The wealth of nations is mapped by their IQ

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Research indicates a strong correlation between a nation's average IQ and its economic prosperity, with studies showing that higher national IQs are associated with greater GDP. The discussion raises questions about whether IQ influences wealth or vice versa, with some arguing that socioeconomic factors like education and health impact IQ test performance. Critics highlight potential cultural biases in IQ testing, while others assert that intelligence is largely hereditary and significantly predicts future socioeconomic status. The conversation also touches on the role of motivation in achieving success, suggesting that while IQ can provide an advantage, it is not the sole determinant of a person's accomplishments. Some participants argue that societal oppression, rather than intelligence, is a primary factor in a nation's struggles, emphasizing that human rights and liberty are essential for prosperity. The debate reflects differing views on the implications of IQ research for understanding global economic disparities and the complexities of defining success.
  • #51
Did anyone already wonder about the validity of the IQ tests and whether people in some countries are 'conditioned' to do well on those tests?
Actually that's what just about everyone already wondered. The short answer is yes, the IQ tests are valid. The long answer is that Lynn and Vanhanen used Raven's Progrssive Matrices to test their hypothesis, which even with coaching for the testees give low scores for people living in third world nations. Part of administering an IQ test involves making sure the testee knows the drill.

It's possible (indeed almost certain) that environmental influces are partly responsible for low scores obtained in those countries, but it seems that the scores accurately reflect intelligence and thus it is intelligence itself which is being slightly depressed. A prime example of this is the fact that African blacks consistently score ~15 IQ points lower than American blacks. Nutrition and various other factors are probably partly responsible for the ~15 point gap (although it's also worth noting that American blacks are approximately 20% caucasian).

Vanhanen (sp?)
Haha! Yeah I can never get that name right. I think it's Vanhanen, but my connection is really bad right now so I can't conveniently check.

smart ppl. tend to leave bad places to go and live in good places and that this causes a brain drain
Yep; this is the standard GxE phenomenon. It turns out that smart people seek out cognitively stimulating environments which probably further their intellectual development.

I once heard a black activist argue that while there may be something to research into whether blacks, on average, are less intelligent, society isn't ready to deal with it in a way that would be anything other than destructive. So books like the one in question tend to bolster, for example, white supremecists, even if that wasn't the intention.
That black activist was a smart guy. The trouble is exactly that society isn't read for it - since the facts have been known for around 100 years (and pretty much became settled science 50 years ago) it's only the fact that this is unpopular that makes it generally disbelieved.

I don't know who that leaves except the KKK.
It leaves Eugenists. Lynn is a big time eugenist who wrote two books titled Eugenics and Dysgenics, and the book we're discussing here, IQ and the wealth of Nations does a great deal to support his position.


--Mark
 
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  • #52
What to DO?

So, some research appears to show there is a correlation between 'the wealth of nations' and IQ (or similar). Other research shows that IQ (or similar) is primarily (or predominently) hereditary. Conclusion: since you can't change folks' IQ, most people living in Africa had just better get used to being poor?

Consider: some research has shown there is a correlation between economic growth and degree of openness to free international trade ... and universal primary education ... and sanitation and universal access to clean drinking water ... and stable government ... and corruption (negative correlation) ... and sound fiscal policies ... and good regulatory regimes ... and (it's a long list). These are all things which we can do something about, whether we live in the US, the UK, China, Brazil, Burma/Myanmar, or Benin. Further, there's plenty of good data to show that if you do something about reducing trade barriers, providing universal primary education, clamping down on corruption, (etc), the wealth of your nation does indeed increase.

Maybe this eugenics idea is a waste of time and energy, if what you want to do is increase the wealth of your nation?
 
  • #53
So, some research appears to show there is a correlation between 'the wealth of nations' and IQ (or similar). Other research shows that IQ (or similar) is primarily (or predominently) hereditary. Conclusion: since you can't change folks' IQ, most people living in Africa had just better get used to being poor?
Why put words into my posts which aren't there? Don't you find these preconceptions you have about my views to be encumbering?

1) The research doesn't appear to show a correlation. It does show a 40% correlation. Further research is in order to test whether this is accurate, and better understand where it comes from and how it "works."

2) The fact that IQ is heritable within a group does not by itself show that the IQ difference between two groups must be heritable to the same degree. Even pretending for the moment that the American B/W IQ gap were 100% genetic (something no one believes) some quick calculations would lead us to expect that the average IQ of native, fully black Africans should be 80, not 70. Thus, at bare minimum the IQ of these third-worlders is environmentally depressed by around 10 points.

3) Whether the low average IQ of any given group is caused by genetic or environmental factors, it is not irremediable. Since within-group heritabilities are high, eugenic efforts can fairly easily boost their intelligence in the long term. It is my wish to bring about such positive eugenic change throughout the globe.


