There is an increasing interest and research on the relationship between intelligence or western IQ and the wealth of nations. Some of this research has taken a very sad and racist perspectives that needs very close attention. The attached is a communication between scholars around the world about a recent such paper and the review of the case of Racist Black Intellectual Genocide over the years to make a case for such ingenous and yet disturbing analysis.
Please read on for your information and intelligent alternative perspective.
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc
Global Partnership for Peace and Prosperity
www.SolomonicCrown.org, www.Globalbelai4u.blogspot.com
Globalbelai@yahoo.com
Dear Girma:
Thank you very much for your excellent paper towards this great effort to un do what this moronic researcher is trying to do.
Here is a list of papers complied for your information
Thank you and keep in touch.
Belai
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc; e-mail:globalbelai@yahoo.com; Telephone: 703 933 8737
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic message, including any attachment(s), is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. .
bstract:
Wilkinson contends that economic inequality reduces the health and life expectancy of the whole population but his argument does not make sense within its own evolutionary framework.
Recent evolutionary psychological theory suggests that the human brain, adapted to the ancestral environment, has difficulty comprehending and dealing with entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment and that general intelligence evolved as a domain-specific adaptation to solve evolutionarily novel problems.
Since most dangers to health in the contemporary society are evolutionarily novel, it follows that more intelligent individuals are better able to recognize and deal with such dangers and live longer.
Consistent with the theory, the macro-level analyses show that income inequality and economic development have no effect on life expectancy at birth, infant mortality and age-specific mortality net of average intelligence quotient (IQ) in 126 countries.
They also show that an average IQ has a very large and significant effect on population health but not in the evolutionarily familiar sub-Saharan Africa. At the micro level, the General Social Survey data show that, while both income and intelligence have independent positive effects on self-reported health, intelligence has a stronger effect than income.
The data collectively suggest that individuals in wealthier and more egalitarian societies live longer and stay healthier, not because they are wealthier or more egalitarian but because they are more intelligent. No way!
Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1348/135910705X69842
Affiliations: 1: Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 2:46:16 PM
Subject: Re: EthioForum: Ethiopia making Good Progress to MDG says World Bank-170/177, MELES ' ETHNO-APARTHEID REGIME WITH THE WORST HUMAN DEV'T INDEX
Here is the update on the Ethiopioan IQ Saga: Mosad did the IQ on Ethiopian Jews in the early 70s and left at 63 which is moderately retarded in the medical world.
All Ethiopian Scientists have to teach this Japanese researcher at LSE to do his due deligence and infact we should ensure he goes to Addis and meet Prof Andreas and others at Haile Sellassie I and Addis Ababa University- before he publishes any thing on Ethiopia again. He needs to do his field work first !
Dear Ms Gibson
London School of Economics
University of London, UK
Re: It is not IQ It is the biological and physical environment Stupid! That impacts the health of nations.
I read with interest and some level of disgust by the assumption of IQ as defined by Western Culture to define the competence of Africans and especially Ethiopians as mentioned in this article.
I would like to challenge the Cultural and Competency IQ of the author of this rather ridiculous and racist author. We should question the integrity and implication of such rather depressing and outmoded research and generalizations.
Imagine an Ethiopian High School Student administering a literature IQ test to all the Nobel Literature laureates on Quine and Semina Work in Amharic and in Geez even better and assessing their Quine IQ status. I am sure all of them will score 00.00 let alone this rather racist and demented Eco-psychologist of the LSE will surface on the Quine IQ square. Just imagine the class discussion on a paper presented by such Ethiopian High School student on the performance of Western Noble laureates of literature. This is the analogy of this rather disturbing paper presented to us. If you then gave the same Geez or Amharic Quine IQ test to the rest of the world and mapped the Quine IQ you will be shocked to realize that world IQ may not even reach 1% and that will be a tragedy. In effect, this is the tragedy of this paper.
I am a physician and public health scientist who have studied child development (physical and cognitive development) and evaluated research material on child survival across developing an developed countries for the past 25 years. My MPH thesis was on "Evaluating Mother and Child Health Services in Developing and Developed countries with a focus on Perinatal Survival of children in developing and developed countries.
My research indicates that child survival is dependent on two key determinants, both relevant to the situation of the mother. Biological marker of maternal birth weight that is also dependent on the pool of matriarchal birth weights for generations. This in effect defines the genetic pool reserve as well as the weight and gestation of the pregnancy at birth.
The second critical issue is environmental and behavioral and that is the educational status of the mother. This education could be cultural, environmental and empirical as it relates to the survival of the child. This in effect means a well adjusted and educated mother will ensure the survival of her offspring by either ensuring her own socio-economic and cultural environment by either producing the appropriate environments or by organizing the environment around her for the child to succeed and survive.
Where cultural or empirical IQ will really matters is on the social and economic paradigm more than the biological environment.
That is why it is commonly said that: 鈥淚f you educate a man, you educate one person; but if you educate a woman, you educate a family, the home, the community and the nation at large. If you educate both then hey can educate the world!
It is clear that a child born in Africa has more opportunities for challenging immunological experiences than a child born in Europe or North America . Talk to Madonna who is not a scientist but has definitely a much more higher IQ than your author about the chances of the survival of her newly adopted Malawian son.
The African environment is hostile as it is very conducive to the survival of micro-organisms that are pathogenic to humans than it is in the temperate climate. We now know in current medical research almost all diseases are associated with the competence of our immune system' s ability to differentiate between self and non self.
Infections manifest themselves in many forms and most of the Cardiovascular and chronic diseases including cancers are closely associated with our body's response to viral and other microbial infections. This is true of Cancer of the Stomach, Peptic Acid Disease, Cardio-vascular accidents and even degenerative disorders. Science is giving us the opportunity to identify the inter-relatedness of most chronic conditions and our immune system's competency.
Our immune system is challenged by more infectious conditions in Developing and temperate climates that makes us all susceptible for continuous challenges to our immune system's response to infections and stressors in life.
In short, it is the biological and physical environment that is more critical than the IQ as suggested by your author. After all, if the Massai in Africa were to define IQ in the sense of their ability to survive in the wilds of Africa , most so called geniuses of the West and noble laureates will not last for long. So, does that mean the noble scientists have a diminishing Massai defined IQ and as such will have a short survival and quality of life in the Massai world?
Surely, this is a highly erroneous and rather racist research and you should allow alternative perspectives to be explored before you sensationalize such highly controversial research findings.
Remember! Health is not the mere absence of disease, disability and injury, but, the comprehensive wellbeing of the spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical wellbeing of an individual and the community at large. Within this larger construct, the IQ has little to do with health as much as the environment and how our system adopts to it.
All the same, I believe all human beings given the opportunity have the capacity to adopt to new skills, new challenges and opportunities, may be some faster than others but with diverse context and depth and competency.
The question is not IQ, it is rather the hostile environment at home, school, work and leisure that stresses our immune system to such an extent that our whole system collapses in the end. Even geriatric changes are now been associated to our immune system's capacity to adjust with changing age, gender, emotional and physical stressful life events we all face in our life time.
This is not yet complete science and we need to observe and expand research to understand our own body and how we adopt to changing life events.
I request your department which I believe is an Economics center to look at how education and IQ impacts wealth creation rather than delving in highly unscientific association of IQ and health.
It is the environment stupid, more than the IQ that determines our health outcome!
Having said that, nurture or nature is part of the same universe, why bother!
I trust you will consider this contribution as you make future research and line of enquiry to follow us the recent publication in your department.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be helpful. Thanking you for your attention to this matter, I remain;
Yours sincerely
Belai Habte-Jesus , MD , MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc
703.933.8737; globalbelai@hotmail.com
*****************************
Low IQs are Africa's curse, says lecturer
Researcher accused of promoting racist stereotype wins backing from LSE
Denis Campbell
Sunday November 5, 2006
The Observer
The London School of Economics is embroiled in a row over academic freedom after one of its lecturers published a paper alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries.
Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is now accused of reviving the politics of eugenics by publishing the research which concludes that low IQ levels, rather than poverty and disease, are the reason why life expectancy is low and infant mortality high. His paper, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, compares IQ scores with indicators of ill health in 126 countries and claims that nations at the top of the ill health league also have the lowest intelligence ratings.
Paul Collins, a spokesman for War On Want, the international development charity, said the research 'runs the risk of resurrecting the racist stereotype that Africans are responsible for their own plight, and may reinforce prejudices that Africans are less intelligent'.
Collins added: 'The notion that people in poor countries have inferior intelligence has been disproved by much research in the past. This is another example, which other academics will shoot down.'
Philippa Atkinson, who chairs the LSE student union's 85-strong Africa Forum and teaches in the school's Department of Government, said the paper 'reflects the now discredited theories of eugenics, which should have been left behind'.
'Eugenics was a very influential discourse for centuries,' she said. 'It's the discourse that colonialism and racism in America until the Sixties were based on, and was part of the basis of apartheid too. Nobody could prove that there are racial or national differences in IQ. It's very, very controversial to say that national IQ levels are low in Africa , and completely unproven. It's a surprise that the odd person would try to bring it back,' she said.
However, she said the research contained some interesting ideas and merited serious consideration, and stressed that academics such as Kanazawa should not be deterred from exploring controversial subjects.
The reaction to Kanazawa 's paper will reopen the simmering debate about whether academics are entitled to express opinions that many people may find offensive.
The Observer revealed last March that Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies at Leeds University , supported the Bell Curve theory, which holds that black people are less intelligent than whites. He also believed that women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men and backed the 'humane' repatriation of ethnic minorities. Initially, the university backed Ellis, despite protests by students and teaching staff, but he took early retirement in July.
Kanazawa declined to comment on either War on Want or Atkinson's allegations about reviving eugenics because, he said, other academics had come up with the national IQ scores that underpinned his analysis of 126 countries. In the paper he cites Ethiopia 's national IQ of 63, the world's lowest, and the fact that men and women are only expected to live until their mid-40s as an example of his finding that intelligence is the main determinant of someone's health.
Having examined the effects of economic development and income inequality on health, he was 'surprised' to find that IQ had a much more important impact, he said. 'Poverty, lack of sanitation, clean water, education and healthcare do not increase health and longevity, and nor does economic development.'
