Talk:IQ and Global Inequality

Mistake on the page

In 2002 Spains reported IQ in the book 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations' is 97 not 99.I would change it but I forgot how.I also lost my Wikipedia password and to lazy to make a new one.

I'm not sure whether this is a mistake within the book or on Wikipedia but irelands PPP-GNI per capita is listed at 8,500. Considering it is currently estimated at 43,600, I find it hard to imagine it was this low in 2002. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.206.1.20 (talk) 17:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Tables

The many tables in the page have neither good headers neither legends, making it very difficult to interpret what their numbers mean. It would be useful to introduce the tables with some explaining statement, like, "the table below (above) shows this or that". Someone who actually read the book could, please, rectify this? 201.80.151.191 (talk) 20:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Clarify Graph

I don't think there is any rationale way of estimating that a countries entire average population has an IQ of greater then 105? What is the basis for the whole graph?

qhc variable correlation matrix

Correlation (r)	PPP-GNI per capita 2002	Adult literacy 2002	Tertiary enrollment 1998-2002	Life expectancy 2002	ID 2002	QHC	National IQ
PPP-GNI per capita 2002	1.000	0.511	0.680	0.616	0.574	0.801	0.601
Adult literacy 2002		1.000	0.627	0.700	0.511	0.793	0.655
Tertiary enrollment 1998-2002			1.000	0.663	0.657	0.876	0.745
Life expectancy 2002				1.000	0.536	0.851	0.754
ID 2002					1.000	0.793	0.529
QHC						1.000	0.796
National IQ							1.000

Looking at the IQ-distribution world map, doesn't it seem that there is a climatic correlation with IQ? There is an almost exclusively blue (various hues) band right across the northern temperate zones (Eurasia and N.America) and another presence of blue at the extremes of the southern hemisphere (Argentina, Australia, NZ). The tropical and equatorial regions, on the other hand, seem more severely deprived in terms of the human intelligence of their inhabitants.

Or is it perhaps that geo-climatic features affect other issues (such as wealth and economic development, nutrition, education, intellectually challenging opportunities, etc.), which in turn have a bearing on IQ?

Or is it a racial question (races of people do tend to be clustered in different locations of the planet, in spite of the phenomenom of immigration).

Or, indeed, are the standard measuring instruments of IQ levels based on Western ideas of what costitutes intelligence, thus not applying fully to certain other "intel-cultural" scenarios?

The IQ of people from different races does not change by many points when they move from primitive to civlilized, educated and comfortable lives (Wealthy blacks in america for example). This proves that this is a racial question. That it would be bent towards western ideas of intelligence is quite silly to even propose as east asians have among the highest scores (Ashkernazi jews have the highest at about 116).

Fair use rationale for Image:Iqandglobalinequality.jpg

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BetacommandBot 06:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Lead section

Criticism of the book in the lead section should be something substantial, not the kind of guilt by association nonsense that the Searchlight Magazine quote ("'classic' Aryan and eugenic tracts including a homily to the antisemitic philosopher Count de Gobineau as a pioneer of genetics") represents. Moreover, Gobineau cannot be characterized as an anti-Semite, so the the quote is factually incorrect and should not be included in a Wikipedia article in any case.

If the information about the publisher is so central to understanding the book that it should be mentioned in the lead section, it should be done in a proper and encyclopedic style, not in the frenzied, propagandistic (and factually incorrect) manner that the Searchlight quote represents. The SPLC quote I used is better in this respect.

The fact that academics from several fields have taken interest in Lynn and Vanhanen's theory should also be mentioned; IQ and the Wealth of Nations was published by an academic publisher, and the new book is just an extended version of the same thesis. Otherwise the information about the publisher's history will make it look like the book was some kind of neo-Nazi tract, whereas in reality it is a meticulously researched scientific work by two eminent scholars.

The fact that Lynn has received grants from the Pioneer fund has nothing to do with the book, so I will remove this information from the lead section.