Consider: some research has shown there is a correlation between economic growth and degree of openness to free international trade ... and universal primary education ... and sanitation and universal access to clean drinking water ... and stable government ... and corruption (negative correlation) ... and sound fiscal policies ... and good regulatory regimes ... and (it's a long list).
Lynn's research actually further demonstrates most of this. The trouble is that we can't say that these things themselves are independent of IQ - and, in fact, other findings suggest to contrary. More intelligent people (compared to their peers in the same society) are more educable and more productive workers. They are less crime prone, healther, and longer-lived. They are more likely to take an active interest in government and politics, and tend away from rigid, authoritarian views.


Maybe this eugenics idea is a waste of time and energy, if what you want to do is increase the wealth of your nation?
Hahahaha!


--Mark
 
  • #54
Nereid: "Conclusion: since you can't change folks' IQ, most people living in Africa had just better get used to being poor?" {note the question mark}
Nachtwolf: "Why put words into my posts which aren't there? Don't you find these preconceptions you have about my views to be encumbering?"
Nereid: (quoting Nachtwolf) Hahahaha!
1) The research doesn't appear to show a correlation. It does show a 40% correlation. Further research is in order to test whether this is accurate, and better understand where it comes from and how it "works."
Clearly I have to spend some more time analysing Lynn's work. However, as I noted in another thread, "Lynn seems to have merely collected studies done between 1952 and 2000, on subjects whose ages ranged from 3 to 'Adults', with sample sizes ranging from 88 to over 43,000, by a number of different authors." He did NOT do the work himself. (BTW, the other posters on that thread - including Nachtwolf - haven't yet given answers to very basic questions about the data).

Let's talk about the data which shows "IQ difference between groups" (i.e. Lynn)
hitssquad wrote: For other nations used in the final regression analysis, [Lynn's] national IQs were estimated by such methods as taking an average of neighboring nations, and using IQ data from racially similar populations (correcting for racial proportion in the latter case).
Again, I need to study the work done by Lynn. For now I merely note that repeated questions - to Nachtwolf and others - have yet to yield even a list of 'sub-Saharan' races (or east Asian ones for that matter).
 
  • #55
Lynn's methods

Originally posted by Nereid
"Lynn seems to have merely collected studies done between 1952 and 2000, on subjects whose ages ranged from 3 to 'Adults', with sample sizes ranging from 88 to over 43,000, by a number of different authors." He did NOT do the work himself.
If the authors had merely collected studies, in the final report there would have been no corrections for known bias, no regression analyses, no comparisons with other IQ-related factors, or the results of any of the other work the authors did.

In the digest version of his analysis posted online at his website in the form of the article Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations, nine of the IQ-collection-article citations are of papers published by Lynn himself:
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/7-a1.htm

Code: 
Nation    ages test    N mean author            date

Ethiopia 15-16 SPM    250 67  Lynn,             1994
Hong Kong 3-13 SPM 13,822 103 Lynn et al.,      1988 
Hong Kong 6-15 SPM  4,500 110 Lynn et al.,      1988
Hong Kong    6 CPM  4,858 109 Chan & Lynn,      1989 
Israel    9-15 SPM    250 90  Lynn,             1994 
Japan        9 SPM    444 110 Shigehisa & Lynn, 1991 
Korea, South 9 SPM    107 106 Lynn & Song,      1994 
Singapore   13 SPM    147 103 Lynn,             1977 
Taiwan    9-12 SPM  2,496 105 Lynn,             1997

SPM and CPM stand for the Raven tests "Standard Progressive Matrices" and "Coloured Progressive Matrices". As you can see, the only test he used was Raven's Matrices, a family of non-verbal tests.


Here are the references:
http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/9.htm

Chan, J. and Lynn, R. (1989) The intelligence of six year olds in Hong Kong. Journal of Biosocial Science, 21, 461-464.

Lynn, R. (1977) The intelligence of the Chinese and Malays in Singapore. Mankind Quarterly, 18, 125-128.

Lynn, R. (1980) The social ecology of intelligence in France. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 325-331.

Lynn, R. (1981) The social ecology of intelligence in the British Isles, France and Spain. In M.P.Friedman, J.P.Das and N. O'Connor (eds) Intelligence and Learning. New York: Plenum.

Lynn, R. (1991) Race differences in intelligence: a global perspective. Mankind Quarterly, 31, 255-294.

Lynn, R. (1994) The intelligence of Ethiopian immigrant and Israeli adolescents. International Journal of Psychology, 29, 55-56.

Lynn, R. (1997) Intelligence in Taiwan. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 585-586.

Lynn, R., Pagliari, C. and Chan, J. (1988) Intelligence in Hong Kong measured for Spearman's g and the visuospatial and verbal primaries. Intelligence, 12, 423-433.

Lynn, R. and Song, M.J. (1994) General intelligence, visuospatial and verbal abilities of Korean children. Personality and Individual Differences, 16, 363-364.

Shigehisa, T. and Lynn, R. (1991) Reaction times and intelligence in Japanese children. International Journal of Psychology, 26, 195-202.
[/color]


Additionally, in the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn and Vanhanen cite several other of Lynn's primary-research nation-IQ-testing papers:

Lynn, R. 1997b. Intelligence in Taiwan. Personality and Individual Differences, 22: 585-586.

