In the interests of fairness and truth, this review was sent to Professor Jared Diamond prior to its publication here. He was asked to identify any statements that he believes to be false or misleading. No response had been received by press time.

Do Human Races Exist? Do Racial Differences Influence History?

In every society there are social groups whose office is to provide an understanding of the world. These social groups, the culture-bearing strata, in some cases enjoy nearly monopolistic control over a society's world-view.[1] America is no exception: it too has its culture-bearing strata, intellectual and cultural establishments, and media elite that effectively mold the worldview of the masses. One of the most influential of these mind-shaping groups is the Jewish political and cultural establishment.[2]

Social scientists Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter admit quite frankly that "Americans of Jewish background have become an elite group in American society, with a cultural influence far beyond their numbers.”[3] In a study of the Jewish movie moguls that came to dominate Hollywood, noted film industry historian Neal Gabler was more direct: "The Hollywood Jews created a cluster of images and ideas--so powerful that, in a sense, they colonized the American imagination. [...] Ultimately, American values came to be defined largely by the movies the Jews made.”[4]

A similar statement could be made for the Jewish intellectuals that had, and continue to have, a considerable influence upon historiography and the social and biological sciences. They created an ensemble of images, ideas, 'moral' evaluations and ideologies that profoundly impact Western thinking. Predominant forms of belief derive from the fact that the Jewish power elite commands much power and influence in the United States and Europe, and has the authority to impose its viewpoints upon American and European people. This becomes apparent when we consider what left-wing Jewish scientists have written on the race question and the widespread acceptance of their “anti-racist” ideas in Western society.[5]

Do human races actually exist? Or is race an arbitrary, artificial and negative construct that should be discarded? Do biological differences between different ethnic/cultural groups influence the course of history? In this two-part series we will examine Jewish scientist Jared Diamond’s widely influential views on these issues. Indeed, he contends that “the big world impact of his ideas may be in demolishing the basis for racist theories of history and racist views.”[6]

Biologist and historian Diamond began his career in physiology and expanded into other fields such as ornithology, evolutionary biology and biogeography. Currently a professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles, he has a long list of honors to his credit, such as the National Medal of Science, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Science. He has authored numerous best-selling books and has published over two hundred articles in prestigious journals such as Discover, Natural History, Nature, and Geo magazine. His most famous book, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, won a Pulitzer Prize, the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book, and was made into a major PBS special documentary.[7] Former US President Bill Clinton included the 518 page tome on his reading list—a tribute to its considerable influence upon powerful people.[8]

Jared Diamond: His Ethnic/Cultural Background and Ideological Biases

As this study will ultimately show, Diamond’s racial thought is defective, inconsistent and plagued with a hypocritical double standard. An understanding of Diamond’s background and biases could shed light upon the real reasons as to why his ideology is so ardently promoted.

Like many other Jewish intellectuals, Diamond admits how lurid and brutal stories, real or mythical, about 20th century European history influenced his thinking: “Living in Europe from 1958 to 1962, among European friends whose lives had been brutally traumatized by 20th-century European history, made me start to think more seriously about how chains of causation operate in history’s unfolding.”[9] Since the Jewish people’s archenemy, German National Socialism, placed much emphasis upon racial differences, this may have motivated him to become a prominent spokesman for the left-wing movement that insists the traditional racial classifications of mankind should be discarded, and any biologically based mental differences between different ethnic groups are irrelevant to the understanding of history.

Many Jews contend that racialist-nationalist ideologies, advocated by right-wing movements, have had a disastrous effect upon their people. From a 1943 statement of the American Council for Judaism (which was anti-Zionist), we read: “Racist theories and nationalistic philosophies, that have become prevalent in recent years, have caused untold suffering to the world and particularly to Jews.”[10] Significantly enough, Diamond admits the most important goal in writing his most famous book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, was to refute the “racist biological explanation” of history—that “history’s pattern reflects innate differences among people themselves.”[11] Nevertheless, Diamond’s writings are plagued by a hypocritical double standard on the race issue, especially in regard to his Jewish ethnic group. This becomes readily apparent in his magnum opus.

