The wealth of nations is mapped by their IQ

[Nereid]

pilots, doctors, Lynn, Nachtwolf, races ...

Nachtwolf wrote: The minimum IQ needed to graduate from a 4 year university is 100. The average IQ of college graduates is 115, *SNIP

Somewhere (I can't find it just now) hitssquad said that an IQ of 130 (97th percentile) would get you into Mensa (AFAIK, Mensa takes the top 2%, which if we take the 50 profs that jerryel quotes at their word, would be ~131; and 130 is the 97.7th percentile; mere quibbles).

Assuming the same normal curve as jerryel's 50 profs, with a standard deviation that scales according to the average, the high end tail of the total populations in Ghana and Sierra Leone (based on the respective studies quoted by Lynn) would look something like this:
IQ above 100: 6,700 (Sierra Leone); 400 (Ghana)
IQ above 130: 0 (Sierra Leone); 0 (Ghana).

I took the current populations from the US Census Dept's website (18.4m Ghana; 13.1m Sierra Leone).

According to this website (http://www.isep.org/nus/ghana/ ), "The University of Ghana is the largest of the four universities in Ghana and currently enrolls nearly 7,000 students." This would appear to be further prima facie evidence of systematic errors in the work used by Lynn (or that Nachtwolf has got it quite wrong).

I wonder how many pilots, surgeons, accountants, university academics, etc - people employed in positions which Nachtwolf (and hitssquad?) believe an above average IQ is an essential pre-requisite for - have parents born in Ghana or Sierra Leone?

Further, if there is just one member of Mensa in Ghana or Sierra Leone (or who is a first generation migrant in another country), we would have even more evidence of systematic errors or bias.

Just so that the point here is clear:
- in the US the IQ distribution curve is the normal Gaussian, with an SD of 15
- Lynn (or was it hitssquad?) claims that IQ measures between groups can be compared, and used without needing to be corrected for any systematic differences, whether arising from the tests themselves, the test protocols, the sampling methods, time, age distribution of the sample, or anything else.
- there is evidence that the IQ distribution curve is not Gaussian, for at least two African countries
- unless and until it can be clearly shown that this difference does not have a systematic effect on the analysis, we must regard Lynn's conclusions as tentative at best, and quite likely flawed.

 

[Nereid]

Burt

"Sir Cyril Burt", part of the "the intellectual core group of the hereditarian school of psychology" ... isn't he the guy whose work on the IQ differences among twins - especially those raised apart from birth - was later shown to be almost entirely fraudulent? To what extent has that fraudulent work (if that's what it was) continued to be used (knowingly or unknowingly; directly or indirectly) in conclusions about the hereditability of intelligence?

 

[Nereid]

hitssquad wrote: As far as I know, Jensen, as a rule, limits his conclusions about g heritability strictly to the United States.

That's nice, but I wasn't asking about Jensen, I want to know whether the 50 profs (Jensen is just one) are referring to just the US or the whole world. If it's just the US, why should we pay any attention to what 4 people not in the US say? If it's the whole world, why are all but 4 signatories based in US institutions?

Much as I am interested in a debate about IQ differences in the US, this thread is about "the wealth of nations [...] mapped by their IQ". And, to be frank, apart from being very helpful about the population distribution of IQ about the mean (and its SD; why couldn't hitssquad have provided this info??), jerryel's lengthy post seems irrelevant to this thread.

BTW, was Raven still an active academic in 1994? If so, why didn't he sign too?

 

[Nereid]

Lynn - deliberately misleading?

One of the datapoints Lynn uses in his analysis is his own study, of Ethiopia (1994, 250 subjects, ages 15 and 16, IQ 67; no collaborators). He does not appear to considered any systematic effects that may have contributed to such a low IQ, and has used it as a datum in reaching his conclusion about National IQ being a leading cause of per captita GDP differences.

There was a famine in Ethiopia in 1984/5; 10 years before Lynn did his work. His subjects would have been ~5 at the time of the famine. Lynn elsewhere makes it quite clear that such severe environmental factors as famine will certainly impact IQ; hitssquad and others have also quoted results showing that early childhood is a critical time.

Is Lynn being disingenuous in including a datapoint he clearly knows is anomolous? One's suspicion is heightened by reading further in Lynn's discussion; South Korea, Singapore, South Africa are called out for special attention (it's not clear that those datapoints are anomolous), yet Ethiopia is not.

A final comment: Lynn states "Intelligence has increased considerably in many nations during the twentieth century and there is little doubt that these increases have been brought about by environmental improvements, which have themselves occurred largely as a result of increases in per capita incomes that have enabled people to give their children better nutrition, health care, education and the like." Yet he uses data from many pre-1978 IQ studies (20 years before his normalised GDP per capita figures), without correcting for an effect he himself acknowledges! Further, most of the pre-1977 studies are of African children, or otherwise yeilded low IQs!

What do other PF members think? Is there enough evidence - from Lynn's own writing - to conclude that his conclusions are seriously flawed, not least by many separate inconsistencies, and an apparent failure to address obvious systematic effects?

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
According to this website (http://www.isep.org/nus/ghana/ ), "The University of Ghana is the largest of the four universities in Ghana and currently enrolls nearly 7,000 students." This would appear to be further prima facie evidence of systematic errors in the work used by Lynn (or that Nachtwolf has got it quite wrong).

How would the presence of a university in Ghana serve as prima facie evidence of systematic errors in the work used by Lynn?

I wonder how many pilots, surgeons, accountants, university academics, etc - people employed in positions which Nachtwolf (and hitssquad?) believe an above average IQ is an essential pre-requisite for - have parents born in Ghana or Sierra Leone?

If they are competitive in first world nations -- and if IQ is largely a prerequisite for successful competition in these fields in first world nations -- it would imply brain drain. If they are competitive in third world nations, we might surmise that one possibility is that they really do have low IQs and that third world nations have lower standards in these fields.

- there is evidence that the IQ distribution curve is not Gaussian, for at least two African countries

What evidence is that?



-Chris

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
Lynn states "Intelligence has increased considerably in many nations during the twentieth century and there is little doubt that these increases have been brought about by environmental improvements, which have themselves occurred largely as a result of increases in per capita incomes that have enabled people to give their children better nutrition, health care, education and the like." Yet he uses data from many pre-1978 IQ studies (20 years before his normalised GDP per capita figures), without correcting for an effect he himself acknowledges!

If you mean the Flynn Effect, the scores are corrected for time between IQ-test standardizations. Some are corrected up. Some are corrected down.

Is there enough evidence - from Lynn's own writing - to conclude that his conclusions are seriously flawed, not least by many separate inconsistencies, and an apparent failure to address obvious systematic effects?

What evidence might there be of inconsistencies and an apparent failure to address systematic effects?



-Chris

 

[Nereid]

What evidence might there be of inconsistencies and an apparent failure to address systematic effects?

Please read all my recent posts on this thread: age effect, PI effect, time effect, Ethiopia, distribution of intelligence about the mean (non-Gaussian) effect (both high and low tails), even the Taiwan data (have you done the Stats-101 analysis yet?) ... I'll be happy to address each for you, once you've replied to my posts.

