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A Reversal of the FLynn Effect?
2600 words
As I showed back in September, FLynn (“FLynn” to give Richard Lynn the credit of noticing it as well) losses were not due to immigration, but due to dysgenic effects (and partly to do with nutrition). One must wonder: When will the FLynn Effect stop—and reverse? It looks like it will happen sooner, rather than later. A new paper just released today, Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: The FLynn effect and the future of intelligence by Rindermann, Becker and Coyle (2016) talks about the future of this FLynn Effect. What did they find?
The FLynn Effect is a slight increase in IQ scores—about .3 points per decade—and is due to better nutrition (the biggest cause in my opinion), health, living standards and education. Contrary to popular belief, education DOES have an effect on intelligence. If one is educated, they are able to reach their genetic max. The authors state:
The decline of the FLynn effect in developed countries, and its increase in developing regions with currently lower than average ability levels (e.g., Africa), may lead to a narrowing of international gaps (Meisenberg and Woodley, 2013 and Rindermann, 2013).
Now, I didn’t need a scientific paper to tell me this, it’s just common knowledge. I do believe that the gap will obviously close between countries, as a lot of the countries with lower average IQs are near the equator and have to deal with inadequate nutrition, diseases and parasitic load, and as these geographic areas come go from third-world to first-world countries, their IQ scores will increase as well. The genetic IQs of peoples in the equatorial localities around the world will increase as their standard of living increases, and as dysgenic fertility continues in first-world countries, these populations will close the gap a bit, but barring some extraordinary circumstances, I don’t see this occurring.
Going to quote this whole paragraph as it has huge implications (and I’m sure the full paper will get taken down eventually so I’m saving this in my files on my computer):
Future IQ changes are linked to past cognitive development and expected demographic changes, which permit predictions of future development at the country level (e.g., + 0.45 to + 0.76 IQ points per decade in the US; Rindermann & Pichelmann, 2015). Demographic changes may be linked to genetic effects, which are influenced by asymmetric birth rates in modern populations (e.g., Lynn, 2011 and Nyborg, 2012). Negative genetic effects on intergenerational changes in ability are plausibly linked to: (a) parent-children correlations in intelligence (for individuals about r = 0.40 to 0.50; Plomin, DeFries, Knopik, & Neiderhiser, 2013, p. 76), (b) the well established theory that intelligence is not only transmitted via family environment but also via genes (backed by twin research; Plomin et al., 2013) and (c) better educated and more intelligent adults having fewer children (e.g., Loehlin, 1997). If these three statements are correct, negative genetic effects on intergenerational intelligence development are a logically compelling consequence. Such negative effects may be aggravated, if migration produces brain drain in developing countries, which occurs when high ability people in developing countries immigrate to developed countries (e.g., Kapur & McHale, 2005), or if low ability people (relative to the level in destination countries) immigrate to developed countries, a pattern observed in the West over the last decades (e.g., Rindermann & Thompson, 2016).
There is no doubt in my mind that immigration from MENA countries WILL have a negative effect, but as I showed back in September, the alarm bells shouldn’t be ringing yet because they didn’t even put a dent in the scores yet.
So we have better educated and more intelligent adults having fewer children (CLASH AKA r/K selection theory in action), intelligence being transmitted through genes (well known by now) and parent children correlations that show that the negative generational effects on intelligence for the native population is due to the differential birth rate between lower and higher IQ (educated) people. Of course these effects can be heightened by mass immigration (as is currently happening in the West at the moment), but I’ve shown, at least with the case of France, that mass immigration is not a cause, YET, of decreasing IQ scores and that dysgenics is a better explanation.
The authors state why they did a survey of expert opinion:
An expert survey has three advantages. First, according to the Spearman-Brown prediction formula, increases in the items being analyzed (here expert ratings) will increase the reliability of the final averaged result. Second, the average result of an expert survey may be closer to the truth than the average result of a non-expert survey (e.g., Rindermann et al., 2016). Third, in the current study, data collection procedures were designed to ensure anonymity, which reduced pressure for socially desirable responses and increased the likelihood of obtaining honest opinions about controversial issues.
Expert surveys are great ways to get information—especially on such a controversial topic such as intelligence. With an anonymized survey, people won’t have to worry about losing their careers or have hecklers attempt to ruin their careers and make life a living hell for them as happened to Rushton and Jensen during their heyday.
Question 1 is:
“In your opinion, what are the most plausible scientific theories about the Flynn-effect (FLynn-effect) in 20th century?” Predetermined answers were presented in the following order: (1) rising standard of living (wealth), (2) decline of group-inequality, (3) genetic changes, (4) better education and school-systems, (5) longer education for more people, (6) better education in families, (7) better nutrition, (8) better health, (9) smaller families, (10) TV and media, (11) computer (and similar as smartphones), (12) immigration, (13) more test experience, (14) more educated parents, and (15) more intelligent social environment. Respondents rated each factor on a scale of 1 (“not important/not true”) to 9 (“important/true”).
A dearth of answers, I’ll answer what I think.
I believe that the most plausible theories on the rise in IQ across the globe have to do with better nutrition (in my opinion, the most important variable), better health (goes back to my disease and parasitic load post), and better education and school systems. I rank these as 9,9, and 6 respectively.
The second question:
The second question concerned a possible end of the FLynn effect: “In your opinion, if there is an end or retrograde of the FLynn-effect in industrial nations, what are the most plausible scientific theories to explain this development?” The following options were presented: (1) decline in educational values, (2) worse education and school-systems, (3) worse education in families, (4) worse nutrition, (5) worse health, (6) low intelligent adults have more children than others (genetic effect), (7) low intelligent adults have more children than others (socialization effect), (8) TV and media, and (9) migration.” The rating scale varied between 1 (“not important/not true”) to 9 (“important/true”).
In my opinion, if there is an end (there is) or retrograde to the FLynn effect, the causes are low intelligent adults haveing more children than others (genetic effect), worse health (partly), worse nutrition, and migration (a small effect as I’ve documented—so far). I rate these 9, 5, 7, and 2 respectively.
The third and final question:
Finally, we asked participants about the future development of intelligence in different world regions. The question was: “What is your opinion on the future development of intelligence up to 2100 in listed regions? Please mark the IQ points how much average cognitive ability will increase (right side) or decrease (left side) or remain stable (0) (in today’s norms).” The predetermined scale of IQ changes consisted of 19 levels, from “− 29 or less” to “+ 29 or more”. The world regions comprised: (1) Western countries in general, (2) Scandinavia, (3) West-Middle Europe, (4) Southern Europe, (5) Eastern Europe, (6) USA, (7) Canada, (8) Latin America, (9) Australia (10) East Asia (China, Japan, Korea), (11) Africa, (12) Arabian and Muslim countries, (13) India, and (14) Israel.
Western countries in general will get less intelligent with more illegal (and legal) immigration); Scandinavia I’d say will not get less intelligent as the US as quickly, but with more immigrants going to these countries the IQ scores will decrease further (along with dysgenic fertility); West-Middle Europe I’d say they both will continue to get less intelligent as the birth rates are seriously below replacement in these countries (1.3 TFR in Germany, for example); Southern Europe I can see getting less intelligent due to more immigration along with dysgenic fertility but they will fight back against immigration more than other Western countries; Eastern Europe is the same as Southern Europe; As more and more immigration from the South of the border occurs and as our ‘Presidents’ allow more MENA immigration into our country, our IQ as a whole will fall sooner rather than later; Canada has the same situation as the US; I can see it staying stable in Latin America, Australia I see as being just like the US and Canada; East Asia I see staying the same and allowing no immigration as the West does and will conserve their IQ; Africa is on the rise mostly due to the Chinese and along with better infrastructure and nutrition, some of their woes will be ameliorated, not enough to ‘bridge the IQ gap’, however; Arabian and Muslim countries I see decreasing sightly; the more they inbreed, they will become slightly less intelligent (as well as the factor of nutrition) I see India on the rise as they are showing a lot of development in the South of the country as well as getting better nutrition; and finally Israel I see getting slightly more intelligent due to them disallowing immigration (or being strongly selective) and as the Ashkenazi population increases, the country as a whole will get more intelligent.
Table 1 shows the experts’ ratings in what the causes for the FLynn effect are. Better health, longer education, improved schooling and better nutrition were the main causes the experts thought were enough to explain the FLynn gains. These variables, in concert, definitely would cause this secular increase in intelligence scores over the past 100 years. Do note that the gains we see in IQ scores have started around the industrial revolution, which better nutrition and institutions (schools) happened in these industrialized countries. Now, think to the third-world countries that are ‘coming up’, basically their own ‘industrial revolution’, they will have their own IQ increases as seen in Africa currently BUT, this will not close any GENETIC gaps in intelligence.
Then this comment:
In the comments, one expert mentioned that the FLynn effect is mostly on non-g factors, suggesting that the increases are not general and therefore less relevant for everyday life achievement.
Echoes what JP Rushton (who was not mentioned in this paper, dissapointed at that, however Jensen was) said back in 2000: “Flynn Effects Not Genetic and Unrelated to Race Differences“. Rushton and Jensen had a long back-and-forth with Dickens and Flynn on the nature of the black-white IQ gap, which I will cover eventually. I love how someone echoed Rushton’s sentiments on the FE, since Rushton was not cited in the paper.
Table 2 shows less intelligent adults having more children along with migration. This explanation is two-fold here. Migrants, more often than not, are super-selected. That is, they are a highly selected immigrant sample and are not representative of their native population. But as more and more migration occurs, the super-selected sample will no longer be migrating and the low IQ peoples then flood the countries and lower the average IQ (this will decrease QoL as well, among numerous other variables). The next explanation was low intelligence, more children. This is a huge cause for FLynn loses, as I’ve covered already. Health and nutrition showed less support, all though I slightly disagree with health not being a factor. If there were no health/parasite/disease problem, they’d reach their genetic IQ. I’d love to see a huge study one day on a representative sample of people from all geographic locations across the world and see what they would look like in first-world conditions.