It has been proposed that genetic differences in intelligence between Europeans and Australian Aborigines explain why the White immigrants to Australia built a technologically, politically advanced society and the native Aborigines remained as tribal hunter-gatherers. Diamond strongly rejects such arguments. In his own words: “The objection to such racist explanations is not just that they are loathsome, but also that they are wrong.”[12] Quite predictably, he rejects the belief that Black Americans are innately less intelligent than White Americans, and he attaches the “notorious” label to The Bell Curve, a famous 1994 study that supported the hypothesis of group differences in intelligence.[13]

In the same book, however, Diamond does a 180-degree turn-around and goes on to argue that non-White New Guineans are biologically superior in intelligence to Europeans. He says that, generally speaking, New Guineans impressed him as being more intelligent and alert than the average European and American.[14] He further wrote that in regard to intelligence Europeans have a likely genetic disadvantage when compared to New Guinean people.[15] After enunciating arguments that support his belief, Diamond drew this conclusion: “[I]n mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners [read: White Europeans], and they surely are superior in escaping the devastating developmental disadvantages under which most children in industrialized societies now grow up. ”[16]

According to Diamond’s “morality,” it is “racist” and “loathsome” to argue that White Australians are inherently superior in certain characteristics when compared to Aborigines, but it is “non-racist” and “morally acceptable” for him to claim that non-White New Guineans are genetically superior in intelligence when compared to White Europeans.[17]

The reader should prepare himself for another surprise. In the prestigious scientific journal Nature, our “anti-racist” activist pondered what evolutionary forces operated upon Eastern European Jews to make them biologically different from their non-Jewish neighbors\. Without condemning it as “racist,” he floated the hypothesis that in ages past mutated genes that create high intelligence, but are also linked to genetic diseases, may have spread through the Jewish population. That is to say, the mutated genes may have been positively selected “in Jews for the intelligence putatively required to survive persecution, and also to make a living by commerce, because Jews were barred from the agricultural jobs available to the non-Jewish people.” He further suggested that Jewish men with the ability to be rabbis would be “prized as husbands and would have tended to marry wealthy [Jewish] women capable of nourishing many children.”[18] In other words, Eastern European rabbis of ages past were more able than their competitors to pass their high-intelligence genes down to future generations.

Although he added that this is speculative and other explanations are possible, the reader should note his double standard. He ardently condemns any suggestion that Europeans are genetically superior in intelligence to non-Whites, but he calmly proposes that Jews may have inherited genes which could make them smarter and better than non-Jews. One can see how this could easily merge with a Jewish-Zionist racial supremacist perspective. Indeed, it even suggests that Diamond may not really believe the thesis of his magnum opus—that racial differences play no role in determining the course of history.

In his November 1994 article in the popular Discover magazine, Diamond emphatically declared that dividing humanity up into different races is a totally arbitrary and futile exercise that should be discarded. Traditionally, races were classified on the basis of geographical location and visible physical characteristics. Diamond wrote that we could make an equally reasonable separation on the presence or absence of a gene or a group of genes. By selecting various objective criteria (such as presence or absence of anti-malarial genes, lactose tolerance, fingerprint whorls, skin color, etc.) one could, for example, classify Norwegians and Nigerians as one “race,” and Chinese and Cherokee Indians as another “race.”[19]

Our “anti-racist” crusader hailed Genes, Peoples, and Languages, authored by famous population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, for purportedly dismantling the idea of race. In the New York Review of Books, Diamond saluted Cavalli-Sforza for “demolishing scientists’ attempts to classify human populations into races in the same way that they classify birds and other species into races.”[20] According to this thinking, because the popular assumption of clearly defined races has allegedly been discredited, this will lead to the elimination of so-called “racism.”

However, Diamond’s own words suggest that he subscribes to a double standard. In an article that appeared in the popular Natural History in 1993, Diamond discussed the genetic studies on how Jews differ from non-Jews. He made this eye-opening statement: “There are also practical reasons for interest in Jewish genes. The state of Israel has been going to much expense to support immigration and job retraining of Jews who were persecuted minorities in other countries. That immediately poses the problem of defining who is a Jew. For example, a debate is going on right now [November 1993] in Israel concerning policy toward Ethiopia’s remaining would-be immigrants who identify themselves as Jews. Are they descendants of ancient Jews, as they maintain, or are they descendants of converted Africans, as their physical appearance might suggest?”[21]

Diamond opposes classifying human populations into races—except of course as to Jews and non-Jews. He gave his tacit assent to the proposed Israeli-Zionist policy of defining and classifying Jews and non-Jews on the basis of whether or not they possess “Jewish genes.” Indeed, notice what Diamond is saying: there are legitimate grounds for investigating how Jews differ genetically from non-Jews. The Israelis need to know who carries “Jewish genes” so as to determine who will be allowed to settle in the Zionist state.