The LSE declined to offer any opinion on Kanazawa 's conclusions but defended his right to publish controversial research. A spokeswoman said: 'This is academic research by Dr Kanazawa based on empirical data and published in a peer-reviewed journal. People may agree or disagree with his findings and are at liberty to voice their opinions to him. The school does not take any institutional view on the work of individual academics.'
Kate Raworth, a senior researcher with Oxfam, said it was 'ridiculous' for Kanazawa to blame ill health on low IQ and 'very irresponsible' to reach such conclusions using questionable and 'fragile' international data on national IQ levels.
Rumit Shah, chairman of the LSE student union's 52-member Kenyan Society, said lack of education was probably one reason why many Kenyans die young. Aids, tuberculosis and malaria were key factors too.
Kanazawa 's article was a 'misrepresentation' of the true causes of ill health in Kenya , added Shah. 'It portrays a bad picture of Kenya , because not everyone in Kenya has an IQ of 72. If there was more education, Kenyans would be wiser about their health.'
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc;e-mail:globalbelai@yahoo.com;
Telephone: 703 933 8737; www.globabelai4u.blogspot.com
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic message, including any attachment(s), is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. .
Dorina Asmanio
Low IQs are Africa's curse, says lecturer
Researcher accused of promoting racist stereotype wins backing from LSE
Denis Campbell
Sunday November 5, 2006
The Observer
Photo Credit The London School of Economics (LSE)
The London School of Economics is embroiled in a row over academic freedom after one of its lecturers published a paper alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries.
Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is now accused of reviving the politics of eugenics by publishing the research which concludes that low IQ levels, rather than poverty and disease, are the reason why life expectancy is low and infant mortality high. His paper, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, compares IQ scores with indicators of ill health in 126 countries and claims that nations at the top of the ill health league also have the lowest intelligence ratings.
In the paper he cites Ethiopia's national IQ of 63
Paul Collins, a spokesman for War On Want, the international development charity, said the research 'runs the risk of resurrecting the racist stereotype that Africans are responsible for their own plight, and may reinforce prejudices that Africans are less intelligent'.
Collins added: 'The notion that people in poor countries have inferior intelligence has been disproved by much research in the past. This is another example, which other academics will shoot down.'
Philippa Atkinson, who chairs the LSE student union's 85-strong Africa Forum and teaches in the school's Department of Government, said the paper 'reflects the now discredited theories of eugenics, which should have been left behind'.
'Eugenics was a very influential discourse for centuries,' she said. 'It's the discourse that colonialism and racism in America until the Sixties were based on, and was part of the basis of apartheid too. Nobody could prove that there are racial or national differences in IQ. It's very, very controversial to say that national IQ levels are low in Africa , and completely unproven. It's a surprise that the odd person would try to bring it back,' she said.
However, she said the research contained some interesting ideas and merited serious consideration, and stressed that academics such as Kanazawa should not be deterred from exploring controversial subjects.
The reaction to Kanazawa 's paper will reopen the simmering debate about whether academics are entitled to express opinions that many people may find offensive.
The Observer revealed last March that Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies at Leeds University , supported the Bell Curve theory, which holds that black people are less intelligent than whites. He also believed that women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men and backed the 'humane' repatriation of ethnic minorities. Initially, the university backed Ellis, despite protests by students and teaching staff, but he took early retirement in July.
Kanazawa declined to comment on either War on Want or Atkinson's allegations about reviving eugenics because, he said, other academics had come up with the national IQ scores that underpinned his analysis of 126 countries. In the paper he cites Ethiopia 's national IQ of 63, the world's lowest, and the fact that men and women are only expected to live until their mid-40s as an example of his finding that intelligence is the main determinant of someone's health.
Having examined the effects of economic development and income inequality on health, he was 'surprised' to find that IQ had a much more important impact, he said. 'Poverty, lack of sanitation, clean water, education and healthcare do not increase health and longevity, and nor does economic development.'
The LSE declined to offer any opinion on Kanazawa 's conclusions but defended his right to publish controversial research. A spokeswoman said: 'This is academic research by Dr Kanazawa based on empirical data and published in a peer-reviewed journal. People may agree or disagree with his findings and are at liberty to voice their opinions to him. The school does not take any institutional view on the work of individual academics.'
Kate Raworth, a senior researcher with Oxfam, said it was 'ridiculous' for Kanazawa to blame ill health on low IQ and 'very irresponsible' to reach such conclusions using questionable and 'fragile' international data on national IQ levels.
Rumit Shah, chairman of the LSE student union's 52-member Kenyan Society, said lack of education was probably one reason why many Kenyans die young. Aids, tuberculosis and malaria were key factors too.
Kanazawa 's article was a 'misrepresentation' of the true causes of ill health in Kenya , added Shah. 'It portrays a bad picture of Kenya , because not everyone in Kenya has an IQ of 72. If there was more education, Kenyans would be wiser about their health.'
---------------
Contact info for Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa
s.kanazawa@lse.ac.uk
LSE phone number: 020 7955 7297
WebSite
---------------
Related Links
Average person in Ethiopia retarded? What?!
Mild mental retardation: IQ 50鈥�55 to 70
Moderate retardation: IQ 35�40 to 50�55;<5;
Severe mental retardation: IQ 20�25 to 35�40
Profoundund mental retardation: IQ below 20�25
Source: Wikipedia
-----------------------------
The British Journal of Health Psychology
Mind the gap卛n inntelligence: Re-examining the relationship between inequality and health
Author: Kanazawa , Satoshi1
Source: British Journal of Health Psychology, Volume 11, Number 4, November 2006, pp. 623-642(20)
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc; e-mail:globalbelai@yahoo.com; Telephone: 703 933 8737
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic message, including any attachment(s), is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. .
Dear All
in relation to the recent controversy of this guy from LSE. I'd like to proudly bring to your attention a forthcoming review of Dr. Girma Berhanu from Goteborg University for the controversial book "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" by Lynn and Vanhanen from which Kanazawa from LSE copied the alleged national IQ's. As recalled, Lynn and Vanhanen calculated 63 as the national IQ of Ethiopia (the lowest in the world) and it turns out that they did so on the basis of test results from Ethiopian-Jewish young students in Israel (a fact that was brought to my attention by Dr. Girma) which in itself is outrageous!
you can read the abstract for his review and also a letter he sent to the journal's editor.
I really thank Dr. Girma Berhanu for taking the initiative to challenge these racist views that unfortunately many find still to be appropriate to entertain in higher educational and academic institutions.
here is what i wrote on Kanazawa's article: http://www.ethrev.com/articles/Nov2006/DanielAlemu_11082006.html
Thanks,
Daniel Alemu,
London
Black Intellectual genocide: When does all this 鈥�?abstract atrocities鈥� end?
A Response to 鈥淚Q and the Wealth of Nations鈥� by Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen
Girma Berhanu Department of Education
G枚teborg University
> > Box 300, SE 405 30
> > G枚teborg, Sweden
> > Tel. +46 (0) 31-7732325
> > Fax +46 (0) 31-7732315
> > E-mail: Girma.Berhanu@ped.gu.se
> > Abstract
This paper is a response to the book 鈥滻Q and the wealth of nations鈥� written by Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen. It is a critique of the authors鈥� major assertion that a significant part of the gap between rich and poor countries is due to differences in national intelligence. (The authors claim that they have evidence that differences in national IQ account for the substantial variation in national per capita income and growth).
This paper debunks their assumptions that intellectual and income differences between nations stems from genetic differences. This critique provides an extended review of the research literature that tells different stories (from what the authors postulate) about the concept of intelligence, what IQ measures and does not measure. The paper exposes the racist, sexist and antihuman nature of the research tradition in which the authors anchored their studies and the deep methodological flaw, and theoretical assumptions used in their book.
The low standards of scholarship evident in the book render it largely irrelevant for modern science. This paper has specifically dealt with the IQ value of Ethiopian immigrants that came from Israel, used by the authors as representing the National Average IQ of Ethiopia. Most of these immigrants hade rudimentary knowledge of literacy, and experienced abrupt transition from rural Ethiopia to Israel with all the accompanying effects that it entails such as trauma, dislocation and cultural shock. The test was conducted a few months after their arrival. That specific study (conducted by two Israelis) that assigns low IQ for the immigrants is also replete with technical/statistical errors to say the least. The paper concludes that this is tantamount to intellectual genocide deserving a legal treatment by the International Court of Justice.
Keywords: Scientific racism, Mental (IQ) testing, Intelligence, Economic development, Intellectual Genocide the request for the review of the book:
(1)The book I want to comment on is entitled鈥滻Q and the wealth of
nations鈥�. It is written by Richard Lynn (prof. emeritus of psychology at the
University of Ulster, North Ireland) and Tatu Vanhanen (prof. emeritus of
political science at the University of Tampere in Finland). I came to
notice the debate surrounding the book this past summer during my holiday
in Finland. The second author, Prof. Vanhanen, was interviewed by a Finnish
journalist (s) about the book and he expressed his view that IQ and the
wealth of nations are strongly correlated and the reason why some countries
are poor has to do with their IQ. He further indicated that IQ is
substantially heritable and racial differences in intelligence are not a myth
but a fact of life. His statement also carried the message that poor
countries should blame themselves for their poverty. His outrageous
statements were widely criticized by Finnish media and have been the subject
of hot debate during this past summer.
I presume the issue became interesting not really because the governing elite is genuinely concerned about the cultural / political message that he conveyed but because the man is the father of the current prime minister of Finland. And it was the opposition party that instigated the debate which in many ways embarrassed the prime minister. The prime minister commented 鈥渕y father is a bit confused because of age鈥�. This is just to tell you how I came to read the book.
The authors argue that a significant part of the gap between rich and poor
countries is due to differences in national intelligence. Their hypothesis
is that the intelligence of the populations has been a major factor responsible
for the national differences in economic growth and the gap in per capita
income between rich and poor nations The argument is line with Arthur R. Jensen鈥檚 controversial article in Harvard Educational Review (1969) through to Richard Herrnstein and
Charles Murray鈥檚 (1994) book, The Bell curve and J. Philippe Ruston鈥檚 book
Race, evolution and behavior (?). The difference is that these studies
attempt to document the relationship between IQ and individual achievement
and racial differences in intelligence where as Lynn and Vanhanen have
scaled this connection up to a national level. The authors ridicule
enrichment programmes and cognitive education aimed at raising school
performance among disadvantaged children.
