[…] IQ and Death Trans Fat Hysteria and the Mystery of Heart Disease […]

[…] Health and body weight follow similar patterns (high heritability, zero shared environment). See my page Obesity Facts for more, or my post IQ and Death. […]

[…] post a series of tweets I made on the subject. Much of the matter is discussed in my post IQ and Death (see also my post “Squid […]

[…] correlation between IQ and longevity is said to be about 0.2, which means high IQ people have a small tendency to live longer (actually, since IQ tests are imperfect measures of intelligence, typically having a […]

[…] quite a few other HBD’ers, I try not to focus so much on IQ. Although it is of preeminent importance, it is not the be-all end-all of when it comes to human traits, particularly traits that differ […]

Jayman,

You may want to check out this study: “Reaction Time and Mortality from the Major Causes of Death: The NHANES-III Study”

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0082959

“Adjusted for age, sex, and ethnic minority status, a 1 SD slower reaction time was associated with a raised risk of mortality from all-causes (HR = 1.25, 95% CI 1.12, 1.39) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) (HR = 1.36, 95% CI 1.17, 1.58). Having 1 SD more variable reaction time was also associated with greater risk of all-cause (HR = 1.36, 95% CI 1.19, 1.55) and CVD (HR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.33, 1.70) mortality. No associations were observed for cancer mortality. The magnitude of the relationships was comparable in size to established risk factors in this dataset, such as smoking.”

[…] IQ and Death […]

[…] ask the question of how well IQ correlates to shortened lifespan. And I did that with my 99th post, IQ and Death. Looking at a meta-analysis of several studies of IQ and mortality, it was found that IQ is […]

Dan
“I don’t buy the link between IQ and ‘genetic load’ at all, for many reasons.

…

(3) Jews are generally agreed to have a higher average IQ than other groups. And they also have a whole host of genetic diseases not common to other groups:
http://www.jewishgenetics.org/?q=content/what-are-jewish-genetic-disorders”

I think there are two ways to raise average IQ.

1) Select specifically on IQ which by definiton means you’re not selecting as strongly on things like health. A population that did this *ought* to have higher IQ and lower average health.

2) Select on general fitness. This will include IQ alongside, health, symmetric looks, height etc.

The correlation between IQ and health might still partially exist for option 1 simply because brain function involves such a lot of genes but ought to be substantially higher for populations who’d undergone the second type of selection (which i think is provided by the northwest european marriage model).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajnal_line

[…] ask the question of how well IQ correlates to shortened lifespan. And I did that with my 99th post, IQ and Death. Looking at a meta-analysis of several studies of IQ and mortality, it was found that IQ is […]

So stuffing myself with Cheetos and Coke every day will not raise the probability that I will get adult-onset diabetes?

As much as I like the sound of that, I suspect it is not true.

thank you for your blog & your empirical insights – & for your comments at other blogs – e.g., your comments at http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2013/05/the-new-eugenics-same-as-old-eugenics.html
are WAY better than the article! your blog conversations with hbdchick are casually brilliant. i hope someday there will be an HBD blog convention. i had paypal tell you hi – wish it could be for more – you HBD bloggers deserve it.

Yes, Trivers does suggest that possibility in his book, doesn’t he? Good point.

Trivers doesn’t cite any scientific source in that book, but then again he is a giant in his field, and he surely knows a bit about the topic.

” The brain, being the place where most genes are expressed, is the biggest mutational target.”

Is this true? Is it true that a majority of genes are involved with the brain? Certainly genes that relate to things like metabolism or the immune system could indirectly affect the brain, but does the brain really express ‘most genes’?

Do you have evidence for this statement (links are great!), because if it is true I suppose I’d have to concede a lot of the argument.

Yes, and it was obvious. I mean lack of drinking in Victorian England? Really? REALLY?!?

“That smart 98 lb weakling would be fine today. In pre-modern times, not so much.”

That smart 98 lb weakling probably could have done fine as a craftsman or scholar or financier or trader or range of other professions that would have existed over the last 800 years in England or other places.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I might have more thoughts but here are few for now…

(1) First I will concede that genetic load does have *some* explanatory power, in the sense of broadly debilitating things such as Down’s Syndrome and a few others. But I think most genetic defects are not syndromic like that.

