin gene into some monkey embryos, by means of a virus (8). Although only five macaque monkeys were produced in the experiment, the results were apparently promising. Although the brains were no larger than usual, like human children they took longer to develop. According to the scientists, these transgenic monkeys did better than average on memory tests involving colours and pictures. Such reports are intriguing, but there is virtually no chance of their being repeated in the West for ethical reasons.
Although firm evidence is lacking, it seems entirely possible, likely even, that human intelligence is affected by genetic factors which some people whose origins are in Europe and Asia have acquired and which those in Africa have missed out on entirely. This should not however make the least difference to the way in which we treat anybody, regardless of their ethnicity. We must always be keenly aware of a distinction which is often overlooked or disregarded today, which is that scientific racism and racial prejudice are two entirely separate and distinct things. Even if it turned out that black people genuinely were less likely to have very high IQs or were more likely to have low ones, this would be a matter of statistical probability, rather than absolutes. We can make no predictions about the cognitive ability of a person based only upon the colour of their skin.
1. Galton, Francis (1869) Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into its Laws and Consequences, London: Julian Freidmann.
2. Jones, Steve (1993) The Language of Genes, London, HarperCollinsPublishers.
3. Lockwood, Charles (2008) The Human Story: Where We Came from and How We Evolved, New York: Sterling Publishing.
4. Taylor, Jeremy (2009) Not a Chimp: The Hunt to Find the Genes that Make us Human, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. Evans, Patrick D. et al (2005) Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans, Science, Volume 309 9/11/2005, pp1717-20.
6. Rushton, J. Philippe; Vernon Philip A.; Bons, Trudy Ann (2007) No evidence that polymorphisms of brain regulator genes Microcephalin and ASPM are associated with general mental ability, head circumference or altruism, The Royal Society Publishing, Biology Letters, 23/1/2007.
7. Lieber, Justin (1985) Can Animals and Machines be Persons?: A Dialogue, Cambridge MA: Hackett Publishing.
8. Regalado, Antonio (2019) Chinese scientists have put human brain genes in monkeys—and yes, they may be smarter, Cambridge MA: MIT Technology Review, 10/4/2019.
An interesting read. I remember some of the controversy when that article came out. I'm afraid regardless of the truth of the matter this type of research is unlikely to get much funding in the West, at least in the near future.
So, at the end what have we learned?
That there is no genuine evidence for the idea that the first homo-sapiens (African people) are cognitively inferior than non-Africans. Its a bit like those kilns in Nigeria Simon eroniously dismisses as evidence for metal welding appearing in Nigeria before anywhere else. Yet unlike those Kilns Simon dedicates an entire article to talking about two genes that are more common in non-Africans with no obvious significant advantage. 😂😂😂
LMAO! I think one thing any intelligent person has learned reading this is that Simon like to intellectually masturbate the puny intellects of low-intellegence poor English people. Hahahahaha! Don't forget to swallow afterwards Simon!😂😂😂