Ancient Europeans can't have been more advanced

. . . because that might mean modern humans aren't all the same.

Afram genius John McWhorter displays his brilliant powers of reasoning:
We are to take from this that evidence for an artistic mindset - i.e. modern, abstract thought - mysteriously "exploded" into the human endowment at this time. "The Big Bang," some call it, an apparent Great Leap Forward in toolmaking, burial rituals and art among European peoples at this time. Scholars of human evolution have taken a cue from this and supposed that the Big Bang was the result of some genetic mutation that led to humanity of a modern cognitive level.

[. . .] but if this "Big Bang" happened in Europe, then presumably this dramatic mutation did not happen to people beyond Europe. And yet, it is assumed that all human beings are equal in basic mental endowment [. . .]

The Big Bang idea has always seemed peculiar to me, then, in an implication surely none of the scientists intended but which stood there anyway: a Victorian idea that only Europeans became truly civilized while everyone else in the world remained "natives" chanting around cooking pots in forest clearings.

5 comments:

weston said...

a Victorian idea that only Europeans became truly civilized while everyone else in the world remained "natives" chanting around cooking pots in forest clearings.

Would McWorter actually argue that this belief is factually incorrect? I'd love to see him try.

ben tillman said...

And yet, it is assumed that all human beings are equal in basic mental endowment

No, that is not assumed.

silver said...

Would McWorter actually argue that this belief is factually incorrect? I'd love to see him try. Plenty of other peoples could fairly be described as civilized in Victorian times and certainly so today. That they fail to reach the heights that N. Europe has attained hardly makes them the equivalent of natives chanting around cooking pots.

Anonymous said...

Do any of you guys actually have a life?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

Do any of you guys actually have a life?

This is a typical Negro response when one of your kind stumbles onto a race site. Other typical responses include calling us sad, pathetic and claiming we are all ignorant.

Either rebut the article, submit a comment related to the post, or get lost.