I think we went over this before but I can't remember on what post.

Anyway, thanks for the link. And as for an answer as to “who will fight the African Wars?”, my answer is… Africans.

“I still get queasy when you write about “national intelligence” as reflected by western IQ tests.”

Would you get queasy if I wrote about “national life expectancy” measured in western 'years'?

“My anecdotal knowledge of West African friends who have gone to MIT, Brown, Harvard Business School, etc., strongly conflicts, and I don't have enough faith in IQ tests (or any 'measure' of intelligence) to reject my anecdotal knowledge.”

Your anecdotal evidence is supported by a lot of empircal evidence. There's nothing conflicting about it. Several reasons:

1) The African population of the Ivy League is not a random sample of the African population. Rather, it is overwhelmingly a sample of the best, the brightest, and the richest. It is not surprising that the best, the brightest, and the richest of a continent tend to do quite well. When we talk about national intelligence, we're focusing on the mean. When we talk about elite population, we're talking about the far right tail of the distribution.

2) Africa is home to more genetic variation than any other continent on earth. This is not surprising: man is an African species, and species tend to vary the most in their ancestral homeland. The shortest and tallest humans are Africans. The fastest, and I would imagine the slowest, are as well. That African IQ would vary more than that any other continent is not surprising.

“Anyway, thanks for the link. And as for an answer as to “who will fight the African Wars?”, my answer is… Africans.”

They have been doing that. The results have been catastrophic [1,2,3,4,5].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Murambatsvina
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Indians_in_Uganda_in_1972

That said, a lot of the success of Africans fighting the African wars will depend on how much help they're getting from the West, how cooperate their elites are with their allies, and on the character and education of their elites.

Another thing to remember, Dan: the lasting success or failure of the African wars will hinge on the African's (elite or not) ability to learn better ways of doing things. In a very real sense, they WILL decide the outcome, whether we like it or not.

Why? Would you prefer 'g' (the scientific abbreviation for 'general intelligence,' the concept being discussed)?