lexico
Chukchi Salmon
Richard Lynn's Eugenics is Flawed.
Race
Eugenics
Richard Lynn appears to be, in all earnest, a serious scientist - albeit subjectively. How far his studies go to prove scientific truths, or whether he is effectively promoting racist views, is difficult to assess at the moment. Nevertheless, I suspect there is a fundamental flaw in his philosophical perspective on scientific method; where there is only correlation without necessarily a causal relationship, he seems to read into his data and attribute causal relationships. I further suspect that his particular causal relationships are reversed, or misinterpreted, and essentially flawed. Here are some excepts from his home page.
Also Human brain,
Reaction time.
That the realtionship between wealth and intelligence quotient is either
1) greater industrialisation creates an environment fostering quick perception and operation that is being tested in most intelligence quotient tests
2) hence greater wealth and higher IQ figures are both the effects of industrialisation, not in causal relationship to each other either way.
Intelligence as a human traitRichard Lynn
Professor Emeritus,
University of Ulster
Research Interests:
Intelligence
Sex Differences
Race Differences
Eugenics
Race
Eugenics
Richard Lynn appears to be, in all earnest, a serious scientist - albeit subjectively. How far his studies go to prove scientific truths, or whether he is effectively promoting racist views, is difficult to assess at the moment. Nevertheless, I suspect there is a fundamental flaw in his philosophical perspective on scientific method; where there is only correlation without necessarily a causal relationship, he seems to read into his data and attribute causal relationships. I further suspect that his particular causal relationships are reversed, or misinterpreted, and essentially flawed. Here are some excepts from his home page.
See Flynn effect on wikipedia.Most of my work has been on intelligence. In 1983 I published a paper in Nature showing that the IQ in Japan had increased over the course of the previous half century, a phenomenon now known as the Flynn Effect following the demonstration by Jim Flynn of secular increases in intelligence in number of countries. In 1989 I proposed that the increases in intelligence have been caused by improvements in nutrition. I have also published several papers showing that intelligence is associated with brain size and reaction times.
Also Human brain,
Reaction time.
It could be argued that cultural differences in perception influenced recognition speed and simple logical(verbal)/quantitative(non-verbal) operations. Furthermore, the recent history of industrialisation could only have heightened the need for more mental activity for many individuals in the recently developed/developing countries in East Asia.My major discovery is that the Oriental peoples of East Asia have higher average intelligence by about 5 IQs points than Europeans and peoples of European origin in the United States and elsewhere. I first published this finding in 1977 in a paper on the intelligence of the Japanese. In subsequent years the high Oriental IQ has been confirmed in numerous studies of Oriental peoples in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Singapore and the United States.
In like manner, the difference in intelligence quotient figures could only be lower in populations that have not been exposed to the stimulus of industrialisation in comparison to other population or subgroups thereof. This could very well explain the difference between sub-Saharan African peoples and African-Americans. Therefore Lynn's claim have a fundamental logical hole.In 1991 I extended my work on race differences in intelligence to other races. I concluded that the average IQ of blacks in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 70. It has long been known that the average IQ of blacks in the United States is approximately 85. The explanation for the higher IQ of American blacks is that they have about 25 per cent of Caucasian genes and a better environment.
Interesting postulate, and one which might prove true; however to consider the genetic difference as the primary factor is likewise considered suspect of logical failure; flawed analysis of causal relationship.The theory I have advanced to explain these race differences in IQ is that when early humans migrated from Africa into Eurasia they encountered the difficulty of survival during cold winters. This problem was especially severe during the ice ages. Plant foods were not available for much of the year and survival required the hunting and dismembering of large animals for food and the ability to make tools, weapons and clothing, to build shelters and make fires. These problems required higher intelligence and exerted selection pressure for enhanced intelligence, particularly on the Orientals.
I would, were I involved in this line of study, look towards these two possibilities that Lynn fails to consider.My book IQ and the Wealth of Nations (co-author Tatu Vanhanen of the University of Helsinki) considers the problem of national differences in wealth and economic growth. Economists and other social scientists have been trying to solve the problem of why some nations are so rich and others so poor since Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776). We argue that an important but hitherto unrecognised factor is the IQs of the populations. We give measures and estimates of average IQs in the world's 185 nations and show that national IQs are strongly related to national incomes and rates of economic growth. The principal reason for this is that nations whose populations have high IQs can produce goods and services that command high values in international markets. See below for more details of this argument and on the IQs of every nation in the world.
That the realtionship between wealth and intelligence quotient is either
1) greater industrialisation creates an environment fostering quick perception and operation that is being tested in most intelligence quotient tests
2) hence greater wealth and higher IQ figures are both the effects of industrialisation, not in causal relationship to each other either way.