In his 1994 Discover article he says that the classification of humans into races based upon their biological makeup is “destined to follow the Flat Earth into oblivion.”[22] Yet, in his 1993 Natural History article he told us that the classification of Jews and non-Jews on the basis of genetic makeup has a bright future in Israel, as it may be used to differentiate between Jews and Gentiles. In the 2005 edition of Guns, Germs, and Steel, he tells us that dividing up peoples of the earth on the basis of race, such as “blacks” and “whites,” is arbitrary and misleading. Strangely enough, a few sentences later he writes that “recognizing these major [racial] groups is still so useful for understanding history.”[23]

Diamond wrote in his widely acclaimed The Third Chimpanzee that “Nazi propaganda invoked a pure Aryan race.” Of course, he condemns “racist nonsense [his own words]” such as this.[24] Nevertheless, our militant “anti-racist” maintained in his 1993 Natural History article that his Jewish people are a somewhat “pure race.” He argued against the view that “being Jewish is more a matter of belief than of genes.” Eastern European Jews can be genetically distinguished from European Gentiles, and “the non-Jewish contribution to the Ashkenazic [Jews of central and Eastern Europe] and Sephardic [Jews from Spain and Portugal] Jewish gene pool has been low.”[25] That is to say, the Jewish gene pool is somewhat pure, as it has not been “polluted” by too many non-Jewish genes.

Significantly enough, Diamond’s racial thought dovetails with the view propounded by Israeli scientist Batsheva Bonne-Tamir from the Department of Human Genetics at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine. In a 1985 issue of Nature, we read this description of her findings: “Preliminary studies using DNA sequences as a new and sophisticated tool for genetic analysis tend to support the conclusions drawn from earlier investigations that the Jews, even after being scattered around the world for two millennia, remain—to a significant degree—genetically distinctive.” The article goes on to note that this finding has met with opposition from some scientists because “any attempt to suggest the existence of a specific Jewish group is to be rejected as a racist doctrine.”[26]

Like so many other Jewish intellectuals, Diamond has spent a good portion of his career fighting “racist” doctrines that support the racial nationalism of non-Jewish peoples. Yet, he concurrently created a line of argument that merges with an Israeli-inspired racial doctrine that suggests the existence of a specific “Jewish race.” In this context it is worth quoting the prominent Zionist leader, former president of the American Jewish Congress and World Jewish Congress Stephen S. Wise (1874-1949), who told a New York rally in June 1938: "I am not an American citizen of the Jewish faith, I am a Jew…Hitler was right in one thing. He calls the Jewish people a race and we are a race." In a sense, Diamond is a replica of Wise: both were involved in “anti-racist” left-wing causes and both supported Jewish-Zionism racialism.[27]

In his Discover article of 1994, Diamond condemned the classification of humans into different races because it "shapes our views of other peoples, fosters our subconscious differentiation between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and is invoked to justify political and socioeconomic discrimination.”[28] These are precisely the dynamics of the Israeli-Zionist policy that Diamond gave his tacit assent to in his Natural History article of 1993. Knowing if someone possesses “Jewish genes” helps to differentiate between “us” (Jews) and “them” (non-Jews), and can be invoked to “justify” the discriminatory practice of refusing to allow those who lack “Jewish genes” to join the Zionist state.[29]

Diamond points out that “[f]ew scientists dare to study racial origins, lest they be branded racists just for being interested in the subject.”[30] The exception of course is if you are Jared Diamond and come to a conclusion that serves Zionists interests—then you are assured of being left in peace.

In the Natural History article, Diamond was quick to downplay the non-Jewish European gene admixture among Ashkenazi Jews and discredit the theory that the Ashkenazim are descended largely from non-Hebrew Central Asian Khazars who converted to Judaism in the 8th century, all in an effort to portray modern Jews as genetic descendents of the ancient Jews of the Old Testament. He focused on research that has shown contemporary Jewish populations (except for the non-ethnically Jewish Ethiopian Jews) to be very closely related and to have ties with the ancient Hebrews of the Middle East.[31]

There are two important points to note. First, Diamond was attempting to refute what Jewish leaders have condemned as an “anti-Jewish libel”: Ashkenazi Jews are not related to the ancient Hebrews of the Middle East, but are the descendants of the Khazar tribe, the pre-tenth century Turko-Asian people who supposedly underwent a mass conversion to Judaism.[32] This defense of “Jewish honor” points to Jewish-Zionist sympathies on his part.