(2) Good prenatal and childhood nutrition have large positive effects on both IQ and lifelong health. Folks like Richard Lynn, James Watson, or Arthur Jensen would certainly have had good prenatal and childhood nutrition.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11244286

(3) People who are nearsighted (a clear defect) are on average *substantially* more intelligent that their non-nearsighted peers. The reasons are not known, but the stereotype is true.
http://blog.zennioptical.com/are-people-with-nearsightedness-smarter/

which leads me to

(4) I would theorize that high IQ types can actually tolerate a *higher* genetic load. If I am a 98 pound weakling who gets sick a lot but who has a high IQ, I will probably manage just fine. There are lots of things I can do. If I am a 98 pound weakling who gets sick a lot and is also not that smart, there is not a lot I can do and there is not a lot that is a attractive about me. Stephen Hawking would have died of neglect in a care facility decades ago if he wasn’t smart.
I would make a Dungeons and Dragons analogy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_gameplay#Ability_scores

The fitness of a player is based on scores in a number of categories. Surely someone who has excellent intelligence, wisdom and charisma needs a lot less of the other things (strength, dexterity and constitution/health) to do well whereas someone who is poor in these categories needs a lot more of the other things to get by.

I wouldn’t be surprised if people ultimately discover that high IQ types actually have more genetic load on average, although I repeat that I don’t quite know what I mean by genetic load since it is so situational. Heck, Hawking’s condition, which looks like a horrible defect from all angles, has been an overwhelming positive for his career and his fame.

If high iq people live longer than low iq people,can it reduce the effect of dysgenics on society.

I don’t buy the link between IQ and ‘genetic load’ at all, for many reasons.

(1) What is ‘genetic load’ anyway? It is not even defined properly. It is described vaguely as ‘deleterious mutations’ but what is deleterious depends on circumstances. A big brain could be a deleterious mutation if you live a hot climate where big brains lead to heatstoke or if it has big caloric requirements or causes your mom to die in labor. Or it could be an absolute necessity if you happen to be a member of the banking caste in middle ages Europe.

(2) I just don’t see generally greater health in high-IQ types. Lots of smart people I know are nearsighted, lanky, or physically uncoordinated. Meanwhile, lots of top athletes, the pictures of genetic fitness, fill remedial classes and need tons of tutors to get through the easiest majors at their universities.

(3) Jews are generally agreed to have a higher average IQ than other groups. And they also have a whole host of genetic diseases not common to other groups:
http://www.jewishgenetics.org/?q=content/what-are-jewish-genetic-disorders

There have been tons of Jewish Nobel laureates but very few Olympic champions, even though the former is more rarified.

(4) It’s possible to be extraordinarily well adapted and not have a high IQ. IQ is emphatically not the measure of fitness for most creatures and most creatures do not even try to have a high IQ. A hypothically genetically perfect creature may be naturally dumb. It seems clear that to me that this variation in what the target even is applies to different humans and human groups too.

(5) Hispanics in America have a considerably longer life expectancy than whites.

Why, then do high IQ types live longer? Many reasons, all added up. They will do a better job avoiding danger, finding good living conditions, staying active and more. ‘Genetic load’ is not the explanation.

Malnutrition depresses IQ, and most adults in Romania spent some of their lives under Communism, which wasn’t always so good at keeping its subjects fed. Romania is *still* poor, and food is expensive relative to incomes, so Romanians are less *able* to get fat despite any greater propensity to fatness.

I clicked on the link and nothing he wrote was debunkable;

“In psychology, there’s a well-observed phenomenon known as the actor/observer bias and it states that we’re basically all a bunch of assholes.

The actor/observer bias states that all of us unconsciously assume others to be more responsible for their negative actions than their environment, and for ourselves to be less responsible for our negative actions than our environment.

For example, if you are at an intersection and someone runs through the red light and almost hits you, you think, “Wow, what a shitty driver. That guy is an idiot.” But when it’s YOU who runs the red light and almost hits somebody, you think, “It’s not my fault. The guy in front of me was driving slow and the light changed too quickly for me to stop.”

When it’s us, it’s not our fault. When it’s someone else, they’re a shitty person.

But it gets worse. The opposite happens with positive actions, too. In our own case, we over-estimate our own responsibility for the great things we do and under-estimate the responsibility of others. For example, if someone else wins a prestigious award, we make assumptions that they got it because of their connections or some sort of conspiracy and not of their own work. But if we win an award, we assume it was all because of the great work we did.

The actor/observer is a natural bias that afflicts us all. We can be mindful and try to be better about it, but we’re never completely rid of it. ”

….. The rest of his article is similarly not debunkable. We are a combination of nature and nurture. Otherwise there would be no point to education or culture at all. All we should just do then is be born, exist, and let chips fall where they may. Which is not what humans do.

