Re: Germans are brainiest (but at least we're smarter than the French)
- From: "Energumen" <energoumenos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 30 Mar 2006 13:31:13 -0800
Energumen wrote:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2105519,00.html
Germans are brainiest (but at least we're smarter than the French)
By Helen Nugent
BRITAIN and France have experienced long periods of conflict and
rivalry but now victory in one area can be claimed: Britons are more
intelligent than the French.
A new European league of IQ scores has ranked the British in eighth
place, well above the French, who were 19th. According to Richard Lynn
of the University of Ulster, Britons have an average IQ of 100. The
French scored 94. But it is not all good news. Top of the table were
the Germans, with an IQ of 107. The British were also beaten by the
Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
Professor Lynn, who caused controversy last year by claiming that men
were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average,
said that populations in the colder, more challenging environments of
Northern Europe had developed larger brains than those in warmer
climates further south. The average brain size in Northern and Central
Europe is 1,320cc and in southeast Europe it is 1,312cc. "The early
human beings in northerly areas had to survive during cold winters when
there were no plant foods and they were forced to hunt big game," he
said. "The main environmental influence on IQ is diet, and people in
southeast Europe would have had less of the proteins, minerals and
vitamins provided by meat which are essential for brain development."
He added that differences in intelligence across Britain could be
attributed to bright people moving to London over hundreds of years.
Adults in England and Wales have an IQ of 100.5, higher than Ireland
and Scotland, both with 97. People living in London and the South East
average 102. "Once in the capital they have settled and reared
children, and these children have inherited their high intelligence and
transmitted it to further generations."
The pattern is repeated in other countries, Professor Lynn claimed. In
France, IQ scores in Paris were much higher than those in rural areas.
Professor Lynn has spent three decades analysing thousands of test
results to scrutinise the role of evolution in IQ. He has published his
findings in a new book. Britons excel in another area of Professor
Lynn's research. He found that university students had, at 109, the
second-highest undergraduate IQs in the world, beaten only by their US
counterparts on 110.
Professor Lynn ascribes the differences between British and French
intelligence levels to the results of military conflict. He described
it as "a hitherto unrecognised law of history" that "the side
with the higher IQ normally wins, unless they are hugely outnumbered,
as Germany was after 1942".
A "normal" IQ ranges from 85 to 115 but exceptionally gifted people
have scores starting at 145.
I think Lynn's comments are in large part "just so stories" built on
sample error, environmental factors and "noise". I haven't read up on
his men / women difference but I suspect it, as with the white / east
asian difference, may have an element of putting more weight on tasks
with the very highest g correlates (eg. Raven's matrices) rather than a
weighted balance of those most related to real life.
.
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