I should have gotten around to posting on this before, but here, via Steve Hsu, is the 2009 paper The impact of smart fractions, cognitive ability of politicians and average competences of peoples on social development by Heiner Rindermann, Michael Sailer (no know relation), and James Thompson.
To test La Griffe du Lion's "smart fraction" theory, they first synthesize a large number of results from international school achievement tests (PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS), then convert them to an IQ-like scale where Britain has a mean of 100 and the standard deviation is 15. (They don't use Lynn and Vanhanen's database of IQ tests, but Rindermann previously showed strong correlations between L & V's numbers and performance on international school achievement tests. Just looking through this data from international school achievement tests, it's remarkable how few surprises there are if you are familiar with Lynn and Vanhanen's data from IQ tests.
The most notable difference that jumps out at me is that the Irish do fine on school achievement tests (100), where they've done mediocre on some IQ tests, which I never quite believed. It might be worth investigating this discordance. For some reason, I'm reminded of the story of the English traveler in County Kerry who asks the Irish stationmaster why the clock at the north end of the railway station platform says 12:00 and the clock at the south end of the platform says 12:10: "And what would we be needing two clocks for if they both told the same time?" says the Irishman.
There are big concerns about school achievement tests, such as clarity of translations. Or, what does it mean to test fourth graders? For example, Finland doesn't start kids at regular school until seven. And how do we know the tests are nationally representative? And how do we know how hard the kids worked on the tests? Rindermann's aware of these problems (see his 2007 paper) and he's given it a pretty good shot at working out adjustments. But, the point is that we shouldn't put too much weight on any single number. For example, the Kazakhstan score is based on a single test of a single grade for a single year. (Rindermann should try to come up with a way to summarize how many datapoints he has for each country.)
The most notable difference that jumps out at me is that the Irish do fine on school achievement tests (100), where they've done mediocre on some IQ tests, which I never quite believed. It might be worth investigating this discordance. For some reason, I'm reminded of the story of the English traveler in County Kerry who asks the Irish stationmaster why the clock at the north end of the railway station platform says 12:00 and the clock at the south end of the platform says 12:10: "And what would we be needing two clocks for if they both told the same time?" says the Irishman.
There are big concerns about school achievement tests, such as clarity of translations. Or, what does it mean to test fourth graders? For example, Finland doesn't start kids at regular school until seven. And how do we know the tests are nationally representative? And how do we know how hard the kids worked on the tests? Rindermann's aware of these problems (see his 2007 paper) and he's given it a pretty good shot at working out adjustments. But, the point is that we shouldn't put too much weight on any single number. For example, the Kazakhstan score is based on a single test of a single grade for a single year. (Rindermann should try to come up with a way to summarize how many datapoints he has for each country.)
Since these tests report performance at the 5th and 95th percentiles, we can see not only the means but also the performance at the top and bottom by countries. Here, for example, is the last page of their results, Singapore to Yugoslavia/Serbia.
Singapore, a high-income high-cost, well-administered city-state, has the highest school achievement test scores in the world at their 95th percentile. It would be interesting to compare a metropolitan area, such as Silicon Valley, to Singapore. Judging by National Merit Scholar awards, the southern half of Silicon Valley would blow away even Singapore at the 95th percentile.
They write:
The highest values for the smart fractions are found in East Asia (1. Singapore IQ 127, 2. South Korea IQ 125, 3. Japan IQ 124, 5. Taiwan IQ 123, 9. Hong Kong IQ 122). A similar result was found in psychometric (average) intelligence or in student assessment studies (see Rindermann, 2007a). Different from the SAS, Scandinavia reaches in the cognitive elite not such a good rank (11. Finland IQ 121, 12. Estonia IQ 121 [the Baltics are added here], 16. Sweden IQ 120, 25. Denmark IQ 118, 34. Latvia IQ 117, 38. Lithuania IQ 116, 39. Iceland IQ 116, 41. Norway IQ 116). Maybe a homogenizing educational policy furthering weaker but disadvantaging high ability pupils leads to a smaller standard deviation and lower values for a gifted subgroup. Better are the traditional Commonwealth countries (5. New Zealand IQ 123, 7. Australia IQ 122 and 8. United Kingdom with IQ 122). They are followed by Western and Eastern European and North American countries, by South European countries, Arab or Muslim and Latin American countries and finally by sub-Saharan countries.
