Through extensive DNA research, scientists have confirmed that the place on planet Earth with the most genetic diversity among humans by far is Africa.
We all know that the non-scientific world likes to classify people into skin shades. Black, White, Brown and the like, but in science, genetic diversity is far more complex.
Genetic diversity refers to the wide range of different traits within a species. In humans, that covers a lot.
Bones. Height. The shape, color and size of our eyes. Feet and hands. Natural muscle structure. Torso. Brain. Shapes of our ears. Whether we can roll our tongues. Genetic diseases. You name it.
Not only that. When there’s wide genetic diversity, it means that in nearly every human trait and characteristic, the most extremes of those traits would be present. And everything in between.
Because Africa has the most genetic diversity, people from the continent thus exhibit the most extremes in genetic traits.
When I was in Rwanda in 2021, I met someone from the Watusi Tribe. They are the tallest people in the world. Men average, yes average, 6-foot-1. Members of the Dinka Tribe in South Sudan, who average 5-foot-11, are close rivals. Many in their tribe reach 7 feet tall.
And yet, not that far away in Congo, members of the Bambuti Tribe are the shortest people in the world. Average height? Under 4-foot-6!
The best and fastest runners of the world often come from the Rift Valley in Kenya. That’s where nearly half of the fastest “metric mile” runners originate.
We typically don’t go around measuring where the slowest people come from, but not surprisingly, the world record for the slowest time in the 100-meter sprint is also held by an African. Nasra Abukar Ali, from Somalia.
So with all that as a backdrop, where would one find the genetically smartest people in the world?
Africa.
That’s how deep genetic diversity works.
It’s why Nigerian-American Philip Emeagwali is one of the 10 most intelligent people in the world. He made significant contributions to the technology that resulted in the creation of the internet. Considered smarter than Albert Einstein, Emeagwali is reported to have an IQ of 190!
Chris Imafidon, originally from the Edo State in Nigeria, is considered one of the top educators in the world, having mentored and taught the youngest children to ever gain entrance to the prestigious Cambridge University.
But we don’t need modern examples to prove this. Especially since the European attacks, enslavement and colonization of Africa several hundred years ago left much of the continent in ruins.
Thousands of years ago, Egyptians were building advanced ships for world travel long before the Spanish or other European explorers.
Many ancient societies in Africa built all kinds of boats, including small vessels, sailboats and massive ships with cabins and kitchens. The Mali and Songhai Dynasties, which reigned from the 13th to the 17th centuries, built boats 100 feet long and 13 feet wide that could carry up to 80 tons.
Ancient Africans also built the pyramids, whose construction modern architects and engineers took centuries to figure out. More than 80 of them built in total, the largest of which covers 13 acres and comprises 2.25 million blocks of stone.
By the 12th century, there were already hundreds of great cities in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Africans there built massive stone complexes. One included a 250-meter-long, 15,000-ton curved granite wall.
God forbid we acknowledge these major advancements, and instead, let’s concoct unsubstantiated theories that aliens must’ve built the pyramids. No way super smart Africans did!
Astronomers in Africa knew thousands of years ago what Europeans and Americans only discovered in the last couple hundred years with modern telescopes and technology.
Africans already established a lunar cycle calendar that it turns out jibes with modern science on the moon’s orbit around Earth. Astronomers today still rely on some Egyptian science and remain confused how Africans figured it out thousands of years before modern technology.
Egyptians charted the movement of the sun, constellations and moon cycles. Long before the Roman Catholic Church created our modern calendar, Africans already divided the year into 12 parts and developed a calendar system containing, wait for it … 365¼ days. Africans created sundial clocks using their knowledge of this information.
We all know about Stonehenge in Europe, but most of us never learned there’s an African Stonehenge created over 2,000 years ago that was an accurate calendar. Funny how we only highlight the European creations.
The Dogon astronomers in Mali gathered so much information about time and space that even some modern scholars credit their discoveries to galactic aliens. Others say European travelers must have taught them, though they can’t name any.
The Dogon astronomers also discovered Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s moons, the structure of the Milky Way and the orbit of the Sirius star system, which was later confirmed by modern technology to be accurate.
Experts in Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago were able to create furnaces that could reach heat of up to 3,600°F, which was more advanced than any others in the world, including in Rome. Indeed, the Haya people in Tanzania may have been the first to invent steel.
Over 8,000 years ago, people in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo and the Yoruba people of Nigeria developed their own numbering systems.
Going back even further, Egyptians tens of thousands of years ago wrote math textbooks that included complex division, multiplication, fractions and geometric formulas. They were able to calculate distances and angles. They created algebraic equations that could predict the size and impact of Nile floods. The ancient Egyptians already knew that a circle has 360 degrees.
Before the Europeans invaded, colonized and raped Africa of its people and resources, Egyptian, Nigerian and Sudanese medical science far exceeded European knowledge.
Africans were first to use plants and trees to treat disease. They discovered the original aspirin by using plants with salicylic acid for pain. That’s how modern aspirin was “invented.” They were the first to develop what we know today as Kaopectate to treat diarrhea by using kaolin. Africans also used plant extracts to kill harmful bacteria long before Pfizer.
Other original African medicines include ouabain (treats hypertension), capsicum (treats nerve pain), physostigmine (treats glaucoma) and reserpine (treats high blood pressure).
Long before Europeans, ancient Africans created types of vaccinations, performed autopsies and knew how to set broken bones. They filled dental cavities, performed what became known as Caesarean section births (though Wikipedia credits the Swiss), and were the first to use anesthesia, among other things.
Some Africans had already figured out how to perform surgeries using sterilization techniques before Europe figured it out.
Of course, none of this matches the images we’ve been fed about Black people.
The Black person as tall. Muscular. Athletic. Good at basketball or football. Fast. Entertainers.
The Black person as less intelligent than white peers.
That’s been the narrative our entire lives. It’s seeped into our psyches.
There’s nothing wrong with any group of people being the best at something, but when the narrative misses the mark on the rest of the story, as we have here, it essentially lumps all Black people into a narrow category that doesn’t include inventors, doctors or lawyers.
There’s a cumulative effect on how this informs our thoughts and feelings about people. It causes us to develop deep, unconscious attitudes and perceptions of our Black brothers and sisters.
Our teachers and history books conveniently failed to teach us about the geniuses and intellectual giants from Africa, especially those who predated European attacks, enslavement, and colonization in Africa.
Not ironically, one of the very few areas Europeans beat Africans to the technological punch centuries ago was advanced weapons. Ironically, the advanced European weapons relied on a Chinese invention, gunpowder. That and Europe’s version of Christianity paved the way for European governments to colonize, divide up Africa, take its resources, and enslave its inhabitants.
Europeans and then Americans exploited Africans, and to keep their supremacy theology front and center, highlighted only the extremes in Africans that fit the narrative that people of European descent are smarter and more capable. They left out the extreme smarts. The extreme advances.
It was a lie.
None of this needs to take away of the great advances of people of European ancestry. Nobody is claiming that Albert Einstein, or Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison. or Ben Franklin did nothing.
But the days of pretending that white people have a monopoly on smarts or ability must come to an end.
Science, not politics, rejects what you’ve been taught.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeffrey Kass' work on Medium.