The authors state:
The correlation between the ratings of all experts and FLynn experts was very high (r = 0.97, N = 9 categories, p < 0.001), as was the correlation between FLynn experts (N = 16) and the other cognitive ability researchers (N = 43) (r = 0.91, N = 9 categories, p = 0.001). The high correlations indicate that the pattern of ratings was consistent across different groups of experts.
And some comments:
In the comments, two raters noted that education, nutrition and health have not become worse but that their benefits are diminishing and have reached a ceiling, comparable to other trends in post World War II development. One person mentioned that dysgenic changes are accumulating across generations.
The dysgenic changes across generations are the culprit in my opinion.
Finally, in table 3 the FLynn experts and the rest of the experts thought that East Asia, India, Africa, Latin America and Muslim/Arab countries will show the largest gains in IQ by 2100. You may be wondering “Why East Asia?” Because a lot of the East Asian population does live in poverty (especially in rural China), and better nutrition among other factors that occur in urban environments. The FLynn experts also expect huge decreases in Israel, Canada, Australia, all parts of Europe and all Western countries in general. I agree with this trend (except for Israel, I see nothing that’s occurring there to drop their IQ in the next 84 years).
Quoting the last paragraph of the discussion:
However, such an outlook may be moderated by country-level policies. Such policies may include incentives that increase birth rates among well educated people, incentives that attract high ability immigrants, and improved environmental conditions for cognitive development at all levels of the ability spectrum, including for the gifted and less advantaged. Improved environmental conditions may have especially large effects on less educated and lower ability people, who are more likely to benefit from improvements in health, sanitation, and education (e.g., Glewwe & Kremer, 2006).
I fully agree with this. We do need incentives for the more intelligent, more educated people to need to have children so we can offset the current trend towards idiocracy that America and the West as a whole is currently observing.
The truth about genetics and IQ is slowly coming out, and with this paper coming out today (November 14, 2016) I hope to see more talk about intelligence as a whole and what mass immigration will do to the overall intelligence of a country as well as stopping (or doing extremely limited) immigration as I have proposed here).
Taking back our countries’ spirit—i.e., halting mass immigration—is not only important for the preservation of people and culture, but is important for the average IQ of the nation, as mass immigration from less intelligent countries is a net negative for the richer and more intelligent countries that get emigrated to (I mean, would you go anywhere else?). Eventually, not too far off in the near future, I see our countries in the West getting more sensible, HBD-aware politicians and activists that understand the truth of this research. Once that occurs, immigration can be halted and we can take care of that one problem for declining national IQs. After that, we need policies that encourage the intelligent and educated to have more children, maybe giving them a tax break on the number of children they conceive. There are numerous ways to go about these problems and differing solutions to help tide them. I just hope that we get people in power who actually realize this and are actually for preservation of people and country. Remember, that the environments we live in are products of our genetics. “Race is not a socal construct, society is a racial construct. Society and culture derive from race/biology.”—Douglas Whitman
To top it off, not surprisingly, when the researchers had anonymity, many (unsurprisingly) said that the cause for the retrograde of the FLynn effect was genetic (people with lower intelligence conceiving more children). It’s sad that people have to say these things anonymously, but one day we’ll be able to talk about these real things in society, I just hope it’s soon before it can’t be reversed.
RIP Rushton and Jensen
2050 words
Today is the 4th anniversary of Jensen’s death, with the 4th anniversary of Rushton’s being three weeks ago on October 2nd. The fact that two of the biggest names in the IQ game, and race science game died in a 3-week span was crushing to the truth. When they were pushing their theories on racial differences in intelligence, they had their classes stormed in on and they pretty much couldn’t teach. All of this, in a country where so-called ‘freedom of speech exists’, we can have people shout others down when they speak uncomfortable truths when they don’t like what they’re hearing. BUT, just because those truths don’t want to be heard does not change the reality of them. Rushton and Jensen were pretty much explaining why black Americans have less academic achievement over whites. But when a genetic explanation is brought up instead of the Left’s want for there to be a fully environmental, ‘racism’ explanation they storm classrooms and protest against the so-called ‘fascists’ who are just reporting what they find.
In Rushton’s article The New Enemies of Evolutionary Science, he extensively talks about the derision he faced from students while he gave his lectures. It was so bad that he couldn’t teach:
Behind the scenes, however, I became the target of a witch hunt by some of the administrators. Dismayingly, my dean, a physical anthropologist, publicly declared that I had lost my scientific credibility and spearheaded an attack on me in the newspapers. She issued a series of preemptive statements making plain her negative opinion of me and my work. “What evidence is there for this ranked ordering of the evolution of the human races?” she wrote. “None.” Claiming that her views represented only her academic opinion she emphasized that she was not speaking in any administrative capacity. Her letter was nonetheless widely interpreted in the media as a refutation by my “boss.” Henceforth, in order to support me, a person would now have to go up against the dean in addition to prevailing opinion. Next, the chair of my department gave me an annual performance rating of “unsatisfactory” citing my “insensitivity.” This was a remarkable turnaround because it occurred for the same year in which I had been made a Fellow of the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. My previous twelve years of annual ratings had been “good” or “excellent.” Indeed, my earlier non-controversial work had made me one of the most cited scholars at my university.
…
Some radical and black students mobilized and held rallies, even bringing in a member of the African National Congress to denounce me. In one demonstration, a mob of 40 people stormed through the psychology department, banging on walls and doors, bellowing slogans through bull horns, drawing swastikas on the walls, and writing on my door “Racists Pig Live Here.”
The administration responded by barring me from the classroom and ordering me to lecture by videotape on the pretext that they could not protect me from the lawlessness of students. Again I launched formal grievances. After a term of enforced teaching by videotape, I won the right to resume teaching in person, though then I was required to run a gauntlet of demonstrators shouting protests and threats. Only after several forced cancellations of my classes did the administration warn the demonstrators that further action would lead to suspension and legal action. That brought the protests to a halt.
This sounds just like today huh? Seems like much hasn’t changed in the past 30 years. The amount of derision that Rushton faced just for his areas of research interest speaks volumes. Clearly, people are scared of the truth about human nature, whether individually or racially/ethnically. The fact that Rushton couldn’t teach because his classes kept getting interrupted shows that people don’t care about factual data, especially when it hurts their feelings or conflicts with any type of egalitarian nonsense they have in their heads. Once challenged, they get mad, scream ‘racist’ and simply do anything in their power to make life a living hell for the person who dares to speak non-politically correct things. But, and a huge but, just because one stops, for the time being, this from being spoken of, DOES NOT make the racial differences between groups go away. People look for any and all types of environmental explanations to attempt to explain away racial IQ gaps and other racial differences both physically and mentally, but they don’t hold up to the genetic explanation, which was shouted down by people who don’t want their fragile reality broken.
The same thing, of course, happened to Arthur Jensen:
In the 1990s protesters in London pelted him with tomatoes at a lecture hall. “Jensenism” became a term of rebuke, used against those who championed theories about whites’ superiority. “Jensenism,” evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once declared, rested “on a rotten edifice.”
Arthur Jensen recalls some of these ‘protests’ with AmRen’s Jared Taylor back in 1992:
AR: Well, the sorts of things that you’ve been telling me, the sorts of things you’ve been doing research about, can you and do you freely teach these things in your classes?
Jensen: I sure do. I soft-pedaled things 20 years ago, and even then, there were great protests. I had students who would drop the course if these things were brought up even in a very mild way, in a hypothetical way. Students today wonder what all the shouting was about.
AR: Is that so?
Jensen: Yes, it’s rather hard to get students to believe that there were these protests and so on. They take a lot of this for granted. Oh, there’s been a great change in the students in that respect … But even in 1969-1970, I never saw a black in any of these demonstrations.
AR: Is that right?
Jensen: Not a one.
AR: They were SDS [Students for a Democratic Society]-types?
Jensen: All SDS and Progressive Labor Party, mainly. I tried to put them out when they tried to audit my course, because they were hecklers, and so some of the SDS people would sign up for the course. Of course, then they’d have to do the assignments and take the exams.
Interestingly enough, they usually were the top students in the course because they did so much outside reading to try and give me a bad time. They would go out and read everything Galton wrote! They were bright students. They just happened to be political radicals. “
Years ago, if I gave talks at the APA or the American Educational Research Association, the least little thing you’d say, people would get up on the floor and start denouncing you. I haven’t run into that for a long time, except in Canada and Australia. There’s about a ten year cultural lag in those places, I think, on this topic.
AR: I guess nowadays, as compared to fifteen or twenty years ago, you’re not a notorious presence on campus? People don’t say, “There goes Jensen!” You just don’t get that anymore?
Jensen: No, no. I used to. I used to have to be accompanied around campus by two campus policemen. In fact, they told me not to leave my office and go to the library, or any place, except to go to the men’s room around the corner, but not anywhere else without calling the campus police. They’d whiz across campus in a car and they’d be here in just a couple of minutes and walk with me wherever I wanted to go. One year I had two campus policemen, plain clothes men, in all my classes. They audited my courses.