Second, Diamond’s line of argument dovetails with Zionist ideology. One of its standard tenets is that for 2,000 years Jews were dispersed among the nations of the world, and then decided to return to the land of their ancestors in the Middle East. Jews have a natural attachment to the land of Israel, an assertion rooted in Biblical tradition.[33] Lo and behold! Along comes Jared Diamond’s line of argument, which may be used to “justify” and “legitimize” this standard tenet of Zionist ideology. Zionists may now say: “Jews are not alien invaders on Palestinian territory. Genetic studies show that modern day Jews can trace their ancestry back to the land of Israel. Jews have a right to return to the land of their genetic ancestors.”

Diamond has cautioned against “racist pseudo-science by which white settlers seek to justify dispossessing indigenous peoples.”[34] Nevertheless, a similar version of Diamond’s foregoing argument has been used by Zionist Jews to “justify” the dispossessing of the indigenous people of Palestine.[35]

There is more evidence of Diamond’s allegiance to Jewish-Zionist nationalism. In his highly influential Guns, Germs and Steel, he writes: “[M]uch of Africa is still struggling with its legacies from recent colonialism. In other regions—including much of Central America, Mexico, New Caledonia, the former Soviet Union, and parts of Indonesia—civil unrest or guerilla warfare pits still-numerous indigenous populations against governments dominated by descendants of invading conquerors. Many other indigenous populations—such as native Hawaiians, Aboriginal Australians, native Siberians, and Indians in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—became so reduced in numbers by genocide and disease that they are now greatly outnumbered by the descendants of invaders. Although thus incapable of mounting a civil war, they are nevertheless increasingly asserting their rights.”[36]

On another page Diamond makes a similar statement: “Still other peoples, such as the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, the Americas, and southernmost Africa, are no longer even masters in their own lands, but have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonists.”[37]

Notice how Diamond “conveniently” fails to mention one of the most glaring examples of violent colonialism of the modern era, where native people battled against invading conquerors and their descendents, where indigenous people have been decimated and subjugated by colonists from Europe: the Jewish invasion of Palestine and conquest of the native Palestinians. Israeli scholars Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Simha Flapan, and Ilan Pappe have demonstrated that from its very inception a central plank of Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of Palestinian Arabs and the creation of an ethnically homogenous, Jewish-supremacist state.[38]

This refusal to mention Israel and Zionism in a critical light is a consistent pattern with Diamond. In his well received Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, he discusses the “world’s worst trouble spots,” areas of the globe that are causing severe problems for First-World, industrialized countries like the United States, Europe and Japan. He says the “list of trouble spots should surely include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, and Somalia, plus others.”[39] Notice how he “conveniently” fails to mention the area of the world that could be the flashpoint for the next world war—Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian people in the Middle East.

Moreover, Diamond has made statements that suggest an emotional attachment to Jewish-Zionist tradition. In a trip to Israel in 1992 he visited the fortress of Masada, where in A.D. 73 during the Jewish revolt against Roman rule a small group of Jews, after a year-long siege by a vastly larger Roman army, finally committed mass suicide rather than surrender. Professor Diamond revealed how he identifies with this icon of Jewish history: “As I stood there on a burning hot day in 1992, I could almost feel the ferocious determination that had driven the besieged [the 960 Jews who refused to surrender to the Romans] to hold out for so long in their hopeless situation […]”[40]

It is important to note that just because Diamond’s racial and historical theories may be politically motivated and dovetail with a Jewish-Zionist agenda, this in no way disproves them: they may even be 100% correct. His line of argument is to be examined for its truth and falsity independent of his motives and underlying sympathies. Nevertheless, Diamond’s biases shed light upon why his theories are skewed in a certain direction.

With that said, we now turn our analysis to Jared Diamond’s claim about the crucial biological difference between people of European descent and the hunter-gatherers from technologically primitive societies.

Diamond’s Argument: Why Europeans are allegedly genetically inferior in intelligence to New Guineans

Diamond’s theory of history is summarized with this statement: “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.”[41] It is crucial for him to demonstrate that Europeans are genetically inferior in intelligence to non-White “Stone Age” peoples [ “Stone Age peoples” is Diamond’s terminology—Ed.]. In this way, he can rule out genetic differences in intelligence as the reason for the dissimilarity between European and non-White “Stone Age” societies.

