tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5802645130466707805..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Gelman on "A Troublesome Inheritance" in SlateUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63177326796610784602014-05-12T06:47:17.387-07:002014-05-12T06:47:17.387-07:00It was implied in the sense that if I thought the ...It was implied in the sense that if I thought the olympiad was a proxy for intellectual ability, then India's poor performance in comparison to little countries like Singapore or Taiwan or Korea (which I did mention in my previous comment) is grounds to think that the Indian population may lack mathematical IQ in the same high range as East Asian countries. But it is still better than the blacks of Africa.<br /><br />And your second comment is clearly a poorly-thought out attempt to get under my skin. India is NOT ranked quite as low in attractiveness as it is on IQ. Indian men are less attractive than Persians, but Indian women are arguably more attractive, less hairy and have finer features than Persian women. Not to mention Indian women have won the third highest number of Miss World contests after Venezuela and the UK. Heck even Miss America is an Indian, though I don't find her particularly attractive.<br /><br />So your contention is incorrect. At the maximum you might say that Indian men aren't as attractive as persian men. But we all know the distribution of attractiveness, with black women and Chinese men consistently rated the least attractive (because Aborigines arent studied much), and this pattern borne out by real world data of who doesnt get wives/husbands/hookups in the sexual marketplace.<br /><br />And let me admit here that I myself have high IQ but below average looks. India's overall genetic makeup makes no difference to me personally. Would I prefer to have been born hotter and dumber? Yes, for sure. But I can't change what I've been given to work with.<br /><br />Finally, stop boiling with resentment that your precious White race is not accepted as being tops at everything. This isn't high school, learn to live with other people's success.hardlynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53752904629085107602014-05-11T22:29:01.529-07:002014-05-11T22:29:01.529-07:00Nice try. But that is implied in my comment.
How ...<i>Nice try. But that is implied in my comment.</i><br /><br />How is India's sorry record in the Math Olympiad implied in your comment about the abysmal record of a couple african countries? All it implied to me was that you were trying to endear yourself to the HBD crowd after annoying them with your northern euro bashing.<br /><br />And you are doing the same again now by remarking on the ugliness of the other race that every HBDer loves to pile on: australian aborigines. You could have compared the ugliness of indians to that of persians instead...<br /><br />After all if you are openminded enough to be OK with the intellectual inferiority of indians compared to east asians, whites, peruvians and others you should be OK with indian inferiority in the superficial looks department.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59245605178644459782014-05-11T19:02:16.966-07:002014-05-11T19:02:16.966-07:00It blows my mind that a five-member team from litt...<i>It blows my mind that a five-member team from little Macau's 600K East Asians can perform better than similar teams from Nigeria's 170 million blacks and Uganda's 35 million blacks. </i><br /><br />Why doesn't it blow your mind to see tiny Singapore heavily outperforming the 1200 million black and brown skinned indians in the last Olympiad?<br /><br />Countries like Peru, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, Iran also outperform India. Iran actually won the Olympiad once, India has never even come close.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-54500643763126209862014-05-11T18:07:47.186-07:002014-05-11T18:07:47.186-07:00Yeah, you need to stop nitpicking on the small poi...Yeah, you need to stop nitpicking on the small points of my posts and focus on the overall argument. Otherwise you are merely like those hostile reviewers whom Charles Murray predicted would focus on little details to tear apart Wade's book.<br /><br />The Peruvian IQ mentioned in Lynn's book is broken down as mestizo+native vs Whites. Your requirements for my posts are that I be even more precise in my IQ debates than Richard Lynn himself. <br /><br />If the mathematical olympiads are a poor proxy for IQ, why do east Asians dominate the upper levels? We know their mathematical IQs are higher than Whites and Jews. And why are there practically no blacks whatsoever? <br /><br />You can't get out of this by claiming the Koreans cheat, or the Chinese cheat (which seems to be the excuse used by a lot of White HBDers to explain away East Asian Intelligence - otherwise it would threaten their self image). <br /><br />My contention is that the Olympiads are assessing only quantitative IQ, while "IQ" tests also check for verbal, visuospatial and so many other parameters. Perhaps Peruvians have a differentiated IQ structure within their population, like India's caste system, making mean values less informative as opposed to the same in homogenous European or Chinese societies.