A rather long review and criticism of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel by Garrett Hardin. Hardin criticizes Diamond's biology, and argues that the burden of proof is on Diamond to explain why genetic difference is not responsible for differences in human outcomes.

An interesting point is that, to the extent IQ scores are a fair measure of "civilizedness", it's not surprising that Asians -- especially people of Chinese background -- score higher than European whites. China has been civilized for a lot longer than Europe has.