The phrase 'Dark Ages' was a perjorative term applied to a specific time in European history by historians who assumed that because there was no great art or architecture remaining, then the people were thuggish and crude, condemned to lives that were, if I remember the quote correctly, "nasty, brutish, and short."

Modern scholarly thinking does not hold to these tenets. There were no 'dark ages'. There is simply 'the bit between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance', wherein life proceeded, largely, as expected. Wars were fought. The Church kept its grip on people. A largely feudal society was at large. The lack of art and architecture is not because the people were too stupid, but because neither were of particular necessity in their lifestyles. Most could not read or write, anyway; there was a very limited literate/merchant class, and most music and folklore was handed down by word of mouth.

Using the words 'Dark Ages' implies that humanity in Europe somehow slipped backwards. This is nonsense.

 

+1

An excellent book on the Middle Ages, which DL will not read: The Age of Faith, by Will and Ariel Durant.

Yes, I have read it. No, I will not paraphrase it. Not worth the effort. DL is being a big fat baby about this, and utterly refuses to have his bigotry clouded by facts.

 

Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism among African Negroes

Things Fall Apart is a 1958 English language novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe...

Things Fall Apart was followed by a sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960),.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_Fall_Apart

These may be excellent novels, but they are obviously idealized.

As I pointed out previously, agriculture began 10,000 years ago among Caucasians. From the Egyptians, who were Caucasians, it passed to the Nubians, who were Negroes, and eventually to the Bantu about four thousand years ago.

Prior to the European conquest of sub Saharan Africa human sacrifice and cannibalism among the Negroes were widespread. To an extent they still exist there.

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Similar killings for the purpose of ritual are still occasionally seen, with reports [of human sacrifice] from the 2000s from Sub-Saharan Africa (muti killings), but also isolated cases in the immigrant African diaspora in Europe...

Human sacrifice was common in West African states up to and during the 19th century. The Annual customs of Dahomey was the most notorious example, but sacrifices were carried out all along the West African coast and further inland. Sacrifices were particularly common after the death of a King or Queen, and there are many recorded cases of hundreds or even thousands of slaves being sacrificed at such events. Sacrifices were particularly common in Dahomey, in the Benin Empire, in what is now Ghana, and in the small independent states in what is now southern Nigeria. According to R. J. Rummel, "Just consider the Grand Custom in Dahomey: When a ruler died, hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of prisoners would be slain. In one of these ceremonies in 1727, as many as 4,000 were reported killed. In addition, Dahomey had an Annual Custom during which 500 prisoners were sacrificed."[80]...

Human sacrifice was officially banned in the remainder of West African states only by coercion, or in some cases annexation, by either the British or French. An important step was the British coercing the powerful Egbo secret society to oppose human sacrifice in 1850. This society was powerful in a large number of states in what is now south-eastern Nigeria. Nonetheless, human sacrifice continued, normally in secret, until West Africa came under firm colonial control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

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Cannibalism was widespread in the past among humans in many parts of the world, continuing into the 19th century in some isolated South Pacific cultures, and to the present day in parts of tropical Africa...

Cannibalism has recently been both practiced and fiercely condemned in several wars, especially in Liberia[11] and Congo.[12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism

 

You have however I believe neglected to mention a very important aspect of that time period which was the rise of the Catholic Church, the belief that the Bible was the only source of knowledge, and consequently Christian mobs burning books and in some cases entire libraries.

Most of the progress in human knowledge was lost and had to be reconstructed later form what fragments were left during the "enlightenment."

According to Professor Missouri Downs at the University of Wyoming the fact the earth is not the center of the Universe and actually revolves around the sun was discovered and written about by Greek Aristarchus of Samos in 270 BC and even earlier in India.

Downs said astronomy work to prove the earth revolved around the sun was ongoing at the Library at Alexandria when it was burned by a Christian mob and both the work and all the previous knowledge was lost.

According to Downs we lost thousands of years of previous study and knowledge and did not begin to recover that knowledge until the Renaissance.

That's why China especially seemed so far when it was allegedly visited by Marco Polo. Their body of writings went back 6,000 years.

Downs goes so far as to theorize if all that written knowledge had not been lost we might have landed on the moon in 900 AD.

 

According to the authors of The 10,000 Year Explosion, what matters for the evolution toward higher average intelligence than one will find among paleolithic hunters is urban civilization. From the end of the Roman Empire in the fifth century to the Renaissance, which began in the fourteenth century, a very small minority of Europeans lived in cities. Many who did were Jews. These specialized in the intellectually challenging trades of commerce and finance, because they were excluded from other fields due to religious persecution.

In Chapter 7 of The 10,000 Year Explosion, "Medieval Evolution, How the Askenazi Jews Got their Smarts," the authors attribute the high average intelligence of the Ashkenazic Jews (who have average IQs of 112) to this fact.

 

Man that was really stupid Distant Lover. You just disproved your entire race and intelligence bullshit by pointing out that intelligence is largely environmental and instead of being genetically determined can be improved by changing the environment.

Just like all the critics of the Bell Curve have been pointing out for decades now.

For a white boy you're not too intelligent there DL. You are simply so blinded by your racism and you can't even see when you are contradicting yourself.

 

Not at all. According to professors Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending the Ashkenazim evolved to superior intelligence because only the most intelligent could learn the skills necessary to be merchants and money lenders. Those who could not learn the skills died before they had children, or they left the Jewish faith.

Because the Ashkenazim had to evolve quickly they picked up some dangerous genes that are dominant for superior intelligence, but recessive for various genetic diseases.

