He once claimed that the Russians were too cold to ever invent anything…
I mean it culturally, rather than individually. A temperate climate is more prone to producing an inventive culture, in part because one can walk further without fear of getting frozen to death. Walking and creative thinking being essentially the same skill…
They had the Nile, things weren’t so bad. Besides, the Egyptians weren’t that inventive…
I believe so, though I’ll grant that it is one of those things that can’t really be proven either way.