Twaddlebottom May Need To Review Indian Average IQ As Well

Yet another argument for MSD-Modified Social Darwinism-subsidize,
sterilize, and disenfranchise. Or SSD.

And he will note his pal Hitler was not smart enough to quite get
that far-he was just a regular ole liberal when you get down to it.





Indians Aren't That Intelligent (On Average)

By Professor J. Philippe Rushton

In this article, I summarize the evidence for an average IQ of 85 in
the group designated South Asian/North African. The people of
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, the Gulf States, the Near
East, Turkey and North Africa have an IQ just below the world average
of 90. This is much higher than the IQ of 70 found for Black Africans,
but it is also much lower than the IQ of 100 found for Europeans.

As VDARE.COM readers will know, IQ tests were constructed in Western
Europe and North America and standardized with an average IQ of 100.
The "normal" range goes from "dull" (IQ around 85) to "bright" (IQ
around 115). IQs of 70 suggest handicap, while IQs of 130 and above
predict giftedness.

There are large inequalities in average IQ scores between groups.
Herrnstein and Murray's (1994) The Bell Curve reported that the
average IQ for "African" Americans is lower than those for "Latino",
"White", "East Asian", and "Jewish" Americans (IQs = 85, 89, 103, 106,
and 115, respectively, pp. 273-278).

In the 1970s the IQ debate became worldwide when British psychologist
Richard Lynn showed that compared to a White IQ average of 100, East
Asians average about 105 and sub-Saharan Africans around 70.

By 2006, Lynn had tabulated 620 IQ studies in 133 different countries.
He clustered the countries into the ten genetic groupings identified
by L. L. Cavalli-Sforza et al. in their mammoth 1994 History and
Geography of Human Genes. The world average IQ had to be calibrated
downwards to 90, as shown in the map.
World Distribution of IQ Scores of Indigenous (pre European migration)
Peoples (Adapted from Lynn, 2006).

East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) obtain the highest mean IQ
at 105. Europeans follow with an IQ of 100. Some ways below these are
the Inuit or Eskimos (IQ 91), South East Asians (IQ 87), Native
American Indians (IQ 87), Pacific Islanders (IQ 85), and South Asians
and North Africans (IQ 84). Well below these are the sub-Saharan
Africans (IQ 67), the Australian Aborigines (IQ 62), the Bushmen of
the Kalahari Desert, and the Pygmies of the Congo rain forests (IQ
54).

Even a few years ago, news of drastically lower mean IQs for any
population group-as low as 70 to 85 in Africa-would have been
considered not only an absurdity, but also an injustice. Yet new
empirical work continues to show a world IQ average of 90. It
continues to show that mean IQs of 70 are found routinely in sub-
Saharan Africa and that mean IQs of 70 to 90 are typical of many other
regions of the world. Outside of European and East Asian populations,
an average IQ as high as 100 is seldom found.

IQ scores are valuable, of course, because of their utility in
forecasting. IQ differences between people typically show up by 3
years and remain consistent over the course of life. IQ scores
usefully predict the capacity to learn and also to reason logically
and flexibly. They can also effectively predict work behavior, child
abuse, crime and delinquency, health, accident proneness, and civic
responsibility.

The Bell Curve documented that IQ scores predict equally well for all
groups. For example, Blacks with IQs of 114 have an equal (or better)
chance of graduating from college than Whites and Latinos with the
same IQs-68%, 50%, and 49%, respectively, and also of getting top jobs
(likely a result of affirmative action programs).

In their book IQ and Global Inequality, Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen
show that national IQ scores correlate well (0.68) with per capita
income and rate of economic development. They further show that
national IQs correlate well with a number of other social phenomena,
such as adult literacy (0.64), tertiary education (0.75), life
expectancy (0.77), and democratization (0.57).

Thus, IQ scores apparently explain why some countries are rich and
others poor. They also explain why economic prosperity varies from one
sub-group to another within countries.

Back to the Indians.

Classical anthropology often placed South Asians and North Africans in
the same taxonomic group as Europeans and designated them both as
Caucasoids. But modern genetic studies, such as those by L. L. Cavalli-
Sforza, show the South Asians/North Africans are a surprisingly
distinct "genetic cluster". They can be distinguished from Europeans
to their north as well as from sub-Saharan Africans to their south and
the other Asian groups to their east.

The evidence that the average IQ of the North Africans/South Asians is
as low as 85 is extensive. Lynn reviewed 37 IQ studies from 16
countries such as India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq and found an
IQ range of from 77 to 96 with a median of 84. He reviewed 13 studies
of immigrants from those countries in the UK and Australia and found a
median IQ of 89. He reviewed 18 further studies of South Asians and
North Africans in Continental Europe and found a median IQ of 84. He
reviewed 9 studies of South Asians in Africa, Fiji, Malaysia, and
Mauritius and found a median IQ of 88. Finally, Lynn reviewed 13
studies of select South Asian and North African high school and
university students and found a median IQ of 92, eight points higher
than that of general population samples.

Lynn's finding of an average South Asian IQ of 85 has been
corroborated by Jan te Nijenhuis and colleagues in Holland, who
analyzed thousands of respondents including nationally representative
samples. They found an average IQ of 81 for first generation Turks and
Moroccans living in the Netherlands. They found an IQ of 88 for the
second generation, who spoke Dutch and had been educated in the Dutch
school system. They published their results in the 2004 European
Journal of Personality.