<br /> <br />Look at the website and the trend over the last couple of decades for Team China. And then follow up with the trends for Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Vietnam. You see occasional achievements by the US and UK, but those need to be taken with the understanding that East Asians comprise the major chunk of the teams from the US and UK.<br /><br />I think the Olympiad is a magnificent and beautiful example of HBD in action, where the predictions made by HBD scientists are actually borne out by reality. The results are exactly what someone like Rushton might have predicted. It blows my mind that a five-member team from little Macau's 600K East Asians can perform better than similar teams from Nigeria's 170 million blacks and Uganda's 35 million blacks.<br /><br />===========================================<br /><br />Secondly - When I say China, I refer primarily to the pan-Chinese Empires. There have been large periods of Chinese history when they were united under one ruler, as opposed to Europe. Several Chinese dynasties have ruled over almost ALL the territory currently occupied by Chinese speakers in the PRC, while NO European dynasty has achieved anything remotely comparable. Europe's political fragmentation is far more comparable to India's.<br /><br />In spite of the fashionable trend these days being to call Chinese a bunch of different languages, and the Chinese people a bunch of different civilizations, any disinterested observer can easily tell you that the Chinese have a cultural unity that you simply cannot see in India or Europe. And this has been the case for nearly 1000 years. Even the communists are not strong enough to force hundreds of millions of people to speak a foreign language in just fifty years. The Russians couldnt homogenize the USSR, I doubt Mao was responsible for the homogenizing of China.<br /><br />And I repeat, I am from India, I have no vested interest in promoting Chinese people or bashing Whites. I just tell it like I see it. hardlynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17252441197803958892014-05-11T15:16:02.600-07:002014-05-11T15:16:02.600-07:00my use of 1200AD was merely a marker for pre-renai...<i> my use of 1200AD was merely a marker for pre-renaissance Europe. I didn't mean it as a hard-and-fast date. Let's take it 3 or 400 years earlier, if you are not willing to accept that 1200's England or Germany was nothing significant in comparison to the magnificence that was China.</i> <br /><br /><br />You're making a rather large category error. I'll assume it was unintentional rather than deliberate.<br /><br />"China" is being used by you as a stand-in term to describe a lot of different people living in different (frequently warring) countries and speaking different languages. An analogy would be to "Europe" and not to "England". <br /><br />You've already made your lack of knowledge of European history clear. Now you're starting to do the same for Chinese history.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88706408155082045132014-05-11T14:56:16.427-07:002014-05-11T14:56:16.427-07:00I cannot quantify pure Native american vs varying ...<i>I cannot quantify pure Native american vs varying degrees of Euro admixture based on these photos. Hence mestizo has to serve as a stand-in term for majority-native</i> <br /><br />The conclusion stated in the second sentence cannot logically be justified based on what you say in the first one.<br /><br /><br /><i>Richard Lynn of IQ fame agrees with me, in his book IQ and the Wealth of Nations (check it out on Google books) he clubs Native Americans and Mestizos together as forming 88% of the population.</i> <br /><br />Agreeing that Native Americans and Mestizos together form 88% of the population is not the same thing as agreeing that Mestizos are the same thing as Native Americans.<br /><br /><br /><i>this demonstrable intellectual ability of modern Peruvians</i> <br /><br /><br />What "demonstrable intellectual ability or modern Peruvians"? Peru's national IQ is about 80. The country operates pretty much as you'd expect from such a place. You're carrying on like it's Switzerland.<br /><br /><i>Spain's performance in the mathematical olympiad is far inferior to Peru's, in spite of its all-Caucasian genetic makeup, and a GDP per capita which is 5 times that of Peru's.</i> <br /><br /><br />An intelligent person would conclude from this that your much cherished mathematical olympiads are simply a very poor proxy for national ability or national IQ.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59924447744966421872014-05-11T10:30:44.194-07:002014-05-11T10:30:44.194-07:00"Non sequitur, unless you think that denying ..."Non sequitur, unless you think that denying yourself pleasure leads directly to achievement in science and culture."<br /><br />He said Islam lacks a monastic tradition which is factually inaccurate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44673070377477020762014-05-10T17:34:59.511-07:002014-05-10T17:34:59.511-07:00@hardly
