If you were a nerd in a tribe in Australia, Africa or in the Americas you had no chance or surviving, because asking the wrong questions and questioning authority meant death. In Europe it wasn't much better, maybe 1% chance of free speech instead of 0%, then it allowed those people with more intelligence to improve society a lot. Then it was no accident that they became much more powerful, civilised and healthier that they even exterminated many of those tribes only with a flu.