Intelligence Average IQ of nations

LeBrok

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I was taught by my teachers in 70s and 80s that we are all born equal like a clean slate, and only the nurture mattered in creating character and intellect. A very romantic view of human kind I must say. Doing my research into this subject I came upon a very interesting article in Wikipedia.

Significant correlations with higher national IQ were found for a number of factors: higher GDP/capita, higher adult literacy rate, higher gross tertiary education enrollment ratio, higher life expectancy at birth, higher level of democratization 2002 (Tatu Vanhanen'sIndex of Democratization), higher Human Development Index, higher Gender-related Development Index, higher economic growth rate, lower Gini index of inequality in income or consumption, lower population below the $2 a day international poverty line, lower measures of undernourishment, lower maternal mortality ratio, lower infant mortality rate, higher Corruption Perceptions Index, higher Economic Freedom of the World ratings, higher Index of Economic Freedom ratings, and more narrow population pyramid (MU Index).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality

Does this mean that average IQ of the nation should be over 90 to have well run, developed country?
Are developed countries successful because of high average IQ, or IQ is high because countries have money for good education?
 
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We are obviously not born equal genetically, and genes do have a big influence on intelligence. Nutrition , education and personal experience make up for the rest.

Delusional Christians (I know, it's a pleonasm) would like to believe in a utopic world where all people are born equal with equal opportunities. But that is impossible, even for siblings.

Just nutrition and education (be it the parents' own knowledge passed on to their kids, or the compulsory state education) can explain why underdeveloped countries, like most of Africa, have lower IQ than, say Europeans. But genes play a role too.

Ethnicity is a poor measure of IQ because genes for IQ can differ even among siblings, due to the genetic lottery. But some alleles are more frequent in some ethnic groups than in others, raising the average IQ. Natural selection has been an important factor in increasing or decreasing the frequency of such alleles. That's why Jewish people, who have had to try harder to survive, usually doing more intellectual work, now have a higher average IQ than any other ethnic group (this is explained in details in the 10,000 year explosion).
 
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I've found such a lecture:

Dr. Phil. Helmuth Nyborg - IQ, immigration and Europe's future (part 1-4):

Interesting statistics, though I'm not in agreement with some conclusions.

Lynn's hypothesis about Northerners being smart thanks to cold weather doesn't hold much water, especially in light of recent advances in demographic genetics. We know that civilization came with farming from Near East, and not from Scandinavia or Siberia. The rise of Europe happened only when all it's population had at least 40% of farmer's genes. First European civilizations started in South Europe, not in the North.
Also first East Asia civilization happened in South China, not in Kamchatka, likewise American one happened in Sub Tropical region where Maze was domesticated first.
According to me, the heightened IQ level came from farmers.

He didn't explained why there was no Democracy in Europe for most of the history, although Europeans should have been smart, with high IQ, from way back. Otherwise, we would need explanation why Europe IQ rose dramatically in 20th century leading to many democratic countries.

Other thing he omitted, is to take under consideration fact that undeveloped world IQ is lower mostly due to lack of education, brain stimulation, lack of good nutrients, etc. I'm sure there are discrepancy between races, but not to the current level when compared developed country to the third world one. I think, economic development, education, nutrients might represent additional 20 IQ points.

Another issue is his dislike of emigrants. He spends most of the time one them, although according to his calculations, 3/4 of lowering IQ in Denmark will be done by fertile lower class of Danes themselves.
It could be interesting to study Danish emigration policy. Who was proffered? The poorest of the world, or whole spectrum of refuges, or mostly physical labour refuges, lack of educated and investment class of emigrants? He says that emigrant kids scored lower than general population, but perhaps the problem comes from danish emigration policy proffering less smart physical type labourers? Perhaps, this can be amended by expending the profile of emigrants?

I don't think things are as pessimistic as he paints it to be. I can see some "preserve my specie, save my tribe" attitude. Similar to Kardu's point of view. "I'm for freedom of choosing spouses, but only if they are of my race".
 