Lynn, R., and J. Dziobon. 1980. On the intelligence of the Japanese and other Mongoloid peoples. Personality and Individual Differences, 1: 95-96.

Lynn, R., and S. Hampson. 1986a. The structure of Japanese abilities: An analysis in terms of the hierarchical model of intelligence. Current Psychological Research and Reviews, 4: 309-322.

Lynn, R., and S. Hampson. 1986b. Intellectual abilities of Japanese Children: An assessment of 2-8 year olds derived from the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities. Intelligence, 10: 41-58.

Lynn, R., and S. Hampson. 1987. Further evidence on the cognitive abilities of the Japanese: Data from the WPPSI. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 10: 23-36.

Lynn, R., S. Hampson, and M. Lee. 1988. The intelligence of Chinese children in Hong Kong. School Psychology International, 9: 29-32.

Lynn, R., and M. Holmshaw. 1990. Black-white differences in reaction times and intelligence. Social Behavior and Personality, 18: 299-308.

Lynn, R., E. Paspalanova, D. Stetinsky, and B. Tzenova. 1998. Intelligence in Bulgaria. Psychological Reports, 82: 912-914.[/color]



-Chris
 
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  • #56
(BTW, the other posters on that thread - including Nachtwolf - haven't yet given answers to very basic questions about the data).
I think Hitsquad is smarter than I am. I know he has a better information database from his college. Most importantly, he's far more patient. And I just spotted a mistake (I accidentally typed that IQ and per capita GDP correlate near 40%, when it's actually around 75%) so I'm letting him take this one. He's not saying anything I wouldn't have said.

For now I merely note that repeated questions - to Nachtwolf and others - have yet to yield even a list of 'sub-Saharan' races (or east Asian ones for that matter).
Well, Hitsquad's already asked you (exactly I would have asked) what races are you referring to?


--Mark
 
  • #57
If the authors had merely collected studies, in the final report there would have been no corrections for known bias, no regression analyses, no comparisons with other IQ-related factors, or the results of any of the other work the authors did.

Of course there could. It's common, if bad statistics, to do regressions on miscellaneous data sources collected by others. And your evidence of Lynn's own papers shows that he only studied oriental nations plus Israel. Not Africa. And it's the attributed IQ of ~70 for the subsaharan African nations that's the big news, and that carries a lot of the "correlation".
 
  • #58
Apollo (emphasis added): "Average racial intelligences range from East Asians at about 106 ...[/color]"

Nacthwolf (emphasis added): "'East Asian' is a technical term referring to a specific group of Asians (also called "Pacific Rim Asians"). China does indeed have a mix of non "East Asian" ethnicities, and this may account for the fact that the average IQ in China is 100, while the average IQ in Japan (a far more homogeneous nation) is 105.[/color]"

hitssquad (emphasis added): "For other nations used in the final regression analysis, [Lynn's] national IQs were estimated by such methods as taking an average of neighboring nations, and using IQ data from racially similar populations (correcting for racial proportion in the latter case).[/color]"

Nereid (emphasis added): "For now I merely note that repeated questions - to Nachtwolf and others - have yet to yield even a list of 'sub-Saharan' races (or east Asian ones for that matter)."

Nacthwolf (emphasis added): "Well, Hitsquad's already asked you (exactly I would have asked) what races are you referring to?[/color]"

Nereid, in answer to Nachtwolf's question: the ones you and hitssquad refer to in your own posts!

Hitssquad also copied pages and pages of material about race and races, but has yet to give a list of these; Apollo made some remarks about IQ (or similar) varying markedly by race, but every time I've asked for something as simple as a list, I get no response.

Note to Monique: at what point does the proposers' continued inability to answer basic questions about their proprosal constitute grounds for moving this thread to S&D?
 
  • #59
OK I can see this isn't going to go away on its own. Unfortunately my connection is too slow for me to locate Chris' quotation of Jensen's The g factor so I'll just answer you directly.

Racially speaking, Sub Saharan Africans are simply termed "Africans."

Race doesn't mean what lots of people think it means. Races aren't platonic categories, but instead they are large, mostly endogamous breeding populations, like giant families. How you want to split up humans by race is a matter largely of opinion. (The same goes for other creatures; dogs, wolves, and coyotes are called different "species" yet they can all interbreed!)

Sub Saharan Africa has a number of African populations. You'll hear names like Bantu and Bushman or West African and East African, but largely it's a bunch of fuzzy boundaries. Genes flow from east to west, north to south, and the entire country has a blending of ethnic characteristics. The same thing goes for populations in Eastern Europe; I recently saw a family of Russians with blond hair and epicanthic eyefolds (Asian eyes). And even Western Europe, which is generally considered "White" or "European" has racial differences - Northern Europeans tend towards Introversion and Field Independence while Southern Europeans tend towards Extroversion and Field Dependence. This difference seems to be racial, but Europeans are all classified as "European." (I personally think Northern and Southern Euros are different enough to be classified as such, but this is rarely ever done in the literature.)