To get to my point, the IQ figure which stood to represent Ethiopia came
from Israel, not directly from Ethiopia[1]. It is very likely that a few of
them (I mean 鈥榯he people whose apparent IQ levels were used鈥�) were my friends. Most of these students (250) who are described in Lynn鈥檚 and Vanhanen鈥檚 book as having IQs of 63 are presently having a satisfying life and are occupationally competent and socially adequate. (They
are in their late 20s or early 30s.) I am confident that some of them have
done their first (and second) degrees, if not in Israel in the USA. As many of
us know, these young immigrants were new arrivals, malnourished, unfamiliar
with 鈥渨estern school based skills鈥�; they had lived as refugees in the Sudan under
hard poverty, while in Ethiopia they lived most of their life in isolation
from and suffering discrimination from the dominant Christian neighbors, and many lost their parents during the mysterious journey to Israel; they were 鈥渟aved鈥�
through a dramatic life-saving operation by Mossad. Most of these young people had rudimentary knowledge of formal education and the Hebrew language, and had followed a very traditional way of life while in Ethiopia, so the dramatic and abrupt transition from village life in Ethiopia to Israel which occurred en masse was accompanied by adjustment crises which in turn immensely affected their learning and integration in to Israeli society. The authors
tested these young people and concluded that the average Ethiopian IQ is 63.
What is outrageous about the book is its emphasis on one direction of
causation ie a high IQ is the cause of a high income and intellectual and
income differences between nations stems from genetic differences. 鈥渽 we
believe that national ddifferences in intelligence have a substantial
genetic basis呪�� (p.193 ) Do they have the data to substantiate thiis claim? None, except for a fragmented, undocumented and extremely over-simplified assertion about the effects of trans-racial adoption and a few twin studies. The distorted data allows them to talk only about the strength of relationships not cause and effect relationships.
With kindest regards!
Girma Berhanu
[1] (see Kaniel, Shlomo; Fisherman, Shraga.
Title Level of performance and distribution of errors in the Progressive Matrices test: A comparison of Ethiopian immigrant and native Israeli adolescents.
Source
International Journal of Psychology. Vol 26(1) 1991, 25-33
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
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IQ and the Wealth of Nations
IQ and the Wealth of Nations is a controversial 2002 book by Dr. Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, and Dr. Tatu Vanhanen, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. The book demonstrates that differences in national income (in the form of per capita gross domestic product) correlate with, and arguably attributes it to, differences in average national IQ.
The book was followed by Lynn's 2006 Race Differences in Intelligence, which expands the data by nearly four times and concludes the average human IQ is presently 90 when compared to a norm of 100 based on UK data, or two thirds of a standard deviation below the UK norm.
[edit] Outline
The central thesis of IQ and the Wealth of Nations is that the average IQ of a nation correlates with its GDP. Above is a scatterplot with Lynn and Vanhanen's IQ figures and estimates虏 (explained below) plotted against 2004 per capita GDP (PPP), as reported by the IMF.鲁 Similar diagrams appear in the book.
The book includes the authors' estimates of average IQ scores for each country, based on their analysis of published reports; their observation that national gross domestic product per capita is correlated with IQ; and their conclusion that the IQ differences correlated with income differences by a factor of about 0.7, meaning that IQ explains more than half of the variation in per capita GDP.
The authors stated that they believe IQ is due to both genetic and environmental factors. They also stated that low GDP can cause low IQ, just as low IQ can cause low GDP. (See: Positive feedback)
The authors argued that it is the ethical responsibility of rich, high-IQ nations to financially assist poor, low-IQ nations, as it is the responsibility of rich citizens to assist the poor.
The book was cited several times in the popular press, notably the British conservative newspaper The Times. Because Tatu Vanhanen is the father of Matti Vanhanen, the Finnish Prime minister, his work has received wide publicity in Finland.
[edit] National IQ estimates
Central to the book's thesis is a tabulation of what Lynn and Vanhanen believe to be the average IQs of the world's nations. Rather than do their own IQ studies (a potentially massive project), the authors average and adjust existing studies.
For most of the 185 nations, no reliable studies are available. In those cases, the authors have used an estimated value by taking averages of the IQs of surrounding nations. For example, the authors arrived at a figure of 84 for El Salvador by averaging their calculations of 79 for Guatemala and 88 for Colombia. Those estimates are not included in the calculations of income differences and do not appear in the table below.
Several cases merit specific attention. To obtain a figure for South Africa, the authors averaged IQ studies done on different ethnic groups, resulting in a figure of 72. The figures for Colombia, Peru and Singapore were arrived at in a similar manner. For People's Republic of China, the authors used a figure of 109.4 for Shanghai and adjusted it down by an arbitrary 6 points because they believed the average across China's rural areas was probably less than that in Shanghai. Another figure from a study done in Beijing was not adjusted downwards. Those two studies formed the resultant score for China (PRC).
In many cases, the IQ of a country is estimated by averaging the IQs of "neighboring countries" that are not actually neighbors of the country in question. For example, Kyrgyzstan's IQ is estimated by averaging the IQs of Iran and Turkey, neither of which is close to Kyrgyzstan � China, whichh is a neighbor, is not counted as such by Lynn and Vanhanen. Such arbitrary selections of "neighbors" raise additional questions as to the objectivity of the IQ estimates.[citation needed]
To account for the Flynn effect (an increase in IQ scores over time), the authors sometimes adjusted the results of older studies upward by an arbitrary number of points. Because of these arbitrary adjustments and the fact that only limited data were available for most nations, the figures should be considered rough estimates.[citation needed]
Country
IQ estimate
Country
IQ estimate
Country
IQ estimate
Hong Kong (PRC)
107
Russia
96
Fiji
84
South Korea
106
Slovakia
96
Iran
84
Japan
105
Uruguay
96
Marshall Islands
84
Taiwan (ROC)
104
Portugal
95
Puerto Rico (US)
84
Singapore
103
Slovenia
95
Egypt
83
Austria
102
Israel
94
India
81
Germany
102
Romania
94
Ecuador
80
Italy
102
Bulgaria
93
Guatemala
79
Netherlands
102
Ireland
93
Barbados
78
Sweden
101
Greece
92
Nepal
78
Switzerland
101
Malaysia
92
Qatar
78
Belgium
100
Thailand
91
Zambia
77
China (PRC)
100
Croatia
90
Congo-Brazzaville
73
New Zealand
100
Peru
90
Uganda
73
United Kingdom
100
Turkey
90
Jamaica
72
Hungary
99
Indonesia
89
Kenya
72
Poland
99
Suriname
89
South Africa
72
Australia
98
Colombia
89
Sudan
72
Denmark
98
Brazil
87
Tanzania
72
France
98
Iraq
87
Ghana
71
Norway
98
Mexico
87
Nigeria
67
United States
98
Samoa
87
Guinea
66
Canada
97
Tonga
87
Zimbabwe
66
Czech Republic
97
Lebanon
86
Congo-Kinshasa
65
Finland
97
Philippines
86
Sierra Leone
64
Spain
97
Cuba
85
Ethiopia
63
Argentina
96
Morocco
85
Equatorial Guinea
59
[edit] Special cases
In several cases, actual GDP did not correspond with that predicted by IQ. In these cases, the authors argued that differences in GDP were caused by differences in natural resources and whether the nation used a "planned" or "market" economy.
One example of this was Qatar, whose IQ was estimated by Lynn and Vanhanen to be about 78, yet had a disproportionately high per capita GDP of roughly USD $17,000. The authors explain Qatar's disproportionately high GDP by its high petroleum resources. Similarly, the authors think that large resources of diamonds explain the economic growth of the African nation Botswana, the fastest in the world for several decades.
The authors argued that the People's Republic of China's per capita GDP of roughly USD $4,500 could be explained by its use of a communist economic system for much of its recent history. The authors also predicted that communist nations who they believe have comparatively higher IQs, including the PRC, Vietnam, and North Korea, can be expected to gain GDP by moving from centrally-planned to market economic systems, while predicting continued poverty for African nations. Recent trends in the economy of the People's Republic of China seem to confirm this prediction, as China's GDP has quadrupled since market reforms in 1978.
[edit] Peer-reviewed papers using IQ scores from the book
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Like many books, IQatWoN's results were not peer-reviewed, but peer review has occurred in subsequent articles.
A review of the book in Contemporary Psychology (49 (4). pp389-395. Barnett, Susan M.; Williams, Wendy) stated: "In sum, we see an edifice built on layer upon layer of arbitrary assumptions and selective data manipulation. The data on which the entire book is based are of questionably validity and are used in ways that cannot be justified."
The book is sharply criticized in a peer-reviewed paper The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth [1]. Although critical of the IQ data, for the sake of argument the paper assumes that the data is correct but then criticizes the statistical methods used, finding no effect on growth or income.
Another peer-reviewed paper with the same assumption, Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: An Extreme-Bounds Analysis [2], finds a strong connection between intelligence and economic growth, although the paper makes no explicit claim that IQ explains most of the difference in growth between nations.
In a reanalysis of the Lynn and Vanhanen's hypothesis, Dickerson (in press) finds that IQ and GDP data is best fitted by an exponential function, with IQ explaining approximately 70% of the variation in GDP. Dickerson concludes that as a rough approximation "an increase of 10 points in mean IQ results in a doubling of the per capita GDP."
Whetzel and McDaniel (2006) conclude that the book's "results regarding the relationship between IQ, democracy and economic freedom are robust". Moreover, they address "criticisms concerning the measurement of IQ in purportedly low IQ countries", finding that by setting "all IQ scores below 90 to equal 90, the relationship between IQ and wealth of nations remained strong and actually increased in magnitude." On this question they conclude that their findings "argue against claims made by some that inaccuracies in IQ estimation of low IQ countries invalidate conclusions about the relationship between IQ and national wealth."
Voracek (2004) used the national IQ data to examine the relationship between intelligence and suicide, finding national IQ was positively correlated with national male and female suicide rates. The effect was not attenuated by controlling for GDP.
Barber (2005) found that national IQ was associated with rates of secondary education enrollment, illiteracy, and agricultural employment. The effect on illiteracy and agricultural employment remained with national wealth, infant mortality, and geographic continent controlled.