Well North Koreans have between highest IQ in the world,on par with their South Koreans brothers.
However,North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world,while South Korea,between most rich countries in the world.
So is not only about people intelligence but also about other things.
People will say that North Korea have a totalitarian bolshevik regime - well Saudi Arabia do not have too much democracy either,but they are a very rich country,China have a kind of bolshevism,with state controlling some business , and they are between richest countries also...
 
Interesting statistics, though I'm not in agreement with some conclusions. Lynn's hypothesis about Northerners being smart thanks to cold weather doesn't hold much water, especially in light of recent advances in demographic genetics. We know that civilization came with farming from Near East, and not from Scandinavia or Siberia. The rise of Europe happened only when all it's population had at least 40% of farmer's genes. First European civilizations started in South Europe, not in the North. Also first East Asia civilization happened in South China, not in Kamchatka, likewise American one happened in Sub Tropical region where Maze was domesticated first. According to me, the heightened IQ level came from farmers. He didn't explained why there was no Democracy in Europe for most of the history, although Europeans should have been smart, with high IQ, from way back. Otherwise, we would need explanation why Europe IQ rose dramatically in 20th century leading to many democratic countries. Other thing he omitted, is to take under consideration fact that undeveloped world IQ is lower mostly due to lack of education, brain stimulation, lack of good nutrients, etc. I'm sure there are discrepancy between races, but not to the current level when compared developed country to the third world one. I think, economic development, education, nutrients might represent additional 20 IQ points. Another issue is his dislike of emigrants. He spends most of the time one them, although according to his calculations, 3/4 of lowering IQ in Denmark will be done by fertile lower class of Danes themselves. It could be interesting to study Danish emigration policy. Who was proffered? The poorest of the world, or whole spectrum of refuges, or mostly physical labour refuges, lack of educated and investment class of emigrants? He says that emigrant kids scored lower than general population, but perhaps the problem comes from danish emigration policy proffering less smart physical type labourers? Perhaps, this can be amended by expending the profile of emigrants? I don't think things are as pessimistic as he paints it to be. I can see some "preserve my specie, save my tribe" attitude. Similar to Kardu's point of view. "I'm for freedom of choosing spouses, but only if they are of my race".

I do think there is a genetic basis to IQ differences, as can be seen from all the twin studies and/or adoption studies. There may even be differences by "population groups". However, the only way to actually measure something approaching "intellectual potential" is to give students hours long tests like the Stanford-Binet which involve pattern recognition, speed of processing, digit recall etc. Even in those tests there are sections devoted to "general Knowledge", analogies etc. So, lack of access to quality education still isn't totally factored out (you can't figure out an analogy if you don't know the vocabulary), and, of course, there's no way to factor out the effect of poor nutrition or the effect that having a crack addicted mother would have on neo-natal development, for instance.

So, while there may be differences individually or by group, I don't think we know the extent of them because of all the variables and because of the kind of testing that is done. Using an academic test like PISA, for example, is going to heavily reflect the quality of the education system. Just as one example, I've seen studies which used PISA where Finns scored very high, but that may in some part reflect the excellence of their educational system because on strictly IQ tests the results were different.

Then there's the fact that Professor Lynn is a dishonest researcher. Whatever test you're going to use, each group should be measured using the same test given the same year under the same circumstances. Instead, in his book "The Wealth of Nations", he used results from different tests from very different time periods, some from periods when education wasn't even mandatory beyond a certain level. For areas where there was no data, he "estimated" it based on development. The good professor has obviously never encountered the phrase "circular reasoning".