When one group differs significantly from others on a given trait or traits (IQ for these discussions) then it is given a specific name; this is why East Asians and South Asians have different names. East Asians have 20 extra IQ points and a pronounced visuospatial/verbal disparity absent from South Asian IQ scores. To my understanding - and I don't have Lynn's book in front of me - the various African tribes differ radically on IQ but not for any racially identifiable reason. This is in stark contrast to the 15 point black/white IQ gap, which is so stable as to have been dubbed a "fundamental sociological constant." (See this page) This is probably possible only because the two groups are so distinct that they have maintained much of their integrity - they haven't blended yet.


--Mark
 
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  • #60
Genetic cluster linkage trees

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Sub Saharan Africa has a number of African populations. You'll hear names like Bantu and Bushman or West African and East African, but largely it's a bunch of fuzzy boundaries. Genes flow from east to west, north to south, and the entire country has a blending of ethnic characteristics.

Here are some graphics to go with the text:



http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hitssquad/detail?.dir=/ee6c&.dnm=1e3e.jpg
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hitssquad/detail?.dir=/ee6c&.dnm=7370.jpg
Figure 12.1. The genetic linkage tree for forty-two populations. The genetic distance between any two groups is represented by the total length of the line separating them. (Cavalli-Sforza L. L., Menozzi P. & Piazza A., The history and geography of human genes. Copyright © 1994 by Princeton University Press.)




http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hitssquad/detail?.dir=/ee6c&.dnm=25d6.jpg
Figure 12.2. A linkage tree based on the average genetic distances between the major clusters among the groups shown in Figure 12.1 . (Cavalli-Sforza L. L., Menozzi P. & Piazza A., The history and geography of human genes. Copyright © 1994 by Princeton University Press.)



http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hitssquad/detail?.dir=/ee6c&.dnm=6e0b.jpg
Figure 12.3. A principal components (PC) analysis of the forty-two populations in the Cavalli-Sforza et al. study, showing the bivariate location of each with respect to the coordinates of the first two PCs. The orthogonal dashed lines indicate the mean of each PC. (Cavalli-Sforza L. L., Menozzi P. & Piazza A., The history and geography of human genes. Copyright © 1994 by Princeton University Press.)



Graphics and captions are from Chapter 12 of The g Factor, pp429-431.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874


*edit: fixed links*


-Chris
 
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  • #61
Lynn's own quoted data disproves his conclusion :O

I have done a short study of three of the key webpages of Lynn’s “Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations”. Note that Lynn claims “If we adopt a one way causal model that national IQs are a determinant of national per capita incomes […] the results [of his research] show that national IQ explains 57 percent of the variance of real GDP per capita 1998[/color]”

Here are some conclusions from my short study:
1) His study does not present “National IQ”; rather, average IQs from some tests done mostly on children; a study in China comes closest to a national average (ages of subjects “6 to 79”) ... the IQ stated is 98.

2) There are at least two quite obvious systematic trends in the data which Lynn does not appear to have considered. When a crude adjustment is made for these obvious trends, Lynn’s “strong correlation” becomes much weaker (~0.57 to ~0.22), and the standard deviation of “National IQs” dataset drops by ~30%.

3) There is good data in Lynn’s paper to contradict Apollo’s and Nachtwolf’s assertions about the fixed, inherent IQ of races.

4) Lynn seems to have made a very simple mistake – extrapolating the results of individual research work beyond the scope of the work’s validity; or perhaps he simply didn’t address potential sources of systematic error.

This is well illustrated in his own words: “There are two reasons why we consider that a causal effect of national IQ on per capita incomes and rates of economic growth is the most reasonable theory to explain the correlations. First, this theory is a corollary of an already established body of theory and data showing that IQ is a determinant of income among individuals, the evidence for which has been reviewed in the introduction. IQs measured in childhood are strong predictors of IQs in adolescence and these are predictors of earnings in adulthood. The most reasonable interpretation of these associations is that IQ is a determinant of earnings. From this it follows that groups with high IQs would have higher average incomes than groups with low IQs because groups are aggregates of individuals. This prediction has already been confirmed in the studies of the positive relationship between IQs and per capita incomes among the American states and among the regions of the British Isles, France and Spain, as noted in the introduction. The positive relation between IQ and income is so well established that it can be designated a law, of which the finding that national IQs are positively related to national per capita incomes is a further instance.[/color]” Note the leap from studies done in individual countries to the assumption that cross-country comparisons can be made without worrying about possible biases and systematic errors. As I said earlier in this post, there are at least two obvious trends in the data which point to possible sources of systematic error.

If you were already convinced that a nation’s wealth (or poverty) is largely due to how bright or dim the people in the country are, Lynn’s work will be comforting.

If you had doubts about the rigour of the scientific case for significant variation in IQ between economies, you will find plenty of observations on Lynn’s webpages to confirm your doubts.