He had to be escorted around campus by two campus police, all because of his research areas of interest. Why did Jensen have to be protected by two men in plain clothes just for talking about his scientific research? There is a clue in what he said: the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Labor Party, not coincidentally, leftists who like to censor free, true speech when it doesn’t match to their false views of egalitarianism. But as we know, just because the causes for racial differences aren’t spoken of, that doesn’t mean that they go away. Is race a causal factor in intelligence? Yes, it is. ‘Discrimination’, a so-called ‘stereotype threat’ is not the cause for lower black intelligence. Rushton and Jensen showed that the races differ by 1.2 SDs at the most, and that it was 80 percent genetic in nature (Rushton and Jensen, 2005: 279). Were the public to accept truths such as this and not any false ‘truths’ such as what the left puts out, Rushton and Jensen would not have received the derision they did when they were publishing and pushing their theories decades ago. I recall a specific poster that I saw on AmRen a few years back talking about how Jensen was a ‘racist’ and along with Shockley, both needed to be fired and lose their jobs because they just so happened to speak these uncomfortable truths.
Here is a Satoshi Kanazawa article he published a week after Rushton’s death:
When I met Phil in person for the first time the following year, I could not believe that a man so intensely hated in public (nearly always by idiots who did not know him personally and who did not know anything about science) could be so gentle, genial, and generous in person. His very kind and mild manners always impressed me, especially in stark contrast to how people thought and assumed he was.
…
There is one very small consolation in Phil’s tragically early death: Phil was not an artist, he was a scientist. When an artist dies, his art dies with him, which is why there has not been (and will never be) Beethoven’s 10th Symphony or Guernica II. Unlike art, however, science is cumulative. The rest of us can honor his memory and his scientific legacy by continuing his work. Phil was simultaneously a tremendous role model and a very tough act to follow. He was a model of scientific integrity. Unlike Galileo, he never recanted.
Science is cumulative. He, Jensen, Murray, Herrnstein, Gottfredson, Lynn et al are Modern Day Galileos. They spoke out against this leftist paradigm that has persisted in universities for decades, and even while shown extreme derision, they never recant their statements because they know they are just speaking the truth. Any allegations of so-called ‘racism’ are just that: allegations with no factual backing behind them. The fact that they need to be called childish words such as ‘racist’ and they need to have their lectures and classes interrupted by ‘protests’ speaks volumes on the research they were doing. The fact that the left has nothing to say except untrue vitriol shows who was right. When you have to attempt to silence someone because you don’t like what they’re saying or it ‘offends you’, that says volumes about your character than the one’s character you’re trying to spew vitriol at.
The fact of the matter is, no matter what anyone or any entity does to attempt to hide racial differences in intelligence, or any other trait for that matter, the truth will always come out. When answers one receives don’t line up to what one sees in his day-to-day life, one goes and looks for the truth. And that truth is that some races aren’t as intelligent as others which leads to differences in scholastic achievement and life success. These differences persist through the generations and when a downtrodden individual (no matter the race) realizes that those have a better social standing then they, they make mental leaps in their head that ‘they’re being held down’ or ‘the man is out to get them’ not even thinking that it’s their own innate ability that’s holding them down in comparison to the other group.
Rushton and Jensen will be fully vindicated one day. It’s only a matter of time. David Piffer showed that IQ alleles differ in frequency between races, meaning that a FULL vindication of Rushton, Jensen, Gottfredson, Murray, Herrnstein, Lynn, Kanazawa et al are going to come soon.
RIP to two great men who had a huge effect on my worldview and the reasons for differences around the world. I only hope that others rise up to continue their work and prove, once and for all, that they were right.
Are Flynn Losses in France Due to Immigration?
1850 words
Over a ten year period in France, from 1999 to 2008-9, IQ has declined in France by almost 4 points. What is the cause? Immigration? Dysgenics? A reversal of the Flynn Effect? No doubt that numerous people would attribute the decline in intelligence in France due to MENA and SSA immigration. But is this true?
Lynn and Dutton (2015) show how differing studies show both positive and negative gains in IQ. To prevent further evidence of these negative Flynn gains, they looked to the IQ of France from 1999-2009.
The WAIS-III was standardized in France in 1999 while the WAIS-IV was standardized in 2009. This was a great opportunity to see if the intelligence of the French dropped using the new WAIS-IV. The sample was of 79 people who were of a different sample than that of the broader WAIS-IV French standardization. The average age of the sample was 45, ranging between 30 and 63 years of age. Half of this sample took the WAIS-IV first while the other half took the WAIS-III first to control for practice effects. They used a separate sample to compare the norms of generated by the two standardizes samples.
The above table from the paper, table 3, shows the comparison between the two WAIS tests. Positive ds indicate lower scaled scores on the III in comparison to the IV and thusly higher scores. What these data show is that the IV is harder than the III and IQ declined because the test got ‘tougher’ (because full-scale intelligence declined). As noted above, this phenomenon of decreasing IQ scores has been noticed for about 20 years now. The symbol search showed the smallest decline while there was no change in digit span. The biggest gain was in vocabulary.
This is pretty shocking. In ten years, verbal comp decreased by 4 points, perceptual reasoning index by 3.1 points, no change in working memory index, processing speed index decreased by .7 points, perceptual organization index decreased by 3.9 and the whole full-scale IQ decreased by 3.8 points. Lynn and Dutton discuss the results:
In addition, the Full Scale IQ on the WAIS IV sample of 79 subjects was calculated based on a comparison with the WAIS IV sample of 876 subjects, which was representative of the French population on key variables such as education and region. The scores of this sample of 876 subjects were set at 100 and a comparison made with the sample of 79 subjects. As can be seen in Table 4, on this basis the IQ of the sample of 79 subjects was 101.1 with an SD of 14.7, where the French norm would be 100 and the SD 15. As such, the smaller sample can be regarded as representative of the French population in terms of intelligence.
So this small sample can be regarded as representative of the French population. Lynn and Dutton say that the digit span showing no increase corroborates findings from another researcher that showed that there was no change in forward or backward digit span in 85 years. They then say:
. . .improvements in the quality of nutrition during the twentieth century made a major contribution to increasing IQs. But it seems improbable that the quality of nutrition declined in recent years in France and in the other economically developed countries in which declining IQs have been reported.
So one possible cause is that nutrition has declined in France. From Dubuisson et al, 2010:
These repeated surveys highlighted the fact that trends in French food habits have moved towards an average European diet at the crossroads between Mediterranean and Northern diets, and that food consumption changes impacted, to a lesser extent, nutritional intake.
It shows that the French diet is in between Med and Nord diets. Really, as Lynn and Dutton asserted, there was no decline in nutritional quality for the French.
Another possible cause is a decrease in quality of schools. Flynn says a part of the reason for the rise in IQ was due to the advent of scientific thinking. However, this is not a good explanation either since school quality seems to not have been affected.
Flynn also talks about the media and its role. Lynn and Dutton say:
However, this would not explain declines in other forms of intelligence and, moreover, it might be argued that the desire and ability to read such literature would be underpinned by general intelligence and so a decline in the consumption of such literature would partly reflect a decline in general intelligence, as vocabulary is a measure of intelligence.
It is also worth noting that, apparently, reading may actually increase general intelligence (post coming on that soon).
Now, finally, the theory we’ve all been waiting for: Is it increased immigration?
Lynn and Dutton state:
This increase has occurred throughout western Europe and a number of studies have shown that immigrants from North Africa and south-west Asia typically have an average IQ of around 85 to 90 (Lynn, 2006, Lynn, 2008, Lynn and Vanhanen, 2012 and Rindermann and Thompson, 2014; for a large meta-analysis see te Nijenhuis, de Jong, Evers, & van der Flier, 2004). This conclusion has been confirmed by Kirkegaard (2013) who has shown that in Denmark the number of non-European immigrants increased from approximately 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 2012 and the IQ of non-European immigrants in 18–19 year old military conscripts was 86.3, relative to 100 for indigenous Danes. These immigrants are likely to have had some impact on reducing the average IQ of the populations, but it is doubtful whether the increase in the number of immigrants with lower IQs has been sufficiently great to have had a major effect.
I personally don’t think that migration into Europe from MENA and SSA countries has been enough to put that big of a dent (over 1/3rd of an SD) in average IQ in France, and Europe as a whole. Since people are coming from areas closer to the equator and have higher rates of children since they are r-selected, could this be why France has seen a decrease in intelligence?
No.
Woodley of Menie and Dunkel (2015) reviewed Lynn and Dutton’s paper and said:
Replacement migration in France involving populations exhibiting lower means of IQ and higher rates of total fertility, such as Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Roma (Čvorić, 2014 and Lynn and Vanhanen, 2012) may be increasing the rate of secular losses at the level of g, consistent with speculations advanced in Dutton and Lynn (2015), however the additional loss in g due to this process is anticipated to be very small. Based on a simulation, Nyborg (2012) estimates that in Denmark, replacement migration may be reducing heritable g by .28 points per decade, which would increase the overall loss in g to 1.51 points per decade ( Woodley of Menie, 2015), this still being only 37.75% of the loss observed in the French cohort.
An Environmental Explanation?
Since we still need an explanation for 62.25 percent of the 3.8 decrease in full-scale IQ other than dysgenic fertility, are there any environmental explanations? Environmental explanations can be anything from child abuse, to poor schooling, to poor nutrition, etc. Was there an increase in any of these or other variables that negatively affect IQ which would explain the 3.8 point decline in IQ?
One of the most likely candidates is nutrition. Lack of certain vitamins, especially in childhood, would prevent the brain from receiving the proper nourishment to grow.
The INCA study took record of food consumption from 2,373 people aged 4 to 92 from a 7-week period and from that they saw which nutrients they were deficient in (Touvier et al 2006). To measure if and how much they were nutrient deficient, they used the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR). The vitamins used were calcium, magnesium, iron, vitamins C, A, B6, and B12, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, and folate. A lot of these have to do with proper brain functioning and ability to reach its full-size potential. For instance like the B vitamins and iron. Being deficient in those nutrients depresses brain size and with it IQ. For instance, being deficient in vitamin B 12 and folate leads to decreased brain size in childhood. The negative effects of being deficient in these nutrients may partially explain some of the 3.8 point decrease in full-scale IQ.