"How about 900AD? 700AD? 500AD?"...@hardly<br />"How about 900AD? 700AD? 500AD?"<br /><br />I'd say somewhere between 1000AD and 1100AD was the turning point but no doubt a lot would argue different.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages#High_Middle_Ages<br /><br />"The High Middle Ages saw an expansion of population. The estimated population of Europe <b>grew from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347</b>, although the exact causes remain unclear"<br /><br />(heavy plow imo)<br /><br />so 1200AD was close<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85846299568408049662014-05-10T17:07:48.535-07:002014-05-10T17:07:48.535-07:00I cannot quantify pure Native american vs varying ...I cannot quantify pure Native american vs varying degrees of Euro admixture based on these photos. Hence mestizo has to serve as a stand-in term for majority-native. But these kids dont look too different from the sort of underclass mexican immigrants you see in the hispanic ghettos of large american cities. And Richard Lynn of IQ fame agrees with me, in his book IQ and the Wealth of Nations (check it out on Google books) he clubs Native Americans and Mestizos together as forming 88% of the population. <br /> <br />It is unlikely that this demonstrable intellectual ability of modern Peruvians comes from Spaniard blood. Spain's performance in the mathematical olympiad is far inferior to Peru's, in spite of its all-Caucasian genetic makeup, and a GDP per capita which is 5 times that of Peru's.<br /><br />Second point- I don't see why conquest needs to indicate anything about the conquering culture being superior to the defeated one. The Germanics sacked Rome, the Vikings sacked Southern Europe, the Arabs sacked Persia, the Mongols sacked Baghdad and China. Mere superiority in the organized application of violence does not indicate "civilizational superiority" in the sense we are discussing on this board. The Nazi fascination for Norsemen was probably more from the fact that they won their battles, rather than any civilizational achievement. In that sense it is on par with Uzbekistan celebrating Tamerlane, and Mongolia celebrating Genghis Khan. Neither of those were particular high points in the history of civilization. They were just good at conquering other people. Of course, it could be argued that victory is the only thing that matters, but that would lead us into all sorts of contradictions. <br /><br />And finally, my use of 1200AD was merely a marker for pre-renaissance Europe. I didn't mean it as a hard-and-fast date. Let's take it 3 or 400 years earlier, if you are not willing to accept that 1200's England or Germany was nothing significant in comparison to the magnificence that was China.<br /> <br />How about 900AD? 700AD? 500AD? At some point in the not-very-distant past you must admit that Northwestern Europe was a backwater filled with barbarians. The Runestones used by Norsemen in 600AD are uncouth and ugly in comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs created 4000 years ago, to say nothing of the exquisite intricacy of Chinese script.<br /><br />Buddhism, which is fast becoming the philosophy of choice among SWPL intellectuals in NYC and LA, was merely one fragment of the Indian intellectual tradition between 500BC and 500AD. Did the Germans and Norsemen and Angles and Saxons have anything even mildly comparable in that time? (Greece certainly did, but our discussion here seems to be dealing with Northwestern Europe, which many of the commenters seem to think was the Eternal capital of world civilization. My contention is that it was not, and that the rise of NW Europe is a recent event)<br /><br />The historical evidence seems to indicate that NW Europe rose rapidly over the last 1000 years. Before that the place was just a collection of migratory tribes, much like the Gypsies today. Now, whether this sudden improvement was from the avoidance of inbreeding, or manorialism, or whatever other theories there are out there, is not something I can state with confidence. hardlynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67591044544131097242014-05-10T15:43:54.082-07:002014-05-10T15:43:54.082-07:00"So, the Muslims saved Greek scientific knowl..."So, the Muslims saved Greek scientific knowledge. Saved it from what? From being lost in the destruction of Graeco-Roman civilization. Which was destroyed by whom? The Muslims."<br /><br />You darn fool. Rome was sacked by Germanics, and Byzantine didn't fall until 15th century. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26242265623286228342014-05-10T14:28:33.142-07:002014-05-10T14:28:33.142-07:00Greece didn't fall until 1500 AD.