Both Lynn and Rushton have suggested that high IQ is associated with colder climates. To test this hypothesis, Templer and Arikawa 2006 compare the national IQ data from Lynn and Vanhanen with data sets that describe national average skin color and average winter and summer temperatures (see also discussion [3]). They find that the strongest correlations to national IQ were 鈭�0.92 for skin color and 鈭�0.76 for average high winter temperature. They interpret this finding as strong support for IQ-climate association. Templer and Arikawa 2006 is currently listed as the most downloaded article in Intelligence at ScienceDirect (Jan. - March 2006).[4] Other studies using different data sets find no correlation [5][6].
Kanazawa (2006), "IQ and the wealth of states" (in press in Intelligence), replicates across U.S. states Lynn and Vanhanen's demonstration that national IQs strongly correlate with macroeconomic performance. Kanazawa finds that state cognitive ability scores, based on the SAT data, correlate moderately with state economic performance, explaining about a quarter of the variance in gross state product per capita.[7]
[edit] Critique
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.
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The figures were obtained by taking unweighted averages of different IQ tests. The number of studies is very limited; the IQ figure is based on one study in 34 nations, two studies in 30 nations. There were actual tests for IQ in 81 nations. In 104 of the world's nations there were no IQ studies at all and IQ was estimated based on IQ in surrounding nations.[8] The number of participants in each study was usually limited, often numbering under a few hundred. The exceptions to this were the United States and Japan, for which studies using more than several thousand participants are available.
Studies that were averaged together often used different methods of IQ testing, different scales for IQ values and/or were done decades apart. IQ in children is different although correlated with IQ later in life and many of the studies tested only young children.
Many nations are very heterogeneous ethnically. This is true for many developing countries. It is very doubtful that an often limited number of participants from one or a few areas are representative for the population as whole.
There are also errors in the raw data presented by authors. The results from Vinko Buj's 1981 study of 21 European cities and the Ghanaian capital Accra used different scaling from Lynn and Vanhanen's. A comparison of the reported to actual data from only a single study found 5 errors in 19 reported IQ scores [9][10].
As noted earlier, in many cases arbitrary adjustments were made by authors to account for the Flynn effect or when the authors thought that the studies were not representative of the ethnic or social composition of the nation.
There is controversy about whether IQ is a valid measurement of intelligence, especially among third-world populations. (See the article at IQ for details, as well as the article race and intelligence.) It is generally agreed many factors, including environment, culture, demographics, wealth, pollution, and educational opportunities, affect measured IQ. However, the origin of differences in IQ is disputed; according to those positing a partly genetic origin, non-hereditary factors account for anywher from 20-60% of the disparity [11]. Others posit an exclusively non-hereditary origin.
One common criticism is that many of the countries with the best average scores are those where testing (e.g. American SATs, baccalaureate examinations) is a crucial aspect of the educational process, and that many of these tests (esp. the SATs) have been shown to be very similar to IQ tests. In these nations, because students study extensively for the high-stakes examinations, it is quite possible that IQ scores are higher because people are subjected to frequent examinations for which they prepare extensively.
There are many difficulties when one is measuring IQ scores across cultures, and in multiple languages. First of all, use of the same set of exams requires translation, with all its attendant difficulties. To adapt to this, many IQ testers rely on both verbal tests, involving word analogies and the like, and non-verbal tests, which involve pictures, diagrams, and conceptual relationships (such as in-out, big-small, and so on). Roughly the same results tend to be gained with either approach.
The book reports a correlation between IQ and GDP. The book does not explicitly point out other factors which may directly cause the correlation. The Copenhagen Consensus points out that "iodine-deficient individuals score an average of 13.5 points lower in IQ tests." Countries with individuals plagued by iodine deficiency may have other factors depressing IQ, so this finding in isolation does not suggest that such a deficiency alone accounts for 13.5 IQ points. In this case, barring intervention, a nation's poverty may be self-sustaining in cases where successive generations cannot meet basic nutrition requirements.
Other factors may serve to heighten poverty while simultaneously decreasing IQ. For example, it is common for teenage children in sub-Saharan Africa to be the primary earners for their family. This is due to AIDS-related deaths of older caregivers. As children leave school to begin subsistence farming, their education ends and IQs will be markedly lower. The book does not adequately address the casual relationship of these outside factors to both poverty and intelligence.
Finally, the Flynn effect may well reduce or eliminate differences in IQ between nations in the future. One estimate is that the average IQ of the US was below 75 before factors like improved nutrition started to increase IQ scores. Some predict that considering that the Flynn effect started first in more affluent nations, it will also disappear first in these nations. Then the IQ gap between nations will diminish. However, to take a reductio ad absurdum, that the IQ difference will disappear among the babies born today, the differences will remain for decades simply because of the composition of the current workforce. Steve Sailer noted as much when discussing the workforce in both India and China (see second diagram) [12].
[edit] U.S. states and political party hoax
Some sources, such as The Economist, 15th-21st May 2004 (p.44 in the UK edition), have reported a list of average IQs of U.S. states, supposedly from IQ and the Wealth of Nations. In fact, such data do not appear in the book. At about the same time, conservative American commentator Steve Sailer exposed the table as a hoax that had already circulated among hundreds of liberal-leaning blogs and other Internet sites [13]. In the following week's edition of The Economist, the editors admitted their error and stated in the column On the trail that they "were the victim of a hoax." The hoax recurred after the 2004 U.S. election, and it was again falsely attributed to IQ and the Wealth of Nations [14], but the incident prompted yet another hoax梐 cclaim that a computer scientist had compiled a genuine state-by-state chart using SAT and ACT scores [15]. This was allegedly compiled by Psychology "Professor Mark Jones, from Virginia Tech," who does not exist. While there is a faculty member by that name, he is an Assistant Professor in the computer science department [16]. Furthermore, no link to such a study, or evidence that he did such a study, has ever been provided.
Sailer and anthropologist Henry Harpending provide a list of mean IQs of U.S. states from 1960, arguing that the scores correlate reasonably with public school 8th graders' achievement test scores on the 2003 National Assessment of Education, and thus may be one of the closest data sets to a national sample of IQ scores (table here; discussion here, also see [17]).
[edit] End material
[edit] References
IQ and the Wealth of Nations Richard Lynn, Tatu Vanhanen Praeger, ISBN 0-275-97510-X
See [18]
International Monetary Fund reported 2004 per capita GDP (PPP). [19]
Barber, N. (2005). "Educational and ecological correlates of IQ: A cross-national investigation". Intelligence 33 (3): 273-284.
Dickerson, R. E.. "Exponential correlation of IQ and the wealth of nations". Intelligence In Press, Corrected Proof.
Hunt, E. & Wittmann, W. (in press) Relations Between National Intelligence and Indicators of National Prosperity. Sixth Annual Conference of International Society for Intelligence Research, Albuquerque, NM. [20]
Templer, D. I. and Arikawa, H. (2006). "Temperature, skin color, per capita income, and IQ: An international perspective". Intelligence 34 (2): 121-139.
Voracek, M. (2004). "National intelligence and suicide rate: an ecological study of 85 countries". Personality and Individual Differences 37 (3): 543-553.
McDaniel, M.A. & Whetzel, D.L. (2005). IQ and the Wealth of Nations: Prediction of National Wealth. Sixth Annual Conference of International Society for Intelligence Research, Albuquerque, NM. [21]
Whetzel, D. L. & McDaniel, M. A.. "Prediction of national wealth". Intelligence 34: 449-458.
[edit] See also
The Bell Curve
Race and intelligence
Economic inequality
[edit] External links
"Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations" - article by Lynn and Vanhanen
PISA scores transformed into IQ values in comparison with IQ estimated by Lynn and Vanhanen
Smart Fraction Theory of IQ and the Wealth of Nations
Exponential correlation of IQ and the wealth of nations - Peer reviewed article to be published in an upcoming edition of Intelligence (journal)
"The Bigger Bell Curve: Intelligence, National Achievement, and The Global Economy", review by J. Philippe Rushton
"A Reader's statistical update of IQ & The Wealth of Nations"
A Few Thoughts on IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Steve Sailer, VDARE, April 2002.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations"
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc; e-mail:globalbelai@yahoo.com; Telephone: 703 933 8737
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic message, including any attachment(s), is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. .
----- Original Message ----
From: Belai FM Habte-Jesus
To: EthioForum@Ethiolist.com
Cc: aigaforum
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 2:38:21 PM
Subject: Re: EthioForum: Ethiopia making Good Progress to MDG says World Bank-170/177, MELES ' ETHNO-APARTHEID REGIME WITH THE WORST HUMAN DEV'T INDEX
RELATED ARTICLES
China boosts Ethiopia鈥檚 capacity building efforts
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Ethiopia earns $1.8bn from exports
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High birth rate killing Ethiopia鈥檚 economy
Ethiopia plans for double-digit growth
ETHIOPIA
'Ethiopia's economic progress good' -WB
Dear Patriotic Ethiopians and Friends of Ethiopia:
I read with interest the bad news from some Global Indicators including the London School of Economics that puts our average IQ at 63 that is mildly retarded in the medical profession.
On further investigation of the Japanse Researcher's record at LSE it was found to be based on highly suspecious data that the Mosad provided against Ethiopian Jews during Operation Solomon in the late 1970s.
So, here is another report from World Bank which I believe is slightly better than LSE and Amensty International Report.
I just felt we deserve some good news as much as the bad ones we are fed every day.
This is not good enough, we can do better. Let us show the demented Japanese Researcher that he is going to work hard for his papers in the future before he just publishes it. We will ensure that either he does a good work or do his research on the Japanese and leave Ethiopians alone.
There you go for the record
Published: 10-NOV-06
Addis Ababa - Ethiopia was making good progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and has achieved remarkable results in key areas, according to the World Bank.
The World Bank鈥檚 Africa Development Indicators 2006 report (ADI 2006) provides a detailed collection of data on 53 African countries using material from 1965 to 2004. It singles Ethiopia out for praise in key areas and gave the country a high overall rating. Improvements in education indicators were noted. In 1991 only 27 percent of Ethiopian children attended school, while the gross enrollement rate was up to 77 percent in 2004, before reaching 85 percent this month said the report.
The ADI 2006 confirmed that 16 African countries have has sustained annual GDP growth rates in excess of 4.5 percent since the mid-1990s. Ethiopia鈥檚 recent progress in this domain was underrepresented as the country has shown a rate of growth of about 9 percent for the past three years and was on course to increase this into double figures in the coming few years.
Ethiopia was in the top category for 鈥減olicies of social inclusion and equity鈥� and also in the domain of 鈥渆conomic management鈥�.