Some other comments:
a) The five studies in Lynn’s dataset where the subjects’ ages are listed as “Adults” are all from sub-Saharan African counties; 4 of the 5 are among the 8 lowest mean IQs in Lynn’s entire dataset (and two others are Lynn’s own Ethiopian work, and a 1959 study). Curious that Lynn himself implicitly acknowledges that the inclusion of such data will distort the analysis (see point c below), yet he chooses to include all five data points.

b) Lynn states: “While we consider that a causal effect of national intelligence on per capita income and rates of economic growth is the most reasonable model for an explanation of the data, there are two other possible explanations that deserve consideration. The first of these is that there is no direct causal relation between national IQs and per capita incomes and growth rates and the correlation between them is due to some third factor affecting all three. Although this is a theoretical possibility and needs to be mentioned, we do not think it is possible to formulate a plausible theory of this kind.[/color]”

Perhaps PF members and guests could help?

c) There is ample support for the hypothesis “that national per capita incomes are a cause of national differences in IQs” in Lynn’s own data. Yet Lynn writes: “[…] it might be argued that national per capita incomes are a cause of national differences in IQs. This argument would state that rich nations provide advantageous environments to nurture the intelligence of their children in so far as they are able to provide their children with better nutrition, health care, education and whatever other environmental factors have an impact on intelligence, the nature of which is discussed in Neisser (1998). 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. Such a theory has some plausibility but it cannot explain the totality of the data. Countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore had high IQs in the 1960s when they had quite low per capita incomes and the same is true of China today.[/color]”

As to “Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore”, guess which researcher did the work to find the “high IQs”? (no prizes for the correct answer)

d) Lynn and Raven – either alone or as lead author - account for just under half the studies Lynn presents; can any PF members give an example of an active area of modern scientific research where just two principals so dominate? The period spans over 50 years.

e) Lynn’s own work stands out quite strongly – he is sole or lead author of 7 of the works reporting the top 10 mean IQs ranked by mean IQ (Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong (3), Singapore, Taiwan), … and of the second lowest (Ethiopia).

f) An elementary statistics question for hitssquad: here are the reported results from two studies, done using the same instrument, on samples purporting to be randomly drawn from the same population:
A: mean 103, sample size 43,825
B: mean 105, sample size 2,496

It is claimed that the difference in the population mean, inferred from these two studies, is not statistically significant. Do you agree? Explain your answer.

[Edit: fixed typo]
 
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  • #62
hitssquad: there are no pictures on the links you posted.
 
  • #63
Nacthwolf wrote: When one group differs significantly from others on a given trait or traits (IQ for these discussions) then it is given a specific name; this is why East Asians and South Asians have different names. East Asians have 20 extra IQ points and a pronounced visuospatial/verbal disparity absent from South Asian IQ scores. To my understanding - and I don't have Lynn's book in front of me - the various African tribes differ radically on IQ but not for any racially identifiable reason.
So, let me see if I understand what you have written:

1) there are radical differences in reported IQ among the "African" race

2) there is a reported ~20 point IQ difference between two groups of "Asians"

In the former case, the radical difference leads you to call the groups who differ by IQ "tribes", but within one "race"; in the latter, you call the groups "races".

IMHO, inconsistent terminology is a sure sign of sloppy thinking; what did you say your IQ was?

BTW, when you do get your copy of Lynn, please present for us the "National IQ" data he uses, for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Considering that the total non-Han ("Chinese" to you, I guess) population of greater China accounts for ~6% of the total population, please use Lynn's data to give a consistent, statistically sound number for the IQ of the Han "race". Please draw our attention to any obvious, systematic trends in the data.
 
  • #64
Mainstream Science Statement On Intelligence

Since the publication of The Bell Curve, many commentators have offered
opinions about human intelligence that misstate current scientific
evidence. Some conclusions dismissed in the media as discredited are
actually firmly supported.

This statement outlines conclusions regarded as mainstream among
researchers on intelligence, in particular, on the nature, origins, and
practical consequences of individual and group differences in
intelligence. Its aim is to promote more reasoned discussion of the
vexing phenomenon that the research has revealed in recent decades. The
following conclusions are fully described in the major textbooks,
professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence.

The Meaning and Measurement of Intelligence

1. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other
things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think
abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from
experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or
test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability
for comprehending our surroundings--"catching on," "making sense" of
things, or "figuring out" what to do.

2. Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests
measure it well. They are among the most accurate (in technical terms,
reliable and valid) of all psychological tests and assessments. They do
not measure creativity, character personality, or other important
differences among individuals, nor are they intended to.

3. While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all
measure the same intelligence. Some use words or numbers and require
specific cultural knowledge (like vocabulary). Others do not, and
instead use shapes or designs and require knowledge of only simple,
universal concepts (many/few, open/closed, up/down).

4. The spread of people along the IQ continuum, from low to high, can
be represented well by the bell curve (in statistical jargon, the
"normal curve"). Most people cluster around the average (IQ 100). Few
are either very bright or very dull: About 3% of Americans score above
IQ 130 (often considered the threshold for "giftedness"), with about
the same percentage below IQ 70 (IQ 70-75 often being considered the
threshold for mental retardation).

5. Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks
or other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ
scores predict equally accurately for all such Americans, regardless of
race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well
can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language.

