Apes and Humans - Cognitive Differences:

[Although] apes and humans share a number of important advanced cognitive abilities, they differ in one key respect: the extent to which humans can detach themselves from the world as they experience it. This allows humans to reflect on the world as they find it, to wonder wether it could have been otherwise. In contrast, apes (and certainly all other animals) have a much more direct, straightforward experience of the world. Their noses are thrust firmly up against reality.

The Human Story, Robin Dunbar

Kith and Kin:

"While you may have no choice about the family you have, you can at least choose your friends. We and others have found that friendships tend to be characterised by similarity in likes and dislikes, known technically as homophily (love of similarity). It seems that the more things we have in common with someone, the closer the friendship will be. In our study, we identified  five key traits that seemed to be particularly potent in creating friendships: having the same sense of humour, the same hobbies/interests, and the same moral values, having a similar level of education/intelligence, and having being born in (or, at least grown up in) the same area. The more of these five traits you share with someone, the greater is your emotional closeness to them, and the more likely you are to help them out in time of need."

Robin Dunbar, The Science of Love and Betrayal

Monogamy and Brain Size:

Among the birds and mammals in general, the spezies with the biggest brains relative to body size are precisely those that mate monogamously. Those that live in large anonymous flocks or herds and mate promiscuously have much smaller brains.

The birds make it especially clear that the real issue is strong, resilient, long-lasting pairbonds. Birds that mate monogamously come in two quite different kinds. There are those, like many common garden birds such as robins and tits, that chose a new mate each breeding season. But there are many others, such as many birds of prey, the owls and most of the crow and parrot families, that mate for life. It is this second group, which have the biggest brains of all among the birds, far bigger than those that are seasonally monogamous, and this is true even when we control for differences in lifestyle, diet and body size.

Robin Dunbar, How many... Dunbar's Number and other Evolutionary Quirks

Naturwissenschaft & Experiment:

Die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft ist die Geschichte vom Aufstieg und Fall zahlloser Vermutungen, Hypothesen und Modelle. Viele scheibar kluge Überlegungen und Ideen haben sich als Fehlstarts erwiesen oder in Sackgassen geführt. Manche Theorien, die man zu ihrer Zeit für absolut unangreifbar gehalten hat, haben rasch zu bröckeln begonnen, als man sie der Feuerprobe durch Experimente und Beobachtungen unterzog, und galten am Ende schließlich als komplett überholt.

Mario Livio

Human Accomplishment:

"From 1850 to 1950, per capita accomplishment tended to decline, which is especially striking considering the huge spread of education. Diminishing returns in the sciences seem inevitable because the low-hanging fruit was picked first. In the arts, though, Murray believes that loss of faith in both the purpose of life and the efficacy of the individual retarded greatness, especially in the post-Freudian age.

Murray expects that almost no art from the second half of the 20th century will be remembered in 200 years. Indeed, Europe, homeland of geniuses, has collapsed into a comfortable cultural stasis reminiscent of Rome in the 2nd century A.D. In addition to Murray’s philosophical explanations, I’d also point to causes such as the genocide of Europe’s highest-achieving ethnic group ...,the rise of anti-elitist ideologies; and the decline of nationalism. From Vergil to Verdi, great men engendered great works to celebrate their nations. Nobody, however, seems likely to create an epic glorifying the European Union. "

Thoughts of Steve Sailer about Charles Murrays book "Human Accomplishment":
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/cultures-bell-curve/

Kompetenzkonzepte & Intelligenz:

Im Zentrum der Kompetenzkonzepte steht die Intelligenz: die Fähigkeit zum denkgestützten Lösen von Aufgaben und Problemen in Situationen, die für die Person neu und nicht allein durch simplen Wissensabruf erfolgreich bearbeitbar sind, die Fähigkeit zum induktiv und deduktiv-logisch schlussfolgernden Denken, die Fähigkeit zum abstrakten Denken (einschließlich Begriffsbildung) und die Fähigkeit zu Verständnis und Einsicht- zum Erkennen und zur Herstellung von Strukturen, Beziehungen, Sinnzusammenhängen und Bedeutungen. Kurz: Intelligenz ist die Fähigkeit zum Denken.

Heiner Rindermann, Bildung und Kompetenz

Chinese Science:

>Nevertheless ... Chinese science remained too practical in its orientation and did not formulate a theoretical outlook which assumed a rational, orderly universe guided by universal laws.

Chinese science did not contain the idea of a natural world governed by laws in the mathematical sense; it spoke neither of the ultimate, constituent elements of nature nor of a law-governed reality underlying the appearences of the senses (Needham). Instead of "elements", Chinese thinkers spoke of "phases" and recurring "cycles", and instead of "causes" they spoke of "correlations" or analogies. It also had no concept of a "cosmos", a single entity called "nature", and it did not employ a deductive method of a rigorous demonstration according to which a conclusion, a theorem, was proven by reasoning from a series of self-evident axioms.<

TUoWC, Ricardo Duchesne, p250