The report also stated that Ethiopia did exceptionally well in the domain of 鈥渟tructural policies鈥� and 鈥減ublic sector management and institutions鈥�.
In the section on 鈥渋mproving public sector management鈥� the report stated that 鈥渢he public sector is critical for good governance and development. To address existing dysfunctions in the civil service, countries are reforming the civil service with differing emphases鈥�. The report added that this included decentralisation and capacity development programmes.
Regarding setting up a business in Ethiopia, the report stated that it took about 30 days to set up shop, but that there have been vast improvements in the past two years since the report鈥檚 research was concluded. Land for a business, for example, now took hours to acquire rather than days or weeks as was previously the case.
"While economic outcomes are increasingly diverse, Africa has made near uniform progress in social outcomes, notably education and health," explained John Page, the World Bank's Chief Economist for Africa, adding that the per capita income of African countries were now increasing in tandem with other developing countries.
"Gross primary enrollment rates as a share of the relevant age group - a standard indicator of investment in the poor - shot up to 93 percent in 2004 from 72 percent in 1990, contributing to a rise in literacy rates from 50 percent in 1997 to 65 percent in 2002," said Page. He regretted that success increasing primary enrollments from 70 percent in 1991 to above 90 percent in 2004 has not been mirrored in secondary and tertiary education in Africa. -Business in Africa Online
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc; e-ail:globalbelai@yahoo.com; Telephone: 703 933 8737
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic message, including any attachment(s), is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material.
Volume 10 Number 6 June 4, 2007
Black Intellectual Genocide:
An Essay Review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations
Girma Berhanu
Göteborg University
Sweden
Lynn, Richard & Vanhanen, Tatu. (2002). IQ and the Wealth of
Nations. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Citation: Berhanu, Girma. (2007). Black intellectual genocide: An essay
review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Education Review, 10(6).
Retrieved [date] from http://edrev.asu.edu/essays/v10n6index.html.
Abstract
I review the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, written by Richard
Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen. I critique the authors’ major assertion that
a significant part of the gap between rich and poor countries is due
to differences in national intelligence. The authors claim that they
have evidence that differences in national IQ account for substantial
variation in per capita income and growth of a nation.
This essay review debunks their assumptions that intellectual and income
differences between nations stem from genetic differences. This
critique provides an extended review of the research literature that
argues against these assumptions and presents a different picture
from that presented by Lynn and Vanhanen about the concept of
intelligence, what IQ measures and does not measure.
The essay exposes the racist, sexist, and antihuman nature of the research
tradition in which the authors anchored their studies and the deep
methodological flaws and theoretical assumptions that appear in
their book. The low standards of scholarship evident in the book
render it largely irrelevant for modern science.
This essay specifically deals with the IQ value of Ethiopian immigrants that
came from Israel, used by the authors as representing the National
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 2
Average IQ of Ethiopia. Most of these immigrants had rudimentary
knowledge of literacy, and experienced an abrupt transition from
rural Ethiopia to Israel with all the accompanying effects that it
entails such as trauma, dislocation, and cultural shock.
The test was conducted a few months after their arrival. That specific study,
conducted by two Israelis, that assigns low IQ to the immigrants is
also replete with technical and statistical errors. One might arrive at
the conclusion that further action of a legal nature would be
necessary to put an end to such postulations, which in my view, do
not bear scrutiny.
Introduction
The book I review here is entitled IQ and the Wealth of Nations. It is written by
Richard Lynn , Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster, North
Ireland, and Tatu Vanhanen, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University
of Tampere in Finland.
I came to notice the debate surrounding the book while in Finland spending
my summer vacation with my "extended" family. The second author, Tatu Vanhanen, was
interviewed by a Finnish journalist about his recent book and he unwaveringly expressed his stand that IQ and the wealth of nations are strongly
correlated and the reason why some countries are poor has mainly to do with their lack of intelligence. IQ is substantially heritable, and racial differences in intelligence are not a myth but a fact of life according to the former professor of
political science who is also the father of the country’s Prime Minister, Matti Vanhanen.
His statement carries also the message that poor countries should blame themselves for their poverty and "who then suggests that one way to help Africans was to have them led by Europeans, Americans, and Asians who should take as many leading posts in managing the economy of African countries as possible." These statements have been
reported by a number of domestic as well as international newspapers/bulletins (e.g.,
Helsingin Sanomat 2004; Dagens Nyheter, 2004; The African Courier, 2006, p. 12).
His statements were widely criticised in the Finnish media and had been a subject of
hot debate during the previous summer.
I presume the issue became more interesting, not really because the governing elite is genuinely concerned about the cultural and political message that the aging man conveyed, but because the man is the father of the prime minister of Finland and the one time Chairman of the European Union. It was the opposition party and some advocacy groups that instigated the debate which in many ways embarrassed the decent looking figure who represents Finland. The prime minister commented “my father is a bit confused because of …age. …I do not Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 3
see any differences in the intelligence of whites and blacks, but I am not a scientist, and I don’t want to debate these issues with my father.”
It is to be remembered that such arguments, in the name of science, in the early 20th
century led to the rise of the Eugenics Movement which escalated into Nazi
Germany's explicit racist ideology. Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton had suggested that
human evolution should be given a helping hand by discouraging the less fit from
breeding, a policy he called eugenics. Within a few decades, laws were passed that
called for the involuntary sterilization of delinquents and the “feeble minded” in
Canada, the Scandinavian countries, thirty American states, and, ominously,
Germany. The Nazis’ ideology of inferior races was later used to justify the murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals (Pinker, 2002, p. 16). My biggest concern, however, is not only their distortion of the truth under cover of science or
misuse of scientific data in order to advance or justify their prejudices but the divisiveness of their thinking.
This kind of reasoning does not only promote divisiveness, it is also aimed at diverting attention from larger issues. The authors are driven by ideological
motives rather than the quest for the truth, by which I mean one can equate their work with pre-scientific Richard Lynn consciousness. My argument here is that the book is ideologically motivated and the statistics were interpreted by them to fit a particular policy agenda and pre-existing prejudices, taking strong positions that are not justified by the current state of theory or recent data.
Their cultural message is clearly intended to work to the disadvantage of young
promising, non-white children and minority groups. One important fact that the
authors missed is that in spite of centuries of oppression of Africa and the third world by colonizers, and the continued exploitation of the continent through, for example, unfair trade terms at a global level (including instigating destabilising factors in those so-called low IQ regions) and denial of equal opportunities for blacks and minorities in the West, we see country after country full of diversity in which blacks and other citizens of non-European descent excel in all the arts and sciences, in all aspects of sciences, in all aspects of business, in all political arenas, and in all athletics and other social activities (Crane, 1994). As Crane (1994) stated, these successes are undeniable and ubiquitous, and yet authors such as Lynn and Vanhanen act as if they are completely blind to this manifest proof that superiority of whites is a dying mirage (cf. Diamond, 1997, 2005).
Written and directed by Hubert Sauper, a recent documentary Darwin’s Nightmare
(2004) vividly shows the devastating effects of a “globalized economy” on the
residents of a Tanzanian fishing village, near Lake Victoria. Everyday, Russian planes arrive at the Mwanza airport nearby the village, leaving with a daily cargo of 500 tons of Nile perch destined for the Russian and European markets.
What these planes carry on their way into Africa is a mystery that nobody wants to talk about, until a solitary pilot admits that he flies tanks and other weapons into Angola. The cruellest irony is that while huge amounts of fish are exported to Europe, Tanzania itself is struggling to avoid famine; a secondary industry has grown up drying and roasting the decayed, discarded fish carcasses, salvaging what nourishment remains. However, for people Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 4 like Kanazawa (2006)1 and Lynn & Vanhanen (2002), this disturbing image of poverty, inequality, and violence does not cause high infant mortality rate, low life expectancy, or low per capita income. They claim it is the average intelligence of the nations that causes all this misery.
The comments outlined above and below were not initially intended as a comprehensive review of their book. However, as the work progresses, these comments surpassed a normal review and took the shape of an analytical essay. The purpose of this article is two-pronged: First, I am principally concerned with the way the authors interpreted the data about Ethiopian immigrants’ “IQ values” from Israel
and how Ethiopia, my homeland, was described as one of the “dumbest” countries
with the lowest IQ, in fact second from last.
That figure – average IQ 63 – which was attached to Ethiopia as average national intelligence in their book (see p.75, p. 137, p. 204) had an extremely negative effect on me and at the same time saddened me about what that message conveys to the bright, struggling, and hard working young boys and girls of ancient Ethiopia whose contribution to world civilisation as the cradle of human civilization/species and its astounding histories were undeniably documented. (Note that this same IQ datum (63) has been (as a third-hand information) used in a most Tatu Vanhanen
recent article in the November issue of the British Journal of Health Psychology by Satoshi Kanazawa (2006) where the author confidently stated that low IQ levels (rather than inequality, poverty, and disease) are the reason for African nations chronic ill-health, high infant mortality rate, and low life expectancy. Kanazawa claims that he has reached this conclusion by comparing national IQ scores with indicators of ill health in 126 countries).
These scholars are totally oblivious to the fact that at a certain period in history their countries were far,far behind the world at large in terms of the development of “civilised nations.” There is ample evidence that members of certain societies would have performed better or worse at a whole range of skills (“intelligence”) tests at different points of their history. One would expect that in Roman times the Britons and Germans would have been put to shame on most “intelligence tests” devised by the Greeks and Romans and
that in the 8th or 9th centuries most western Europeans would have lagged badly
behind citizens of the Islamic world where literature, science, and arts then flourished.
In US society there are still many jokes about the “stupid Poles and Irish” which, no
doubt, reflect the fact that, at the time, these immigrant groups lacked some skills that were considered valuable in America at the time.
1 Kanazawa (2006) recently wrote “…it appears that inequality does not kill and people do not die younger in countries with greater inequalities in income. The macro data from all nations show that, once national IQ is controlled, neither income inequality nor economic development has an independent effect on male and female life expectancy, infant mortality rate or age-specific mortality rate for individuals aged 15-19. Only national IQ has a very strong and significantly positive effect on these measures of population health…….General
intelligence may be the key that allows individuals in evolutionary novel contemporary society to recognize health risks and deal with them appropriately”.
