Black genius? Dr. Edward Robinson - Misunderstandings about DNA and Population Genetics.
A video is making the rounds on social media featuring the late Dr. Edward Robinson. A passionate education activist dedicated to inspiring African Americans and inculcating African Studies in the American school curriculum. In the video, he argues that a scientific study reveals that apes have an increasing number of "DNA series", with chimpanzees coming in at 5 DNA series. He claims that humans around the world have 6 DNA Series; that is, except black Africans, who have 9 DNA Series, which he states is a marker for an "increased probability of genius". The video is featured below and my comments are following.
There are many claims in the video that needs to be addressed. I have numbered the claims, mostly in order, as I heard them presented in the video. For the record, I believe in the education and empowerment of black people, I just don't believe we need to get there through misinformation. Dr. Robinson meant well. He was just horribly and demonstrably incorrect.
1.) "DNA Series" There is no such thing as a 'DNA series'. There really isn't. Google it. 2.) There is no, "University of China" full stop. 3.) There is no, "University of Japan" full stop. 4.) None of the authors are from the Universities he mentioned. 5.) This is from 1996, there are many more recent studies on the CD4 locus as well as human population migrations and haplotypes since then. 6.) The study doesn't even mention orangutans. The study is about allelic variation among humans. 7.) The study didn't even test any gorillas. (I'm only 1 min in) 8.) Gorillas, Chimps, Orangutans, and Humans are ALL classified as apes. 9.) The Map is not called "The Intelligence Map of the World". That appears contrived. He made that up. Read the study(1). 10.) They did not test 116 groups. I have no idea where he even got that number from. Not in the study. 11.) The flags on the map have nothing to do with 6 groups. The Flags represent alleles (changes in genes between various people that were tested). Again, there is no 6 or 7 DNA series. 12.) The map doesn't show what he's saying at all. The actual description under the map says specifically that it is looking at changes in alleles between people from varied regions. Nothing is missing or gained. These are just variations of the same genes. 13.) He points to the Map and claims Africans have "Nine" DNA series. Again, this is not what the Map is even showing. The green dots are people that were tested in those regions.
As you can see, the video is grossly incorrect. I don't understand why Dr. Robinson put out such a video but the claims are demonstrably false. What the study does support is that all humans come from Africa and that different populations of humans have unique variations. They are not more or less in number, just different.
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