Regarding the prevalence of the aforementioned nutrient deficiencies in these populations, the authors state:
We also calculated daily consumption of 44 food groups by age and gender. This paper shows how the combination of both data sets, i.e., inadequacy and food consumption data, allows a preliminary screening of potential food vehicles in order to optimize fortification. The prevalence of inadequacy was particularly high for the following groups: for calcium, females aged 10-19 years (73.5%) or aged 55-90 years (67.8%), and males aged 15-19 years (62.4%) or aged 65-92 years (65.4%); for magnesium, males aged 15-92 years (71.7%) and females aged 10-90 years (82.5%); for iron, females aged 15-54 years (71.1%); and for vitamin C, females aged 15-54 years (66.2%). Two examples are provided to illustrate the proposed method for the optimization of fortification.
Most vitamins and minerals have positive effects on brain functioning, some more than others, but notice the prevalence of iron defieciency in the females aged 15-54 years (71.1 percent). With the cohort cited by Lynn and Dutton (2015) and Woodley of Menie and Dunkel (2015) being aged 30 to 63 with an average age of 45, the prevalence of iron deficiencies in the INCA study, along with the other deficiencies in the cohort, may partially be responsible for the decline in IQ.
The Flynn Effect
PumpkinPerson describes it well here:
One of the biggest mysteries in psychology is the Flynn Effect; the fact that over the 20th century, people have been performing better and better on IQ tests. Of course, the average IQ in Western countries by definition is always about 100, however because people keep scoring higher every decade, the tests routinely have to be made more difficult and the norms must be regularly updated to keep the mean IQ from rising far above 100.
However, in first-world countries, in the past 20 or so years, it has been in decline, particularly in France. It’s due to a mix of dysgenic fertility and nutrient deficiencies. Since Flynn gains are largely due to advancements in better nutrition, Flynn loses would then be attributed in part to nutrient deficiencies as well as dysgenic fertility.
The cause for the 3.8 decrease in IQ in France is low fertility rates amongst the French population as well as nutrient deficiencies. Clearly, ameliorating this decrease in IQ can be reversed by the K-selected having more children and healthier eating habits. Drops in IQ won’t be attributed to MENA and SSA populations until the future, but for now, the cause for the decrease is the French themselves.
Is HBD an Ideology of Hatred and Racism?: A Reply to Robert Lindsay
1900 words
100 posts!! A nice special post today, Robert Lindsay’s accusation of HBD being ‘racist’ is on the table today. As always, I want to hear what you want me to write on so send me an email, address is in the sidebar.
Robert Lindsay asks “Is HBD an Ideology of Hatred and Racism?” It, of course, isn’t. Today I’ll rebut his piece saying that it is “hatred and ‘racism’ (whatever that means)”. He says that HBDers who resist ‘racism’ (which I will address later) are “swimming against the tide” and “probably have to exercise a bit of self-control to not go over to the dark side.” What is he even talking about? What “dark side” is there? Being ‘racist’?
This is because HBD facts tend to lend pretty regularly to quite a bit of racism and the hatred that goes along with it. And if you notice, the more hardcore the HBD’er is, the more racist they tend to sound.
Of course these facts lead to ‘racism’, however, these ‘racists’ will be ‘racist’ with or without the facts of HBD. I will touch more on that later. In the meantime, he says “the more hardcore the HBD’er is, the more racist they tend to sound.” Robert, are you just making broad generalizations? Do you have anything to back your claim on this statement? Or are you just talking out of your ass?
HBD in and of itself is not racist of course, not in any sane sense of the word.
I agree with him saying that the Left has destroyed any “meaning” that the word “racist” has. However, even without the overstating of the word “racist”, HBD itself would not be a racist ideology. It is, however, racist to the average person who doesn’t know the science involved in racial differences. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has two definitions for ‘racism’. It defines ‘racism’ as:
a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
- Racial prejudice or discrimination
Well, “superiority” is meaningless. Race is not a primary determinant of human traits as there is a lot of crossover. However, there are racial/ethnic differences in phenotype which of course are caused by differences in genotype. That is not up for discussion, but the term ‘inherent superiority’ is.
Of course to the average person, HBD is seen as ‘racist’. But is researching/reading about human differences and being interested in their causes and what they mean today really ‘racist’ or a want to learn more about human evolution and how and why we got here?
But the ones who are very deep into it and talk about it all the time, well, it’s quite clear that they have a pretty low opinion of NAM’s. Even worse, a lot of them are just out and out racists. Some are even vicious racists. And almost all of them have the worst rightwing politics, usually Libertarian, that you could imagine.
‘Racists.’ There’s that word again. I did say at the beginning of the year that we should petition to have ‘racist’ changed to ‘ethnocentrist’, as what is being described when one cries ‘racist’ is actually ethnocentrism in action. This is mediated by the brain hormone oxytocin. I would wager that ‘racists’ and other, closely related people (ie Arab Muslims with high consang rates) would have higher levels of this brain hormone. This would be the reason why these groups stick to those who are phenotypically to themselves; it’s hormonally driven, like most, if not all things in life. Stop using the word ‘racist’ and use ‘ethnocentrist’ as it makes much more sense.
More importantly, HBD is a profoundly pessimistic doctrine. Just to give you an idea, they hate the idea that the environment or even free will has any role to play human affairs. Look at how furious they get about the Flynn Effect. Look at all the bending over, twisting themselves into weird yoga positions, hand waving, magic wand waving, “Don’t look over there”, and “just-so” explanations they have come up for to deny what is an obvious rise in human intelligence. The idea that the environment could actually increase intelligence fills them with rage because they are all wrapped up in this “intelligence is purely genetic” argument. (Bold is my emphasis)
Yes HBD is pessimistic, as is life, Robert. Who hates the idea that environment has any role in intelligence? Any sensible individual would acknowledge that environment does play a role, but would also know that intelligence is highly heritable. I’m pretty sure he’s just talking about the average ‘racist’, as I’ve never seen an HBD blogger every state that intelligence is fully genetic. Sure there are some intelligence researchers (a minority) who believe that intelligence is fully genetic but just like extreme environmentalism in regards to causes for IQ, extreme hereditarianism is also a stupid view to hold. Genes and environment interact to give the phenotype. We can take an African from, say, South Africa and place him in America. Due to better nutrition and better schooling among other things (like lessened parasitic load and disease), in my opinion African IQ would be about 10 points higher, give or take a few points. We know that environment and genetics (GxE) affects all phenotypic traits, but those like Robert like to play up Flynn gains as if they are on actual g – they aren’t. Flynn Effects are not genetic and are UNRELATED to race differences (Rushton, 2000).
On another note, I seem to have been wrong with my statement that Flynn gains were 3 points per decade in every country. I would wager that since intelligence is affected by nutrition that those countries with lower Flynn gains that showed the least improvement with nutrition would show the lowest IQ gains. I will write on this in the future.
Of course, that argument is a death knell for Blacks and other NAM’s. These people have enough problems as it is, but HBD just drives a stake through their heart to make sure the Black man (or other NAM’s) never rises again. It pretty much condemns them forever as genetic inferiors in sense.
They have enough problems as it is because of their biology which HBD speaks about, the supposed ‘racist ideology’. It pretty much does ‘condemn them’ as ‘genetic ‘inferiors” (whatever that means), but that’s Nature! Nature is not a kind Mistress. Nature is harsh, nature doesn’t care about feelings.
Intelligence isn’t either fully genetic nor fully environmental, but shifted considerably over to the hereditarian position.
It says “niggers ain’t got no brains,” and while that may be true in a very ugly and racist sense that most us don’t want to think about, instead, the HBD’er is overjoyed at this fact. “Black people are stupid!” he hollers to the sky with joy. “And they will stay that way forever!” he yells gleefully. “Environment can’t help them. They are condemned!” At this point, he is nearly gleeful and ready to party.
I laughed out loud at this. Environment can help, to a point (if they come from Africa or some other down-and-out place), but mainly, as seen in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, blacks didn’t end up doing better than whites when environments were equalized.
And most of them are racist lousy people, but they are quite smug about their racism because now their racism is given the imprimatur of science. “If science says it’s true, I can’t be racist,” he chortles.
Idiotic. Everyone is ‘ethnocentric’ to a degree, whether consciously or subconsciously. Robert, you are an HBDer yourself whether you admit it or not since you recognize racial differences, so I guess you are ‘racist’.
After all, science isn’t racist. I agree, but distortion of science for racist means sure is, and delighting in the disturbing “racist truths” of science is doubly so.
Sure, gay men are at very high risk of HIV, and up to 20% are infected. That’s a fact of science. So does that make you want to get up and party for 30 days and 30 nights? I hope not, and if so, you are one ugly homophobe.
Science is not racist. But, as Leftists love saying ‘Data isn’t racist, interpretation of it is!!!’ is idiotic. Of course a lot of people distort racial science, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ‘wrong’. Like with making myths on how Europeans were always in Europe 40kya (not true) or how Europeans were always white (not true) he is right here. Most people do not keep up to date on the newest data that comes out so they still hold to these ‘mythologies’ and ‘identity politics’ and push out outdated and straight untrue statements. But all that means is that they are extremely misinformed.
What would I do with that stat of gay men and HIV? Be cautious around gays, just like I’d be cautious around blacks knowing how much crime and murder they committ as a group. This is a sane position to hold. One group is overrepresented in a certain (negative) stat? Keep an eye out while around those of that demographic. That makes sense. Self-preservation always wins out. Robert is of course using the Leftist playbook on ‘racist’ namecalling. Most everything in this article I’ve seen around countless times being spewed to any HBDer who went against conventional wisdom. The term ‘racist’ is just used as a silencing tactic. Robert, you are a Leftist HBDer. You do know that a lot people you align yourself with politically consider you ‘racist’ right?