(I will need to read up on the 'Flynn effect' though)

 

[selfAdjoint]

There is a lot of work on the various effects that compete with g. The Bell Curve did some detailed comparisons. The book the g-factor does more.

Age and g have a complex interelationship. Childhood g is less dependent on heredity than adult g is, for example. This could be the basis for the head start results where good results were obtained with children, but they didn't last into adolescence.

I am sure your mention of age is due to the thought that the subsaharan demographics are skewed to youth, so that could account for the lower g values. And that's right. As you know, I am no fan of Lynn's, and he doesn't really control at all. But that doesn't mean there aren't controlled cross-population studies out there.

 

[Nereid]

How would the presence of a university in Ghana serve as prima facie evidence of systematic errors in the work used by Lynn?

Lynn assumption: National IQ (Ghana) is 62, SD 9.3, population distribution of IQ about the mean is Gaussian.
Consequence of this: there CANNOT be 7,000 people in university in Ghana (unless they are predominantly not from Ghana, or the minimum IQ to study there is considerably less than 100)
Possible ways out:
a) the SD is 15 (as it is in the US). This CAN'T work, because then the 1992 study would have had to have tested ~116 people with IQs <40.
b) the population mean 1992 was higher than 62. To account for the number of uni students in Ghana, the mean would have to be at least 75 (cet par); if that were true, then there's prima facie evidence of significant error in Lynn's work
c) the distribution is non-Gaussian. The most likely explanation; however this immediately invalidates cross-country comparisons.

Evidence of significant, unexplained differences in distributions is often a strong indication that there are unaccounted for systematic errors.

BTW, your 'brain drain' idea - which I'm sure we can all accept as possible or even likely - only strengthens the evidence that there are systematic errors; Glenwwe and Jacoby's sample was 15-year olds. (It would also be another nail in the coffin for Apollo's and Nachtwolf's assertions).

 

[Nereid]

SelfAdjoint wrote: I am sure your mention of age is due to the thought that the subsaharan demographics are skewed to youth, so that could account for the lower g values. And that's right. As you know, I am no fan of Lynn's, and he doesn't really control at all. But that doesn't mean there aren't controlled cross-population studies out there.

There are several apparent 'age' effects in the data which Lynn appears to have used (see other posts for indications that he may have been sloppy, or didn't describe his study accurately), though the effect of the age structure of the populations on his "National IQs" is one that I hadn't looked for as it would involve going outside Lynn's own data (I tried to stick with internal inconsistencies and contradictions).

Now that you've mentioned it, there would seem to be exactly this kind of bias in Lynn's work; at least from a cursory glance.

 

[Nereid]

'brain drain' as evidence to refute Apollo?

hitssquad wrote: If they are competitive in third world nations, we might surmise that one possibility is that they really do have low IQs and that third world nations have lower standards in these fields.

That's why international pilots are such a good example! AFAIK, there is an international standard which all pilots must meet before they're allowed to take off from, and land at, 'international airports'. Are there others? Yes; there are all kinds of tests and barriers that professionals need to take and hurdle if they wish to work in another country. In some professions, a degree, or accreditation, from selected institutions is enough; in others, exams must be taken.

I think this 'brain drain' aspect may provide excellent ammunition against the 'sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ of 70' hypothesis. Perhaps jimmy p, or Njorl, can provide us with links to data on (for example) the number of African (or Indian, or Thai) surgeons practising in the UK; and Monique similar data re the Netherlands.

The key point is that IF the population distribution is Gaussian, and IF the mean is as low as 70, THEN there will be very few people with IQs above 100, and (as SelfAdjoint noted) most of those will be too young to be practicing as surgeons or international pilots. Any way you look at it, Lynn's conclusions are built on flawed analyses, flawed data (or both).

 

[hitssquad]

Ethiopia

Originally posted by Nereid
One of the datapoints Lynn uses in his analysis is his own study, of Ethiopia (1994, 250 subjects, ages 15 and 16, IQ 67

Lynn used a different study in his book IQ and the Wealth of Nations:

--
Around 1989, data for a sample of 250 15-year-old Ethiopian immigrants to Israel tested with the Standard Progressive Matrices have been reported by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the 1979 British standardization, their mean IQ was 65. Because of the 10-year interval between the two collections of data, this need to be reduced to 63.
--
Lynn and Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. p204.


FYI, here are the PsycINFO hits returned by the query <ethiopian AND matrices>:


--
Author
Kaniel, Shlomo; Fisherman, Shraga.
Title
Level of performance and distribution of errors in the Progressive Matrices test: A comparison of Ethiopian immigrant and native Israeli adolescents.
Source
International Journal of Psychology. Vol 26(1) 1991, 25-33.
Taylor & Francis/Psychology Press, United Kingdom

Abstract
Compared the performance of 250 Ethiopian Jews (average age 14.7 yrs) on the Progressive Matrices test to that of 1,740 Israeli Jews (aged 9-15 yrs). The Ethiopians" level of performance was similar to that of the young Israeli children"s group (aged 9-10 yrs). Moreover, the distribution of errors found for the Ethiopian immigrant adolescents was not similar to that found for Israelis of the same age. It resembled the distribution of errors found for Israeli 9- and 10-yr-olds. It is suggested that the low performance of the Ethiopian immigrants reflects cognitive delay rather than cognitive difference.
--


--
Author
Aboud, Frances; Samuel, Mesfin; Hadera, Alem; Addus, Abdulaziz.
Title
Intellectual, social and nutritional status of children in an Ethiopian orphanage.
Source
Social Science & Medicine. Vol 33(11) 1991, 1275-1280.
Elsevier Science, US

Abstract
Assessed the intellectual, social, and nutritional well-being of 81 children (aged 5-14 yrs) at a community orphanage relative to a group of family-reared controls. On 2 tests of intellectual ability, the Progressive Matrices and a conservation test, the orphanage Ss performed as well as the family Ss. Ss who entered the orphanage at an early age scored higher than those who entered later. On social-emotional measures of self-esteem, the orphanage Ss scored higher than or similar to the controls. The orphanage Ss reported fewer interactions and weaker attachments to adults and were more likely to be stunted but not more likely to be wasted than the family Ss. The favorable status of the orphanage children can largely be attributed to the noninstitutional orphanage rather than to their pre-orphanage family life. This raises disturbing questions about family life under conditions of economic stress.
--


--
Author
Lynn, Richard.
Title
The intelligence of Ethiopian immigrant and Israeli adolescents: A comment on Kaniel and Fisherman.
Source
International Journal of Psychology. Vol 29(1) Feb 1994, 55-56.
Taylor & Francis/Psychology Press, United Kingdom

Abstract
Reports an error in the original article by S. Kaniel and S. Fisherman (International Journal of Psychology, 1991, Vol 26[1], 25-33). Table 1 of the original article gives some incorrect percentile equivalents as well as an incorrect reference for the British norms from the Progressive Matrices for 1979.
--


--
Author
Kozulin, Alex.
Title
Profiles of immigrant students' cognitive performance on Raven's Progressive Matrices.
Source
Perceptual & Motor Skills. Vol 87(3, Pt 2) Dec 1998, 1311-1314.
Perceptual & Motor Skills, US

