By
J. Philippe Rushton
Early in 2002 I
published a
VDARE.COM review on Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen’s
book
IQ and the Wealth of Nations. It was powerfully
seconded a few weeks later by
Steve Sailer.
The book’s
thesis—that a country’s prosperity is closely related to
the average IQ of its population—should have made the
cover of The Economist because of its
devastatingly important implications. But, although some
academics took notice, it was ignored by the mainstream
media.
Finally, a year and
a half later after I introduced the subject to VDARE.COM
readers, the essential argument appeared in the London
Times, along with a beautiful
IQ Map of the World. [The
wealth of nations is mapped by their IQ, By Glen
Owen, November 10, 2003.]
Why the sudden
interest? Could it be because
Matti Vanhanen, the son of co-author Tatu Vanhanen,
Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the
University of Tampere in Finland, was recently elected
Prime Minister of Finland? (Richard Lynn is
Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of
Ulster.)
No, no. that’s too
cynical. More likely; because Lynn and Vanhanen had
reported some new analyses of their data which caught
the attention of a journalist willing to listen. (This
happens sometimes.)
This is what they
reported: For sixty countries with clearly identified
IQ scores, the correlation with real gross domestic
product, or GDP, was significant (about r =
0.60). The countries of the Pacific Rim (Japan,
South Korea,
Taiwan,
China, Hong Kong and
Singapore) had the highest average IQs, of about
105. Then next come Europe, the
United States, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand, averaging 100. In South
Asia, North Africa and most Latin American countries,
the average IQ score was about 85, and in
sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean around 70.
The bottom line:
well over half (about 58 per cent) of the differences in
national wealth can be explained in terms of national
differences in average intelligence. Each IQ point
above 70 in the national average was worth about $850 in
per capita GDP.
The new Lynn-Vanhanen
report concluded that people with high IQs were better
able to master the
complex skills needed to produce goods and services
for which there is international demand. They were more
likely to develop efficient public services such as
transport and telecommunications, which provide an
efficient infrastructure. They are more likely to
have intelligent political leaders who manage their
economies effectively.
As Richard Lynn
explained to The Times:
“Our critics would
suggest that we are confusing cause and effect, and that
IQs are higher in rich countries because of better
health, education and so on. But we don't think that is
likely:
intelligence is the largest single factor behind
national wealth. It then becomes a virtuous circle, with
the benefits of the resulting affluence adding extra IQ
points.”
The authors are not
denounced as “racist” for showing that East
Asians have higher IQs than Whites.
Nor is umbrage
taken at what Professor Lynn told The Times about
China’s IQ potential for becoming a superpower:
“The per capita income
in China is low…because of the inefficiency of the
communist system. Now the Chinese have introduced a
market economy the growth rate is rapid…China can be
predicted to reach parity with
Europe and the U.S…and become the new
economic and military superpower.”
What critics have
objected to—very strongly—is the statement that
sub-Saharan Africans have an average IQ of 70.
This is, indeed,
extremely low. In North America, an IQ of 70 suggests
borderline mental retardation.
Critics of the
finding that the average African IQ is 70 say that it
simply must be wrong. They insist that biased testing
procedures must have been used, even though dozens of
separate studies have corroborated the results from
East, West, Central, and Southern Africa. For Example,
one 1992 study carried out for the World Bank reported
that a random sample of 1,639 adolescents in the West
African country of Ghana had an average IQ of 60.
In 1998, I went to
Johannesburg, South Africa, to initiate a 5-year series
of IQ studies in the university system to determine
whether such a low IQ was accurate. I, too, wondered how
well all the previous data had been collected, if
sufficient care were taken in giving instructions,
ensuring motivation, having a quiet room for testing, or
giving enough time to complete the tests.
First, I contacted
psychologists in the Faculty of Education at the
University of the Witwatersrand (all anti-apartheid
liberals) and together we
tested hundreds of students of African, East Indian,
White, and East Asian backgrounds, along with those of
mixed ancestry, under optimal testing procedures, using
culture reduced tests. We used a large, quiet, well-lit,
well-ventilated examination room with desks spaced far
enough apart to prevent copying or feeling crowded. As I
walked up and down the aisles watching the students
diligently at work, it was plain to see they were
well-motivated.
We used the
Raven’s Matrices, one of the
best known, well researched, and most widely used of
all the culture-reduced tests. Consisting of
60 diagrammatic puzzles, each with a missing part
that the test taker attempts to identify from several
choices, it is an excellent measure of the
non-verbal component of general intelligence.
Typically, the test is so easy for university students
that they do it in less than 20 minutes. We set no time
limit for the test. All those being tested were allowed
to complete it.
We found African
university students averaged an IQ of 84. In some
studies, by other researchers, they have scored lower
(IQ = 77). In still others of our studies,
highly-selected engineering students who took math and
science courses in high school scored higher (IQ = 103).
Assuming that, like
university students elsewhere, the African university
students on average score 15 points above the general
population, the African general population average of
about 70 would appear to be corroborated.
One way to
comprehend an IQ of 70 is to think in terms of mental
age. For example, for adults an IQ of 70 is equivalent
to a mental age of 11 years. So the normal range of
mental ages in Africa is from 7 to 16 years, with an
average at 11 years.
Eleven-year-olds,
of course, are not retarded. They can
drive cars, build houses, and
work in factories—if supervised properly. They can
also
make war.
In terms of mental
age then, the Africans who drop out of primary school
correspond to 7-year-olds. Those who get to high school
correspond to 11-year-olds. The top university students
we tested correspond to 16- and 17-year-olds.
Adult Whites, by
contrast, have mental ages ranging from 11- to 24-years,
with an average mental age of 16- to 18-years.
This is an
astonishing fact, with sweeping implications for both
domestic and foreign policy.
But it seems to be
very difficult for people to grasp. One reason put
forward by
Arthur Jensen in
The G Factor (P 367-9): many sub-70 IQ whites
are retarded as a result of
in utero misfortunes, with
visible deficiencies in motor skills and speech. The
majority of sub-70 IQ blacks, in contrast, are
technically normal. They appear fully functional.
I hope to return to
discussing this phenomenon more fully in a future
VDARE.COM article.
J. Philippe Rushton [email
him] is a professor of psychology at the University of
Western Ontario, the author of
Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History
Perspective.