IQ and Genetics: The numbers don't add up

[abhinay]

Hi all,

 

I heard Stef's podcast with Helmuth Nyborg and started to look into the data myself to confirm what they had been talking about. To give a summary, Professor Nyborg prescribes the advances of Western Civilisation and Democracy to greater IQs amongst the Northern Europeans and predicts that greater immigration from the Middle East will dillute the average IQ in Europe, uses Denmark as an example, and predicts that by 2050 the average IQ of Denmark will fall below 90 and democracy in the country will start to fall apart as democracies do not exist in countries that have an average IQ of below 90.

 

That all sounds plausible and goes a long way to explaining the state of the world. Until you start to look at the data, and this is the bit I'm struggling with and maybe someone on here can show me what I'm missing as I'm seeing more exceptions to the conclusions reached by Professor Nyborg then the opposite.

 

Most sites I found on Google for IQ data by country had similar numbers so I'm trusting sites such as this one as reliable sources of data.

 

Some glaring examples:

 

India has an Avg. IQ of 82 and is one of the largest democracy in the world

 

Democracy in Eastern European countries has only been a recent concept and in the case of countries like Russia, which an Avg. IQ of 97 (similar to USA) democracy is staged and doesn't really exist.

 

And historically Eastern Europe hasn't exactly been a great place to live.

 

China has an Avg. IQ of 100, one of the highest in the world, and they too are no models of democracy or civilisation, just take a look at the Where to be born Index, the Corruption Perception Index, or the Quality of Life index

 

So what's going on here? High IQs make for better countries and better democracies doesn't seem to hold up once you start to look at the numbers worldwide.

 

If you just looked at China and India, they are 35% of the World's population. So 35% of the World's population are in direct conflict with Professor Nyborg's conclusions. Surely this invalidates his conclusions.

 

What am I missing?

 

Abs

 

[Mister Mister]

It's necessary but not sufficient.

 

right, Germany and Japan have high IQs, but were not nice places to live 80-90 years ago. 

sure India is a democracy, but my understanding is they have massive problems with corruption and multiculturalism.  we think of corruption as Hillary Clinton lying about e-mails, or GW Bush giving no-bid oil contracts to Halleburton - in India corruption means having to bribe 5 different government workers just to get a driver's license.

[st434u]

Well, democracy is the worst possible form of government, as it creates an increasing progression towards the total State, and therefore total chaos. Look up Democracy: The God That Failed in your favorite book store. Or you could just take Karl Marx's word for it. He said that true socialism will not be achieved through violent revolution, but through democracy. And he was right.

 

So if anything you could say that a high IQ society is necessary to make democracy somewhat sustainable, enough that it won't completely collapse in three or four generations. But it will eventually fall apart nevertheless.

[rosencrantz]

There are three somewhat dependent factors that determine how well a society under any form of government will work:

 

- IQ

- Guilt or Shame culture

- High or low trust society

The least functional societies are low IQ,shame and low trust societies. The most succesful ones are high IQ, guilt driven and high trust societies. If a government is a democracy, a monarchy, a dictatorship, or a minarchist republic doesn't matter as much as the composition of the people being governed.

[abhinay]

Yes India has corruption, but so do high IQ countries like China.

 

The point of my post was, maybe I should have been clearer, that Professor Nyborg's conclusions were too black and white, it is more complicated then what he made out. Denmark is not doomed and will not turn into a dictatorship in 2050 if all you're looking at is IQ.

 

There are multiple factors at play, we need to identify them and also take them into account.

[st434u]

There are three somewhat dependent factors that determine how well a society under any form of government will work:

 

- IQ

- Guilt or Shame culture

- High or low trust society

 

The least functional societies are low IQ,shame and low trust societies. The most succesful ones are high IQ, guilt driven and high trust societies. If a government is a democracy, a monarchy, a dictatorship, or a minarchist republic doesn't matter as much as the composition of the people being governed.

 

Qatar has a low average IQ (78 is one score I've seen), and I don't know about the other 2 criteria but I suppose you would say they have shame. They have the highest per-capita income in the world. They also happen to have one of the few remaining monarchies in the world.

 

Yes India has corruption, but so do high IQ countries like China.

 

When laws are bad, corruption is good. Corruption in it's essence is the lack of enforcement for certain laws at certain times and for certain people. When you have millions of different laws, most of which shouldn't exist, this is a benefit. Of course it would be much better if you didn't have as many laws, or if all laws that existed were good, and then corruption would be bad.

 

Or to put it another way, corrupt enforcement of a bad law (such as the laws against certain types of trade) is good, while corrupt enforcement of a good law (such as the laws against murder) is bad.

 

There is an argument to be made that corruption allows for bad laws to continue to exist because it prevents people from revolting, while still maintaining the ability of the government to arbitrarily and selectively enforce those laws against those they don't like. That's a fair argument, but I think overall, there are much more benefits to be gained from corruption than detriments, for the average person in an average democratic country nowadays.

 

There are multiple factors at play, we need to identify them and also take them into account.

I agree.

 

And in this context, let us also remember that it was european western societies that brought the world the plagues of democracy and socialism (which as I see them are two sides of the same coin), and this is the only time in all of history that humanity's very existence has been threatened. I'm all for identifying the effects of IQ in improvements in the standard of living, and for recognizing the achievements of the caucasian race and all the good it has brought to the world, and but let's also acknowledge the woes it brought to the world. High intelligence can give you power, but there is no saying whether you will use that power for good or for evil. Some of the worst people in the world are highly intelligent. Like any other physical trait such as beauty or strenght, we shouldn't worship intelligence. It's a good trait to have and aim for, but it doesn't in and of itself represent nor create everything good.

[rosencrantz]

They have the highest per-capita income in the world. They also happen to have one of the few remaining monarchies in the world.

 

What did you forget that they have too? 

 

And despite all the oil and gas they have, their median household income (a better measure for wealth than average income) is between Belgium and Slovenia, two countries that have to actually get something done for their money.

[st434u]

What did you forget that they have too? 

 

And despite all the oil and gas they have, their median household income (a better measure for wealth than average income) is between Belgium and Slovenia, two countries that have to actually get something done for their money.

 

It bothers me when people use excuses like that. "Oh they have oil, so they are rich". Oil is just one natural resource, it doesn't mean that you automatically become wealthy. Look at Venezuela, higher average IQ than Qatar, they have lots of oil PLUS plenty of other natural resources which qataris don't have access to, and people are starving and constantly having to fight each other for food every time the next government food delivery truck arrives at the local public food distribution center. They have a democracy.

 

The median household income includes a very large number of foreign workers who are just living there temporarily because there's plenty of jobs available which are much better than the ones they could find in their countries of birth. Most of them haven't had time to accumulate wealth or skills. That's why that statistic is worse.

[rosencrantz]

Oil is just one natural resource, it doesn't mean that you automatically become wealthy.

 

What other resources does Qatar have in terms of the BNP? If you combine the industrial output of the Arabian peninsula together, it's about the same size as Finland's economy. And Finland only produces tires and Angry Birds. 

 

 

Look at Venezuela, higher average IQ than Qatar, they have lots of oil PLUS plenty of other natural resources which qataris don't have access to

 

Venezuela is the outlier due to the socialist nature of South America. The other exception where oil ressources didn't lead to a better living standard is the UK where the Northsea Oil was used to finance a housing bubble. 

 

 

They have a democracy

 

The smart Europeans in Norway put the money in a fund. So the democracy is not the deciding factor. Rather, it's the genetic make up of South America.

 

The median household income includes a very large number of foreign workers who are just living there temporarily 

 

It doesn't, like a quick search would have shown you. Foreign workers constitute about 90% of all the people living in Qatar. Thus, their median income would directly be the national median income if they had been included in the statistics. If you invest 2 minutes of your time you would have noticed that the foreign worker's income is way below 25 000$. 

 

 

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/international/qatar-construction-workers-earn-55c-an-hour-1.1881868

 

That article uses Qatari sources and says that each Nepali sends 2500$ in remittances. 

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2015/08/17/3692197/qatar-migrant-wages-wps/

 

From other sources we know that foreign workers send a lot of the money they earn back home, since this is the very reason they left their home country. This means, that they make about 5000$ yearly, if you use different countries with foreign workers as a model. 

 

If those numbers were included in median household income, the numbers would be drastically lower, no matter which source you use. Furthermore, these foreign workers are not Qatari citizens so their wages (if they are paid at all) aren't recorded in official documents until very recently (and under foreign pressure).

[Invicta]

As I see it, civilization is a result of increasing population density forcing alpha males to redistribute women to low value men in exchange for their blue collar labor and submission.   Either government corruption or female promiscuity can easily disturb this balance.  If the government is corrupt then the lower rungs of men become more impoverished and in a post women's rights world no women will breed with them.  If female sexual morality degrades then human mating reverts to a more natural harem structure with the majority of women controlled by an alpha minority.  In either case, the average men lose the drive to work hard and society is no longer maintained. Either scenario leads to rising societal frustration, increased criminality, and eventual invasion by a society with a more optimal distribution of women to the beta males.

 

It is likely that higher societal IQ makes it harder for politicians to be corrupt and thus leads to a stronger civilization.  However, increased affluence for too long

tends to make people weak and the lack of danger causes men to submit to women's desires.  This leads to women being allowed to revert to seeking alpha genetics and thus unrolls the fabric of society: The blue collar labor of inferior men.