This notion that anyone who believes HBD is ‘racist’ or any other buzzword is used to shut down any and all discussions on matters. Something that, it seems, flew over his head. When one cannot rebut something an HBDer puts out, they get called ‘racist’. However, the term is pretty much close to meaningless nowadays as it’s been so overused by the Left. All of the HBD bloggers I follow are not racist (hell, one who is most certainly not racist is PumpkinPerson who has a very unhealthy obsession with Oprah. =^) You know it’s true, PP). Others like Razib Khan, JayMan, hbd chick, and Cochran and Harpending, just to name a few, have gotten numerous accusations of being racist. Hell, Razib Khan was hired and fired the same day by the NYT after going on board as a science writer when someone discovered his ‘racist’ writings.
Whether or not people believe HBD doesn’t change how true it is. Racial and ethnic differences still persist, so by just disregarding it we completely go over causes of it other than ‘systemic racism’!!! HBD is true and a valid, non-racist (whatever that means) ideology. We segregate with people like us. Hell, even you, Robert, prefer whites over others (oh no, racist!!!!). Once we start understanding how and why people are ethnocentric (with oxytocin playing the main role), then we can have a more peaceful society as we understand causes for actions, both negative and positive, and better curb violence.
HBD itself is not a hateful ideology, it’s just one based on facts and solid reasoning. Just because people use HBD to justify their own preconceived notions or to use ‘hate facts’ doesn’t mean that it’s a racist ideology. Nice job using the word ‘racist’ as invented by Trotsky. But knowing your political leanings, Robert, that’s AOK, right?
It’s worth noting that Robert banned me for my politics. He claims his comments are ‘free speech’, yet when I said the truth about socialism and the amount of deaths it caused (way more than National Socialism), I got an immediate ban. Truth hurts, huh?
Guns, Germs, and Steel: A Refutation
Of course the allegations of “racism” arise, as usual when in discussions of racial differences in intelligence and level of civilizational achievement. Rushton also says:
Racial differences in brain size and IQ map very closely to the same cultural histories Diamond explains. Although Diamond dismisses such research as "loathsome", he fails to tell his readers what, if anything, might be scientifically wrong with any of it. One hundred years of research has established that East Asians and Europeans average higher IQs than do Africans. East Asians, measured in North America and in Pacific Rim countries, typically average IQs in the range of 101 to 111. Caucasoid populations in North America, Europe, and Australasia typically average IQs from 85 to 115 with an overall mean of 100. African populations living south of the Sahara, in North America, in the Caribbean, and in Britain typically have mean IQs from 70 to 90.Racial differences in brain size and IQ map very closely to the same cultural histories Diamond explains. Although Diamond dismisses such research as "loathsome", he fails to tell his readers what, if anything, might be scientifically wrong with any of it. One hundred years of research has established that East Asians and Europeans average higher IQs than do Africans. East Asians, measured in North America and in Pacific Rim countries, typically average IQs in the range of 101 to 111. Caucasoid populations in North America, Europe, and Australasia typically average IQs from 85 to 115 with an overall mean of 100. African populations living south of the Sahara, in North America, in the Caribbean, and in Britain typically have mean IQs from 70 to 90.
Japan’s Population Decline and r/K Selection Theory
Edit, 7/18/17: r/K selection theory has been rebutted.
r/K Selection Theory: A Response to Rushton
E.O. Wilson on Rushton’s r/K Theory and More on Endemic Disease
r/K Selection Theory: A Response to Anonymous Conservative
r/K Selection Theory: A Response to Truth-Justice
r/K theory doesn’t apply to humans and if it did, Mongoloids would be r and Africans would be K. Cold with is an agent of r selection while endemic disease is an agent of K selection. Rushton used a debunked “continuum” for the basis for his theory and completely changed r and K. However it’s wrong. Rushton was wrong. Anonymous Conservative is wrong. Anyone who uses those two in reference to r/K is wrong by proxy since r/K is a debunked paradigm.
Japan has had a population crisis for a few years. Japan’s fertility rate was 1.4 in 2014. To have enough children to keep the population stable, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) needs to be 2.1. As a country industrializes and becomes more prosperous, the TFR drops as higher IQ follows better nutrition. As a nation industrializes and becomes more complex, the attention of the populace shifts from one of having children and a family to one of success and intellectualism. As this occurs, the birth rate drops because the more intelligent a population is, the more likely it is for them to pursue higher education or monetary achievement. Clearly, the main reason Japan has concerns with their TFR is due to their high intelligence.
The Japan Times reported yesterday that almost half of single young men and women were virgins. A survey of Japanese men and women aged 18-34 found that 70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women were not in a relationship. Also discovered, 42 percent of the men and 42.4 percent of the women admitted to being virgins. The survey was taken before in 2010, with 36.2 percent of men and 38.7 percent of women admitting to being virgins.
These surveys have been carried out every 5 years since 1987. Then, the rate of men who said they had no partner was 48.6 percent and for women it was 39.5 percent. The survey, which was conducted last June and accounted for 8,754 single people and 6,598 married couples across Japan, also found that 90 percent of the respondents wanted to get married “sometime in the future”, but for some people, this turns out to be a mistake. Moreover, 30 percent of the 2,760 men and 26 percent of the 2,570 women polled said they were not currently looking for a relationship. The increase in singles was most noted in the 20s, when women are the most fertile. The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe also said he wants to increase the birthrate from 1.4 to 1.8 by 2025.
Lastly, the study found that the number of children for couples marries for 15 to 19 years was 1.94, a record low. This study did not ask questions about same-sex partners, but what we are concerned about is the TFR and how it’s driven by evolution, so this is a non-factor.
Japan’s population is dramatically shrinking. In 2010, they had a population of 128 million but by their 2015 census, they had a population of 127 million. This is due to the increase in virgins and an aging population. Why is this happening?
This is, of course, driven by r/K Selection Theory. Rushton thought of r/K Selection Theory, also known as Differential K theory, in 1985 with a paper titled Differential K Theory: The Sociobiology of Individual and Group Differences. Organisms can be r-selected, K-selected or somewhere in between. Humans as a species are K-selected, but some human races and ethnies are more K-selected than others.
Africans are r-selected, meaning that they have many children while not investing too much time in their offspring. They evolved to be r-selected to offset the high mortality rate due to the harshness of Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to this, black girls have an earlier menarche (period) so they can reproduce more to a) offset the high mortality rate and b) have a chance to reproduce more due to the high mortality rate. This is driven by disease, malnutrition, and parasitic load, which also drop IQ and contribute to the high birth rate since lower IQ populations have more children.
Caucasians are in the middle of r and K, and have fewer children and put more energy into caring for each one. This goes back to evolving in the Ice Age where cooperation and altruism were needed. More attention to children was needed for Eurasians evolving back then due to the harsh conditions of the Ice Age. So, a higher IQ evolved, and along with the higher IQ came a bigger brain. The bigger brains of Eurasians led to children being born earlier, and a bigger brain allowed for better care for the children along with numerous other positive variables to help survive in the harsh weather. Moreover, genes from Neanderthals are responsible for a 1 percent decrease in historic fitness (biological fitness) in Eurasian populations.
Orientals (Japanese, Chinese, Koreans) are further K than Caucasians are. This is reflected in brain size, where more K-selected populations have bigger brains, thus they can think further into the future and maximize care for their children. The opposite holds true for blacks. This is reflected in modern-day, first-world life where blacks have too many children to care for on their own accord and whites and Orientals have fewer children and put more investment into their children .
It’s not only Japan that’s having this problem with birthrates. It’s all of the West and East Asia. Higher IQ societies do have a longer life expectancy, while lower IQ societies have a lower one. Then, as described above, the lower IQ populations have more children to offset the mortality rate.
Japan’s birthrate concerns are due largely in part to genetic factors. This is currently occurring in all high IQ populations. Those populations have a large elderly population, with the young demographic quickly shrinking. Seeing this gradient throughout the world with IQ and fertility rates, we can make some general conclusions:
- Low IQ populations have more children while high IQ populations have less children.
- High IQ populations are more likely to have a large subset of virgins, as seen with this article. Lower IQ populations lose their virginity earlier.
This can be seen with the CLASH (CLimate, Aggression and Self-control in Humans) model (Van Lange, Rinderu, and Bushmen 2016). According the the CIA World Fact book 2014, in countries closer to the equator, the average age of first birth for a female was 20 years of age (the countries were the Gaza strip, Liberia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and various other middle African countries). Conversely, for countries further away from the equator, the average age of first birth was 28 years of age (Japan, Canada, and most European countries). Those populations that evolved in warmer climates where the changes in season are minimal with unpredictable harshness tend to enact faster life history strategies than those in colder climates.
Moreover, a slower life history strategy (K-selection), under a predictable environment would be better to enhance inclusive fitness. There is a growing body of evidence that predictable environments promote K-selection “in terms of lower mortality, morbidity, delayed reproduction, and a higher contribution towards one’s social capital.” This can be seen with the trends in Western and East Asian countries.
The trend that Japan is facing can be reversed with incentives for reproduction. However, the more intelligent a society is, the fewer children it will have due to evolutionary pressures. Is there a happy medium between IQ and fertility rates, where the population isn’t too dumb and the fertility rates aren’t too low? I’ll explore that in the future.
Race, Obesity, Poverty, and IQ
2100 words
America has a current and ongoing obesity epidemic. Some ethnicities are more likely to be obese or overweight than others due to lower intelligence which means a lack of ability to delay gratification, lack of ability to think into the future, lower funds which translates to eating more refined carbohydrates which means more blood glucose spikes which then leads to obesity as I will show. Insulin has a causal relationship with obesity so those who lack funds to buy healthier food then turn to refined foods high in carbohydrates as they are cheaper and more abundant in low-income neighborhoods.
