/sci/ - Science & Math

Blah, blah, blah. Nag, cry, bitch OP.

I also pondered about the lack of progress in Africa when I was a teenager full of angst and wanted to feel superior, but instead of drawing conclusion from my own narrow observations and anecdotal evidence I actually tried to understand why there wasn't so much advancement outside of the Eurasia.

1. The Fertile Crescent is in the Middle East and this is where civilization started, and where wheat and barley originated. This plant is easily cultivated and high in protein and carbs for the amount of effort it takes to grow these plants. Furthermore, these plants could be grown in Western Europe because although Western Europe did not have a God-send plant like wheat or barley, they lie on the same latitude plane as the Fertile Crescent and Europeans eventually benefited from migrating Middle Eastern populations that brought these farming traditions with them, thus farming communities in Europe, and thus allowed the development of a complex developed society to take root. Unfortunately these plants do not do well in sub Saharan Africa because of the drastic change in climate and ecology (without the introduction of highly complicated methods of selective breeding and later developed farming techniques such as nitrogen rich fertilizer, irrigation, ect.) and were not introduced in viable areas of the Americas until far later in history when the New World was discovered. Note that rice acted as the god send plant in Asia with its rich protein and sugar content.