Europe &quo...Greece didn't fall until 1500 AD.<br /><br />Europe "rose" (again) 1000AD, not 1500. In 1500AD Europe did something else that requires new word to reflect fact that it culminated in men on the Moon, not another big building.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21390576330657075322014-05-10T12:55:04.418-07:002014-05-10T12:55:04.418-07:00The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was at the time the...<i>The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was at the time the leading "scientific" Islamic intellectual center. As noted above it played a crucial role in saving and translating early Greek scientific works and building on them.</i><br /><br />So, the Muslims saved Greek scientific knowledge. Saved it from what? From being lost in the destruction of Graeco-Roman civilization. Which was destroyed by whom? The Muslims.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53901434985659166182014-05-10T12:38:12.199-07:002014-05-10T12:38:12.199-07:00"Anonymous said...
The middle ages and even ..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />The middle ages and even the dark ages were a time of politcal and social regression, but not technical regression."<br /><br />This sentence makes no sense and betrays a lack of understanding of the history of that era. It implies that the middle ages were more backward than the dark ages, whereas the reverse was the case. The dark ages were a time of social regression, compared to what went before (the classical era) and what came after (the middle ages). The middle ages may appear more backward to us than classical civilization, but that is merely an aesthetic opinion, in many ways, although it was objectively backward in some key areas - art and political organization, for example.<br /><br />The notion that the middle ages in Europe was some kind of inexplicably dark and backward era in the history of the world is just wrong. Was it backward compared to the present day? Sure. But compared to 5,000 B.C.? Probably not. <br /><br />You are right about technical progress, however, which continued even during the dark ages, at least in isolated technologies.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59978911811367899132014-05-10T12:26:41.080-07:002014-05-10T12:26:41.080-07:00"Anonymous said...
The Great Sphinx of Giza ..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />The Great Sphinx of Giza is 4500 years old and has a subsaharan african face."<br /><br />It is not a european face, certainly - but that doesn't mean it has a sub-saharan african face either. It should also be noted that the Sphinx is a creature. In greek legend, it was a monster. So the sculptors would not necessarily have made it's face look like the typical face of their own people.<br /><br />In any event, if your trying to push the line that ancient Egyptian civilization was the work of blacks......no sale. That afrocentric bulls**t is not believed by anyone who knows anything.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69479847283934749822014-05-10T11:32:24.223-07:002014-05-10T11:32:24.223-07:00The Inca Empire was in physical terms easily capab...<i>The Inca Empire was in physical terms easily capable of crushing Cortez,</i> <br /><br /><br />I don't know what you mean by that, and I suspect you don't even know yourself. If you mean that "Given their enormous numerical superiority the Inca's should have been able to defeat the handful of Spanish intruders", well, sure. But that just goes back to the the fact that the Inca civilization was not as advanced as the Spanish one. <br /><br /><br /><i>There may be cultural factors (disunity above all) which render an otherwise strong people incapable of defeating those of a different, more unified culture</i> <br /><br /><br />There may be all sorts of things in the world at large, but none of those things apply to why the Inca's were conquered by the Spanish. A society which saw itself as the most advanced in the known world came into contact with an aggressive and vastly more advanced people from beyond the borders of the known world. Their collapse was psychological as much as anything else.