Adult obesity rate by State (top 5) is: 1) Louisiana (36.2 percent), 2) Alabama (35.6), West Virginia (35.6), and Mississippi (35.6), and 5) Kentucky (34.6) with the 5 least obese States being 51) Colorado (20.2), 49) Hawaii (20.7), 48) Montana (23.6), 47) California (23.2), and 46) Massachusetts (24.3). Notice how the States with higher rates of obesity are in the South and the States with the lower rates are in the North, give or take. The average IQ for these States as follows: Lousiana: 95.3, Alabama: 95.7, West Virginia 98.7, Mississippi 94.2 (lowest IQ State in the country, largest black population at 37 percent), and Kentucky at 99.4. The average IQ for those States is 96.66. The average IQs for the States with the lowest obesity rates are: Colorado 101.6, Hawaii 95.6, Montana 103.4, California 95.5, and Massachusets 104.3 (highest IQ State). The average for these States being 100.08. So there is a 4 point IQ difference between the top 5 States with the highest and lowest percentage of obese people, which goes with the North/South gradient of higher IQ people living in the North and lower IQ people living in the South. Back in 2014, a California real estate group took 500,000 Tweets using a computer algorithm and estimated intelligence based on spelling, grammar, and word choice and found a difference in State by State intelligence. Notice how the further North you go the higher the average intelligence is, which is then correlated with the obesity levels in that State.
With poverty rates by State, we can see how the States in the South have less intelligent people in them which then correlates to the amount of obesity in the State. Though, there are some anomalies. West Virginia and Kentucky have a super majority of whites. This is easily explained by the fact that less intelligent whites live in those States, and since both the poverty rates and obesity rates are high, it follows that the State will be less intelligent than States that have more intelligent people and less obesity.
It is known that intelligence is correlated with obesity at around -.25 (Kanazawa, 2014). The negative correlation between intelligence and obesity means that they are inversely related so, on average, one with higher intelligence has less of a chance of being obese than one with lower intelligence. The States with the lowest IQ people having those with the highest BMIs corroborates this. In America, obesity rates by ethnicity are as follows: 67.3% for whites, 75.6% for blacks, and 77.9% for ‘Hispanics’.
Now that we know the average intelligence rates by State, the percentage of obese by State and the demographics by State, we can get into why obesity rates correlate with intelligence and race.
Diaz et al (2005) showed that minority populations are more likely to be affected by diabetes mellitus which may be due to less healthy diets and/or genetic factors. Using the National Health and Nutrition Survey for 1999-2000, they analyzed overweight, healthy adults, calculating dietary intake variables and insulin sensitivity by ethnicity. They characterized insulin resistance with fasted insulin, as those who are more likely to become insulin resistant have higher fasted insulin levels (levels taken after waking, with the subject being told not to eat the night before as to get a better reading of fasted insulin levels). Non-‘Hispanic’ whites had higher energy and fat intake while ‘Hispanics’ had higher carb intake with blacks having lower fiber intake. Blacks and ‘Hispanics’ were more likely to have lower insulin sensitivity. However, ‘Hispanics’ were more likely to have lower insulin sensitivity even after controlling for diet, showing that metabolic differences exist between ethnicities that affect carbohydrate metabolism which leads to higher rates of diabetes in those populations.
Drewnowski and Specter (2004) showed that 1) the highest rates of obesity are found in populations with the lowest incomes and education (correlated with IQ), 2) an inverse relationship between energy density and energy cost, 3) sweets and fats have higher energy density and are more palatable (food scientists work feverishly in labs to find out different combinations of foods to make them more palatable so we will eat more of them), and 4) poverty and food insecurity are associated with lower food expenditures, lower fruit and vegetable intake, and lower-quality diet. All of these data points show that those who are poor are more likely to be obese due to more energy-dense food being cheaper and fats and sugars being more palatable.
Now that I’ve shown the relationship between race and IQ by state, obesity rates by state, insulin sensitivity by race, and that those in poverty are more likely to be obese, I can now talk about the actual CAUSE of obesity: insulin.
The conventional wisdom is that if you consume more kcal than you expend, you will gain weight, whereas if you consume less than your daily needs you will lose weight. This has been unchallenged for 50 years. Also known as Calories In and Calories Out (CICO), this mantra “eat less and move more!!!” has been bleated over and over with horrendous results. The CICO model only concerns itself with calories and not insulin which is a causal factor in obesity.
In this study, participants in the basal insulin group which received the lowest average insulin dose gained the least average amount of weight at 4.2 pounds. Those on prandial insulin gained the most weight at 12.5 pounds. The intermediate group gained 10.3 pounds. More insulin, more weight gain. Moderate insulin, moderate weight gain. Low insulin, low weight gain.
Researchers compared a standard dose of insulin to tightly control blood sugars in type 1 diabetic patients. At the end of the 6 years, the study proved that intensive control of blood sugars resulted in fewer complications for those patients.
Though, in the high dose group, they gained on average 9.8 pounds more than those in the standard group.
More than 30 percent experienced major weight gain! Prior to the study, both groups were equal in weight. But the only difference was the amount of insulin administered. Were the ones given high levels of insulin all of a sudden more lazy? Were those who gained weight suddenly lacking in willpower? Were they lazier before the study? We’re they more gluttonous? No, no, and no!!
(source)
Finally, Henry et al (1993) took Type II diabetics and started them off with no insulin. They went from 0 units of insulin a day to 100 units at 6 months. As higher rates of insulin were administered, weight rose in the subjects. Insulin was given, people gained weight. A direct causal relationship (see figure above). However, what’s interesting about this study is that the researchers measured the amount of kcal ingested, the number of kcal ingested was reduced to 300 per day. Even as they took in less kcal, they gained 20 pounds! What’s going on here? Well, insulin is being administered and if you know anything about insulin it’s one of the hormones in the body that tells the body to either store fat or not burn it for energy. So what is occurring is the body is ramping down its metabolism in order for the subject to store more fat due to the exogenous insulin administered. Their TDEE dropped to about 1400 kcal, while they should have been losing weight on 1700 kcal! The CICO model predicts they should have lost weight, however, adaptive thermogenesis, better known as metabolic slow down, occurred which dropped the TDEE in order for the body to gain fat, as insulin directly causes obesity by signaling the body to store fat, so the body drops its metabolism in an attempt to do so.
Putting this all together, blacks and ‘Hispanics’ are more likely to be in poverty, have lower intelligence, and have higher rates of obesity and diabetes. Furthermore, blacks are more likely to have metabolic diseases (adaptive thermogenesis aka metabolic slowdown is a metabolic disease) which are related with obesity due to their muscle fiber typing which leads to lower maximal aerobic capacity (less blood and oxygen get around the body). Type II skeletal muscle fibers’ metabolic profile contributes to lower average aerobic capacity in blacks. It also is related to cardiometabolic diseases, in my opinion because they don’t have the muscle fiber typing to run long distances, thus increasing their aerobic capacity and VO2 max.
Due to the diets they consume, which, due to being in poverty and having lower intelligence, they consume more carbohydrates than whites, which jacks their blood glucose levels up and the body then releases insulin to drive the levels glucose in the body down. As insulin levels are spiked, the body becomes insulin resistant due to the low-quality diet. Over time, even a change in diet won’t fix the insulin resistance in the body. This is because since the body is insulin resistant it created more insulin which causes insulin resistance, a vicious cycle.
Poverty, intelligence and race both correlate with obesity, with the main factor being lower intelligence. Since those with lower IQs have a lack of foresight into the future, as well as a lower ability to delay gratification which also correlates with obesity, they cannot resist low-quality, high-carb food the same way one with a higher IQ can. This is seen with the Diaz et al study I linked, showing that whites have higher levels of fat intake, which means lower levels of carbohydrate intake in comparison to blacks and ‘Hispanics’. As I’ve shown, those in poverty (code word for low intelligence) ingest more refined carbohydrates, they have higher levels of obesity due to the constant spiking of their insulin, as I have shown with the 3 aforementioned studies. Since blacks and ‘Hispanics’ have lower levels of intelligence, they have lower levels of income which they then can only afford cheap, refined carbs. This leads to insulin being constantly spiked, and with how Americans eat nowadays (6 times a day, 3 meals and snacks in between), insulin is being spiked constantly with it only dipping down as the body goes into the fasted state while sleeping. This is why these populations are more likely to be obese, because they spike their insulin more. The main factor here, of course, is intelligence.
Another non-CICO cause for obesity is exposure to BPA in the womb. Researchers carried out BPA testing in three differing subjects: 375 babies invitro, (3rd trimester) children aged 3 (n=408) and aged 5 (n=518) (Hoepner, et al, 2016). They measured the children’s bodies as well as measuring body fat levels with bioelectrical impedance scales.Prenatal urinary BPA was positively associated with waist circumference as well as fat mass index, which was sex-specific. When analyzed separately, it was found that there were no associated outcomes in body fat for boys (however it does have an effect on testosterone), but there was for girls (this has to do with early onset puberty as well). They found that after controlling for SES and other environmental factors there was a positive correlation with fat mass index – a measure of body fat mass adjusted for height, body fat percentage and waist circumference. The researchers say that since there was no correlation between BPA and increased obesity, that prenatal exposure to BPA indicates greater vulnerability in that period. The sample was of blacks and Dominicans from New York City. Whites drink less bottled water, which has higher levels of BPA. Blacks and ‘Hispanics’ consume more, and thus have higher levels of obesity.