6. The brain processes underlying intelligence are still little
understood. Current research looks, for example, at speed of neural
transmission, glucose (energy) uptake, and electrical activity of the
brain, uptake, and electrical activity of the brain.

Group Differences

7. Members of all racial-ethnic groups can be found at every IQ level.
The bell curves of different groups overlap considerably, but groups
often differ in where their members tend to cluster along the IQ line.
The bell curves for some groups (Jews and East Asians) are centered
somewhat higher than for whites in general. Other groups (blacks and
Hispanics) ale centered somewhat lower than non-Hispanic whites.

8. The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the
bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85; and those for
different subgroups of Hispanics roughly midway between those for
whites and blacks. The evidence is less definitive for exactly where
above IQ 100 the bell curves for Jews and Asians are centered.

Practical Importance

9. IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any other single
measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational,
economic, and social outcomes. Its relation to the welfare and
performance of individuals is very strong in some arenas in life
(education, military training), moderate but robust in others (social
competence), and modest but consistent in others (law-abidingness).
Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of great practical and social
importance.

10. A high IQ is an advantage in life because virtually all activities
require some reasoning and decision-making. Conversely, a low IQ is
often a disadvantage, especially in disorganized environments. Of
course, a high IQ no more guarantees success than a low IQ guarantees
failure in life. There are many exceptions, but the odds for success in
our society greatly favor individuals with higher IQs.

11. The practical advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life
settings become more complex (novel, ambiguous, changing,
unpredictable, or multifaceted). For example, a high IQ is generally
necessary to perform well in highly complex or fluid jobs (the
professions, management): it is a considerable advantage in moderately
complex jobs (crafts, clerical and police work); but it provides less
advantage in settings that require only routine decision making or
simple problem solving (unskilled work).

Con't...
 
  • #65
Con't...


12. Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor
affecting performance in education, training, and highly complex jobs
(no one claims they are), but intelligence is often the most important.
When individuals have already been selected for high (or low)
intelligence and so do not differ as much in IQ, as in graduate school
(or special education), other influences on performance loom larger in
comparison.

13. Certain personality traits, special talents, aptitudes, physical
capabilities, experience, and the like are important (sometimes
essential) for successful performance in many jobs, but they have
narrower (or unknown) applicability or "transferability" across tasks
and settings compared with general intelligence. Some scholars choose
to refer to these other human traits as other "intelligences."

Source and Stability of Within-Group Differences

14. Individuals differ in intelligence due to differences in both their
environments and genetic heritage. Heritability estimates range from
0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1), most thereby indicating that
genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ
differences among individuals. (Heritability is the squared correlation
of phenotype with genotype.) If all environments were to become equal
for everyone, heritability would rise to 100% because all remaining
differences in IQ would necessarily be genetic in origin.

15. Members of the same family also tend to differ substantially in
intelligence (by an average of about 12 IQ points) for both genetic and
environmental reasons. They differ genetically because biological
brothers and sisters share exactly half their genes with each parent
and, on the average, only half with each other. They also differ in IQ
because they experience different environments within the same family.

16. That IQ may be highly heritable does not mean that it is not
affected by the environment. Individuals are not born with fixed,
unchangeable levels of intelligence (no one claims they are). IQs do
gradually stabilize during childhood, however, and generally change
little thereafter.

17. Although the environment is important in creating IQ differences,
we do not know yet how to manipulate it to raise low IQs permanently.
Whether recent attempts show promise is still a matter of considerable
scientific debate.

18. Genetically caused differences are not necessarily irremediable
(consider diabetes, poor vision, and phenal keton uria), nor are
environmentally caused ones necessarily remediable (consider injuries,
poisons, severe neglect, and some diseases). Both may be preventable to
some extent.

Source and Stability of Between-Group Differences

19. There is no persuasive evidence that the IQ bell curves for
different racial-ethnic groups are converging. Surveys in some years
show that gaps in academic achievement have narrowed a bit for some
races, ages, school subjects and skill levels, but this picture seems
too mixed to reflect a general shift in IQ levels themselves.

20. Racial-ethnic differences in IQ bell curves are essentially the
same when youngsters leave high school as when they enter first grade.
However, because bright youngsters learn faster than slow learners,
these same IQ differences lead to growing disparities in amount learned
as youngsters progress from grades one to 12. As large national surveys
continue to show, black 17- year-olds perform, on the average, more
like white 13-year-olds in reading, math, and science, with Hispanics
in between.

21. The reasons that blacks differ among themselves in intelligence
appear to be basically the same as those for why whites (or Asians or
Hispanics) differ among themselves. Both environment and genetic
heredity are involved.

22. There is no definitive answer to why IQ bell curves differ across
racial-ethnic groups. The reasons for these IQ differences between
groups may be markedly different from the reasons for why individuals
differ among themselves within any particular group (whites or blacks
or Asians). In fact, it is wrong to assume, as many do, that the reason
why some individuals in a population have high IQs but others have low
IQs must be the same reason why some populations contain more such high
(or low) IQ individuals than others. Most experts believe that
environment is important in pushing the bell curves apart, but that
genetics could be involved too.