Abstract
Four groups of 46 new immigrant students (aged 14-16 yrs) from Ethiopia in Israel participated. They were tested using the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices and received cognitive intervention in the form of the Learning Potential Assessment Device procedure. The intervention included teaching problem-solving strategies using material similar but not identical to Raven's Matrices. A profile of students' responses was estimated. The results suggest that the new immigrant students initially had a cognitive profile different from that of native Israeli students. The intervention appeared to be effective not only in improving the absolute score on the Matrices but also in changing the students' cognitive profile.
--


--
Author
Tzuriel, David; Kaufman, Ruth.
Title
Mediated learning and cognitive modifiability: Dynamic assessment of young Ethiopian immigrant children to Israel.
Source
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Vol 30(3) May 1999, 359-380.
Sage Publications, US

Abstract
Examined the relationship between mediated learning experience (MLE) and cognitive modifiability among Ethiopian immigrant children in Israel. Based on Vygotsky's (1978) zone of proximal development concept and R. Feuerstein's (1991) MLE theory, the authors explored whether the immigrant children would reveal cultural difference, but not cultural deprivation. 29 Ethiopian immigrant children (aged 6-7.6 yrs) were compared with 23 Israeli-born children (mean age 7.2 yrs) using a dynamic assessment (DA) approach. The 2 groups were tested with the Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) (J. C. Raven, 1956), the Children's Analogical Cognitive Modifiability test (CATM) (D. Tzuriel & P. S. Klein, 1985, 1991), and the Children's Inferential Thinking Modifiability test (CITM) (D. Tzuriel, 1989, 1992b). Significant group differences were found on the CPM and on the Preteaching scores of the DA measures (CATM, CITM), indicating better cognitive ability performance of the Israeli-born comparison group. The Ethiopian immigrant children narrowed the gaps and performed at about the same level on the Postteaching and Transfer tasks after a short, but intensive teaching process.
--

There was a famine in Ethiopia in 1984/5; 10 years before Lynn did his work. His subjects would have been ~5 at the time of the famine. Lynn elsewhere makes it quite clear that such severe environmental factors as famine will certainly impact IQ;

In the first of the following studies apropos to Ethiopia and cognitive development, it was found that "early malnutrition does not have specific adverse effect beyond the contribution that it makes to enduring malnutrition over the first 2 years."


--
Author
Drewett, Robert; Wolke, Dieter; Asefa, Makonnen; Kaba, Mirgissa; Tessema, Fasil.
Title
Malnutrition and mental development: Is there a sensitive period? A nested case-control study.
Source
Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines. Vol 42(2) Feb 2001, 181-187.
Blackwell Publishers, United Kingdom

Abstract
To examine the possibility that there is an early sensitive period for the effects of malnutrition on cognitive development, 3 groups of 197 children (aged 22-24 mos) were recruited from a birth cohort with known growth characteristics in south-west Ethiopia. Early growth falterers dropped in weight below the third centile of the reference population in the first 4 months. Late growth falterers were children not in the first group whose weights were below the third centile at 10 and 12 months. All children were tested blind at 2 years using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Mean scores (SD) on the psychomotor scale were 10.2 (3.7) in the controls, 6.6 (4.2) in the early growth falterers, and 8.5 (4.3) in the late growth falterers. For the mental scale they were 28.9 (5.8), 22.6 (6.2), and 26.6 (6.1) respectively. Both overall differences were statistically significant, and planned comparisons between the control and the combined growth faltering groups, and between the early and later growth faltering groups, showed that each difference was statistically significant for both scales. In this population, therefore, early malnutrition does not have specific adverse effect beyond the contribution that it makes to enduring malnutrition over the first 2 years.
--



--
Author
Aboud, Frances E; Alemu, Tadesse.
Title
Nutrition, maternal responsiveness and mental development of Ethiopian children.
Source
Social Science & Medicine. Vol 41(5) Sep 1995, 725-732.
Elsevier Science, US

Abstract
Examined the mental development of 40 Ethiopian children (16-42 mo old) in relation to nutritional status and mother-child interaction. The Bayley Mental Scale was used to assess the mental development, and nutritional status was measured by weight, height, and arm circumference of the Ss. Mother-child interaction was assessed through an observation of the pair in a naturalistic setting. Results show that the Ss' weight for age was significantly related to scale scores. Mother's verbal response rate to the child positively predicted the child's verbal score. In contrast, her spontaneous motor actions toward the child were negatively correlated with the child's performance score. Responsiveness of the mother was predicted by a fussing/crying child and by her expectations about the ages when specific social-cognitive abilities would be acquired. This was, however, not determined by the child's nutritional status, age or sex.
--


*edit: deleted redundant material*


-Chris

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
I think this 'brain drain' aspect may provide excellent ammunition against the 'sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ of 70' hypothesis. Perhaps jimmy p, or Njorl, can provide us with links to data on (for example) the number of African (or Indian, or Thai) surgeons practising in the UK; and Monique similar data re the Netherlands.

Are you suggesting that, in spite of the adverse conditions in which they are gestated and raised, the mean IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is higher than 70?



-Chris

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by hitssquad
Are you suggesting that, in spite of the adverse conditions in which they are gestated and raised, the mean IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is higher than 70?

Not directly. Rather that a) the stated results appear to contradict reality (so use of the studies to support conclusions such as Lynn's is contraindicated), b) until the source of the contradictions is identified and understood, the studies should be sent to purgatory, and c) the Jensen crowd (hereditarian intelligence) have a much weaker case than their supporters and acolytes state, at least when it comes to non-US countries (so it shouldn't have taken 7 pages of this thread to conclude that Lynn's work is flawed; we could have done it in one).

BTW, I notice that you've not responded to any of the many points I made about the internal and external flaws in Lynn's work (except for the Ethiopia data, thanks for that). May I conclude that you now accept that Lynn's work fails to support his hypothesis?

 

[Nereid]

yet more contradictions!

hitssquad wrote: Lynn used a different study in his book IQ and the Wealth of Nations:
--
Around 1989, data for a sample of 250 15-year-old Ethiopian immigrants to Israel tested with the Standard Progressive Matrices have been reported by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the 1979 British standardization, their mean IQ was 65. Because of the 10-year interval between the two collections of data, this need to be reduced to 63.
--
Lynn and Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. p204.

And earlier:
If you mean the Flynn Effect, the scores are corrected for time between IQ-test standardizations. Some are corrected up. Some are corrected down.

And still earlier:
5) Where are the tests and detailed test results published (not summaries)? for each of the races
For the national IQ data used in IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn has the sources for 80 nations listed here...
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/articl...igence/7-a1.htm

Yet it appears that the data which Lynn used to derive his "National IQ" and real per capita GDP relationship does NOT correct the data listed in (7-a1) for the Flynn effect, nor does it use 63 for Ethiopia. This table: http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/t3.htm
("The Results of Regression Analysis of Real GDP Per Capita 1998 on IQ for 58 Countries") gives 67 for Ethiopia, 62 for Ghana, etc.

