Humanity has entered a new era of genetic knowledge, and it can no longer be denied that people from different parts of the world not only possess genes from different human species, but that these genes can be attributed to the development of modern civilization.
According to scientific consensus, modern man evolved in Africa, thereafter migrating to Eurasia, where successful mating took place multiple times with Neanderthals, Denisovans, and a yet-unknown 4th species of human.
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond argues that: "Physical locations where different cultures have taken root directly affected the ability of those societies to develop key
institutions, like agriculture and animal domestication, or to acquire
important traits, like immunity to disease."
Mr. Diamond wrote his groundbreaking work before the 2010 discovery by Svante Pääbo proving that moderns humans interbred with Neanderthals, but an updated version would potentially read: "Guns, Germs, Steel, and Inter-species breeding."
To understand the significance of humans reproducing with Denisovans, we need look no further than Tibet, where a gene directly inherited from the extinct human species allows the modern people there to thrive at high altitudes.
Moreover, breeding with Neanderthals boosted the immune system of modern Europeans. There is still a lot more to learn, but it can't be denied that interbreeding with closely-related human species contributed to the development of modern Eurasian humans.
Discussing the intelligence of modern humans is a controversial subject, for obvious reasons, such as allegations by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime that some humans were intellectually superior to others. Hitler, however, was operating on tribal notions that relied on appearance and geographical place of birth rather than precise genetic makeup.
We have now entered an era that may not only destroy supremacist, racist notions, but one that could give birth to a new form of human discrimination: one against pure humans, those from Sub-Saharan Africa.
The idea that interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans made some humans superior to others is one that will be readily accepted in the Dominican Republic, where an anti-Sub-Saharan supremacist movement already has roots.
In 1937, Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo ordered the massacre of over 30,000 Haitians, and a year later, at the Evian Conference, his regime granted 100,000 visas to Europe's Jews, so they could repopulate the Dominican Republic, which has a history of being sparsely-populated.
Superior drive for revenge. WKM |
Although the Jews were considered inferior in Europe, the Dominicans considered their intelligence superior, and the fact that they were not Sub-Saharan Africans meant that they could be assimilated into the Dominican gene pool without disrupting the "physiognomy" of the people.
In 2005, I found myself in the Dominican Republic, having lunch with an important political family. I had just been accepted into Yale University, and rumors of my literary skills had the Dominican elite competing for my attention; I was invited to a fancy resort in Bavaro.
An Asian family went up to the buffet, and the Lady of the Dominican sugar family starts laughing at the bow-legged seniors, saying, "Seriously, these Asians must have blood from another monkey."
I was speechless, shocked, and simply remained silent. When I learned about the Denisovans interbreeding with Asian people some years later, I felt fear because I know that the sugar family's beliefs were confirmed: that non-Dominicans had an unbalanced amount of blood from "another monkey."
The Dominican Republic has the fastest-growing economy in Latin America, while hunger in Haiti has doubled in the past 6 months. While Santo Domingo's metro, already the largest in Central America, exponentially expands, the government in Port-Au-Prince fails to elect a new president.
The Dominican Republic is a perfect place to study the effects of Neanderthals and Denisovan genes, as the country is one of the most diverse in the world, and is bordered by a country of people with near-pure Sub-Saharan ancestry.
Many Dominicans are convinced that Haitians are inferior, but it may just turn out to be that it's not them who are flawed, it's us who are motivated by unbalanced forces. If Neanderthal or Denisovan genes confer any superior abilities on Eurasian humans, it's a superior ability to kill, and to do so ruthlessly.
The folly of the Sub-Saharan people is not that they are less intelligent than us, it's that they are genetically less-endowed with a determination for vengeance, as can be evidenced by lower rates of autism and ADHD, conditions which facilitate hyperfocus and thus life-long obsessions with one single subject.
I know plenty of Dominicans who wake up at 6am, do 80 pull-ups, and then start plotting against someone that wronged them many years ago. I have not met a single Haitian motivated by such cold, uncompromising motives.
We may yet learn that our inherited propensity for planned, long-term violence is what has allowed some civilizations to succeed where others failed.