Another finding of a low South Asian IQ came from a review of studies
on the Gypsies (or Roma as they are now often called). This South
Asian population migrated to southeastern Europe from northwest India
between the 9th and 14th centuries and currently number between 4 and
10 million. Their average IQ in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, based
on a review of 10 studies by Petr Bakalar, is below 80. His review was
published in the 2004 Mankind Quarterly.

I too have confirmed the very low IQ for the Roma. This was in a study
carried out in and around Belgrade, in Serbia. My colleagues and I
individually tested 323 16- to 66-year-olds over a two-year period in
three separate communities using the Raven's Matrices, a widely-used,
culture-reduced, non-verbal test of general intelligence, and four
other tests usually given to children. On these tests, we found the
Roma averaged at the level of Serbian 10-year-olds. (Our study was
published in the January 2007 issue of Intelligence.)

I considered the question of whether the South Asian-European group
difference is due to the genes or culture. My colleagues and I were
able to do this because of the large amount of data available on the
Raven's test from twins raised together and apart, as well as from
high school and university samples of East Asians, Europeans, South
Asians, Coloreds, and Blacks in South Africa.

We used standard procedures to calculate the heritabilities for each
of the puzzles on the Raven's test. Heritabilities are the proportion
of variance accounted for by genetic factors. Since identical twins
share 100% of their genes and fraternal twins share only 50%, doubling
the difference between their correlations provides one simple estimate
of heritability. In the case of identical twins raised apart, their
similarity provides a direct estimate of heritability, because they
share no upbringing environment.

In 55 comparisons, including three independent samples of South
Asians, we consistently found the European-South Asian group
difference was more pronounced on the more heritable test items. We
found this relationship held even after statistically controlling for
possible confounds. (These results were published in the July 2007
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.)

Our study indicates the remarkable cross-cultural generalizability of
test scores. South Asians, Europeans, East Asians, and Africans all
appear to have the same combination of genetic and non-genetic
influence on cognitive ability. Puzzles found relatively easy (or
difficult) by one group are found relatively easy (or difficult) by
the others. There is no evidence of any population-specific cultural
effect.

Of course, all the differences described are averages. There are bell-
shaped distributions around each average. The full range of behaviors,
good and bad, is found in every group. No group has a monopoly on
virtue or vice, wisdom or folly, capacity or incapacity.

VDARE.COM readers have heard about this research through my reviews of
Lynn's 2006 book Race Differences in Intelligence (here), and his
other 2006 book (with Tatu Vanhanen), IQ and Global Inequality (here).
They may also have read about my research on university students in
South Africa, which corroborated the low IQ of 70 for sub-Saharan
Africans (here). Further, they may have read the essay I wrote
reviewing the evidence that the East Asian-White-Black IQ differences
were 50 to 80% genetic (here). They may also have read Steve Sailer's
review of one of Lynn's IQ books (April 23, 2006) and his subsequent
discussion of Charles Murray's essay on the remarkably high Jewish
average IQ (here).

Given the euphoria current about the Indian economy-the fastest
growing of any large polity after China-and all the adulation for
Indian high tech types, the news that, in aggregate, India is so
weakly positioned is going to be difficult for some to accept.

However, as Steve Sailer noted in his April 23, 2006 VDARE.COM essay
on Richard Lynn's book, the results regarding the IQ difference
between China and India are remarkably consistent across time.

I suppose the answer to the apparent anomaly of so many well-known
high IQ Indians must be:

1. 0.5% of a population of 1.1 billion is a lot;

2. the variation in IQ scores in the Indian sub-continent may be
greater than elsewhere; and

3. a steep inflection in economic growth from a depressed level is
not incompatible with an ultimate inability to match western
production levels.

The finding that the North African/South Asian grouping differs in
cognitive ability from Europe has important political implications.
Many South Asians are Muslim and form part of what Harvard historian
Samuel P. Huntington (1998) referred to as the "Clash of
Civilizations". The evidence shows that the European-South Asian IQ
difference is substantially heritable, which means as a practical
matter intractable. What the West can expect from these countries has
to adjust to this reality.

Immigration policy too, must be adjusted. Mass immigration from the
region is very likely to lower the average IQ of the receiving Western
countries, and consequently be dysfunctional. (Conversely, the
incentives for the relatively few high IQ people from these countries
to emigrate are likely to be extremely high. Living in a low IQ milieu
is not efficient for them.)

We must accept that gene-based individual and group differences
constitute normal variation within the human condition. The
differences reflect heritable g, the general factor of intelligence,
rather than culturally specific ways of thinking. As the trend toward
a more global economy continues, average group differences in
cognitive performance are likely to become more salient, both within
and across countries.

We can pretend this reality does not exist. But it is not going away.

J. Philippe Rushton [email him] is a professor of psychology at the
University of Western Ontario, the author of Race, Evolution, and
Behavior. This essay is based on his recent articles published in
Intelligence, January 2007 (PDF), and Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London, July 2007 (PDF).

If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this
permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/rushton/070926_indians.htm

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