23. Racial-ethnic differences are somewhat smaller but still
substantial for individuals from the same socioeconomic backgrounds. To
illustrate, black students from prosperous families tend to score
higher in IQ than blacks from poor families, but they score no higher,
on average, than whites from poor families.

24. Almost all Americans who identify themselves as black have white
ancestors-the white admixture is about 20%, on average--and many
self-designated whites, Hispanics, and others likewise have mixed
ancestry. Because research on intelligence relies on self-
classification into distinct racial categories, as does most other
social-science research, its findings likewise relate to some unclear
mixture of social and biological distinctions among groups (no one
claims otherwise).

Implications for Social Policy

25. The research findings neither dictate nor preclude any particular
social policy, because they can never determine our goals. They can,
however, help us estimate the likely success and side-effects of
pursuing those goals via different means.

* * * * * * *

The following professors-all experts in intelligence an allied
fields-have signed this statement:


Richard D. Arvey, University of Minnesota
Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., University of Minnesota
John B. Carroll, U.N.C. at Chapel Hill
Raymond B. Cattell, University of Hawaii
David B. Cohen, U.T. at Austin
Rene W. Dawis, University of Minnesota
Douglas K. Detterman, Case Western Reserve U.
Marvin Dunnette, University of Minnesota
Hans Eysenck, University of London
Jack Feldman, Georgia Institute of Technology
Edwin A. Fleishman, George Mason University
Grover C. Gilmore, Case Western Reserve U.
Robert A. Gordon, Johns Hopkins University
Linda S. Gottfredsen, University of Delaware
Richard J. Haier, U.C. Irvine
Garrett Hardin, U.C. Berkeley
Robert Hogan, University of Tulsa
Joseph M. Horn, U.T. at Austin
Lloyd G. Humphreys, U.Ill. at Champaign-Urbana
John E. Hunter, Michigan State University
Seymour W. Itzkoff, Smith College
Douglas N. Jackson, U. of Western Ontario
James J. Jenkins, U. of South Florida
Arthur R. Jensen, U.C. Berkeley
Alan S. Kaufman, University of Alabama
Nadeen L. Kaufman, Cal. School of Prof. Pshch., S.D.
Timothy Z. Keith, Alfred University
Nadine Lambert, U.C. Berkeley
John C. Loehlin, U.T. at Austin
David Lubinski, Iowa State University
David T. Lykken, University of Minnesota
Richard Lynn, University of Ulster at Coleraine
Paul E. Meehl, University of Minnesota
R. Travis Osborne, University of Georgia
Robert Perloff, University of Pittsburg
Robert Plomin, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Cecil R. Reynolds, Texas A&M University
David C. Rowe, University of Arizona
J. Philippe, Rushton U. of Western Ontario
Vincent Sarich, U.C. Berkeley
Sandra Scarr, University of Virginia
Frank L. Schmidt University of Iowa
Lyle F. Schoenfeldt, Texas A&M University
James C. Sharf, George Washington University
Julian C. Stanley, Johns Hopkins University
Del Theissen, U.T. at Austin
Lee A. Thompson, Case Western Reserve U.
Robert M. Thorndike, Western Washington University
Philip Anthony Vernon, U. of Western Ontario
Lee Willerman, U.T. at Austin
 
  • #66
questions - and apparent Lynn inconsistency

Jerry,

When was this statement made?

What is "The Bell Curve"? If it is a book, when was it published?

All but four of the signatories are (were?) in US universities - there are two from institutions in London, and two from the U of Western Ontario - why?

Is this statement intended to refer to "individual and group differences in intelligence" throughout the world, or just in the US?

- - - - - - - -
I note that Richard Lynn is a signatory.

Here is a quote from Lynn, from one of the links that hitssquad supplied: "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."

The statements 14 through 24 seem to be mildly in conflict with the above quote; do you agree?
 
  • #67
strange patterns

Nereid wrote: d) Lynn and Raven – either alone or as lead author - account for just under half the studies Lynn presents; can any PF members give an example of an active area of modern scientific research where just two principals so dominate? The period spans over 50 years.
There are ~50 separate authors mentioned in the 81 studies quoted by Lynn. There are ~50 signatories to the document jerryel quoted. There are ONLY TWO names on both (and even one of those may be a coincidence) - Lynn and Gilmore. What is going on in this field?
 
  • #68


Originally posted by Nereid
When was this statement made?
The Wall Street Journal
December 13, 1994
http://www.google.com/search?q="Almost+all+Americans+who+identify+themselves+as+black+have+white"



What is "The Bell Curve"?
It is a "controversial" and very popular book by Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein (who died shortly before it was published) and American Enterprise Institute economist Charles Murray. Herrnstein had previously made himself famous by being one of the "Head Start Wars" academics in the early 1970s and for writing an article (later published as a fleshed-out book of the same name) called IQ in the Meritocracy. I personally consider The Bell Curve to be part II of IQ in the Meritocracy -- sort of like Sylvester Stallone's Rambo was to his earlier First Blood -- Bigger, flashier and much more famous.
http://images.google.com/images?q=rambo


The Bell Curve presents a case for "the relationship between low cognitive ability and many variables in the g nexus, including poverty, employment and unemployment, crime, welfare dependency, illegitimacy, low-birth-weight babies, deprived home environments, and developmental problems. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY), they present simple graphs which show the relationship of each of these variables to IQ," as Arthur Jensen wrote in his 1998 The g Factor (p580).