I'll restore my earlier version of the lead section. --Victor Chmara 16:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It could also be included that the book is inconsistant. Southeast Asia was by far the most underdeveloped part of Asia (another notable example would be Korea) until the 1960s. Iranian Americans and Indian Americans blow White Americans out of the water in standardized testing (SATs, ACTs) as well as per capita income. Iranian Americans have the highest per capita income of any community within the United States of America. The book would also fail to explain why Germanic/Nordic peoples and the Mongols were amongst the least developed people on the Eurasian continent for over 2 millenia. While the Sumerians were writing epics and the Egyptians were building pyramids, the Western/Northern Europeans were living in caves like animals until the 1st century AD (and even then, they still were barely better than hunter-gatherers). The "dumb" Arabs were responsible for civilizing the Spaniards. Other noticable inconsistancies: Why are Turks so much smarter than Central Asian Turks? The Turks did not migrate tens of thousands of years ago; the Turks migrated to West Asia after the rise of Islam! According to the map, Turks living in Azerbaijian are dumber than Turks living in Turkey, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Moreover, Iranians and Afghans (Persians) are dumber than Tajiks in Tajikistan (Persians still). What type of ludicrous inconsistancies are these? Lynn and Vanhanen are not "eminent scholars." They aren't even biologists or geneticists! LOL. Lynn is a psychologist and Vanhenen has a degree in political science. So please don't talk about how these are "eminent scholars." I'm not a specialist and even I can observe the blatant inconsistancies and the blatant cherry-picking of data to validate their (weak) thesis. The only "subhumans" are the two racists that wrote this garbage book and the morons that believe it. At least this is better than their last world map that showed that the European side of Turkey has a higher IQ than the Asian side (LOL). I believe geneticists for the most part remain consistant that the humans have far more similarities with one another than differences, and the likelihood that "global equality" could be a result of European genes is utter nonsense. Perhaps Psuedoscientists/Psychologists might be interested with this garbage. Then again, 20 years ago the Psychologists were still saying homosexuality is a mental disorder. Psychology has always been useless. The authors attempt to use evolutionary necessity to justify their thesis, but they fail to acknowledge even the basic principles of evolution. Evolution does not usually occur in large organismal samples; the genetic pool would dilute almost all mutations in such situations (hence why a noticeable change in intelligence between Turks from Turkey and Turks from Azerbaijain and Turks from Central Asia would be dubious). Usually the population must be approaching close to extinction for an organism to experience evolution (and in most cases, the organism does go extinct). How could literally millions of Turks experience some sort of radical evolutionary development in their intelligence simultaneously? Moreover, if such a thesis were true, it would not explain why Americans have high IQs, because they endured rather harsh conditions upon immigrating here and were primarily servants; aristocrats did not immigrate to early America. If there were a genetic link to intelligence that is overwhelmingly noticeable, then why is Australia so developed? The Australians are descended from criminals! This book is based on cherry-picking and racemongering, not the facts. The authors should have their own intelligence inspected. -68.43.58.42 (talk) 23:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

Quote from Southern Poverty Law Center is POV pushing. --Jagz (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Read WP:NPOV: "The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV". " —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultramarine (talk • contribs) 20:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

A controversial subject does not make an article non-neutral. I see almost nothing in the article that could be construed as violating NPOV. Every single sentence in the lead and summary sections are facts. The rest of the article consists of numbers directly from the book; or sentences that are clearly just reporting what the book says, which is entirely different than arguing that those sentences are true. The article clearly states that the book is controversial so the reader is already informed that some disagree with its conclusions. I support removal of the neutrality warning. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Original research or unverified claims tag

I didn't put the original research/unverified claims tag on the page but since the discussion doesn't seem to have started yet, I will chime in first. We can eliminate the "original research" aspect of the discussion as this is about a book which has been published; therefore, it is not original research in the Wikipedia policy sense. The unverified claims aspect is more difficult. First because the wording of the policy itself mixes verifiability of facts against sources and the reliability of the sources sources themselves. I want to quote this sentence from the WP:VER policy: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. 'Verifiable' in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source." All the sentences and numbers in this article presumably could be checked against the book itself; so in that sense it does not violate verifiability. It is that sense which I think the policy is mostly intended. The only thing left is to question the publisher. Since, according to the article, Washington Summit Publishers is criticized by some anti-racist groups, I'm sure those groups would claim Washington Summit is a unreliable, questionable source. So the question is if Washington Summit is a reliable source. If you read the reliable source subsection of the policy you'll note that the source is not "most reliable" as it is not peer-reviewed but it is a continuation of peer-reviewed research. At the same time "the appropriateness of any source always depends on the context." I have noticed that any book that claims a correlation between race and IQ draws controversy regardless of the quality of the research so I am not surprised that some group somewhere discounts the book's conclusions. Because the numbers and sentences can be verified against the book itself and because the source's reputation is not called strongly enough into question, I weakly support removal of the 'original research or unverified claims' tag. (NOTE: I had trouble for some reason with the "+" link working with this talk page.) Jason Quinn (talk) 02:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The OR tag was originally put on because the article called the book controversial and did not provide a citation to support that claim. Also, I would imagine that a book of this type would have some difficulties finding an academic publisher. --Jagz (talk) 21:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Lynn previous book on the same subject found a publisher. Other explanations for not getting an academic publisher include poor research and wanting to get a bigger money share.Ultramarine (talk) 21:59, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyright vio?