In conclusion, blacks and ‘Hispanics’ are more likely to be in poverty, have lower intelligence, higher rates of obesity and lower incomes. Due to lower incomes, cheap, refined carbohydrates is what they can afford in bulk as that’s mostly what’s around poor neighborhoods. Ingesting refined carbohydrates more often consistently jacks up blood glucose which the body then releases insulin to lower the levels. Over time, insulin resistance occurs, which then leads to obesity. As I’ve shown, there is a direct causal relationship between the amount of insulin administered and weight gain. With the aforementioned factors with these two populations, we can see how the hormonal theory of obesity fits in perfectly with what we know about these ethnic groups and the obesity rates within them. Since people in poverty gravitate more towards cheap and refined carbohydrates, they’re constantly spiking their insulin which, over time, leads to insulin resistance and obesity.
Myopia, IQ, and Race
1200 words
We’ve all heard of the nerd stereotype. One of the main ones is that nerds wear glasses. However, as most of my readers may know, stereotypes are based on fact more often than not. From the black criminal and sprinter, to the hyper-intelligent East Asian, to the intelligent and creative Europeans, we see that these so-called ‘stereotypes’ arise because stereotypes are actually average traits. Therefore, this ‘nerd stereotype’ that they always wear glasses is based on averages, so there must be a genetic component behind it. In this article I will talk about the genetics of myopia, reasons why researchers believe it arises, and racial differences in the prevalence of myopia.
Myopia, better known as nearsightedness, has a pleiotropic relationship with intelligence. Pleiotropy is the single gene or set of genes controlling multiple, possibly unrelated, phenotypic traits. So if the two traits are correlated, then there is a good chance that if one wears glasses they may have higher average intelligence.
Rosner and Belkin (1987) found that the prevalence of myopia was higher in more intelligent and educated groups. They found a strong association between the rate of myopia, years of schooling and intelligence level. Schooling and intelligence weigh equally with myopia, showing that those who are myopic tend to stay in school longer and are more intelligent than average.
Saw et al (2004) show that there may be similar genes associated with eye growth or size (myopia) and neocortical size (*possibly* correlated with IQ, we know it is). This is exactly what Cohn, Cohn, and Jensen found in 1987; that there was a pleiotropic relationship between IQ and myopia. One set of genes controls one or multiple phenotypic traits. They also say that nonverbal IQ is correlated with myopia in the Singaporean cohort independent of near work from the children (such as reading). Nonverbal IQ may be an independent risk factor of myopia independent of books read per week. They conclude that more research needs to be taken out to untangle the cause and effect of the myopia/intelligence/reading relationship.
Mirashi et al (2014) show in a sample of 4600 myopia-inflicted Germans between the ages of 35 and 74 that about 53 percent of the sample had graduated from college compared to 24 percent of the sample who didn’t go to school past high school. They, too, conclude that higher levels of myopia are associated with higher educational achievement and post-school professional achievement and that those who were myopic had higher levels of educational achievement than those in the sample who weren’t myopic.
More recently, Verma and Verma (2015) state that there is evidence that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in the prevalence of myopia. Moreover, Czepida, Lodykowska, and Czepita (2008) come to the same conclusion; that children with myopia have higher IQs and was verified in other countries (the USA, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand).
The correlation between myopia and IQ is between .2 and .25 (Jensen, 1998 b; 149). Jensen writes on page 150:
. . .the degree of myopia was measured as a continuous variable (refraction error) by means of optical techniques in a group of sixty adolescents selected only for high IQs (Raven matrices) and their less gifted full siblings, who averaged fourteen IQ points lower, a difference equivalent to 0.92o. The high-IQ subjects differed significantly from their lower-IQ siblings in myopia by an average of 0.39a on the measure of refraction error.1161 In other words, since there is a within-families correlation between myopia and IQ, the relationship is intrinsic. However, it is hard to think of any directly functional relationship between myopia and IQ. The data are most consistent with there being a pleiotropic relationship. The causal pathway through which the genetic factor that causes myopia also to some extent elevates g (or vice versa) is unknown. Because the within-family relationship of myopia and IQ was found with Raven’s matrices, which in factor analyses is found to have nearly all of its common factor variance on g ,n it leaves virtually no doubt that the IQ score in this case represents g almost exclusively. (emphasis his)
Therefore, as noted earlier, we would see a slight variation in the general population between those with high IQs and those who wear glasses and are myopic.
Jensen also talks about race and myopia. He says that Asians have the highest rates of myopia, while blacks have the lowest rate and whites have a rate slightly higher than blacks.
In a tribute to Arthur Jensen, edited by Helmuth Nyborg, it states that East Asians have the highest rates of myopia, with blacks having the lowest rate and whites being intermediate (Rushton’s Rule of Three). Ashkenazi Jews have a rate of myopia two times higher than that of gentiles, on par with East Asians. These are yet other biological correlates with the g factor that also lend credence to the hereditarian hypothesis.
Certain types of visual disturbances affect some races more frequently. Asian-Americans, for example, are more likely to be near-sighted than Caucasians or African-Americans. African-Americans have the lowest incidence of near-sightedness, but are more prone to cataracts and some other eye diseases. Eye problems, including the need to wear glasses, also can run in families.
Of course, if myopia is a pleiotropic trait (there is good evidence that there is), and wearing glasses runs in families as well as high intelligence, it can be safely hypothesized that the two indeed do have a relationship with each other. The biological correlates show enough that these traits, too, follow Rushton’s Rule.
Finally, Au, Tay and Kim (1993) present data that shows the prevalence and severity of myopia is associated with higher education. They also report on data that Rosner and Belkin reported the prevalence of myopia in males with and IQ of 80 or less was 8 percent while the rate increased up to 27.3 among those with an IQ of 128 or higher. Reported separately, it was concluded that the myopia rates in the cohort of 110,236 young Singaporean males correlated with race (Au, Tay, and Lim, 1993). The myopia rate for the Chinese was 48.5 (IQ 105), for Eurasians it was 34.7, for Indians it was 30.4 (IQ 82), and for Malays it was 24.5 (IQ 92). It’s worth noting that India’s IQ is depressed by disease and bad nutrition, and if this were to be ratified their IQ would be around 94. So this, again, shows the biological correlate with IQ and myopia as it’s showing on the Indians’ genotype.
The association between myopia and intelligence isn’t definite yet, however with more studies looking into the relationship between these variables I believe it will be concrete that those who are more myopic tend to have higher IQs due to the pleiotropic nature of IQ and myopia. Since reading is heritable, those with higher IQs as children tend to read more as adults, and the racial gradient is noticed in children, it’s pretty safe to say that myopia and IQ are linked pleiotropically and give more credence to the hereditarian hypothesis. Most studies find a statisically positive correlation between myopia and intelligence. Along with the racial disparities in myopia as well as intelligence, it’s pretty safe to say that the relationship is genetic and pleiotropic in nature since the races also differ in these variables.
Dysgenic Fertility and America’s Obesity Crisis
1050 words
The dysgenic trend currently occurring in America has implications for obesity as well. Since intelligence is negatively correlated with obesity, as America’s average IQ decreases, the rates of obesity in our country will increase. This is due to the high correlation between intelligence and obesity. As we continue to allow unfettered immigration into America, the average IQ of the country will decrease, while the amount of people that are overweight and obese will increase.
The ethnic differences in obesity rates lead more credence to what I am saying. As the demographics shift, more people will be overweight or obese due to having a lower IQ. Whites, too, are experiencing this dysgenic effect, as intelligent people of all ethnicities are not reproducing. As more and more genetically less fit individuals continue to have a higher rate of reproduction in comparison to intelligent individuals, this crisis will continue to persist.
Those with lower intelligence have less of an ability to delay gratification, which has a strong genetic component. As more people breed who cannot delay their gratification, the rates of obesity will increase in the country. Of course, the lack of ability to delay gratification comes with a lowered IQ. This is what we see in regards to sex. Those with higher IQs lose their virginities at a later age in comparison to those with lower IQs. Along with the data from Kanazawa that shows that more intelligent people have a lower BMI than those with lower intelligence, this study gives more credence to the theory that those with higher levels of intelligence can better delay their gratification.
JayMan says that there is evidence for an increased genetic load for those with lower IQs, which we can then reason that this also leads to a higher prevalence for obesity in low IQ populations. JayMan then says that many of the genes found to influence obesity seem to operate in the brain and that they have a pleiotropic effect, meaning that multiple genes affect one or more traits. With the increased genetic load comes with an increased chance to have a lower IQ and become obese, as these two things correlate with the lack of ability to delay gratification.
Of course, these problems persist due to modern medicine. With the advent of better medicine, it allowed us to beat diseases that formerly would have been devastating to the population at large. This led to an increase of alleles with negative effects in the population that continue to pass down through the generations. Along with these advances in medical technology, welfare and other government-funded programs also enable those that are less genetically fit. Since intelligence is correlated with ability to care for offspring, as well as r- and K-selected traits, those with lower intelligence exhibit more r-selected traits. This is why America is facing a dysgenic fertility crisis. Welfare props up those with less intelligence, giving them more incentives to breed. They then breed more low IQ children who then will live off of the government. This vicious cycle then continues unfettered due to how America’s dysgenic welfare structure is implemented.
Before the advent of modern technology, those who were less genetically fit didn’t survive to pass on their genes. But, in the modern day with all of our superior technology, this allows the less intelligent to breed when in the past they would have been selected out of the gene pool due to being less biologically fit.