Earlier in this thread hitssquad quoted from Jensen as follows: "Nowadays one often reads in the popular press (and in some anthropology textbooks) that the concept of human races is a fiction (or, as one well-known anthropologist termed it, a “dangerous myth”), that races do not exist in reality, but are social constructions of politically and economically dominant groups for the purpose of maintaining their own status and power in a society. It naturally follows from this premise that, since races do not exist in any real, or biological, sense, it is meaningless even to inquire about the biological basis of any racial differences. I believe this line of argument has five main sources, none of them scientific:"

Yet as we have learned:
a) Jensen has limited himself to just the US.
b) Lynn's work (which Apollo, hitssquad and Nachtwolf quote from extensively to make their cases) is riddled with systematic errors, contradictions, and flawed analyses.

I am looking forward to being able to check the race pages hitssquad has posted; then the second half of the race-intelligence assertions will become clear (hopefully).

 

[hitssquad]

Originally posted by Nereid
the data which Lynn used to derive his "National IQ" does NOT correct the data listed in (7-a1) for the Flynn effect

This is from page three of the article on Lynn's website you are referring to:

---
This IQ is then adjusted for the secular rise of the IQ which has been 2 IQ points per decade for the Standard Progressive Matrices in Britain over the period 1938-1979 (Lynn and Hampson, 1986).
---
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/3.htm

"Secular rise" of IQ scores is a common way of referring to the Flynn Effect.

Since there is no documentation of the individual corrections in the online article, the IQ data in 7-a1 might be surmised to be already corrected. The methodology is clearer in the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

Nereid wrote:

hitssquad wrote
Lynn used a different study in his book IQ and the Wealth of Nations:

--
Around 1989, data for a sample of 250 15-year-old Ethiopian immigrants to Israel tested with the Standard Progressive Matrices have been reported by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the 1979 British standardization, their mean IQ was 65. Because of the 10-year interval between the two collections of data, this need to be reduced to 63.
--
Lynn and Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. p204.

nor does it use 63 for Ethiopia.

The article cited as the source for the Ethiopian IQ datum on Lynn's website is different from that in his book. However, it uses the same data set, as it is an article correcting the Kaniel and Fisherman article cited above and in the IQ and the Wealth of Nations book. I cut-and-pasted the abstract to that 1994 article of Lynn's in amother message. Here it is again:

---
Author
Lynn, Richard.

Title
The intelligence of Ethiopian immigrant and Israeli adolescents: A comment on Kaniel and Fisherman.

Source
International Journal of Psychology. Vol 29(1) Feb 1994, 55-56.
Taylor & Francis/Psychology Press, United Kingdom

Abstract
Reports an error in the original article by S. Kaniel and S. Fisherman (International Journal of Psychology, 1991, Vol 26[1], 25-33). Table 1 of the original article gives some incorrect percentile equivalents as well as an incorrect reference for the British norms from the Progressive Matrices for 1979.
---



One might surmise, since Lynn had published a correction to the Kaniel and Fisherman article in 1994, that perhaps the correct mapping of raw scores to the 1979 British standardization was still in dispute and therefore resulted in a score of 67 on Lynn's website and a score of 63 (corrected down from a British-relative score of 65 to account Flynn-effect-wise for the 10-year interval between when the samples were taken and the 1979 British standardization) in Lynn and Vanhanen's book IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

One might also surmise that one of the numbers may appear in its respective study as a clerical error. It's not clear who, if anyone, checked for errors in the online article. However, the book features a second author in addition to an editor and publisher (Seymour W. Itzkoff of Praeger Publishers and Praeger Publishers itself), there are many more parties who bear some responsibility for the accuracy of the contents. We might, therefore, expect the book to be the item more likely to have the accurate figure, if one and only one of them is accurate. Additionally, we might expect this since the figure 63, for the IQ of Ethiopia, appears repeatedly throughout the book IQ and te Wealth of Nations.

Earlier in this thread hitssquad quoted from Jensen

It naturally follows from this premise that, since races do not exist in any real, or biological, sense, it is meaningless even to inquire about the biological basis of any racial differences. I believe this line of argument has five main sources, none of them scientific:".

Yet as we have learned:
a) Jensen has limited himself to just the US..

This is not a categorical limitation. Jensen's Bias in Mental Testing only draws its overall conclusion of lack of bias in mental testing in terms of mental testing in the United States. Jensen's The g Factor only draws its conclusions of a 1.2 sigma difference between black and white scores and a substantial heritability both within and between races again in terms of the human population residing in United States. However, in the latter book, Jensen does take the reader with him outside of the United States to visit explanatory theories -- such as the Out of Africa theory -- for the rise of races and racial differences in IQ, to draw some insight from IQ testing experiences in various non-U.S. nations, and to establish the . The latter may be instanced by this example:


---
Spearman's Hypothesis Tested with South Africans. The very same variables and apparatuses designed to be as much like those used in the previously described study were used by Lynn and Holmshaw [58] to test Spearman's hypothesis on samples consisting of nine-year-old black schoolchildren in South Africa (N = 350) and white schoolchildren of comparable age in Britain (N = 239). The testing procedures were virtually identical to those in the American study based on children averaging about eleven years of age. Because of the difference in subjects' ages in the South African and American studies, a direct comparison on the actual time measurements of RT and MT would not be relevant here. However, the Lynn and Holmshaw study showed much the same pattern of B-W differences (in ó units) across the twelve ECT variables as was found in Jensen's American study, the main difference being in the size of the differences, which are generally much larger in the South African study. The South African blacks were markedly slower than the British whites in RT and also markedly faster in MT. But note that the same phenomenon was present in both studies; that is, whites outperformed blacks on the RT component of the task (which is correlated with g) while blacks outperformed whites on the MT component.

The greater B-W differences on the RT and RTSD components of the ECTs in the South African study is best explained by the fact that this group of South African blacks scored, on average, about 2ó below British (or South African) whites, while there is only about 1ó difference between American blacks and whites. 59 In the Lynn and Holmshaw study, the W-B difference on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) was about 2.5ó. But we cannot be very confident of this value, because the SPM appeared to be too difficult for the African blacks. Their mean raw score on the SPM was only about three points above the chance guessing score, which casts doubt on the reliability and validity of the SPM as a measure of individual differences in g for this sample.
---
p398
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874




-Chris

 

[hitssquad]

Are universities necessarily only for the high-IQ?

Originally posted by Nereid
Lynn assumption: National IQ (Ghana) is 62, SD 9.3, population distribution of IQ about the mean is Gaussian.
Consequence of this: there CANNOT be 7,000 people in university in Ghana (unless they are predominantly not from Ghana, or the minimum IQ to study there is considerably less than 100)

It would seem to be a good guess that the minimum IQ to study there is considerably less than 100. A college education is a normal thing to have for most people living in Saudi Arabia, if we can believe American newspaper accounts (apparently college is free in Saudi Arabia?), and if I recall that fact correctly. Yet Saudi Arabians as a group have average IQ even a little lower than that of American blacks. Not even all American whites can make it through college, yet somehow all (or most) Saudi Arabians can. One might imagine that Saudi Arabian colleges are not as difficult, and the corresponding degrees do not mean as much, as those in America. Certainly, since the post-WWII democratization in higher education occurred, not all colleges in America are at the same difficulty level. We have roughly four tiers of 4-year-school rankings now, plus the junior colleges below that. We might expect that as a college education becomes more of a thing associated with the American middle class, and as more Americans come to want to believe they are in the middle class, we might see more and more higher-education institutions open specifically for middle-of-the-bell-curve folks and even below that.