If the table in this section IQ and Global Inequality#National IQ and QHC values is pulled from the book, I think that it would be considered beyond the "limited amount for commentary" (or whatever the wording is) that is allowed under fairuse of copyright material. (and if all that is different is adding pictures of flags, that is not significant analysis of the data). Does anyone have a deeper insight into this potential issue? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Tables of data are not copyrightable (at least in the US). For example, the phones listings in a phone book cannot be copyrighted, and thus there are multiple competitors. Likewise, there are many similar lists of data in wikipedia. --Legalleft (talk) 00:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Synthesis tag

There is no evidence that the publisher was criticized because of this book as the article implies. --Jagz (talk) 22:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

In scientific literature all potential forms of bias should be listed. Having a publisher accused of racism certainly counts as a possible bias.Ultramarine (talk) 22:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Try listing it in a way that does not imply that the criticism was because of this book. --Jagz (talk) 22:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

We are not implying that the publisher is criticized due to the book. We list one potential bias for the book.Ultramarine (talk) 22:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

It can be interpreted that way though the way it is written. --Jagz (talk) 22:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Put the sentence you broke back together and that possible ambiguity vanishes.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Now it sounds like the criticism is because the book was not published by an academic publisher. --Jagz (talk) 22:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't get that at all. Which part of the sentence structure makes you imply this causation?--Ramdrake (talk) 15:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think people are going to interpret the sentence as meaning that the criticism being directed towards this: "the book was not published by an academic publisher but by Washington Summit Publishers". Most people are not going to interpret the sentence as meaning that the publisher is being criticized, just the fact that it was not published by an academic publisher. --Jagz (talk) 16:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I re-read the sentence once more, and it's obvious to me that it says that the book's publisher had been criticized. We could always have an RfC on this particular phrasing, see who else might misintepret it, if anyone does.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:33, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Could we get an admin to look at the regular vandalism of this page (often by IPs) and look at the feasibility of semi-protection? This is similar to the case on IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Nirvana888 (talk) 16:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Low Level Countries

If this were accurate than it appears that the average IQ of many African countries falls well within the range of retardation. That just doesn't seem believable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BenW (talk • contribs) 12:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I have been wondering the same thing myself. Score of 70 and below are classified as mentally retarded. Is this really possible or is there an explanation lacking> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.47.36.92 (talk) 09:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Jason Malloy explains[1] it in this way:

IQs below 70 do not by themselves signify mental retardation, as it is commonly understood as a pathological state.

There are two types of retardation: familial and organic. The former is caused by normal population variation in intelligence while the latter is caused by diverse individual problems such as genetic defects or head injuries. Related to this, the IQ scores of people with familial retardation correlate normally with their parent and sibling's IQ scores (.50), while the IQ scores of people with organic retardation are not much associated with the IQs in their family.

Retardation is measured by a combination of IQ and adaptive scales. Sometimes an IQ of 70 is used as the threshold of retardation. People with familial retardation and organic retardation of matched IQ perform the same in academic and training contexts, but organically retarded individuals do worse on the adaptive scales which measure things such as self-care, motor skills, and social functioning, signifying a broader range of mental dysfunction and some sort of developmental damage.

In the US, consistent with the normal bell curve, there are proportionately about five times as many blacks (16%) with an IQ of 70 or below than there are whites (3%). But basically the same proportional number of whites and blacks are organically retarded (whites 1.5%, blacks 2.0%). (The g Factor, p 369)

The African scores indicate that there are proportionately about seventeen times as many sub-Saharan Africans with IQs below 70 (50%) than American whites (3%), and possibly even more. While organic retardation is probably somewhat higher among Africans, due to overall more challenging health conditions, this should in no way be regarded as characteristic of their normal intelligence variation.