This is precisely why Diamond begins his Guns, Germs and Steel by arguing that White Europeans are genetically inferior in intelligence to non-White New Guineans. Indeed, in his outlook “Stone Age” peoples are on average probably more intelligent than people from industrialized nations.[42] Diamond says that it is easy to discern two reasons why his “impression” that native New Guineans are smarter than Westerners may be correct.[43]

So I can never be accused of distorting Diamond’s argument, I will quote him verbatim: “Europeans have for thousands of years been living in densely populated societies with central governments, police, and judiciaries. In those societies, infectious epidemic diseases of dense populations (such as smallpox) were historically the major cause of death, while murders were relatively uncommon and a state of war was the exception rather than the rule. Most Europeans who escaped fatal infections also escaped other potential causes of death and proceeded to pass on their genes. Today, most live-born Western infants survive fatal infections as well and reproduce themselves, regardless of their intelligence and the genes they bear. In contrast, New Guineans have been living in societies where human numbers were too low for epidemic diseases of dense populations to evolve. Instead, traditional New Guineans suffered high mortality from murder, chronic tribal warfare, accidents, and problems procuring food.”[44]

Diamond continues with this line of thought: “Intelligent people are likelier than less intelligent ones to escape those causes of high mortality in traditional New Guinea societies. However, the differential mortality from epidemic diseases in traditional European societies had little to do with intelligence, and instead involved genetic resistance dependent on body chemistry. For example, people with blood group B or O have a greater resistance to smallpox than do people with blood group A. That is, natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies [of Europe of past ages], where natural selection for body chemistry was instead more potent.”[45]

Finally, he draws the logical conclusion: “[I]n mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners.”[46]

Charles Darwin argued that chronic warfare could favor the evolution of higher intelligence in humans. By John G. Murdoch (publisher) (died 1902); possibly created by Elliott & Fry (Robert Ashby Collection) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Similar to Charles Darwin’s argument of 1871, Diamond is suggesting that chronic warfare could actually favor the proliferation of genes for higher intelligence in humans.[47] Supposedly, intelligent and cunning men who overcome their enemies in personal conflict and inter-tribal warfare are more likely to survive and pass down their genes as compared to less intelligent men. If a tribesman of higher intelligence invented a new weapon or method of attack and this enabled his tribe to defeat, supplant and eliminate other tribes, then his genes for high intelligence would be favored to survive and proliferate.[48] In addition, more-intelligent people are better able to obtain food and survive in a hostile environment like New Guinea as compared to less-intelligent people. Once again, this supposedly gives intelligent New Guineans an advantage in passing down their genes for higher intelligence.

Diamond’s belief, however, that warfare played almost no role in the evolution of genes for greater intelligence in the European past is very dubious, to say the very least. Warfare has been recorded in Europe during prehistoric and ancient times.[49] Summarizing the findings of a major study of warfare, Harvard sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson pointed out that when “the histories of 11 European countries over periods of 275 to 1,025 years [were analyzed], [it was] found that on the average they were engaged in some kind of military action 47 percent of the time, or about one year out of every two. The range was from 28 percent of the years in the case of Germany to 67 percent in the case of Spain. The early chiefdoms and states of Europe and the Middle East turned over with great rapidity, and much of the conquest was genocidal in nature. The spread of genes has always been of paramount importance.”[50] Directly contradicting Diamond, these somewhat frequent episodes of warfare in Europe could have selected, in accordance with Diamond’s own representation of the process, for genes for high intelligence among European peoples.

Furthermore, Diamond’s contention—that epidemic diseases in traditional European societies of the past would have played no role in the selection for genes for higher intelligence—is very questionable. He ignored the relationship between intelligence and social mobility, and its differential effect upon mortality due to epidemic disease. As the evolutionary psychologist Richard Lynn pointed out, in European societies of ages past those born with qualities needed to move up the social ladder tended to rise in the social hierarchy, while those lacking in such qualities tended to fall.[51]

We let Professor Lynn complete the argument: “[T]hose who had previously died from infectious diseases were disproportionately the poorer classes, who had lower nutritional status, and many of whom lived in unsanitary conditions in overcrowded and insalubrious towns and cities, where diseases were most virulent; these were less able to escape to the countryside when epidemics appeared. The lower classes tended to be less intelligent and have weaker character than the middle and upper classes as a result of centuries of social mobility, so their differentially high mortality from infectious diseases exerted selection pressure against low intelligence and weak character. As mortality from infectious diseases declined in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this selection pressure weakened, and those with poor general health, low intelligence and weak character were the principal beneficiaries.”[52]

Prior to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, those Europeans who were intelligent enough to fill the roles of military officer, judge, political official, etc.—and thus were able to obtain the best food, clothing, housing, sanitation, medical care, care for children, etc, —would be less susceptible to dying from disease. The end result: they were better able to pass down their genes as compared to those who were not intelligent enough to fill these roles. With the advent of modern medical and health techniques in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this selection pressure against low intelligence may have weakened—in New Guinea as well as in Europe.