Staffan, “Human civilization with its safer environment creates an opportunity for people to stay more childlike, which increases crystallized intelligence. That is, the more civilized a society is, the more advantageous neoteny becomes. And since the level of civilization is almost by definition a matter of intelligence, this means that neoteny is a way for smart people to get even smarter. (Just speculating a little here.)”

Then the US is in trouble because I find kids here to be sexually maturing earlier and earlier.

Some anti-HBD, anti-manosphere genetic denialist nonsense by Mark Manson, ex-PUA. The kind of stuff you specialize in debunking. Check it out:

http://postmasculine.com/the-biology-bias

There could be something about it – definetely I matured much, much later than many of my less gifted friends. Moreover, males height is rising only up to 20s, right? I was 179 at 18, 181 at 30, and NOW I am 182 meaning I have raised another cm AFTER 30, clearly impossible, right? And people claim I look as if I was ten years younger …

I think the points you raise play a role, but on the other hand, the Anglo-American populations that currently suffer from high levels of obesity were much thinner only 50 years ago. They could have afforded fattening food back then, if they’d really wanted it. The genes haven’t changed, but the environment has.

It’s a good point with some validity, but it doesn’t explain everything.

Romania has an average IQ of 94, but it is the EU’s slimmest nation.

The UK has an average IQ of 100, but it is the EU’s fattest nation.

EU obesity report: slim, trim Romania… big, fat Britain

My thought is that functional traditions can take much of the burden of thinking away from the lower IQ segments of the population.

If a society is traditional with regard to a certain life decision and that tradition is beneficial, then the masses will tend to default to beneficial behaviour.

If a society has no tradition or weak tradition with regard to a certain life decision, then the masses will have to make their own decisions, with disastrous consequences. The cognitive elite will be better able to handle this added complexity. (They still make a lot of mistakes though.)

If a society is traditional with regard to a certain life decision and that tradition is harmful (“traditional American cuisine”), then the masses will tend to default to harmful behaviour. (Pizza and burgers every day) The cognitive elite will be better able to identify and avoid these harmful behaviour patterns. (Eat a salad).

This applies to other life decisions, like marriage. A large marriage gap is developing between the masses and the cognitive elites. Although in that case there are obvious cheater strategies that some segments of the masses can adopt.

Of course, this is oversimplified, as it ignores the role of the cognitive elite in destroying traditions, creating a situation where the cognitive elite can thrive (or at least do alright) while the masses really, really struggle to make their own decisions.

[…] and IQ and IQ and Death – from […]

“…it would seem that the conventional wisdom – that we need to eat “right”, exercise, keep thin, etc., to live a long, healthy life is …BS.” amen, Jay-buddy! wonder if there are data from twin studies re: whether the higher-IQ twin lived longer… to get more out of that data with mainly Nordic-European stock, throw in some australian aborigines, etc. the more variability in that data, the stronger the relationship between IQ & age. hmm, then we could compute stats such as a “140” can smoke a pack a day & live to be the same age as a “125.”

Human civilization with its safer environment creates an opportunity for people to stay more childlike, which increases crystallized intelligence. That is, the more civilized a society is, the more advantageous neoteny becomes. And since the level of civilization is almost by definition a matter of intelligence, this means that neoteny is a way for smart people to get even smarter. (Just speculating a little here.)

It’s my personal observation that high-IQ people develop more slowly, physically/social-maturity-speaking. They are children longer, they hit puberty later, etc. So it is not surprising that they would die later, too. I’ve read (probably here) that higher-IQ populations have longer gestations. It all adds up to more time for brain development. (By implication, then, environments which encourage high fertility would depress IQ because early adolescence would limit brain development.)

The smart kids end up socially “behind”, smaller than their peers, and too smart for the material being taught. Poor kids!

Good post! I agree that I think it is a utopian fantasy that weight is going to be kept in BMI correct portions in the modern era. It shocks me how many people who follow HBD and understand human limitations in other fields suddenly sound like nurture based egalitarians when questions of weight and diet come up. I suspect if there is to be a reduction in weight among the general American population in the future it will come from something like mimAB1 or beloranib and not constant starvation diets.

Aye I suppose the USA is the main example. Of course it could be argued both ways…some might say if you’re highly likely to die of a number of things, and your IQ is so low you’re not likely to make any worthwhile contribution to society, then why should everyone else support you and keep you alive for a few more frivolous years? Very cruel world sometimes.

Oh and thanks for the article there, reminds me a wee bit of ‘A Social History of Dying’ by Allan Kellehear.

Let’s say you’re right and there is a link, it would certainly provide an interesting debate on the future of healthcare. As an example, in those countries without universal health-care, would an officially-recorded IQ start to influence how much you pay on your premium?