It can certainly be done. If someone has an IQ way down at the 14th percentile, the institution that wants to cater to him need only keep the material at a very simple level. This seems to be what they do in South Africa, where evidence indicates that the black engineering students (and normally engineering students in the first world are part of an intellectually elite group) are, as a group, just below the average in general cognitive ability for black Americans:



--
Author
Rushton, J. Philippe; Skuy, Mervyn.

Title
Performance on Raven's Matrices by African and White university students in South Africa.

Source
Intelligence. Vol 28(4) 2000, 251-265.
Elsevier/JAI Press Inc, US

Abstract
Untimed Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) were administered to 309 students (aged 17-23 yrs) at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa (173 Africans, 136 Whites; 205 women, 104 men). African Ss solved an average of 44 of the 60 problems whereas White Ss solved an average of 54 of the problems. By the standards of the 1993 US normative sample, the African Ss scored at the 14th percentile and the White Ss scored at the 61st percentile (IQ equivalents of 84 and 104, respectively). The African-White differences were found to be greater on those items of the SPM with the highest item-total correlations, indicating a difference in g, or the general factor of intelligence. A small sex difference favoring males was found in both the African and the White samples, but unrelated to g.
--


Given that IQ can theoretically be thought of as mental age, and given that an institution could theoretically be designed to be just challenging for a small child of any age and still be able to get away with being called a university -- and further, this especially being plausible in a nation where a vastly-lower-than-typical-American IQ is considered perfectly normal to the people living there -- the existence of four universities in Ghana doesn't present as prima facie evidence that there might be something wrong with the IQ statistics coming out of that nation.




-Chris

 

[Nereid]

hitssquad wrote: This is from page three of the article on Lynn's website you are referring to:
---
This IQ is then adjusted for the secular rise of the IQ which has been 2 IQ points per decade for the Standard Progressive Matrices in Britain over the period 1938-1979 (Lynn and Hampson, 1986).
---
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/3.htm "

Secular rise" of IQ scores is a common way of referring to the Flynn Effect.

Since there is no documentation of the individual corrections in the online article, the IQ data in 7-a1 might be surmised to be already corrected. The methodology is clearer in the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

but originally he (she?) wrote: 5) Where are the tests and detailed test results published (not summaries)? for each of the races

For the national IQ data used in IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn has the sources for 80 nations listed here...
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/articl...igence/7-a1.htm

So, to be charitable, hitssquad has misunderstood Lynn's work, especially the data he (she?) said was the basis of the Lynn claims he (she?) appeared to take pride in asserting and repeating. I shall leave uncharitable interpretations to readers' own imaginations.

 

[Nereid]

hitssquad wrote: One might also surmise that one of the numbers may appear in its respective study as a clerical error. It's not clear who, if anyone, checked for errors in the online article. However, the book features a second author in addition to an editor and publisher (Seymour W. Itzkoff of Praeger Publishers and Praeger Publishers itself), there are many more parties who bear some responsibility for the accuracy of the contents. We might, therefore, expect the book to be the item more likely to have the accurate figure, if one and only one of them is accurate. Additionally, we might expect this since the figure 63, for the IQ of Ethiopia, appears repeatedly throughout the book IQ and te Wealth of Nations.

Indeed, we might.

We would then be left with the following puzzle: why did hitssquad direct us to the online material (and not the book), knowing it to be inaccurate?

 

[Nereid]

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??!?

hitssquad wrote, quoting Jensen (?) :*SNIP In the Lynn and Holmshaw study, the W-B difference on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) was about 2.5ó. But we cannot be very confident of this value, because the SPM appeared to be too difficult for the African blacks. Their mean raw score on the SPM was only about three points above the chance guessing score, which casts doubt on the reliability and validity of the SPM as a measure of individual differences in g for this sample.

Yet we read, from the sources which hitssquad has provides us, that the "National IQ" of the following countries have been determined by SPM tests (from the links which hitssquad has provided us; IQ determined from study - or is it "National IQ"? - in brackets)):
Ethiopia (67)
Congo (Zaire) (68)
Nigeria (69)
Guinea (70)
Zimbabwe (70)
Congo (Br) (72)
South Africa (72)
Sudan (72)
Congo (Br) (73)
Zambia (75)
Qatar (75)
...

So, despite your claims hitssquad, tests based on SPM (which Lynn used extensively, and which hitssquad and Nachtwolf stridently insisted are a neutral instrument) are neither reliable nor valid?

 

[Nereid]

hitssquad wrote: It would seem to be a good guess that the minimum IQ to study there [the leading university in Ghana] is considerably less than 100.

OK; then the onus is on you to use publicly available data to estimate the minimum IQ needed to get into the leading university in Ghana, and to show that it's consistent with a "National IQ" of 67. Further, as an independent test, you should compile data on the number of Ghanans who are employed as pilots by international airlines, academics in the US/EU/Japan/Australia (etc), and other professions in countries where a priori you would expect an IQ of 100 essential to be employed. Then we can calculate the expected number of such folk, based on Ghanan demographic data you will supply , and Lynn's assertion that the "National IQ" is 67.

Separately we shall expect Nachtwolf to retract his assertion about the minimum IQ necessary to get into university. To be clear about what will come next, we will use Nachtwolf's retraction to further challenge the basis for his claim that a eugenics program is the most critical thing for world civilization (I'm paraphrasing, from memory).

 

[hitssquad]

Lynn's book is different from Lynn's online article

Originally posted by Nereid
he (she?) wrote: 5) Where are the tests and detailed test results published (not summaries)? for each of the races
For the national IQ data used in IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn has the sources for 80 nations listed here...
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/articl...igence/7-a1.htm

Unfortunately, it appears that the article online at Richard Lynn's website does not use the same reference list as does Lynn and Vanhanen's book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, and therefore cannot act as a surrogate for reference information for the latter. To find where are the tests and detailed test results published (not summaries), I refer you to that book's Appendix 1 and Bibliography.

Unfortunately, these items are not published online at this time. I regret any confusion this might have caused.



-Chris

 

[hitssquad]

The separate utilities of Lynn's online article, and Lynn's book, respectively

Originally posted by Nereid
why did hitssquad direct us to the online material (and not the book)

Hitssquad was under the impression that the online material was an abridgement of the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations and that it contained reference data that might be sufficiently close to that of the book that it might serve scholastically-minded parties as a convenient surrogate for the latter.

Hitssquad still feels the online article can function as a convenient resource for those who would like (and who don't have time to wait for the book to arrive in the mail) a brief overview of the premises upon which the book is based, the methods, the corrections for systematic bias (corrections for IQ-test-score secular rise based on chronological directions and distances from respective IQ-test standardizations), the overall conclusions, and on what overall reasonings those conclusions are based.