He also comes to conclusions based on either a total lack of knowledge about the background of the testees, or he deliberately ignores the confounding factors in order to support his agenda. Just as an example, he published some work purportedly showing IQ differences in Italy from north to south. His conclusions were in part based on the results of PISA tests given in Milan versus some city in the south, I forget which one. The Milan results were slightly over 100 and the southern ones slightly over 90. There's only one problem...half the students in the schools in Milan are of southern ancestry. The math doesn't work unless native northern Italian children actually have an IQ over 110. He either didn't know this or chose not to mention this...It also didn't seem to occur to him that when you are giving what is in effect an achievement test, the quality of the education matters, as does nutrition, family support etc. I also think that in some areas you might be seeing what amounts to a sort of "brain drain". Intelligent, motivated people who have no "connections" in their home region will emigrate to more developed areas. I think that goes some way toward explaining things like the below 90 rate for the Irish in his compilation in comparison to the results for the English.

As to this Danish professor, I haven't examined his work in detail, but the fact that he was dismissed for shoddy, dishonest research should put his findings in some doubt. There are indeed some academics who have agendas (both on the "left" and the "right" to use those terms) and it's important to look at the work objectively to see if the results have been biased in some way. Any research in this field has to be submitted to rigorous analysis to see if there are errors or biases in the methodology.
 
Dr. Phil. Helmuth Nyborg - IQ, immigration and Europe's future (part 4-4):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKPdFmujaF4


Well, for Europeans who really believe IQ is all genetically determined, and who are concerned with raising local IQ levels, it might not have been a good idea for Europe to try to exterminate its Ashkenazi Jews, and maybe the harassment of the few brave souls who are left should cease.

Ed. for grammar.
 
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Well North Koreans have between highest IQ in the world,on par with their South Koreans brothers.
North Korean runs the tests, and they lie like with everything else. How could they show that North Korean score is lower than capitalist South?

However,North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world,while South Korea,between most rich countries in the world.
For that reason malnutritioned North Korean have lower score. How much lower, we don't know. It is the totalitarian country where everything is controlled, IQ test scores too.

So is not only about people intelligence but also about other things.
People will say that North Korea have a totalitarian bolshevik regime - well Saudi Arabia do not have too much democracy either,but they are a very rich country
Saudi Arabia is newly riched country. It didn't have time to turn into democracy. Remember how long it took Europeans to get there.


China have a kind of bolshevism,with state controlling some business , and they are between richest countries also...
Poverty almost always equal totalitarian regime. When people are poor, they are unhappy and rebellious. Only totalitarian system can keep them in check. When country get richer, people are more content with their lives, they concentrate mostly on working, family and their happy lives. At this point totalitarian regime is not needed anymore. Rules are relaxed, people become more free, and all system drifts into Democracy. China is currently in the middle of this process. Give them another 20 years and they should become fully Democratic.
Russia was almost their, but then Putin happened, and turned Democratic tides back, though only temporarily.
 
He also comes to conclusions based on either a total lack of knowledge about the background of the testees, or he deliberately ignores the confounding factors in order to support his agenda. Just as an example, he published some work purportedly showing IQ differences in Italy from north to south. His conclusions were in part based on the results of PISA tests given in Milan versus some city in the south, I forget which one. The Milan results were slightly over 100 and the southern ones slightly over 90. There's only one problem...half the students in the schools in Milan are of southern ancestry. The math doesn't work unless native northern Italian children actually have an IQ over 110. He either didn't know this or chose not to mention this...It also didn't seem to occur to him that when you are giving what is in effect an achievement test, the quality of the education matters, as does nutrition, family support etc. I also think that in some areas you might be seeing what amounts to a sort of "brain drain". Intelligent, motivated people who have no "connections" in their home region will emigrate to more developed areas. I think that goes some way toward explaining things like the below 90 rate for the Irish in his compilation in comparison to the results for the English.

As to this Danish professor, I haven't examined his work in detail, but the fact that he was dismissed for shoddy, dishonest research should put his findings in some doubt. There are indeed some academics who have agendas (both on the "left" and the "right" to use those terms) and it's important to look at the work objectively to see if the results have been biased in some way. Any research in this field has to be submitted to rigorous analysis to see if there are errors or biases in the methodology.