<br /><br />The Spanish defeat of the Inca's is well documented, and it was not due to disunity among the Inca's. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50512928744055550702014-05-10T11:00:30.099-07:002014-05-10T11:00:30.099-07:00"The middle ages and even the dark ages were ..."The middle ages and even the dark ages were a time of politcal and social regression, but not technical regression. Here's one random guy's random list of the top 10 inventions of the middle ages:<br /><br />1. The Heavy Plough 5th Century AD<br /><br />So sometime in the 500s in England."<br /><br />The heavy plow was the critical element imo and was the foundation for the rest.<br /><br />The heavy plow allowed higher population density in the north and the other features of civilization require high density first.<br /><br />However that couldn't happen overnight. The population increase that started with the heavy plow took time and a lot of forest cutting.<br /><br />.<br /><br />@hardly<br /><br />"Civilization seems to happen in waves. Just because you are on a crest right now doesnt mean a trough wont come sometime."<br /><br />It seems to me like the centers of innovation move northwards over time almost as if civilization has a tendency to reduce drive over time. So you get a repeating pattern of:<br /><br />civilization<br />-> innovation<br />-> stagnation<br />moving through the latitude bands.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8514444198916820762014-05-10T10:05:07.463-07:002014-05-10T10:05:07.463-07:00The excessive inbreeding vs outbreeding of Euros i...<i>The excessive inbreeding vs outbreeding of Euros is far more likely to be the reason for recent western superiority.</i><br /><br />Wouldn't there be excessive and noticable mestizo accomplishment, as entire populations, everywhere, if this was the case?<br /><br />And didn't almost all people in the West marry people who lived within walking distance, almost up to today?<br /><br />More likely that the ice age isolated many small proto-western populations in small pockets where there was significant evolutionary divergence. This resulted in a wider range of characteristics in these populations as a whole than in others that hadn't gone through similar isolation. Probably also did make these populations much more likely to favor outbreeding with other such small populations that they encountered. This diversity might have little relation to western technical supperiority though, green eyes, blue eyes, and gray eyes probably isn't a contributing factor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5485527799625150192014-05-10T07:27:08.983-07:002014-05-10T07:27:08.983-07:00my perception of the rise and fall of civilization...<i>my perception of the rise and fall of civilizations, in very rough terms:<br />4000BC: Mesopotamia, Egypt, West India rose<br />Then 1000 years later add China, 2000BC India declined<br />500BC Greece/Rome rose, India rose, Persia rose, China steady<br />500 AD Greece/Rome collapse, India collapsed, Persia collapsed, China steady, Arabs/Islam rose<br />1500AD Northern Europe rose; China, Islam, Persia began gradual decline, India never recovered</i><br /><br />Greece didn't "collapse" until 1500AD.<br /><br />Northern Europe "rose" in 1000AD. What happened in N Europe in 1500AD on was not equivalent to previous "rises." It culminated with a man on the Moon, not another big building.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42237244009189628302014-05-10T07:23:53.075-07:002014-05-10T07:23:53.075-07:00Of course, this is not the whining of a Christian/...<i>Of course, this is not the whining of a Christian/Western chauvinist that cannot stomach the fact that his precious "superior" religion/civilization was at best equal (if that) to muslims back in the day.</i><br /><br />Chauvinist troll not chauvinist because not white.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-87326016108705724332014-05-10T07:02:19.387-07:002014-05-10T07:02:19.387-07:00These Peruvian kids look pretty native.