That it is in fact the case that the online article can serve a useful purpose, though it does not, apparently, contain the same reference data as the book (though, the totalities of the differences remain to be investigated by the present author to his personal satisfaction) is demonstrated by the fact that many objections that are posted to this forum could have simply been answered by reading the online article wherein are presented justification for methods that otherwise might seem unscientific. There might be an objection raised, for example, to the use of African data at all, with the reasoning given that such data is necessary to make the case for the IQ and the Wealth of Nations causality hypothesis and therefore constitutes a conflict of interest for the researcher. Lynn answers:

---
to meet this point more fully we have excluded the 15 African countries and rerun the calculations. The results are that the correlation of IQ and per capita GNP 1998 falls from .706 to .625; the correlation of IQ and real GDP per capita falls from .757 to .586; the correlation of IQ and economic growth per capita GDP 1950-90 falls from .605 to .600; and the correlation of IQ and economic growth per capita GNP 1976-98 falls from .643 to .513. Thus the exclusion of the 15 African countries reduces the correlations to some degree, as would be expected with the reduction of variance in the reduced sample, but all four correlations remain substantial and statistically significant at p<.001. We are forced to conclude that the exclusion of the 15 countries of sub-Saharan Africa makes no significant difference to the associations between national IQs and economic growth.
---
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/5.htm


Scholastically-minded persons, however, are cautioned not take the online article...
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/articles.htm

...as an adequate substitute for the book...


...if it is of the book that they which to discuss the details.


*edit: format*



-Chris

 

[Nereid]

So where does that leave this thread?

My POV:
1) when the race links which hitssquad posted take you to a real webpage, let's discuss the 'race' aspects of the claims made by folk such as Nachtwolf. To avoid a repeat of the Lynn silliness, perhaps hitssquad would like to re-state the (Jensen?) case?
2) a lot of unanswered questions about Lynn's methods etc, as summarised by hitssquad et al on PF. Maybe I'll summarise some which seem particularly sharp and see if someone from the Jensen camp will address them (no, I'm not going to buy Lynn's book)
3) explanations for the differences between countries, other than "National IQ". I'm curious as to why economic factors apparently weren't examined
4) what was the reception to Lynn's work among the hundreds of US profs who didn't sign the 1994 newspaper ad?

 

[Nereid]

Nereid wrote: 3) explanations for the differences between countries, other than "National IQ". I'm curious as to why economic factors apparently weren't examined

On the other thread on this topic (here in Social Sciences), SelfAdjoint gave a link which included a short technical analysis of Lynn et al's work, from an economics perspective. Volken's conclusion? "In short, the simple message is that
national IQ has neither an effect on income nor on economic growth."

 

[Nachtwolf]

Hahaha!

Pray tell, why do you think he says such a fascinating thing? Especially when IQ and SES correlate for individuals, and when the correlation between per capita GDP and IQ for countries is 70%? Correlations over 50% don't just drop out of the sky.

Should we seriously believe that groups of people who are more intelligent, and therefore more educable, less likely to commit crimes, and better able to perform on the job (speaking of other threads, IQ is an https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12454) are somehow no better suited to generating wealth than their less intelligent peers? Maybe not - but if not, then why not?


--Mark

 

[Nereid]

Nactwolf wrote: Pray tell, why do you think he says such a fascinating thing?

Because he did the analysis, from Lynn's own book.

Nactwolf wrote: *SNIP and when the correlation between per capita GDP and IQ for countries is 70%? Correlations over 50% don't just drop out of the sky.

Not even Lynn claimed that! ("national IQ explains 57 percent of the variance of real GDP per capita 1998 and 50 percent of the variance of GNP per capita 1998") ... and that's why we employ the scientific method to investigate assertions.

Let's look a little further at Volken's analysis (note that he made no changes to Lynn's data, merely showed that his stated conclusion didn't match the data).

Volken: "In this paper I have explored the influence of national IQ on income and growth. In contrast to Lynn and Vanhanen, I find no empirical and statistically significant support for their claim that IQ is the most relevant factor explaining cross-country variations in income and growth. In the case of income, the authors simply fail to consider the influence structure of the explanatory variables, leading them to the wrong conclusion that economic freedom and the level of democracy account for only a small amount of the variance explained."

You will recall that Lynn stated that both economic freedom and level of democracy may be important factors in accounting for differences in income and growth. What Volken did was apply unbiased regression analysis to the data (he did not assume, a priori that "National IQ" was the most important variable). AFAIK, this is a standard approach in the social sciences, widely used because we all recognise that there are many different factors which influence humans and their interactions. The curious thing is why Lynn and Vanhanen felt an explicitly biased analysis would be accepted without challenge.

Nachtwolf again: Should we seriously believe that groups of people who are more intelligent, and therefore more educable, less likely to commit crimes, and better able to perform on the job (speaking of other threads, IQ is an excellent predictor of job performance) are somehow no better suited to generating wealth than their less intelligent peers? Maybe not - but if not, then why not?

We should insist that all assertions be tested rigourously; we should be particularly wary of:
a) extrapolations beyond the scope of a study's data (e.g. Lynn)
b) sweeping claims of universal applicability (from limited work), e.g. Nachtwolf's repeated
c) continued confusion between relative statements ("more educable, less likely ... better able") and absolute ones.

 

[hitssquad]

The wealth of a nation is based upon science advancement, not upon marketing jobs

Originally posted by Nereid

Nachtwolf wrote
and when the correlation between per capita GDP and IQ for countries is 70%?

Not even Lynn claimed that! ("national IQ explains 57 percent of the variance of real GDP per capita 1998 and 50 percent of the variance of GNP per capita 1998")

Those figures are for percents of explained variance. Lynn also claimed a correlation of .70 between per capita national income and IQ (over the period 1820 to 1998, he claimed a correlation range of .50 to .70 {IQ and the Wealth of Nation p159}).

Let's look a little further at Volken's analysis (note that he made no changes to Lynn's data, merely showed that his stated conclusion didn't match the data).

http://www.suz.unizh.ch/volken/pdfs/IQWealthNation.pdf

Actually, Volken confirmed Lynn's and Vanhanen's conclusions about size of correlations. What he took issue with was Lynn's and Vanhanen's assumption that IQ -- and not education credentials -- can be equated with human capital. Assuming this does not cause the correlations to pop up out of the data. It merely offers an explanation for them. What Volker subsequently did to get very low correlations for IQ was to introduce a factor of educational opportunity.

So Volker did the same thing that Lynn and Vanhanen did, which was to assume that a single particular factor equated with human capital. It might be shown, however, that educational opportunity is a functional effect of national IQ, and neither the other way around, nor independent of IQ. For example, would you go door to door selling air conditioners to people living in Anchorage Alaska? And does the fact that no one would do this explain why there are no air conditioners in Anchorage? Similarly, are world-leading universities going to sprout up in areas of the world where the average twenty-something adult has a mental age equivalent to that of an eleven-year-old British child?