If it is a book, when was it published?
1994.
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/People/Murray/bc-crit.html



All but four of the signatories are (were?) in US universities - there are two from institutions in London,
In England, there is an abstract institution referred to as "the London school" of psychology, which in use generally implies the intellectual core group of the hereditarian school of psychology. It traces its roots back to Sir Francis Galton FRS, Charles Spearman, Sir Cyril Burt, and Hans Eysenck (the latest also signatory to the document we are discussing). Eysenck played mentor to Arthur Jensen (the world's most influencial hereditarian psychologist, one of the most prolific and frequently-cited scientists of all time, and also a signer to the document presently under discussion) when Jensen (an American) was doing his postdoctoral work overseas on a scholarship. Jensen kicked off the nature/nuture debate in 1969 with an article published in the Harvard Educational Review raising the heterodox question, "How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement?" Immediately thereafter, the word "Jensenism" was coined by the media to refer to the hereditarian position in the "nature/nurture" debate.

Jensen followed that up in 1973 with Educability and group differences; in 1980 with his massive -- and to this day critically bulletproof -- tome Bias in Mental Testing which concluded that there is no systematic bias in IQ testing in America; and in 1998 with his magnum opus The g Factor.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874

Signatory Robert Plomin, also located in London, was originally based in the United States but later moved his research operations to Britain reportedly to escape political persecution in the United States).



and two from the U of Western Ontario - why?
J. Philippe Rushton, of the U of Western Ontario, is a member -- along with Eysenck, Herrnstein (both of these first two posthumously), Rushton, Brand, Lynn, and Jensen -- of the g factor brat pack. He made himself famous in the late eighties with his work documenting consistent rank differences on over 60 variables from aboriginal sub-Saharan Africans on one end to East Asians on the other, and with Caucasians somewhere in between (though usually closer to the asians than the Africans). This work culminated in the 1996 publishing of the book Race, Evolution and Behavior.
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/reb.html



Is this statement intended to refer to "individual and group differences in intelligence" throughout the world, or just in the US?
As far as I know, Jensen, as a rule, limits his conclusions about g heritability strictly to the United States.


*edit: fixed url*


-Chris
 
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  • #69
more evidence of systematic inconsistencies

jerryel quoted: The spread of people along the IQ continuum, from low to high, can be represented well by the bell curve (in statistical jargon, the "normal curve"). Most people cluster around the average (IQ 100). Few are either very bright or very dull: About 3% of Americans score above IQ 130 (often considered the threshold for "giftedness"), with about the same percentage below IQ 70 (IQ 70-75 often being considered the threshold for mental retardation).
Here are two of the datapoints in Lynn's work ("National IQ" and sample size; note that he did not do the research in either case):
South Africa 72 3,993
Ghana 62 1,639

Assuming the same normal curve, with a standard deviation that scales according to the average, the low end tail of the above studies would look something like this:
IQ below 40: 6 (South Africa); 15 (Ghana)
IQ below 50: 83 (South Africa); 161 (Ghana).

If "IQ 70-75 [is] often [...] considered the threshold for mental retardation", I would guess that 40-50 would be the threshold for severe retardation. Would people with such low IQs be able to do CPM or SPM? Would the test protocol have to be changed to administer either test to such people? What sort of sampling technique was used to ensure that such severely retarded people (if indeed they were) could be included as test subjects?

Whatever the answers, these two items taken together further suggest that there are systematic errors in Lynn's work.
 
  • #70
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.
 
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  • #71
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?
 
  • #72
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?
 
  • #73
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?
 
  • #74


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
 
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  • #75


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
 
  • #76
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)
 
  • #77
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.
 
  • #78
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).
 
  • #79
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.
 
  • #80
'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).
 
  • #81
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
 
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  • #82


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
 
  • #83


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?
 
  • #84
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).
 
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  • #85


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[/color] 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:".[/color]

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
 
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  • #86
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.[/color]
--


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
 
  • #87
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.
 
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  • #88
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?
 
  • #89
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?
 
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  • #90
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).
 
  • #91
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[/color]
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 [/color]
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
 
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  • #92
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.[/color]
---
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
 
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  • #93
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?
 
  • #94
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."
 
  • #95
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
 
  • #96
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.[/color]"

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.
 
  • #97
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.[/color]
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,[/color]
I.e., they chose the politically-incorrect one as the most likely to be causative.





leading them to the wrong conclusion[/color]
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.[/color]"
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, [/color]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
 
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  • #98
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
 
  • #99
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]
 
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  • #100
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.
 

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