Diamond offers another non-genetic, environmental reason why New Guineans are allegedly superior in intelligence to Europeans. He writes: “Besides this genetic reason, there is also a second reason why New Guineans may have come to be smarter than Westerners. Modern European and American children spend much of their time being passively entertained by television, radio, and movies. In the average American household, the TV set is on for seven hours per day. In contrast, traditional New Guinea children have virtually no such opportunities for passive entertainment and instead spend almost all of their waking hours actively doing something, such as talking or playing with other children or adults. Almost all studies of child development emphasize the role of childhood stimulation and activity in promoting mental development, and stress the irreversible mental stunting associated with reduced childhood stimulation. This effect surely contributes a non-genetic component to the superior average mental function displayed by New Guineans.”[53]

One wonders if Diamond is really being serious here! He totally ignores the fact that children in the industrialized West are exposed to the mentally stimulating environment of many hours per day of school, where they learn math, science, language, geography, etc. Many of the New Guineans that Diamond refers to do not go to schools, as he admits that the ones from remote villages are “unschooled.”[54] Moreover, even the New Guineans who undergo some type of formal education attend inferior and faulty schools, as two such papers point out.[55]

Diamond is comparing literate and schooled children from Europe and the United States to illiterate, unschooled or poorly schooled children in New Guinea. And even if we compare the native New Guinean children who do attend school to the children in Europe and the United States, does he really believe that the former attend better and more mentally stimulating schools than the latter?

After completing his two-part argument, Diamond makes a generalization that forms a cornerstone of his historical theory: “The same two genetic and childhood developmental factors are likely to distinguish not only New Guineans from Westerners, but also hunter-gatherers and other members of technologically primitive societies from members of technologically advanced societies in general. Thus, the usual racist assumption [that people from technologically advanced societies are inherently smarter than people from technologically primitive societies] has to be turned on its head. Why is it that Europeans, despite their likely genetic disadvantage [in intelligence] and (in modern times) their undoubted developmental disadvantage, ended up with much more of the cargo [technologically advanced products]? Why did New Guineans wind up technologically primitive, despite what I believe to be their superior intelligence?”[56]

Contrary to what Diamond claims, selection promoting genes for intelligence was probably very intense in European societies of ages past, and there is no reason to believe that it was any less intense as compared to the situation in any hunter-gatherer or technologically primitive society. Furthermore, children from Europe and America are exposed to many hours per day of formal education, while many—if not most—children from hunter-gatherer or technologically primitive societies remain illiterate or attend inferior schools. Again, directly contradicting what Diamond alleges, this advantage should surely contribute a non-genetic component to a better mental functioning of European and American school children.

It is important to note that Diamond has no scientific evidence whatsoever to back up his belief that New Guineans are genetically superior in intelligence to Europeans and other peoples of Eurasian origin: he simply puts forth the aforementioned line of argument—and a very dubious one at that. In the 2005 edition of his magnum opus, he admitted that this belief is a “subjective impression.”[57] That is to say, a “subjective impression” forms the foundation of his Pulitzer Prize winning theory!

Diamond Ignored Scientific Evidence

As psychologist Lynn pointed out, Diamond ignored or dismissed the scientific evidence of intelligence testing, which suggests that—for genetic and/or non-genetic reasons—New Guineans as a whole are less intelligent than Europeans.[58]

If Diamond’s theory—that New Guineans are genetically better endowed in intelligence as compared to Europeans, and as children they are exposed to more mentally stimulating environments than Europeans—is correct, then we should expect that educated New Guineans should score quite high on tests of intelligence. Just the opposite is the case.

Professor Lynn discussed the results of a study of New Guinean “high school and university students aged 16 to 19 years who had been selected by competitive examination for secondary school and college and had at least nine years of schooling.” The results indicated that the group as a whole had about the mental age of European 10-year-olds.[59] Nor can Diamond fall back upon the slogan that “the New Guineans really are more intelligent than Europeans, but the intelligence tests are biased against them.” Professor Lynn cites the evidence that shows this to be incorrect.[60]

In Part II, we will evaluate Diamond’s geographical theory of history and show how his distorted racial thought actually reflects and serves the interests of Jewish-Zionist nationalism.

Notes:

© 2011