Pre-planning for food and shelter forces intellectual evolution or the species dies off. So yes, harder enviournments make for creatures that have adapted.
In Africa, food is plentiful, killing your neighbor ensures your genetics survive as there is more for you.
In Europe, killing your neighbor, when you need to work together to survive the winter, hampers your genetic survivability. Hence empathy.
It's not quite that simple or Eskimos would be the smartest, most advanced civilization on Earth. It seems that people also need an environment that is temperate enough to allow larger clans to develop into stable communities. That way new ideas and inventions can be tested, trading ideas and products with other clans begins, there is genetic mixing beyond relatives (inbreeding reduces IQ) and written records and drawings accelerate civilization. It appears that Northern Europe was the ideal climate and geography to create human superiority.
Don't disagree.
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