Yes, the article is ahistorical in that I don’t show here how the hypothesis is consistent with the history of every country in the world.

But no, the article isn’t ahistorical since I include in the caveats the obvious point that climate could hardly be the only relevant factor in determining political freedom. Of course, each country has its distinctive history and its relationship with other countries, which affect its standing on personal freedoms.

All the liberal countries came to liberalism from the more default style of autocracy, so if the cooler South American countries are only just starting to do so, that’s consistent with the hypothesis. When most of the continent is tropical or subtropical, the cooler areas would be expected to have a rough road toward liberalism and modernization.

I’m aware the hypothesis could be used as an apology for the crimes of Northern imperialism. I could list, though, dozens of articles I’ve written that excoriate the psychopathy responsible for such abuses of human rights. Rationality isn’t a panacea since reason can be used to rationalize bad values and corruption by personal empowerment. So, the personal attack falls flat.

I’m not interested, however, in political correctness. What you haven’t done is address the empirical question at issue: Is excessive heat in fact bad for human cognition? And if so, has that had some impact on history, and especially on the reception of liberal modernization? I’m not saying climate is the only factor, so that’s a red herring or a strawman. Plus, rejecting a hypothesis because of its origin would be the genetic fallacy. Those are all distractions.

I understand that the truth is much more complicated than what I’ve presented in this article. But this hypothesis could be one piece of the puzzle. And this is the first of a series of related articles that will tackle some of those complexities.