So I ran across this blog entry on the (possible) effect IQ differentials had on the course of history.
The only quibble I have with the entire idea (and remember that I’m a self proclaimed liberal, both philosophically and politically) is that I don’t think average intelligence differs all that much from one population to another, at least not signifigantly and not within recorded history. What does (or at least might) change is three things: one, the distribution of exceptionally intelligent people- that one population might have more geniuses than another, two, what problems those geniuses are encouraged to work on, and three, how accepting the population as a whole is to new ideas. And I think two and three are much bigger factors than one is.
What is also interesting, I think, is using these theories as predictive power- what does this portend for the future.
I really don’t have any data on the distribution of geniuses. The definition of a genius, in this case, is someone who can see a different, better, way to do something, anything. Solve a math problem, organize an army, run an economy, plow a field, whatever. The big, dramatic, advantages, the sort that change history, come from radical changes. And, as a general rule, radical changes are only really seen by a small number of gifted individuals, who then introduce the rest of us to their ideas. Pick any field you want, and you’ll find that there are a small number of individuals who real dominate the field, who make the ground breaking contributions. Without these wellsprings of creativity, or with a deficit of them, you’re at a disadvantage to the number of radical improvements you can make- you literally don’t have the people crazy enough to think up ideas.
It’s hard to argue, however, that differences in idea-sets, effectively differences in technology, didn’t have an effect on history. Rome was a military power not so much because of the number of people it had (although it had more people than most other countries, it didn’t have more people than all the other people combined), what it had was technology- roads and phalanxes. Which is why there are lots of stories of Roman legions kicking the butts of armies five, even ten times their size- they had a technological advantage. Or strategic or tactical or organizational, whatever you want to call it- the Romans had better ideas than everyone else.
That said, I suspect that the distribution of geniuses is more or less random. I mean, there’s one question I have as to why Rome ruled so long: why didn’t everyone start copying the Romans? Why didn’t the Gauls and Brits and Jews and everyone else go “Hey, these Phalanxs are kicking our ass. If we want to kick the Romans out, we’re going to need to get some phalanxs of our own”?
The answer is that it’s not sufficient to have the ideas, the ideas have to be adopted as well. Which means not doing things the way you’ve always done things, something which most cultures and people find exceptionally hard to do. Even harder than submitting to Roman rule, apparently.
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