Most of the Gulf Arab countries do awful, but United Arab Emirates does quite well (mean 92).
The countries with the lowest results [at the 95th percentile] are 84. Botswana (IQ 96), 85. Saudi-Arabia (IQ 95), 86. Morocco (IQ 95), 87. Kyrgyzstan (IQ 94), 88. Belize (IQ 90), 89. Ghana (IQ 89) and 90. Yemen (IQ 84). Presumably many not participating countries would have lower values.Some astonishing results are observable like the high level of Kazakhstan (6., IQ 122) and the comparatively low for Israel (31., IQ 118, mean 93).
You mean, we were lied to by the movie Borat?
For Kazakhstan we have only results from TIMSS 2007 (4th grade); Mullis et al. (2008, p. 34) describe sample anomalies, a correction would be necessary. Israel has participated in several studies, compared to older studies and [for?] Jews in the Western World the results are deteriorating (e.g. Lynn & Longley, 2006). Most probably multiple reasons are responsible and not only the 20% fraction of Arabs (a thorough analysis would be necessary).
Israel's score at the 95th percentile is ahead of Norway's, so it's not that bad, but Long Island would probably do better. Israel is a country where Zionist intellectuals designed a populist, non-intellectual culture, so smart kids don't get as much cultural backing in Israel as in other parts of the Jewish diaspora.
There are also characteristic differences between mean, upper and lower levels. For instance between Canada and USA there is no difference in the upper level (IQ 120 and 120), but in the lower level (IQ 80 and 75). The past history of slavery and a different immigration policy (or different success of migration policies and geographical distance to societies with lower mean abilities) may be reflected into this difference. A similar pattern could be found for Finland and Germany: The difference in the upper level is only 1.20 IQ-points (IQ 121 and 120), but at the lower level 9.60 IQ-points (IQ 85 and 76). Most likely different immigration histories are reflected here, furthermore differences in educational policy (age of tracking, in Germany between age 10 and 12, in Finland at age 16). Early tracking increases ability variance.
I presume Thilo Sarrazin was thinking about results like this? It would be fun to see Jurgen Habermas respond to Rindermann.
Using regression analysis (as predictors mean and lower level) the largest residual (standing for difference between upper level and the rest) is found in South Africa (with its heterogeneous population of European, Asian and African descent), inverted the largest residual (standing for difference between lower level and the rest) is found in Belgium (probably a result of immigration and educational policy).
A few other notes: Armenia has a low bottom but a decent high end, close to Norway and Belgium. Armenia scores better than Georgia. Oddly, Azerbaijan beats Armenia at the bottom but has a very poor top.
Ireland, which has lagged in some IQ tests in the past, does fine (99.9), almost exactly the same as the U.K. (by definition, 100.0).
Mexico does crummy (65, 85, 105). If you want to complain about teacher's unions, start with Mexico, where teachers have a hereditary right to pass their jobs down to their offspring! Mexico ought to be able to bump these numbers up. Brazil is another country with a weak high end (105).
China and India aren't on the list.
Estonia and Finland, neither of which has many immigrants, have about the narrowest 5th to 95th percentile gaps among smart countries: 36 points. In contrast, Japan, which we like to think of as homogeneous, is 41 points, Taiwan 41, South Korea 39, Hong Kong 38, and Singapore 48.
South Korea (106) has the highest mean and highest 5th percentile (86).
They go on to evaluate La Griffe's Smart Fraction theory. Also, here's Rindermann's 2007 paper, with responses.
Ireland, which has lagged in some IQ tests in the past, does fine (99.9), almost exactly the same as the U.K. (by definition, 100.0).
Mexico does crummy (65, 85, 105). If you want to complain about teacher's unions, start with Mexico, where teachers have a hereditary right to pass their jobs down to their offspring! Mexico ought to be able to bump these numbers up. Brazil is another country with a weak high end (105).