Arthur Jensen makes the case in his book The g Factor that, throughout America at least, education is dependent upon g to the point that credentials are largely irrelevant to job performance -- and the more so the longer a person has been on the job. I.e., it tends to be that two people having just earned the same academic degree will not have learned the same amount when their levels of g are different; it tends to be that a person with no degree, but a high IQ, will nonetheless have wide-ranging knowledge of the world, even without ever having set foot in a school in his life; and a worker with lesser credentials and/or training, but a higher level of g, will ceteris paribus quickly advance beyond the skill level of the greater-trained co-worker simply by learning on the job. One may take issue with generalizing Jensen's America-restricted conclusions to the entire world, but that would be the very point -- that this generalization itself constitutes a contingency upon which Lynn and Vanhanen's argument rests. Whether it is a sustainable contingency is up to the reader to decide.

Volken restates his assumption, over and over many times throughout his essay, that humans need education to "be adequately trained in order to fulfill complex tasks" (p11); that "while IQ needs to be considered as the potential to acquire skills, human capital is the trained capacity and ability to productively use skills. And only through the use of skills can growth be achieved" (p16); and that "average IQ in a context cannot be regarded as the transmission belt which converts cognitive capacity into wealth and growth. Rather it is cognitive capacity which has been trained which enables this conversion." (p3) In fact his entire essay is about this one point, not about Lynn and Vanhanen possibily getting computations wrong.

Causality by IQ or educational opportunity, or neither, must at some point be established. Volken makes his case for educational opportunity with an emotional bludgeon. Lynn and Vanhanen make their case for IQ not only equaling education potential but also largely effecting education opportunity and outcome itself in addition to positively accounting for variance in competence in choosing non-corrupt democratic leaders, competence in business enterprise, competence in scientific enterprise, and competence in public administration based on the fact of preponderance of evidence (and of which is largely assembled for easy reference in Arthur Jensen's The g Factor).
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874

Volken: "In this paper I have explored the influence of national IQ on income and growth. In contrast to Lynn and Vanhanen, I find no empirical and statistically significant support for their claim that IQ is the most relevant factor explaining cross-country variations in income and growth.

I.e., he got the same numbers, but he does not accept the evidence of The g Factor for causality of g over wide-ranging SES variables.

In the case of income, the authors simply fail to consider the influence structure of the explanatory variables,

I.e., they chose the politically-incorrect one as the most likely to be causative.

leading them to the wrong conclusion

I.e., ...leading them to the conclusion about IQ and education that Volken doesn't like.

that economic freedom and the level of democracy account for only a small amount of the variance explained."

Here Volken assumes that EF and DI -- as he assumed with educational opportunity -- are not functional effects of IQ, as opposed to the conclusion that they are, as Lynn and Vanhanen explicitly presented a case for.

You will recall that Lynn stated that both economic freedom and level of democracy may be important factors in accounting for differences in income and growth. What Volken did was apply unbiased regression analysis to the data (he did not assume, a priori that "National IQ" was the most important variable).

That is true. What Volken assumed a priori instead was that educational opportunity was the most important variable. When he plugged it in, IQ virtually disappeared as a correlative factor. This might seem like poison for the IQ-causative argument, but the very fact that IQ disappears when educational opportunity is plugged in is evidence of the power of IQ over economic consequences, on the contingency that national IQ exerts substantial causative influence on variance in educational opportunity throughout a society. And Lynn and Vanhanen's case is that IQ does exert influence over educational opportunity. A society of eleven-year-old children is not going to build universities (and even if they did, as far as we can take Jensen's The g Factor as a sufficient argument, the eleven-year-old students of that university would gain little by attending). Yet, what we have in Africa is a society -- in the bodies of adults -- of eleven-year-old children.

Further, Volken assumed a priori that established individual IQ-income correlations can be assumed to be not any more powerful in the case of nations. However, visited many times over in the history of IQ testing and social analysis is the fact that high-IQ individuals often choose the not-most financially-rewarding careers that their IQs can handle -- not-most financially-rewarding for themselves, that is. What Volken ignores is that these self-sacrificing individuals tend to go instead into the very careers that make their nations rich and powerful.

And those careers are, of course, science careers.




-Chris

 

[Nachtwolf]

Those figures are for percents of explained variance. Lynn also claimed a correlation of .70 between per capita national income and IQ (over the period 1820 to 1998, he claimed a correlation range of .50 to .70 {IQ and the Wealth of Nation p159}).

Hahaha! Hey Chris, have you noticed how Nereid consistently blames us for lack of knowledge on the subject? This is priceless.

"Lynn didn't correct for the Flynn Effect, just for some 'secular trend!"

"Um, 'the secular trend' is another name for 'The Flynn Effect.'"

"You say there's a 70% correlation, but Lynn only claims that IQ explains 57% of the variance!"

"Yeah, that's because you square the correlation to get the explained variance. Go take a stats course."

But now watch! Already Nereid is whipping out a calculator and getting ready to shriek "The square root of 57% is 75%, not 70%!"

Well, that's correct; after all, Lynn actally says "It was found that national IQs are correlated at 0.757 with real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita 1998" and I just wrote 70% to be conservative.

I can't wait to see what Nereid is going to post next!


--Mark

 

[Nereid]

east Asian races

From the links which hitssquad posted (edits to his 2 Feb one), we may conclude:
a) this particular classification of races is L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, P. Menozzi P. & A. Piazza's, per their 1994 book "The history and geography of human genes"
b) they do not call them races, rather 'groups within populations'
c) the "east Asian" races are (reading down the tree) Mongol, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, Ainu, [gap], S. Chinese, Mon Khmer, Thai, Indonesian, Philippine, Malaysian
d) apart from small representations of groups such as Russian and Polynesian, the >50 ethnic groups in China ("nationalities" as they refer to themselves) are various mixtures of Mongol, Tibetan, Korean, S. Chinese, Mon Khmer (maybe), and Thai (maybe).

Assuming that Nachtwolf and Apollo remain firm in their belief that the average g/IQ of a population is entirely determined by its racial composition, and assuming that they concur with hitssquad's (actually Cavalli-Sforza et al's) list of races of the world, and assuming they are OK with my characterisation of the races living in China, then we may confidently state that Lynn's data is inconsistent with their belief. (the demonstration is left as an exercise for the reader; I had asked Nachtwolf a related question earlier - which he ignored - it's a simple exercise in arithmetic, using Stats-101 concepts).

Of course, anyone of these assumptions may be incorrect ...

Also, hitssquad and Lynn's ideas aren't contradicted by Lynn's data and Cavalli-Sforza et al's race list, because they acknowledge that factors in addition to race may determine the g/IQ of a population.

Lastly, a question or three to hitssquad - why use work that is now >10 years old to define races? How do Cavalli-Sforza et al's population groups correlate with the results from the many studies into variation within the human genome? Could you please briefly summarise the research technique that Jensen used to determine a) the extent to which each of Cavalli-Sforza's population groups ('races') was a 'breeding population', and b) the fuzziness of the boundaries?

[Edit: as SelfAdjoint points out, Cavalli-Sforza didn't use the concept of 'race', so asking about how the groups he identified match hitssquad's definition of race is silly; my question should have been about Jensen, and I've edited my post accordingly]

 

[Nereid]

Lynn in action, step by step?