Perhaps many good researchers are shying away from IQ projects, not to be labeled racist. I'm sure it must be difficult to get government founds for such research.
Policy makers might be scared of the truth pocking it's ugly head from scientific papers. What if science definitely finds out that there are dramatic differences between races? What if American Natives turned to be at 85 IQ score? What does that mean for self governance, educational programs, jobs, stigma, self worth, addictions, fight with corruption? Will they become truly distinct with special programs and overseeing, and always on government handouts?
 
Well, for Europeans who really believe IQ is all genetically determined, and who are concerned with raising local IQ levels, it might not have been a good idea for Europe to try to exterminate its Ashkenazi Jews, and maybe the harassment of the few brave souls who are left should cease.

Ed. for grammar.

I suspect that many of the people who are really interested in the subject of race and IQ and who claim that genetics is the only thing that matters don't want to talk about Jewish IQs. They'd rather talk about the apparently high IQ averages of Nordic/Germanic types as compared to Sub-Saharan Africans. Of course, I've met people at the other end of the spectrum who insist that to even consider genetics as part of the equation is horribly wrong. Neither extreme seems to me to be very fact friendly.
 
Perhaps many good researchers are shying away from IQ projects, not to be labeled racist. I'm sure it must be difficult to get government founds for such research.
Policy makers might be scared of the truth pocking it's ugly head from scientific papers. What if science definitely finds out that there are dramatic differences between races? What if American Natives turned to be at 85 IQ score? What does that mean for self governance, educational programs, jobs, stigma, self worth, addictions, fight with corruption? Will they become truly distinct with special programs and overseeing, and always on government handouts?

If one watches the whole lecture its not too difficult with how the words are put and general body language to realize that the whole thing is a far cry from anything serious, respectable or even factual. Besides that the arguments being brought up are very contradictory (I sincerely would not like to give a list of how contradictory through history and also current situations of the whole subject is to past and current events visa vi IQ to all the situations mentioned) and in all honesty no huge funding is needed to create some slides with tons of wordings then reading them out (passe kind of presentations) as part of a power point presentation. The so called 'study' creates lots of undertones that do not merit any ground breaking theories and the low testerone vs 'gentle men' and high testerone vs people that bang heads is not something that would garnish my respect to a medium who is passing information to an audience...........
 
Well, for Europeans who really believe IQ is all genetically determined, and who are concerned with raising local IQ levels, it might not have been a good idea for Europe to try to exterminate its Ashkenazi Jews, and maybe the harassment of the few brave souls who are left should cease.

Ed. for grammar.

well one theory tells that the presumed higher intelligence is caused by the fact that Europeans killed all the stupid Ashkenazis while the smart Ashkenazis were smart enough to escape homicide
i think discussion can go on for ever with this kind of arguments
 
well one theory tells that the presumed higher intelligence is caused by the fact that Europeans killed all the stupid Ashkenazis while the smart Ashkenazis were smart enough to escape homicide
i think discussion can go on for ever with this kind of arguments

Few extra points for sure, however looking at the history they were always on top of the ladder, whenever they showed up and in whatever country. This denotes rather high, above average intelligence, from antiquity.
This is my prime example, from another thread, that in the past their could have been few extra smart societies together with Phoenicians, Greeks, Babylonians and Romans.
Are there IQ statistics of other Jewish groups?
 
I suspect that many of the people who are really interested in the subject of race and IQ and who claim that genetics is the only thing that matters don't want to talk about Jewish IQs. They'd rather talk about the apparently high IQ averages of Nordic/Germanic types as compared to Sub-Saharan Africans. Of course, I've met people at the other end of the spectrum who insist that to even consider genetics as part of the equation is horribly wrong. Neither extreme seems to me to be very fact friendly.

Indeed...I get that feeling myself.
smile.gif
It's one of those inconvenient truths. Also, if the concern was really that they want only well-educated (and thus presumably intelligent) immigrants, then why not have immigration policies that specifically welcome South Asian or Middle Eastern or East Asian engineers and people with advanced degrees in computer science or mathematics? Don't all post industrialized countries need more of those kinds of people? The reality is that for people like this it wouldn't matter how intelligent or law abiding or willing to assimilate such people were, they still wouldn't be welcome. Another inconvenient truth is that all of these uneducated, poverty stricken people were allowed to enter Europe when they were needed for factory jobs and to do work natives no longer wanted to do...now that the economy has changed, they want them out. You are sometimes stuck with the consequences of your decisions.

