How do people live around the world?

First Consideration: Wealth by Country

List of countries ranked by per capita income (PPP):

Countries above (blue) and below (orange) the world per capita income of $10,700

(PPP) in 2010.

Second Consideration: Language

TOP LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN WORLD BY NUMBER FOF SPEAKERS NUMBER OF SPEAKERS

Mandarin Chinese 1.2 billion

English (#1 lingua franca = “working language” today) 480 million

Spanish 320 million

Russian 285 million

French 270 million

Hindu/Urdu 250 million

Portuguese 248 million

Arabic 221 million

Third Consideration: Religion

Largest religions Adherents Percentage of world population

World population 6.9 billion[1] Figure used by individual articles

Christianity 2.1 billion – 2.5 billion[2] 31–35%

Islam 1.6 billion[3] 23%

Hinduism 900 million – 1 billion[4] 14%

Buddhism 400 million[5] 5.9%

Irreligion 1.5 billion[6] 22%

Total 6.1 billion – 6.6 billion 90–98%

Conclusion: The Western World is Dominant!

…WHY?

In the late 1800s/early 1900s, many people believed that RACE explained the differences in how people lived and performed!

Two theories dominated this era:1) Eugenics (society should fix the problem by selective breeding)2) Social Darwinism (only the strong races will survive)

- Biased studies and tests "showed" that intelligence, morals, and personality are inherited and can be controlled through selective breeding. Northern European whites were the highest ranked. Some believed in a “timeline” of racial evolution (i.e. a person with black skin is 3,000 years less evolved than a white person today, etc.)

- The Nazis murdered 12 million people as a result of this thinking in the 1930s-40s.

- More than 100,000 Americans were sterilized from 1907-1960 (CA sterilizing about 60,000), and immigration laws became more strict.

- This justified racial, ethnic, and class differences: the rich deserved to be rich and the poor deserved to be poor, etc.

- Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Woodrow Wilson, and many other prominent people in the early 1900's believed in these now disproven theories.

So, Does Race Explain Peoples' Inequalities??

NO. “Race” as imagined by the public, DOES NOT EXIST.

·50,000 – 100,000 genes make up a human.·35,000 – 75,000 genes are the same in all humans.·The other 15,000 - 20,000 genes account for human variation.

·However, “racial” genes (i.e. skin color) are no more than 4-10 genes! Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans are 99.9% ALIKE.

·Thus, there is more genetic variation WITHIN racial groups than across them!

·From a scientific standpoint, it is better to have offspring with someone who has different genetic traits' the stronger traits survive.

·Evidence has shown that race, taken by itself has no correlation with IQ (intelligence potential). Genetics account for about 50% of education potential though, and this is all without considering the impact of education.

- IN CLOSING, BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN COMPARING DATA AND CLASSIFYING BY “RACE”…usually culture, poverty, and other factors are more relevant.

So if race is not the answer, then why is the Western world dominant?

ANSWER:There is no final answer, but these 2 concepts are a start:

1) The inequality of resources around the world, and historical events that resulted

2) Cultural differences

How ACCESS TO RESOURCESHave Shaped History

*the following charts are taken from Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel

- Diseases from Europe and Asia killed over 90% of Native Americans starting in the late 1400s!

- European explorers caught diseases in Africa and in the Americas too, but they were not as devastating to their populaion.

I. Domesticable Animals- All the large, important domesticable animals were only found in Eurasia (except the llama).

II. Domesticable Plants- Several important plants were only found in Eurasia.

III. Usable Land Area - More area = more opportunity. Also, more area = more population (today there are 800 million people in Africa and 4 billion in Eurasia.)

IV. Disease- Diseases brought from Europe and Asia devastated Native American and some Australian and African populations.

V. Axes- Climate zones change far more according to longitude (N to S) than latitude (W to E). This affects animal grazing and farming.

In summary, Eurasia had huge resource advantages!

Colonialism's Roots

- In an epic clash of civilizations, Europe colonized the "New World“ starting around 1500. Later, most of the rest of the world was dominated by Western powers.

- China, the most advanced and populous country for centuries, adopted an isolation policy in the mid -1400s, and Europeans surpassed them in many ways.

- Europeans surpassed China and the rest of the world in the 1400s-1600s by inventing advanced scientific and military technology, having disease wiping out large native populations, and making economic and governmental rules that favored their countries.

- We will learn about these historical events as the year continues.

Cultural Reasons:Niall Ferguson’s “Six Killer Apps” which led to Western Domination

1) Competition-Ferguson compares China to Europe in 1500. He argues that the Chinese empire remained under an isolationist regime, leading to little competition among polities. Europe, long fragmented, encouraged competition and lead to increased travel to seek meaningful opportunities abroad. 2) Scientific revolution- Ferguson claims that breakthroughs in science are mostly attributed to European innovations, particularly in weaponry which allowed to military predominance. 3) Property rights-Ferguson believes that the firm grounding in respect for democracy and property ownership lead to successful economic growth with a government reflective of these ideals. 4) Modern medicine-The west found vaccinations for smallpox and yellow fever and doubled life expectancies. Many of these vaccinations were disseminated in the colonies and seen as important matters of public health. 5) Consumer society-In the 18th and 19th Centuries, Britain was a keen example of an all-encompassing spending society, and idea exported to the colonies and also reflective of sweeping popularity of Western clothing. 6) Work ethic-Ferguson directly attributes hard work to the rise of Protestantism, which stressed hard work, saving, and reading.