China and India aren't on the list.
Estonia and Finland, neither of which has many immigrants, have about the narrowest 5th to 95th percentile gaps among smart countries: 36 points. In contrast, Japan, which we like to think of as homogeneous, is 41 points, Taiwan 41, South Korea 39, Hong Kong 38, and Singapore 48.
South Korea (106) has the highest mean and highest 5th percentile (86).
They go on to evaluate La Griffe's Smart Fraction theory. Also, here's Rindermann's 2007 paper, with responses.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 211 of 211http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Analysis_of_genetic_distance
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That's nice but Cavalli-Sforza's stuff is pretty old now. Limited markers and all that. Practically no modern analysis agrees with his conclusion of Eurasian genetic branching in which Northeast/East Asians sit on the same branch as Caucasoids.
Cobbling together two more modern sources (2008 and 2009):
FSTs between East Asians - http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/12/genetic-structure-in-east-asia-using.html. Cambodian and Chinese FST is 0.0136 and Chinese and Filipino FST is 0.0140. Koreans, Mongolians, Vietnamese/Japanese are less similar to Chinese in that order.
FSTs within Europe and some Middle Eastern populations - http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/08/refinement-of-ancestry-informative.html. FST between Italians and Bedouins is 0.0079 while FST between Swedes and
Bedouins is 0.0204 (Sardinians, Russians and Basques show higher FST with the Middle East).
So higher between Arabs* and some Europeans than between Chinese and South East Asians, lower between Arabs and other Europeans than between Chinese and South East Asians.
*assuming the Bedouins are an OK proxy and if not there are Palestinians in the sample too, and they don't look too difference
Not that this means anything in particularly relating to IQ...
"Southeast Asian" is both a geographic and ethnic/racial term.
There's a genetic division between Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians. The genetic distance between these two is greater than the genetic distance between European Caucasians and non-European Caucasians. This division extends into China as well, as there is a division between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese.
You could amalgamate these groups and call this larger group "East Asians," "Orientals," "Asians," or whatever.
Just as you could amalgamate European Caucasians and non-European Caucasians from North Africa, the Mideast, the stans, etc. and call this larger group "Caucasians."
Jews have more mojo than white gentiles. Enough so that they perform much better than IQ would indicate. I believe their mean IQ is often put in the 108-111 range, but their performance suggests something even a few points higher.
More impressively, Jews aren't even known for being grinds, instead choosing to involve themselves in all sorts of political activism and non-economic/non-academic extracirriculuras. Their higher performance, I'd guess, comes from a high level of inventiveness and ingenuity, which may be why they win so many Nobel Prizes.
For example, the Syrian Jews aren't especially intellectual, but they are very wealthy in NYC. Same is true for Persian Jews in LA. Perhaps the same is true for Israel, which has a medicore mean IQ and yet is solidly first world - and can easily compete with the East Asian powerhouses.
For the Jews, with a large proportion of unproductive Arabs and Orthodox, to build Israel into a Middle Eastern economic oasis takes serious talent.
Jewish political activism skews our foreign and domestic policy in less than optimal ways, but as people they tend to be really smart, driven, passionate, good at getting things done, and adept at thinking outside the box. America has benefited economically and technologically from the large waves of Eastern European Ashkenazim that've come here, but politically not so much.
Anyone with an actual degree in pure math here?!?!?!
No one with any intelligence could take the static data behind the smart fraction theory with any credence.
Sailer, you are pathetic. If you want to debate real mathematics, look me up. ;). For real, and let's post it on your blog.
What about amalgamating all the East Asians? Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam are all "East Asian" rather than "South-East Asian".
Lol at the desperate white nationalist geography. No one uses that definition of East Asian.
the Syrian Jews aren't especially intellectual, but they are very wealthy in NYC. Same is true for Persian Jews in LA. Perhaps the same is true for Israel, which has a medicore mean IQ and yet is solidly first world - and can easily compete with the East Asian powerhouses.
Does that mean we can finally stop giving them money?