(p. 638) Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 5 Secondly, I attempt to falsify this hereditarianist, elitist, nativist, and eugenic tradition which is aimed at devaluing, humiliating, and dehumanizing a sizeable portion of the
human race through their silent weapon to perpetrate ghastly intellectual genocide. I
dismiss the so-called IQ difference between blacks and whites as being artificial, and I also argue here that that the presumed differences do not imply any innate or genetic differences in intelligence2, and the purely hereditarian view (which has not been put to any direct tests by any techniques of genetic research) most commonly put forth are faulty. In my view this line of research is, as Tucker (2002) described, "to provide ammunition for what has essentially been a lobbying campaign to prevent the full participation of blacks in society and the polity."
The origin and dynamics of human cognitive development Discussions about the sources of development in general and of the origin and dynamics of human cognitive development in particular have always been controversial and remain unresolved. The dispute centers on the degree to which our character or behaviors are expressions of inborn traits and the extent to which we are shaped by our experience, sociohistorical and cultural environment, and socialization.
Is learning a reflection of intellectual capacity (intelligence)? Or is intelligence in some measure the product of learning? Does intelligence exist? If so how can we
objectify, record, and quantify it? How do environmental manipulations such as
cognitive skills training and instructional manipulation moderate the influence of
intelligence on learning and of learning on intelligence? Above all, how do we explain the relation between culture and mind? How does “mind/behaviour” originate?
(Berhanu, 2001; Vygotsky, 1978).
Addressing these questions is a challenging task and the academic arena seems to be sharply divided. Further, the issue is a volatile one because of its far- reaching social, economic, political, ideological, psychological and educational implications. This is indisputably an area which needs further
research and serious deliberation.
The issue of sources of development has also given rise to competing perspectives
about the contribution of biology and the environment to the process of development.
Views differ from stressing the overriding importance of biology and neglecting the
influence of environment or vice versa, to views that emphasise the reasonable
importance of both. According to Lynn & Vanhanen the first line of argument ( i.e.
biological determinism) is correct, although the data supporting their argument is
scant. A common assertion is that environment is much more important than heredity
in determining human behavioural differences (Kamin, 1974; Hunt, 1961; Gould,
1996; Harrison & Huntington, 2000).
The father of modern anthropology Franz Boas (1858 – 1942) wrote:” I claim, that unless the contrary can be proved, we must assume that all complex activities are socially determined, not hereditary” (Quoted in Degler, 1991, p. 148). Similar views can be read in Lev Vygotsky’s works. However, Lynn & Vanhanen (2002) give very little importance for the above line of research traditions. I will get back to the thesis of their book in detail. Allow me first to present the case of Ethiopian Jews which has caused me to react strongly to the book 2 Any claim in terms of genetic research for the existence of genotypic intelligence differences between races or other human population groups is not founded on direct evidence; see Stephen Gould’s work on the matter (1996), and also Crane (1994).
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 6 The Ethiopian Jews and their case The IQ figure which stood in the authors’ book to represent Ethiopia came from Israel not directly from Ethiopia. I have met some of those who tested the young people (newly arriving immigrants from Ethiopia) and I have probably met half of these immigrants. It is very possible that a few of them are my acquaintances.
That was made possible because I collected data for my PhD dissertation from Israel; my research concerns Ethiopian Jews’ school achievement and integration process in
Israel (Berhanu, 2001). The IQ score which Lynn and Vanhanen assigned to Ethiopia
was simply picked from Kaniel & Fisherman’s article that appeared in The
International Journal of Psychology (1991, 26, pp. 25-33). Lynn & Vanhanen
(2002:204) wrote:
Around 1989, data for a sample of 250 15-year-old Ethiopian immigrants to Israel tested with the Standard Progressive Matrices have been reported by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the 1979 British standardization sample, their mean IQ was 65. Because of the 10-year interval between the two collections of data,
this needs to be reduced to 63. Here one could question the validity of the writers' knowledge of these 250 Ethiopian immigrants. These 15-year-olds came from a region called Gonder. They lived most of their lives in the countryside with rudimentary knowledge of “school-related tasks” that so-called modern industrialised societies highly value. They were airlifted by Israeli security agents in extremely dramatic circumstances, and their arrival in Israel was abrupt.
Many lost their near relatives in this dramatic episode; and many more
were unattended, solitary children. Family disintegration, psychological trauma,
confusion, dislocation, and cultural shock were rampant at the moment when the test
was administered. Most of these students who are described as having low IQs are
presently enjoying a satisfying life and are occupationally competent and socially
adequate; they are now in their late 20s or early 30s.
The story of how the Ethiopian Jews – known as Falasha, meaning "gone to exile"–
survived for so many centuries in exile clinging to their Jewish tradition and how,
finally, they came to Israel is fascinating. As to their history and origin, there are contradictory statements and theories, and it has been an intensely debatable issue, especially in Israel among different religious Jewish authorities, pertaining, for instance, to their rights to Israeli citizenship and the authenticity of their Jewishness.
It was not until 1973 that they were officially accepted as having the right to “return” to Israel and become Israeli citizens. It is important to recognise that while in Ethiopia the Ethiopian Jews lived most of their lives in isolation both in time and space. They have a singular, defined traditional way of raising and educating children. Therefore, the abrupt transition (Aliya) from village life in Ethiopia to Israel, which occurred en masse within the past two decades, has been accompanied by adjustment crises which in turn greatly affected their learning and integration into Israeli society (see Berhanu, 2001). From the very start, the absorption of Ethiopian Jews was, to say the least, bumpy.
The different forms, figures, and diagram that we see in the Standard Progressive
Matrices test are easy to grasp by people who come from a “carpentered society,”
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 7 rather than from the villages of Gondor where people’s physical surroundings and implements, including play materials, are less geometrically formed. How could one dare to say these tests are culture-free? It is known that the life the Jews of Ethiopia lived would not involve a set of drawings of geometrically precise figures, and their daily life does not require them to engage in much graphic representation, and the technology is not there to draw geometrically accurate shapes and figures.
The test measures exactly these “school based activities”. It does not measure how good these children are in carrying out a variety of adult economic activities; it does not measure how effective they are in farming skills in adverse climate and geography; it does not measure how good they are in constructing houses and track animals; it does not measure how good they are in hunting skills; the test does not inform how verbal these kids are in telling stories, myths and solve riddles. (These researchers did not heed the precept of the founder of modern anthropology Franz Boas: “Mind, independent of experience, is inconceivable”). Professor Michael Cole and his colleagues have repeatedly shown, based on rigorous empirical materials (collected in a cross-cultural study framework) that it is the type of learning experience that influences the person’s acquisition of a particular cognitive strategy, or the decision that it is appropriate in a particular situation. People will be good at doing the things that are important to them and that they have opportunities to do often.
Furthermore, society’s culture and institutions play a huge role in determining the
skills that its citizens value and acquire. For instance, it is generally accepted that it is the challenge to the Catholic church’s authority by the Protestants that led to the explosion of scientific and technological advances in Europe. Similarly, for many centuries in the Middle Ages the Chinese, who are now outperforming most
Europeans and Americans in Science and Mathematics at colleges and universities,
had put little emphasis on these fields of endeavour. It seems that in imperial China, poetry, arts, and administration were valued more than science and technology.
It is natural for intelligent people to develop skills that are of most value in their society. It is expected that even within the same ethnic/racial group the society’s expectations forced people to develop different groups of skills that might be misinterpreted as “intelligence”. It would be reasonable to expect the Brahmans to perform best on IQ tests (that would, probably, be also designed by them) even though, traditionally, Viashya (merchant) caste was the wealthiest and, in all likelihood, the untouchables would perform the worst. Such results, if available, would clearly illustrate the worst impacts of centuries of oppression and exploitation that included lower expectations, opportunities and nutrition for certain classes of people. Conversely, I wonder how would Europeans, or most Asians, perform on “intelligence tests” designed by, say, Kalahari Bushmen, Eskimos or Australian Aborigines? Quite likely, to these ancient indigenous ultures “intelligence” corresponded to ability to survive in their hostile
environments. In the case of Australian Aborigines a boy had to go “walkabout” in
the desert, for an extended period on his own with just a spear and a boomerang, to
prove his manhood. Chances are that a vast majority of boys of similar age from
more “advanced” societies, with the “superior” skills and training provided by their
schooling systems would perish in the process. (Tamrat & Filar, Personal
Communication, December 2006; see also Diamond’s (1997, 2005) voluminous work
in this direction).
In addition to that, the IQ tests are created by people from wealthier nations, and the truth is that well-fed and physically healthy people do better on IQ tests (cf.
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 8 Mackintosh, 1998; Vernon, 1979). The geometrical figures characterising the test are not consistent with the life style and experiential reference frame of these mostly “peasant” and illiterate kids. Tulviste (1979), an Estonian student of Alexander Luria,
the famous Russian researcher of cross-cultural psychological studies, convincingly
showed that syllogistic reasoning which we see in many IQ tests originates in
systemic school-based learning activities. It is also interesting to note that Cole and his associates (Cole, 1990; Cole et al. 1971) work on the “contextual” theory of
cognitive functions. These authors examined in a series of studies the relationship
between formal schooling and cognitive processes and came to the conclusion that
different cultural and educational groups use the same basic cognitive processes.
The manifestation of these processes, however, differs significantly depending on the contexts in which they are evoked. For example, it seems that individuals belonging to different cultural groups all possess the ability to classify objects and phenomena.
Their success in specific classification tasks will however differ depending on
contexts of classification. Unschooled subjects will fail at classification tasks
characteristic of school learning contexts and succeed with classification relevant to their everyday practical experience. Therefore, for minority students the problem lies not so much in the acquisition of cognitive skills, but rather in becoming accustomed to specific tasks and activities required by formal schooling. Cole (1990) draws a significant conclusion saying that the relevance of school-based skills will grow with the outside-the-school contexts becoming more similar to those of the school itself.
See Professor Alex Kozulin’s (1998b) work on Ethiopian Jews in this regard.
A large number of studies conducted recently by competent and senior scientists
conclusively show that Ethiopian immigrant students tested by different kinds of IQ
tests have in pre-intervention tests demonstrated less than the Israeli norm; however, after intervention (a short but intensive teaching process) which includes teaching problem-solving strategies, the Ethiopian immigrant children narrowed the gaps and performed at about the same level as the Israeli norm (Tzuriel & Kaufman, 1999; Kozulin, 1998 a,b). Kozulin further stated that the intervention appeared to be
effective not only in improving the absolute score on the standard progressive
matrices but also in changing the student’s cognitive profile.
