tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post3535832584466788517..comments2024-03-28T21:32:26.550+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: The religious practices of Australian AboriginesBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-64493231180147114732011-12-06T10:11:25.580+00:002011-12-06T10:11:25.580+00:00I suspect that the idea of using Australian Aborig...I suspect that the idea of using Australian Aborigines in terms of evolutionary theorizing is likely to be misleading. <br /><br />The current theories state that the Australian Aborigines split off from the rest of humans about 50,000 years ago - about 2000 human generations - so it would be expected that some differences were large (although there has been some gene mixing since Europeans arrived in Australia). <br /><br />From reviewing the literature, Jason Malloy estimates Aborigine IQ as around two standard deviations below European:<br /><br />http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/02/world-of-difference-richard-lynn-maps.php<br /><br />Another difference (also mentioned by Malloy) is that Aborigines seem to have some superior visual-spatial memory than Europeans - <br /><br />http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028581900177<br /><br />In sum, the general cognitive 'set-up' of Australian Aborigines may be substantially different from most other humans, such that what explains one may not explain the others.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.com