If you ...<i>These Peruvian kids look pretty native.</i> <br /><br /><br />If you think those guys looks "native", then I expect you also think Halle Berry and Mariah Carey look "black". They don't look native, they look like mestizos. In other words, they look like people with mixed European and "native American" ancestry, with more of the former than the latter.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6102001073101418232014-05-10T06:51:19.405-07:002014-05-10T06:51:19.405-07:00Looking at the mestizos today, no one would expect...<i>Looking at the mestizos today, no one would expect that their ancestors had fairly advanced civilizations, comparable to many white civilizations of the time.</i> <br /><br /><br />Ummm, some of their ancestors <i>were</i> white and had "advanced civilizations". That's what "mestizo" means - people of mixed white and Amerindian ancestry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-3160701789781187752014-05-10T06:44:40.334-07:002014-05-10T06:44:40.334-07:00hardly: If you went back to 1200 AD the English an...hardly: <i>If you went back to 1200 AD the English and Germans were running around like the subsaharans do today, while China, Japan and India had advanced civilizations.</i> <br /><br /><br />This absurd claim has been thoroughly debunked. Rather than admit you were wrong, you fall back to making further nonsensical claims, such as "the consensus among the European-derived commenters here seems to be that Europe has been the center of world civilization and achievement since the beginning of recorded history".<br /><br />if you have any facts to contribute to the debate, feel free to do so. But stop your petulant whining.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62804143277807941042014-05-10T06:38:22.216-07:002014-05-10T06:38:22.216-07:00Well the consensus among the European-derived comm...<i>Well the consensus among the European-derived commenters here seems to be that Europe has been the center of world civilization and achievement since the beginning of recorded history.</i> <br /><br />Well, the Asian commenters here seem to struggle hugely with facts, reading comprehension, and simple logic. I suppose that's why you have to resort to such preposterous strawman arguments.<br /><br /><br /><i>Hard to claim yourself a dispassionate scientific observer of HBD if you think HBD means your race is best in everything for ever and ever.</i><br /><br /><br />Oh, look, another incredibly pathetic strawman argument.<br /><br />The claim was made that Europe in medieval times was a poor, backwards and barbaric place. That claim has been demonstrated to be false. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37957708267444353232014-05-10T06:30:49.590-07:002014-05-10T06:30:49.590-07:00Total nonsense. The Dark Ages were an economic dar...<i>Total nonsense. The Dark Ages were an economic dark age and self-evidently so.</i> <br /><br /><br />I guess "self evidently" is short hand for "I'm now going to throw around some completely unsubstantiated assertions". <br /><br />Real historians don't even talk of the so-called "Dark Ages" any more, because when they take a closer look at the time in question it's simply not "dark". As has already been documented here, "Medieval England was twice as well off as today’s poorest nations". <br /><br /><br /><i>"There was no "slow rebuilding of a new civilization during the Middle Ages" because civilization was never lost."</i> <br /><br /><br /><i>Yes it was - self-evidently.</i> <br /><br /><br />Ha ha, you did it again. You're "self-evidently" incapable of carrying on any sort of intelligent discussion.<br /><br /><br /><i>Europe came to life again, trade restarted</i> <br /><br /><br />Trade never stopped in Europe. There may have been brief disruptions in some <i>parts</i> of Europe, but that's not the same as Europe being dead. In England international trade was going strong by the 600's AD, just 200 years after the fall of Rome. And England was on the far periphery of Europe.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66186896583895103662014-05-10T05:57:56.610-07:002014-05-10T05:57:56.610-07:00"Islam lacks a monastic tradition, which may ...<i>"Islam lacks a monastic tradition, which may account in part for its lack of achievement in science and culture since the Middle Ages"</i> <br /><br /><br /><i>Islam is very big about denying yourself pleasure. It doesn't neet a "monastic tradition" because in Islam, every one is supposed to have the discipline of a monk. </i> <br /><br /><br />Non sequitur, unless you think that denying yourself pleasure leads directly to achievement in science and culture. The Christian orders of monks provided centers of science and learning.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com