The original study by Shlomo Kaniel and Shtaga Fisherman’s (1991) , which Lynn
and Vanhanen used as a basis to ascribe to Ethiopia an IQ value 63 is flawed—
discussed later here—but for the authors it is ideal to adopt it because it confirms their a priori theory. The first writer of that article, Sholomo Kaniel, in that same year coauthored an article (Kaniel et al. 1991, p. 204) in which he and his co-authors concluded that young Ethiopian immigrants in Israel have made dramatic
improvement after a few years of Instrumental Enrichment and Mediated Learning
activities: "These culturally different groups (adults) who in pre-school revealed a
sub-normal IQ (as measured by Raven Matrices and the Wechsler Intelligence scale
for Children) have improved in a statistically significant way after exposure to the
Mediated Learning experience(MLE) and Instrumental Enrichment." There are
similar successful programs that showed dramatic improvement for socially
disadvantaged adolescents as a result of short-term cognitive training. "...three months later their performance was indistinguishable from that of middle class students” (Feuerstein & Kozulin, 1995, p. 74).
A number of similar studies have been conducted with the Ethiopian Jews as to their learning situations, modifiability, and their potential abilities. The studies showed that the groups, having been exposed to Instrumental Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 9 enrichment programmes and Mediated learning activities, revealed dramatic improvement and they were found to achieve the Israeli norm (Berhanu, 2001). If these groups had not been exposed to such programs, the risk was high that they would be placed in special schools for slow learners. In a study of the psychological and learning problems experienced by immigrant children emigrating to Israel from the former Soviet Union, Kozulin and Venger (1993) remarked that in certain dramatic cases, the application of standardised tests such as WISC-R to immigrant children has resulted in categorising children with learning problems as mentally retarded resulting in their placement in special schools for the mentally handicapped.
The above mentioned intervention programs have proved that such programs can
offset the negative impact of enviro-nutritional deprivation and produce significant
educational benefits for the children and eventually lead to success in their future
school careers as well as life. Why Kaniel & Fisherman did portray a “race realist” (essentialist) approach in the article on which Lynn and Vanhanen based their judgemnt of Ethiopians’ average intelligence and “social constructionist/cultural difference model” (meaning the conviction on cognitive modifiability, reckoning intelligence as a state rather than a “thing”, Mediated Learning Experiences (MLE) as source of differential cognitive outcome etc.) in the other article the same year is still puzzling me.
In the original study Kaniel and Fisherman suggested that the low performance of the
Ethiopian immigrants reflects cognitive delay rather than cognitive difference. They
stated that there are two approaches to characterizing the "lower performance" on
intelligence tests of minorities and immigrants: The first is that ethnic differences and genetic make-up are sources of variations in the time of cognitive development.
Regarding this approach, the authors referred to, among others, Arthur Jensen. The
other approach is, as they stated, minorities’ low performance in cognitive tests, due to differences in culturally induced psychological, cognitive, and behavioral
strategies. Although the way they described the social, cultural and historical
circumstances of these newly arrived, most of them “illiterate” immigrants from
Ethiopia logically would allow them to adopt the second approach, they preferred to
hypothesize (as in other distorted studies, interested in ‘highlighting’ the black-white gap in intelligence) that low performance of the Ethiopian immigrants is caused by cognitive delay rather than cultural difference. They were out to confirm this and it was very easy to do so.
As mentioned earlier, these young Ethiopians are new arrivals, malnourished,
unfamiliar with “western school based skills”; some had lived as refugees in the
Sudan in abject poverty, while in Ethiopia they lived most of their life in isolation
from and were discriminated against by their dominant Christian neighbours. That
these young immigrants and their families were hard hit by the great famine of
Ethiopia, was not alien to Richard Lynn as he claims to be expert in discovering the
effects of nutrition on intelligence. Why then did Lynn pick the IQ value that is
derived from an untypical or unrepresentative group and assign that erroneous score
to Ethiopia as a whole? (I will return to the details of their general theoretical and methodological fallacies.)
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 10 Lynn and Vanhanen seem to have made a grave mistake in extrapolating the results of this research beyond the scope of the work’s validity. They have selected data that fit, and the first author is notorious for picking and choosing seemingly confirming data.
The authors do not seem to worry about possible biases and systematic errors; they
seem more prone to cash in on the depressing temper of our time, and are
prejudicially motivated. Another dimension of their work is their claim to objectivity and facts. Gould (1996, p. 106), in his discussion of the subjective aspects of the scientist’s job and the consequences of the denial of this phenomenon, wrote: Science is rooted in creative interpretation. Numbers suggest, constrain, and refute; they do not, by themselves, specify the content of scientific
theories. Theories are built upon the interpretation of numbers, and
interpreters are often trapped by their own rhetoric. They believe in their
own objectivity, and fail to discern the prejudice that leads them to one
interpretation among many consistent with their numbers.
Another wrong assumption throughout Lynn and Vanhanen’s study and even in the
above study which provided a distorted cognitive profile of Ethiopian immigrants is
that the tests they used are culture-free. They also stated that "the data on percentile points" [sic] are based on hypothetically true norms, taken from J.C. Raven, J.H. Court and J. Raven (1986) “Manual for Raven’s Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales.” The data are normed on middle-class western children3. Lynn (1994) himself has identified a number of errors in Kaniel and Fisherman’s paper on the intelligence of Israel and Ethiopian immigrant adolescents. Lynn wrote that all the percentile equivalents given by Kaniel and Fisherman are incorrect. There are also a number of incorrect citations and inaccurate documentation. According to Richard Lynn (1994, p.55-56) Table 1 of Kaniel and Fisherman's article provides some incorrect percentile equivalents as well as an incorrect reference for the British norms for the progressive matrices for 1979. It is regrettable that on the basis of erroneous statistical computations innocent young people become subjects of an “anti human,” so-called “scientific” study of mental abilities. What we see here is a series of significant methodological as well as technical/computational errors, the consequences of which is a characterization of a nation or a whole ethnic group by a single number—IQ 63— and labelling them cognitively delayed, feeble minded, the unteachables, etc.
In this connection, I strongly express my objections by quoting the late Stephen Jay Gould: […] the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location
within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single 3 With reference to Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III), Kwate (2001) wrote that ”before we examine the test content, the standardization samples reveal much about the
European-supremacist thrust of the test. In terms of racial ethnic group representation,European American children comprise 70.1 % of the sample, African children 15.4 %, Latino children 11.0 %, and ”other” children 3.5 %.In this sample, Other referred to Native American, Eskimo, Aleut, Asian, and Pacific Islander. This normative sample is presented as appropriate because it closely matched the U.S. population (as given by the 1988 census).
Conceptually, however, it is an impenetrable mystery. Unless a child is 70 % European, 15 % African, 11 % Latino, and 3.5 % Other, these norms do not make sense. Why is it appropriate to test an African child with an instrument that is normed on a sample where 70 % of the children are European American?” (p. 225).
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 11 series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups – races, classes, or sexes – are innately
inferior and deserve their status” (pp.24-25). As we know, the demarcation point below which you characterise a person as mentally retarded is (by the commonly accepted Western standard) IQ 70. By generously assigning Ethiopia an average IQ of 63, as if the data come from a nationally representative sample, the authors are implying, although in statistical terms, that nearly all Ethiopians are mentally retarded. According to Lynn and Vanhanen's tortured logic it follows that Ethiopians are poor because they are retarded. Is this not “intellectual genocide” whose weapons and destructive message paralyze the intellectual desire and drive of young people from economically poor countries in general? I argue here that it is time to set an international court of justice which investigates crimes of intellectual genocide? The western world was keen to prosecute and punish Milosevic, the ex-president of the former Yugoslavia. For me his crime is on a par with those of persons who intentionally, with racist motives, in the name of science destroy the intellectual aspirations of half of the world’s population. What upsets me most is the silence of many influential figures and bodies, as I consider this a social injustice and inhuman act.
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia has nicely captured the deadliness of silence: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph” (New African 2006: 49).
The thesis of the book and its methodological fallacies Point of departure
The writers’ hypothesis is that intelligence of the populations has been a major factor responsible for the national differences in economic growth and the gap in per capita income between rich and poor nations. In simple words, the argument goes like this: that a significant part of the gap between rich and poor countries is due to differences in national intelligence. Richness and poorness is measured in terms of economic performance. The measures of economic performance are based on per capita Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They claim that their statistical analysis/regression analysis clearly shows that national differences in wealth are explained primarily by the intelligence levels of the populations followed by whether the countries have market or socialist economies, and thirdly by unique circumstances of specific countries by, for instance, the possession of natural resources (e.g., some Arab countries).
A careful review of the book shows that the content is in perfect line with The Bell
Curve, by Herrnstein & Murray (1994), which claims to know everything about
intelligence and its social consequences for American social structure and reveals in
its most pernicious conclusions that we should not expect much from people with low
IQs and should treat them accordingly, forming a "custodial state" that will take care of the “underclass.” The difference is that Herrnstein & Murray’s studies attempt to document the relationship between IQ and individual achievement and racial
differences in intelligence where as Lynn and Vanhanen have scaled this connection
up to an international level. Here follows reification, standardization, and
globalization of the rich aura of human experiences!
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 12 The authors summarise (p. 25) their argument as follows: intelligence is an important determinant of educational attainment, intellectual achievement, earnings, and socioeconomic status. Low intelligence is an important determinant of unemployment, welfare dependency, and crime. All of these phenomena are likely to have an impact on national economic growth and development.
There are considerable national differences in intelligence such that the average IQs are highest among the oriental peoples of North East Asia followed in descending order by the European peoples of Europe (IQ= 98), the nations of North America and Australasia (IQ = 98), the nations of South and South West Asia from the Middle East through Turkey to India and Malaysia (IQ = 87), the nations of South East Asia and the Pacific Islands (IQ = 86), the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean ( IQ = 85);
and finally by the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa (IQ = 70). (See Rushton (2003) for a
very positive review of this argument, as the reviewer himself belongs to the same
racist line of research.)