Could someone please give us a simple summary of the steps Lynn et al used to get from the results of a test administered to x people in country y in year t to a "National IQ" figure? I'm particularly interested in the following:
- initial sample selection
- test protocol
- analysis of test results (esp distribution about the observed mean)
- key stages in analyses of data, to get to "National IQ", especially external assumptions and inputs.

It would also be interesting to know the extent to which the races used by Lynn et al in their work correspond to the Cavalli-Sforza et al list which hitssquad posted.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Nereid, you should maybe look up Cavalli-Sforza yourself. He is about the most respected scientist in the world in this area of human population genetics, and his papers and books are classics. Anyone with an interest in human biology needs to know about him. As you note (I pointed it out before too) he does not use the concept of race and sticks closely to the science.

 

[Nereid]

hitssquad wrote: It might be shown, however, that educational opportunity is a functional effect of national IQ, and neither the other way around, nor independent of IQ.

and

Arthur Jensen makes the case in his book The g Factor that, throughout America at least, education is dependent upon g *SNIP One may take issue with generalizing Jensen's America-restricted conclusions to the entire world, but that would be the very point -- that this generalization itself constitutes a contingency upon which Lynn and Vanhanen's argument rests. Whether it is a sustainable contingency is up to the reader to decide.

Yes, some hard data would be helpful.

hitssqad again: That is true. What Volken assumed a priori instead was that educational opportunity was the most important variable. When he plugged it in, IQ virtually disappeared as a correlative factor.

Perhaps we don't have the same Volken paper? In the first part, Volken looks at the relative strength of three factors, assumed to be independent (i.e. an unbiased starting point), and finds: "While the total amount of variance explained by all three variables amounts to 63 percent, only 23 percent is due to the independent influence of national IQ. The remaining 40 percent, or roughly two thirds of the total variance, comes into existence due to the independent effects of economic freedom (29 percent of explained variance) and the level of democratization (11 percent of explained variance)."

more hitssquad (my emphasis): This might seem like poison for the IQ-causative argument, but the very fact that IQ disappears when educational opportunity is plugged in is evidence of the power of IQ over economic consequences, on the contingency that national IQ exerts substantial causative influence on variance in educational opportunity throughout a society. And Lynn and Vanhanen's case is that IQ does exert influence over educational opportunity. A society of eleven-year-old children is not going to build universities (and even if they did, as far as we can take Jensen's The g Factor as a sufficient argument, the eleven-year-old students of that university would gain little by attending). Yet, what we have in Africa is a society -- in the bodies of adults -- of eleven-year-old children.[/b]

Precisely. AFAIK - and repeated questions to hitssquad and Nachtwolf have failed to get answers - Lynn and Vanhansen did not present any research results which demonstrate that Jensen's g factor etc has absolute validity outside the US.

Volken's sin, in hitssquad's eyes, appears to be that he did not accept the universal applicability of Jensen's g factor.

Further, it is unsubstantiated assertions about the racial basis and universal applicability of Jensen's g factor - which Nachtwolf's and Apollo accept blindly - which seem to lie at the heart of Lynn and Vanhansen's case.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Nereid, you should maybe look up Cavalli-Sforza yourself. He is about the most respected scientist in the world in this area of human population genetics, and his papers and books are classics. Anyone with an interest in human biology needs to know about him. As you note (I pointed it out before too) he does not use the concept of race and sticks closely to the science.

Thanks SelfAdjoint, I will.

However my principal interest is in the other direction - to what extent did Lynn and Vanhansen use the population groups of Cavalli-Sforza in their analysis?

It would seem that Jensen didn't - AFAIK, he and his followers looked at only two groups (who calls them 'races', apart from Nachtwolf?), US 'blacks' and US 'whites', neither of which appears in Cavalli-Sforza's list (as posted by hitssquad).

 

[hitssquad]

Volken contingencies - Lynn-Vanhanen contingencies

Originally posted by Nereid
hitssquad wrote

on the contingency that national IQ exerts substantial causative influence on variance in educational opportunity throughout a society. And Lynn and Vanhanen's case is that IQ does exert influence over educational opportunity. A society of eleven-year-old children is not going to build universities (and even if they did, as far as we can take Jensen's The g Factor as a sufficient argument

Precisely. AFAIK - and repeated questions to hitssquad and Nachtwolf have failed to get answers - Lynn and Vanhansen did not present any research results which demonstrate that Jensen's g factor etc has absolute validity outside the US.

If they had demonstrated absolute validity, then their theory would be ipso-facto illegitimate from the standpoint of a statistical worldview. Absolute validity means that a theory fails the crucial test of falsifiability.

Volken's sin, in hitssquad's eyes, appears to be that he did not accept the universal applicability of Jensen's g factor.

Volken's conclusion rests upon a single major contingency. Lynn's and Vanhanen's conclusion rests upon a single major contingency. The question, within a statistical worldview, is which contingency is more consistent.

In a statistical worldview, picking the most consistent contingency is at first arbitrary, but later, as statistical power increases through continued tests of the contingency, becomes less arbitrary and more consistent. Picking the wrong contingency will likely (increasingly, with wider application) -- but not absolutely -- result in failure of the explanatory theory to explain empirical data.

Further, it is unsubstantiated assertions about the racial basis and universal applicability of Jensen's g factor ... which seem to lie at the heart of Lynn and Vanhansen's case.

Yes, the IQ and the Wealth of Nations theory is contingent upon generalizability of the Jensen effect of racial differences in g, and upon generalizability of the g nexus (See Chapter 14 of Jensen's The g Factor for an explanation of the g nexus).
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874

It is elementary, from within a statistical worldview, that theories, in order to be legitimate, have to be falsifiable -- that is to say, have to rest upon contingencies. The Lynn-Vanhanen case rests partly upon the contingency that the Jensen effect and the g-nexus effect is established as consistent within the United States. Their case rests upon the further contingency that there is a lack of evidence of competing forces sufficient to prevent the Jensen/g-nexus effect from consistently doing outside the United States what it is already established as consistently doing within the United States.

The buoyancy effect depends upon an atmosphere. That very dependency shows us why buoyancy does not take place in deep space. The Jensen/g nexus effects that have been established as consistently operating within the United States depend upon the presence of certain environmental and cultural conditions in order to work. If they are to work outside of the United States, then there needs to be an attending lack of a veritable environmental-cultural vacuum outside of the United States. The Lynn-Vanhanen case of generalizability of the Jensen/g-factor effects rests

1. upon a lack of consistent evidence that environmental and cultural conditions sufficient to sustain the Jensen/g-nexus effects do not generally pertain throughout the populated regions of the world;

2. upon the presence of consistent evidence that sufficient co-factors do exist such as to consistently explain anomalies found when the Jensen/g-nexus theory is generalized outside of the United States;

and

3. upon the presence of consistent evidence that these co-factors do not overwhelm the explanatory power of the Jensen/g-nexus theory when it is generalized outside of the United States.


New evidence and/or more-sophisticated analyses, could, of course, disprove the IQ and the Wealth of Nations theory. But then, that falsifiablity is partially what makes it a legitimate (from within a statistical worldview) theory.




-Chris

*edit: format fixed*