@Aberdeen and LeBrok,

As I stated above, there might well be some differences by "population group". Specifically to your question Le Brok, respected researchers might indeed shy away from doing the research for fear of being labeled racist, leaving it to the bigoted charlatans receiving covert funding from white supremacist groups. Whenever you have these kinds of issues, reason is often not applied.

To talk about the fact that there might actually be a disparity would be political suicide here, I can tell you. It can be controversial even to state that many of the problems in the African American communities stem from the total collapse of the family structure, although it's really something that can't be denied.

I don't think this is an issue solely of possible "racial" differences, however, and I emphasize possible, because we really don't know. Anyone who thinks that there aren't whole pockets of America populated by "pure" White Anglo Saxon Americans, as they used to be called, who don't have the intellectual capacity to function within a modern post industrial society hasn't been paying attention or hasn't traveled here very much.

In America today, to get a job providing a "middle class" living, you basically need to have some college education. All those factory jobs are long gone and I don't think they're going to return any time soon, and "service" jobs don't pay very much. Even non-factory "blue collar" jobs don't pay that well. To go to college you would need, what, an IQ of at least 105? (The one thing that these tests are indisputably good for is for predicting achievement on a college level. The SATs are even better. ) At least half of the "white" population is below that, here and in Europe. How many white Brits are "on the dole"? It's the same everywhere. It's also true, as our posters have pointed out, that college educated women (or couples) are having fewer children than the poor. (Except in Italy, perhaps, where no one is having children!) Here, I do have to mention that if men chose wives with just a little consideration for IQ instead of other measures they might have children who have fewer difficulties at school. (I just had to get that in there.
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So, what's the solution? Is the more genetically intelligent (if we assume it's all genetic and intellectual functioning can't be raised very much) half of the population supposed to support the less intelligent half forever?
 
I do think it's very difficult to separate nature from nurture. A friend of mine thinks the reason Chinese people seem to have a special affinity for math is because they've spent centuries reading a pictographic language, which helped develop their abilities for grasping symbolic language. I'm dubious about that theory simply because of the small percentage of literate people in any country, including China, until recently. I think the value a particular culture places on certain things does affect the skill sets of individuals in that culture. But I don't really know how one would test such ideas with any certainty.

The issue of the lower IQ part of various populations no longer being needed but breeding more than high IQ people is certainly something that various people, including a few science fiction writers, have talked about. But if a country was really concerned about that issue, there are some obvious things that could be done to address the issue. For example, I was reading something the other day about how developed countries with good daycare systems see a higher birth rate among women who are university graduates.
 
Should we hope for designer babies with high IQ to save our Civilization?
 
Brain_Size_Map.png


Cranial capacity based on 20000 skulls measured in a 1984 study. The results for Egypt might be a clue regarding the origin of Jewish intelligence.

Under no circumstance should this map be taken serious, we don't know the gender distribution of the skulls, malnutrition, sample size for each region, how old the skulls were, how old the persons were when they died, etc.

Also highly unethical research which probably should be outlawed in the future.
 
Cranial capacity based on 20000 skulls measured in a 1984 study. The results for Egypt might be a clue regarding the origin of Jewish intelligence.

Under no circumstance should this map be taken serious, we don't know the gender distribution of the skulls, malnutrition, sample size for each region, how old the skulls were, how old the persons were when they died, etc.

Also highly unethical research which probably should be outlawed in the future.
If the size of a skull mater we should have had civilizations started in Siberia and Greenland first, not in Near East. Size of the brain correlates better with climatic zones. Perhaps a bigger brain holds more heat and acts better against freezing. Conversely, smaller brain cools faster and is good for tropics and hot deserts.
 

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