Another variable that is involved with the dysgenic fertility of America is Mexican immigration. With the influx of illegal (and legal) peoples from the South of the Border, this is having both dysgenic effect on both the average intelligence of our country along with the average BMI. The average BMI for the average American male is 28.6. In the 1950s, 10 percent of American adults were obese compared to 35 percent of American adults today. Now, this has to do with ability to access food, as well as the effect of the media on children has a huge effect on obesity, due in part to not getting a full nights sleep, as that is correlated with obesity. However, an increase in genetic load, which also comes with a decrease in intelligence, has a lot to do with this as well. The increase in the BMI of the average American has to do with immigration as well. The rates of obesity for different ethnicities in America are as follows: 67.3% for whites, 75.6% for blacks, and 77.9% for ‘Hispanics’. So of course, with more immigration from the South of the Border, the average IQ for America is decreasing while obesity rates are increasing, due mostly to this illegal immigration.
Height and intelligence are both correlated. Ever since the advent of the industrial revolution, we have had an excess surplus of food. As Gina Kolata says in her book Rethinking Thin, an increase in obesity is inevitable. She says this since the increase in genetic height and IQ has occurred, so the increase in obesity follows with it. We need to influence those with higher IQs to have more children. Further, we also need to restrict immigration to only high-skilled immigrants (only when necessary) to reverse this trend that has been occurring since the 1960s. Though, with higher levels of intelligence one can forgo their urges and live a healthier lifestyle due to having higher cognition which leads to a better ability to delay gratification than one with lower intelligence.
Those with higher IQs make better choices on what to eat than those with lower IQs. This is shown in the BMIs of the intelligent and non-intelligent population. As more and more people with lower genotypic IQ come into the country, the quality of life will decrease as will the average intelligence of the country. In turn, the BMI of the average American will increase along with the decrease of our country’s average intelligence. To ameliorate this, we need to have extremely stringent criteria on who we allow into the country. An IQ test, to start, would be a good idea. As those with higher intelligence have less of a genetic load and have less of a chance of becoming obese than one with a lower IQ, the current dysgenic effect that this unfettered immigration is having on America can be lessened.
Marriage, Divorce and Genetic Similarity Theory
1100 words
Genetic Similarity Theory states that we seek out similar others in order to give our genes the best chance to produce copies of themselves. As Richard Dawkins says in The Selfish Gene, it is genes that survive to the next generation with more copies being found in siblings and related co-ethnics. Therefore, the theory goes, by benefitting genetically similar others, we are benefitting copies of our genes. Speed daters match on genotype, which shows evidence for ability to detect genetically similar others. On a subconscious level, we have the ability to detect genetically similar others.
Assortative mating is a form of sexual selection in which those with similar genotypes and phenotypes mate with each other more often than in would be expected under a random breeding model. One of the numerous ways we match by genetic similarity is phenotype. If the phenotype is similar, more often than not, the genotype is as well. This is what drives friendships and marriages, as well as being the cause for ethnocentrism.
Rushton (1987) showed that humans are able to detect degrees of genetic similarity in others, and prefer those most similar to themselves for friends and spouses than less genetically similar individuals, which is the basis for ethnocentrism. A husband and wife are, on average, as close as fourth cousins. Due to matching by GST, spouses should also match on heritable traits such as IQ, body measurements and personality traits. As McCrae et al (2008) write:
Altruism, Modesty, and Tender-Mindedness are characteristics that most people desire in a spouse (cf. Buss, 1986), but people are most likely to find a mate with these characteristics if they have them themselves. This is an instance of the principle that people with desirable qualities have more options in seeking a desirable mate. At the same time, it seems likely that there is a sense in which disagreeable people may actually prefer the company of their own kind, like the haughty Duke in Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” who disposed of his wife because she was too indiscriminately nice.
Everyone has the perfect spouse in their head that they dream of. However, the type of spouse we end up with will, more often than not, be genetically similar to ourselves. Even spouses who are not of the same race or ethnicity match up on heritable traits such as The Big Five, IQ and physiological measurements.
Divorce is also influenced by genetic factors. Jockin, Mcgue and Lykken (1996) found that 40 percent of the variability in the heritability of divorce comes from genetic factors that affect the personality of one spouse. Traditionalism, extraversion and neuroticism (2 of the Big 5 Personality Traits) are causes for divorce. A few reasons I can think of for neuroticism and extraversion being personality traits correlated with divorce is highly neurotic people are more likely to be stressed, anxious, have hypochondria (the worry of contracting an illness) and obsessive behavior. This can put extra strain on a marriage, leading to both of the spouses not being happy in their marriage, leading to divorce. With extraversion, more extraverted people are more open to meeting others and are more social and talkative. This will lead to feelings of jealousy, causing a strain on the marriage.
The genetic and environmental influences responsible for marriage are different from those that are responsible for divorce. Evidence exists that after mate selection, there may be some protective factors for the couple, such as religion. While other factors that place couples at risk for divorce, such as alcoholism, are also genetic in nature.
Trumbetta and Gottesman (2000) suggested endophenotypes with one being oriented to pair bonding and the other to mate diversification. Pair bonding, obviously, leads to a happier marriage as both spouses are monogamous, whereas mate diversification is associated with multiple marriages. It sounds to me like those who pair bond are more introverted whereas those who have diversity in marriage partners are more extraverted, leading to high divorce rates due to jealousy and cheating. The conclude that there are significant genetic influences on both endophenotypes with unique environmental factors accounting for the rest of the variance,
Spouses, as well as friends, sort on characterisitics such as race, socioeconomics, physical attractiveness, level of education, family size and structure, IQ and longevity. This is the Selfish Gene in action. By seeking out copies of itself (which would be in co-ethnics in higher frequencies), the gene is able to ensure its survival onto the next generation.
Even in couples who are not the same race or ethnicity match on other heritable characteristics. Rushton and Nicholson (1988), tested predictions from genetic similarity theory and found that spouses select each other on the basis of more genetically influenced cognitive tests. It’s known since The Bell Curve came out in 1994 that spouses select each other based on IQ. What Rushton and Nicholson noted in the study was that estimates of genetic influence calculated on Koreans and Canadians predicted assortative mating in European Americans in Hawaii and California. Americans of mixed ancestry made up for ethnic dissimilarity by matching up on the more heritable traits, whereas the correlation is lower for those traits that are more influenced by the environment. The observations on genetic selection were weaker but still had a positive correlation, when the g factor was taken out of the equation. This suggests that we choose mates based on the general intelligence factor. This effect is seen in, for instance, white women who date black men. They, more often than not, have lower average IQs than the mean (100).
Pan and Wang (2011) showed that spouses are similar in academic achievement as well as IQ. 6 out of the 8 traits tested (reading, spelling, arithmetic, vocabulary, verbal and full-scale IQ) showing evidence of spousal correlations.
Humans have a natural instinct to marry genetically similar others. Whether the traits are environmentally or genetically influenced, spouses will match on traits with the highest correlations (BMI, waist size, arm size). Genetic Similarity Theory proposes that these phenomena is not by chance, but was how we evolved. Sexual selection, which is natural selection arising through preference by one sex for certain traits in individuals of the other sex, is the driving factor here. Through sexual selection, we humans were able to gain higer intelligence (for men) and gain higher verbal abilties that allowed to care for children (women). These differences remained even when controlling for geographic location. Spouses and friends being as similar as 4th cousins is no accident, in fact, it is evolution in action.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
2650 words
I first heard of Guns, Germs, and Steel (GGS) a few years ago while in a discussion about racial differences and their causes. The person linked me to the Wikipedia page on GGS. I then looked into it and it seemed to be an OK hypothesis. However, after reading the book myself and then reading critiques he got on it, it’s clear that Jared Diamond was attempting to pick and choose what to put into the book to come to the conclusions he already has come to. There are some interesting tidbits in the books, my favorite being only 14 beasts of burden have been tamed for human use out of 148 large wild creatures that can be tamed. Other than that, he spins facts and data from hereditarians to suit his own agenda.
Jared Diamond started wondering about the reasons for human inequalities after his New Guinean friend, Yali, asked Diamond why Westerners had so much more “cargo” (material possessions) than the New Guineans. Diamond then set forth to find out why human inequality existed. Diamond attempts to say that immediate environment and only environment is the cause of racial inequalities. However, what Diamond fails to say is that genetic isolation over thousands of years is the cause of racial differences in intelligence, muscle fiber typings, crime differences, age of first period, sleep, obesity and metabolic differences, racial/sex differences in testosterone, differences in climate which, over tens of thousands of years cause distinct phenotypic/genotypic differences, child rearing and age of first birth, slow and fast life history (r/K selection), etc. He also fails to bring up brain size differences between races/ethnicities. All of these factors are responsible for racial/ethnic inequalities.
Diamond’s main thesis in GGS is that human inequalities all boil down to amount of resources in the land and how they are able to be used with the geography of the area. He never brings up brain size as it pertains to modern-day humans, EXCEPT in regards to New Guineans and how they are more intelligent than Europeans: (Diamond, 1997: 20, 36, 38, 40, 159, 198, 260):
This is laughable. To say that a tropical people, pretty much isolated from the rest of the world is more intelligent than Europeans is not true at all. Just as Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence fails to explain away racial/ethnic differences in intelligence, so does Diamond’s. Jared Diamond clearly, by his own admission, wants to prove that these differences between humans only come down to immediate environment and are not genetic in nature. The fact that Diamond says that New Guineans are “probably superior to Westerners” … “escaping the devastating developmental damages under which most children in industrialized societies now grow up” shows how biased he is with this whole entire book. IQ tests are great predictors of g, general intelligence, and Westerners clearly are superior in terms of intelligence in comparison to New Guineans. Yea, you can’t build a shelter like they can and you look stupid to them because you can’t do what they can in their society. Duh, of course. The fact that he uses that as any type of evidence or revelation that New Guineans are smarter than Westerners is a wrong and 100 percent ideologically driven statement.
Rushton had some nice words for Diamond on brain size, intelligence: