Diverse Intelligences

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/02/world-of-difference-richard-lynn-maps.php#2.01

The link is to a lengthy review of a book called Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. I have not read the book, but the reviewer (Malloy) seems a better scholar than the author (Lynn). The main advantage I might derive from looking through the book would be a clearer estimate of the quality of the studies on which the book is based. Distinguishing valid from invalid studies is necessary for scientific progress in any field.

The most obvious and one of the most important points of superiority Malloy evinces over the author is in his discussion of IQ difference between American whites and blacks. It has run at about 15-17 points consistently among various IQ tests and over the course of decades since first tested during World War I. This is roughly a standard deviation. Its real world effects are seen most clearly in differential academic performance, which are more pronounced even than the IQ difference itself (the anti-intellectualism of black American culture and the greater prevalence of poverty among blacks exacerbating the deficit). Thus, this issue is of consequence to America. But, it has, as well, major ramifications for black Africa. Finding the cause ought therefore to be a priority, since it may be remediable. Lynn apparently claims the black American IQ deficit is entirely due to genetics. As Malloy points out (facts well-known to me), there are several environmental factors that may be more detrimental to blacks than whites. He mentions low rates of breast-feeding among blacks compared to whites--studies have shown that more breast-feeding reliably increases intelligence by a few points. I would also note that blacks experience higher lead exposure, which limits IQ potential. Though there is some interesting evidence for Lynn's pure genetics claim (especially the very limited range of black IQ found in various developed nations--average IQs range from 83 to 87 among American, Canadian, Dutch, and British blacks), nevertheless the counterevidence I just mentioned, when added to our imperfect understanding of the environmental determinants of IQ, ought to extinguish his certainty. As I said in a previous post, the science currently points to a combination of nature and nurture as the explanation.

Even Lynn concedes that black Africans, with IQs averaging 67, suffer severe effects from a harsh environment--he calculates the environment costs them 13 points. For those of us who estimate the genetic potential of blacks as higher than 80, as I do and Malloy appears to, the cost is even more brutal. I would estimate it at 18 points. But, whether it amounts to 13 or 18 points, it's a terrible toll. The link between the development of a modern civilization and the average IQ of the population seems a matter of mere common sense. Play out the African bell curve and you find that only 2% of Africans have IQs over 97. In the modern world there are an awful lot of vital things people with sub-97 IQs cannot do--engineering, management of businesses and governments and militaries, programming, entrepreneurship, much of banking and finance, much of medicine, etc. Lynn wrote a useful book on this issue called IQ and the Wealth of Nations. I am disgusted by the ignorance and hypocrisy of those who dismiss the international importance of IQ. Almost every problem poor nations face could be solved by development--but this requires intelligence--sine qua non. The "Wealth of Nations" book has, however, had some influence, as Malloy reminds us: "the 'Copenhagen Consensus', ranked improving micronutrient levels as the second most important action to help the developing world. The impact of nutrition on intelligence was a prominent part of their argument, with 54 references to the word 'cognitive' and 10 references to 'IQ' (Jones 2005)."

As to the evolutionary theory Lynn presents for racial IQ differences, his idea is that people who evolved in the last two ice ages at a higher latitude evolved higher intelligence as a necessary adaptation to a harsher environment. The evolutionary logic is clear, but more evidence is needed. I was surprised by a powerful correlation that Malloy notes: "skin pigmentation (mostly a record of evolutionary latitude according to recent evidence) has a very strong correlation with intelligence, .92." This is shocking. On the other hand, one might wonder whether the poverty and malnutrition prevalent among the darker races in their tropical climes constitutes a cause or a result of low IQ. I suspect both, that is, a low IQ causes a poor environment which contributes to low IQ--a vicious circle, in effect.

I enjoy making educated guesses. They involve the mind in such challenges as absorbing new information, ordering and organizing it, identifying biases in the information and in one's mind, deducing the completeness of the information. I think Lynn's theory is correct, that there is a cline of intelligence influenced by the latitude at which evolution occurred--but, I also think there are other genetic factors in racial differences and highly significant environmental differences. The main point of this whole investigation is to find out what are the environmental factors in IQ--finding the genetic factors is useful only to that end, since we are not yet in a position to modify genes. The maximum of racial IQ differences (eg, NE Asian vs black African) seems to be 20-25 points under equalized developmental conditions. It may be lower than that. I posit that a twenty point difference between societies constitutes a difference in kind, not of degree. For example, comparing a healthy black African society with an average IQ of 80 and a European society with an average IQ of 100 (presuming racial homogeneity in each), one discovers that in the IQ range of 130+ which is a precondition for technical innovation the Africans would be outnumbered by a ratio of at least 70 to 1. They would be outgunned in many other fields as well: commercial competition, scientific research, espionage--but, almost every aspect of modern society is dependent upon the intelligence of its members. See: http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf

Also, there may be numerically small groups who make exceptions to this limit. For example, Ashkenazi Jews have IQs estimated anywhere from 103 to 115 under developed conditions. African Bushmen and Australian Aborigines are about 54 and 62 under undeveloped conditions. Under equal conditions these relatively small groups might still be 30-40 points apart. Much more research remains to be done, probably led by the Chinese given Western "moral" reservations (I would call them immoral reservations). The research ought to focus on remediation among the poor, as the Copenhagen conventions implicity recommended, since this is the most feasible near term goal. But, with a Chinese lead it looks to go a different way, toward the fashioning of genetically engineered or pharmaceutically powered super intelligence--which, though it might not be cost-effective from a global perspective, is much after my own taste.