Jews have more mojo than white gentiles. Enough so that they perform much better than IQ would indicate. I believe their mean IQ is often put in the 108-111 range, but their performance suggests something even a few points higher
Jewish IQ is not "often" put at 108-111. And Jewish success in the West owes a great deal to their habit of favoring other Jews. It's difficult to understate just how ethnocentric Jews are. I know a good many Jews in real life and have observed some quite astounding behavior among them. One Jewish guy I know made the mistake of taking in a non-Jewish foster child with the view to adaption. He was shunned by many of his Jewish friends and heavily criticized by the rest.
By white European standards (and Jews are in fact a subset of white Europeans) Jews are staggeringly tribalistic. It's been said that they "vote like Puerto Ricans but earn like Episcopalians". But Jews do more than just vote like Puerto Ricans, they share their sense of group solidarity.
The usual pattern in America has been that as poor ethnic groups become wealthier, they lose much of their sense of group identity. Eighty years ago poor Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Greek-Americans were all about as ethnocentric as the Jewish-Americans. But they've largely lost that trait as they've moved up the socio-economic ladder while Jews have retained it.
In a blow for libertarian economic ideals, it turns out that this behavior is economically advantageous for those groups which practice it.
"What about amalgamating all the East Asians? Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam are all "East Asian" rather than "South-East Asian"."
Lol at the desperate white nationalist geography. No one uses that definition of East Asian.
I guess you must be asian. In my experience, that's the "working definition" everyone uses. The average non-asian is hardly likely to be able to tell the difference between, say, thais and chinese, or to consider it important. ("They all look the same.")
Dragan, thanks for the math olympics data. Would you agree that it's not very illuminating? Do you really think the average Bulgarian is as much better at math than the average Macedonian -- people of more or less the same stock and with really only dialectical differences in their tongue -- as suggested by your list? If the actual, real-world difference in ability between a score <10 and a score >50 is so negligible then smaller test disparities are hardly likely to be indicative of anything at all.
"I've noticed this about blacks. Even ones who may not be intelligent are fabulously good talkers."
Gypsies too. Come to think of it, most of the really bad students at my school were extroverted, talkative, humorous and socially savvy. Perhaps these are all people who are more adapted genetically to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Here's the rub. How can anyone take the smart fraction theory regarding verbal ability and Asians seriously? That is not to say, that on average, East Asians may have certain genetic advantages or disadvantages in certain intellectual areas relative to Caucasians; but how can anyone remotely intelligent and educated take the data supporting La Griffe's hypothesis seriously (e.g. examine the correlation of his hypothesis using data from 100, 50, 25 years ago--not to mention 100 years from now in the future from projected data--and his theory is not worth the toilet paper Oprah wipes her ass on.
While I can't read minds, I would bet my life that La Griffe and Sailer both are aware of these glaring deficiencies. It makes me sick that the simplistic statistical math (i.e intro or perhaps advanced stats for UNDERGRAD math majors) used by La Griffe lends itself the patina of credibility of authority for the majority of mathematically clueless viewers who come across his blog.
Carl...
how can anyone remotely intelligent and educated take the data supporting La Griffe's hypothesis seriously (e.g. examine the correlation of his hypothesis using data from 100, 50, 25 years ago
Your content-free histrionic shaming attempt perfectly illustrates your point.
You yourself are probably remotely intelligent and educated yet don't believe in any link between a nation's achievement and the talent level of it's population.
To see that obvious link, you'd also have to be a dispassionate observer, value truth and be an independent thinker in today's intolerant PC world. Headless masses like yourselves have been willing executioners for conventional dogma throughout history.
You wouldn't trust a kid with a 103IQ to be your engineer, really? I can't believe I'm reading this. You actually think IQ is a *perfect* predictor of one's innate potential? Maybe the person with the 103IQ will have to work harder than the kid with the 115 IQ, but assuming motivation is part of the equation, there is no reason why a person with a 103IQ can't be a competent engineer. There is no reason to assume this number means one doesn't have the *capacity* to be a good doctor, a good engineer, a good scientist...
Feynman achieved much more than his "g" predicted, why can't anyone else?
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