Moreover, Lynn has estimated that the black African IQ average would be 80 or so if there was less malnutrition and disease in Africa.

--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

"Moreover, Lynn has estimated that the black African IQ average would be 80 or so if there was less malnutrition and disease in Africa."

I find that claim hard to believe. Then what would be the IQ of North Korea if there was less malnutrition? North Korea already has the world's 3rd highest IQ with 106. Impoversished countries like North Korea, Mongolia, and Afghanistan (which is even more impoverished than Africa and also war torned) all have high IQs. Also consider that South Africa is a very well developed country yet only has an average population IQ of 72. These cases suggest that the claim the poverty causes low IQ scoring is false. NationalGeographicFan2009 (talk) 00:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is about what appears in the book and what reliable sources say about the book. Whether or not we believe that Lynn pulled the numbers out of his ass is irrel. -- The Red Pen of Doom 05:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind that IQ results for North Korea would inevitably be provided by the North Korean government, and thus are of dubious validity. 75.76.213.106 (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

No, according to the table the numbers for North Korea have been "estimated". Actually, it looks like they didn't bother estimating anything and just copied and pasted the numbers for South Korea. Laurent (talk) 19:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Removal of chart of numbers for all nations

In addition to be a target for vandals and nearly impossible to verify correct content, the complete chart of scores assigned to nations by the authors is completely unnecessary and gives to a non-careful reader of the chart the impression that the numbers are more than a poorly gathered, frequently estimated comparison of data in ways that real scholars laugh at.

A text discussion of specific data points that have been covered by third party sources could be appropriate, but the complete chart is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article about the book. -- The Red Pen of Doom 04:38, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Stop deleting the data. You can't decide all by yourself that most of the article must go. If you worry that some people might misinterpret the chart, you can write a section before it where the way the data were gathered and estimated is discussed. The numbers are the crux of L&V's argument, and a very useful reference, so I think they should stay. They are what interests most people about the book. If the "real scholars™" are critical of the data, you can add their views to the article.

I've been watching this article for a long time, and the problem with vandals is minor. In any case, the correct approach to vandalism is not to delete the content in question. Otherwise lots of controversial stuff would have to be excised from Wikipedia.

--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:59, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

"the numbers are the crux of L&V's argument," no - the numbers are presumably what L&V based their argument on (although the irratatic sourcing and estimation of the numbers could lead one to believe that the selection of numbers was based to support the arguement) the "crux of their argument" is how they interpret the numbers. It is not the purpose of an encyclopedia article to provide the database on which an argument is based - it is to reflect a summary of the interpretations and claims that L&V have put forward in their book and the impact and reaction that the book has garnered.

The fact that the numbers are vandal targets is not in itself a reason to remove them, but when combined with the fact that the numbers should not be in the article to begin with, AND the fact that with the title of the book and thus our article, a causal reader may be drawn to the chart and make the gravely mistaken assumption that the numbers are something other than the bits of gathered and estimated by L&V for their chart is compelling reason to remove the content from the article.-- The Red Pen of Doom 01:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Nothing in WP:NOT suggests that the chart should not be included in the article. Aside from WP:NOTCENSORED, the only thing there relevant to us here is this bit:

Excessive listing of statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. In cases where this may be necessary, (e.g. Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008), consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists.

So, as long as the numbers are put in proper context, their presence does not in any way violate Wikipedia guidelines. I added some explanatory notes before the chart.

--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Even given that what you are quoting has any relevance to the arguement at hand about the actual encyclopedic basis for including this list of stats, Where is any "explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader."? All we have is an expansive listing of stats in a "neat" chart form. -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:49, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing

I have posted a bibliography of Intelligence Citations for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research and to suggest new sources to me by comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Update needed

New IQ values for 41 countries are available: http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2010_lynn.html | Giornorosso (talk) 19:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant information in the lead

This edit [2] added information about one of the authors that isn't relevant to this book. You might as well mention the fact that he ALSO sits on the board for the journals Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences. Choosing to mention the Pioneer Fund but nothing else creates an NPOV issue for the article. The other author of the book is introduced only by where and what he teaches, so Lynn should be treated the same. The introduction was more concise and more neutral before this edit, so I think it should be reverted. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 05:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)