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Ashkenazi Jews have been terrifically overrepresented in cultural and scientific achievements over the past hundred years. They have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group, and an odd set of genetic diseases. We believe that there is a simple explanation for all these surprising facts - natural selection for being better white-collar workers in the Middle Ages.
http://the10000yearexplosion.com/medieval-evolutions/

 

And quite obviously that's because of environment and culture not genetics. Plus you have wonderfully documented that "intelligence" is determined by culture, education, and occupations. People in intellectually demanding cultures and occupations are better at taking tests, not necessarily more intelligent.

But at least you can't defend The Bell Curve anymore and have to admit both their "science" and the "social implications" are nothing more than White Supremacists propaganda based on a fraudulent premise.

That was worth the effort.

 

As I have pointed out on several occasions, those of us who accept a biological explanation of racial differences recognize that the Orientals have a higher average IQ than whites, and lower crime rates.

Either you do not understand my arguments, or you are deliberately distorting them. Changes in the environment change natural selection so that individuals who thrive in the new environment, but who might not have in the old environment, are more likely to survive and reproduce.

In their book Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending point out that in the ancient world Jews were not considered to be of exceptional intelligence, but Greeks were. That makes sense because Greece was the first European nation to adopt urban civilization. It was only when urban civilization nearly ceased to exist in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, and when Jews could only survive and reproduce if the mastered intellectually demanding skills, that the Ashkenazim began to evolve superior intelligence.

Cochran and Harpending point out that Jews living in Islamic countries did not develop superior intelligence because more fields were open to them - fields not requiring superior intelligence. It seems counter intuitive, but the Christian persecution of European Jews made them biologically superior.

I point that out because low black IQs are often attributed to white persecution.

 

Is this not disproving their own theory? If they predicted a black president are they not admitting that intelligence is derived from education and not genetic.

 

Are you unable to recognize a facetious response to your rhetorical question?

Charles Murray acknowledges that the races overlap when it comes to intellectual ability. He also recognizes that blacks with white ancestry tend to be more intelligent than 100 percent African Negroes.

Although I voted for Barack Obama and intend to again, his background indicates that he benefited from affirmative action. He has not publicized his grades and aptitude test scores. Although he was on the Law Review at Harvard Law School, he did not write anything for it. While he taught law at the University of Chicago he published no law articles.

Obama has made mistakes a more intelligent president probably would not have. The most critical was to change the American health system before adopting policies that reduced the unemployment rate.

 

Has anyone else noticed that Distant Lover constantly dodges the -points in the statement he quotes and just tries to deflect to some other obscure unproven theory or alleged point.

He finally gets an entire thread to discuss his beloved The Bell Curve which he claims he has not read but claims it predicted President Obama being elected and gives a page number.

But once both the alleged science and conclusions are soundly defeated and the errors exposed and The Bell Curve discredited all he wants to do is try to continue his racist rants using equally unproven theories simply because they reinforce the racism, prejudice and bigotry he's constantly and consistently trying to promote.

That's why I hold him in lower regard and more contempt than our overt racists .

 

Are you really so obtuse that you thought I was serious about The Bell Curve predicting the election of Barack Obama?

Once again, when has the science of The Bell Curve been defeated?

Just because some academic somewhere says that The Bell Curve is unscientific does not mean that it is. It is more probably an example of the Appeal to Authority Fallacy.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

The reason why I anger you more than "our overt racists," is because I so obviously know what I am talking about, and my arguments are so plausible. The reason you are angry, and I am calm is because we both know that what I say about the importance of genes is true. People do not get angry when opinions they are sure of are challenged.

The truth of what Charles Murray says stares in the face of every school teacher, especially a public school teacher with racially diverse classes. They know that some students are able to learn faster with less effort than others. They know that the first group can learn what the second group cannot. They know that most Orientals do well, and that most blacks do poorly.

They also know that No Child Left Behind has failed. They know why it has failed.

 

You do know that a black with white ancestory is not a true black, they are known as a half-caste. As you say Obama has made mistakes, can you quote a President that never made a mistake, or prove his mistakes would not have been made by a white President. your theory that a white President would not have made these mistakes cannot be proven, the same as all the debated points of the Bell Curve, NONE of them can be proven. Its all theory and hypothesis.

 

The fact, which I have already documented on several occasions, that the children of poor and poorly educated whites tend to do better on the SAT than the children of affluent, and well educated blacks is impressive evidence of innate racial differences. So is the failure of No Child Left Behind.

Those who insist on disbelieving in the greenhouse effect will not admit they are wrong, even when much of Florida is under water.

Those who insist in believing in intrinsic racial equality will continue to pretend they are right regardless of how much government money is wasted in futile efforts to achieve it.

 

Having just done a little searching, I have found this gem of information...
Now I wonder just what D.L. thinks of his precious Bell Curve once this link has been read and understood....

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmscientists1.html

 

Why don't you just answer the points made. NOT go off on some tangent and try to diguise your stubborness with racist views...

Now PLEASE read the link that has been posted, and then explain just where The Bell Curve theories are relevant...

 

Black Scientists & Inventors

Two early African-American scientists, namely mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker and agricultural chemist George Washington Carver, have become legendary for their intellect and ingenuity.

Born free in Maryland, Banneker was largely self-taught. He constructed the first striking clock to be made in America, helped survey the boundaries for Washington, D.C., and published an almanac, which he compiled based on his own astronomical observations and calculations.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmscientists1.html

That some blacks have the intelligence to excel in science is perfectly consistent with what Charles Murray says, as I have pointed out again and again.

 

I already have.

 

What about the other people on the list.....