The data deal with 181 countries: direct data from 61 countries indirect from 120. The direct data, as they claim, were not directly collected by the authors but were
published elsewhere in different journals and books spanning 40 or so years. The
indirect data are just estimates based on their own criteria; for example, if a single test from Somalia gives an average IQ of 65, they infer that Kenya should be ascribed a figure near 65 based on "racial/ethnic compositions and neighbouring country IQ value," a strange criterion and misguided assumption. This method was used to estimate the average IQ of 104 countries, i.e., by averaging those from “the most appropriate neighbouring countries.” For example Afghanistan’s IQ was estimated by averaging those from neighbouring India (IQ=81) and Iran (IQ=84) to give an IQ of
83.
The test varies, the target group (in terms of age and other demographic variables)
varies, and the sample size varies from nation to nation. The authors rely most on the non-verbal Raven’s progressive matrices which were apparently designed to be used
across cultures, even by illiterates. (The suitability of Raven’s standard progressive matrices for various groups is highly questionable). Yet, they also have many results from the Wechsler examples, which are more culturally dependent – the Wechsler includes a vocabulary subtest, for example. In a fascinating article, Intelligence or misorientation? Eurocentrism in the WISC-II, Naa Oyo A. Kwate (2001) examined the Eurocentric basis of the test and reveals the WISC-III’s antagonistic and incompatible relationship to an Afro-centric conception of intellectual and mental health. And Lynn and Vanhanen also report results from different IQ tests whose sample sizes vary dramatically. Some studies were of children, others of adults.
For instance for one American study the sample size is 64,000; for some such as
Equatorial Guinea the sample size is 48, for Columbia 50, for Guinea 50. The years in
which the different tests administered vary from country to country ranging over
several decades, in fact, seven decades. It is unclear how the authors would have
resolved differences in results for the same country if they had cared enough to pursue multiple studies. Still worse, the IQ samples can hardly be considered to be
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 13 representative at the national level as in the case of Ethiopian children’s IQ value (brought from Israel) standing for the nation Ethiopia as a whole4.
Thomas Volken (2003) presented a critique of the work: first, Lynn and Vanhanen
base their work on highly deficient data on the national levels of IQ, as I outlined
above; second, they fail to adequately use multivariate analysis techniques. In
explaining the link between IQ and growth, only simple correlations are presented,
and in the case of income, the authors totally neglect, not to say obscure, the influence of the structure of the variables. The latter simply reflects inappropriate use and interpretation of statistical analyses. Thirdly, the theoretical argument has several serious deficiencies. Conceptually, the authors fail to demonstrate that their central independent variable, IQ, can be regarded (or measured) independent of educational achievement and/or socialization─ two processes which are themselves heavily influenced by social constraints. Further, contends Thomas Volken, that it is by no means clear whether the highest potential for wealth and growth can be attributed to those with the highest IQ. This seems to be particularly striking if one considers the rather weak correlations between IQ and earnings on one hand, and the much stronger correlation between educational attainment and income on the other hand (pp. 411- 412).
What is outrageous about the book is its emphasis on one direction of causation,
namely, that a high IQ is the cause of a high income and intellectual and income
differences between nations stems from genetic differences. “… We believe that
national differences in intelligence have a substantial genetic basis…” (p.193)5. Do
they have the data to back up this belief? None, except for a fragmented and
improperly documented and extremely oversimplified assertion about the effects of
trans-racial adoption and a few twin studies. The distorted data probably allow them
to talk about the strength of relationships but not cause and effect relationships.
Their correlation analysis does not establish causality because of the fact that correlation merely measures covariation. It is well known that while statistical analyses can identify important associations between variables, they are inherently incapable of identifying “cause and effect” relationships. Indeed, it is equally well known that statistical analyses can also identify spurious “relationships.” For instance, we 4 The measure for the mean IQ for Ethiopian children relies on exactly the same flawed methodology discussed by Gould in The Mismeasure of Man concerning the IQ of immigrants to the United States. The parallel is striking (see, for instance, Tucker,2002; Hunt, 1961; Kamin, 1974; Mackintosh, 1998)5
It may be pertinent to mention here Arthur Jensen’s controversial statement in the 1969 Harvard Education Review. In this widely publicized paper on the heritability of intelligence, he was concerned particularly with racial differences in intelligence. He stated that genetic factors accounted for as much as 80 percent of intelligence which means that what IQ tests measure is 80% inherited and 20% environmental. This statement caused an uproar that showed the emotional and political nature of the issue and generated a controversy that continues to this day. A similar line of argument has been presented by Herrnstein and Murray (1994) in their book, The Bell Curve. Contrary to Jensen’s and Herrnstein and Murray’s assumption, however, numerous studies have been conducted with orphans and
other children from deprived environments to show the overriding importance of home, sociocultural factors and schools in the process of development. These studies also indicate that intelligence is not a fixed, inherited attribute but a variable depending on stimulation and on cultural and environmental factors (Berhanu, 1997, 2001; see also Michael Cole and his colleagues’ extensive work.).
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 14 conjecture that it would have been possible to take random samples of subjects from various countries and positively correlate people’s average BMI (body mass index) with the economic success of their countries (measured by, say, GDP), leading to a spurious conclusion that obesity leads to economic (even technological) success. Of course, such a spurious conclusion would be very quickly dismissed as there is no “political agenda” to support it (Dr. Elsabet Tamrat & Professor Jerzy Filar,
Foundation Professor of Mathematics & Statistics, University of South Australia,
Personal Communication, 2006 December).
Richard Lynn continues to argue elsewhere, referring to Manheim and Rich’s work
(1986:21-22), that it is justified to postulate causal relationships only when four
conditions are simultaneously met: First, the postulated cause and effect must change
together, or covary. Second, the cause must precede the effect. Third, we must be able to identify a causal linkage between the supposed cause and effect. Fourth, the
covariance of the cause and effect phenomena must not be due to their simultaneous
relationship to some other third factor. In the first place, the criteria are questionable, and there is no consensus, as far as I know, in the academic arena on that specific postulation. Secondly, as I outlined earlier and continue to argue here below, the relationship between the alleged national IQ and the measures of per capita income and economic growth is far from meeting these requirements. Other than that, as Mackintosh (1998) rightly put it, the comparison of IQ scores of different nationalities is, at best, a hazardous enterprise, to be undertaken with caution and humility, and at worst, a nonsensical and mischievous waste of time. Besides the enormous technical and methodological difficulties that this futile attempt entails, the cultural, economic, political, and environmental differences between poor and rich nations would be expected to produce a substantial IQ deficit even on a strongly hereditarian view of IQ, such as that held by Arthur Jensen (1969, 1980, 1998). Still worse, how can learned persons postulate that differences in average IQ scores between developed and developing countries should be taken as reliably indicating any difference in innate capacity?
The concept of intelligence and intelligence testing Lynn and Vanhanen contradict themselves through out their work. One example is that they initially downplayed the importance of environment on intelligence and state intelligence is immutable and then somewhere in their text one finds intelligence has increased considerably in many nations during the 20th century and there is little doubt that these increases have been brought about by environmental improvements,which have themselves occurred largely as a result of increases in per capita incomes that have enabled people to give their children better nutrition, healthcare, education and the like. Lynn (1990b) was one of the pioneers who documented the phenomenon of rising IQ scores (among the Japanese) which he and researcher James Flynn attributed to improved nutrition – The “Flynn effect” (see Flynn, 1987). In his studies
of trends in IQ development in 14 nations, Flynn (1987) found that there were IQ
gains ranging from 5 to 25 points in one single generation: "The hypothesis that best
fits the results is that IQ tests do not measure intelligence but rather a correlate with a weak causal link to intelligence "( p. 171).
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 15 Many scholars argue that intelligence does not explain behavior because measured intelligence is not reliably related to important variables such as the capacity to learn or remember or fundamental thinking skills or the complexity of a person´s cognitive functioning (Howe, 1988; see also Gould, 1981; Kamin, 1974). "Intelligence is a
summary of certain characteristics of behaviour such as that is adaptive, quick,
appropriate and so on. ...It is a description of how we behave, not a causal entity
making us behave. "(Gilbert Ryle, 1949, quoted in Radford, 1991, p.16). Any test is a
measure of achievement and not a measure of capacity and the notions of capacity we
derive from it are inferences. In short, intelligence is an inference deriving from
differential achievements and not a measurable thing in itself (Glasser, 1969). There
may be no agreement on what IQ tests measure. Whatever it is they measure, there is
no agreement as to how much of this quantity is determined by the environment on
the one hand and genetics on the other. “Yet, amid the unresolved theoretical morass
of intelligence testing, the administration of standardized tests continues to be
widespread in clinical practice” (Kwate, 2001, p. 235).
In response to Herrnstein & Murray's (1994) book, The Bell Curve, Feuerstein &
Kozulin (1995, p. 72) wrote:”intelligence is a propensity, a tendency, or the power of the organism to change itself to adapt to a new situation. It is multi-dimensional and modifiable, the very qualities that have enabled humans to adapt so effectively to a multitude of environments. Only if one accepts the reified version of intelligence can one believe in its deterministic predictability."
Furthermore, people’s conception of intelligence varies depending upon their cultural
practices and meta-communicative frameworks, a testimony that people respond
differently to contrasting circumstances. In my recent study (Berhanu, 2005), I
attempted to show that the socialization of Ethiopian Jewish children is centred on
producing Chewa, a well behaved, kind, caring, "non-competitive," obedient, shy and
respectful child. Speed in talking, or solving problems, independent exploratory
behavior, or stubborn inquisitiveness, question-answer type dyadic relationships for
their own sake, “decontextualised” mediational styles and joint parent-child play
activities are rarely emphasized or encouraged (Berhanu, 2001). But that doesn’t
mean that the group is held back by “defeatist” thought patterns such as the cult of
“anti intellectualism”. What the data indicate is that there is an overriding emphasis on a particular kind of moral development rather than a deliberate acceleration of cognitive development merely for its own sake, as is more symptomatic of "potlatched consumptivity" in competitive circumstances in Western education forms.
Especially in their Ethiopian settings, children were trained in practical skills
requiring mental training directly associated with the tasks at hand in a meaningful
and functional manner.
Racism, intellectual genocide and the IQ game The book serves, if it ever serves anything, to revive the eugenics movement and advance the view that racial differences and group evolutionary strategies are real.
It simply captures the reins of ideological propaganda in line with the right wing
political agenda. Another book by the first author, Eugenics: A Reassessment
published by Praeger press as part of the “Human Evolution, Behaviour and
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 16 Intelligence” series, and edited by one other arch eugenist and racist Seymur Itzkoff is
a testimony to the author’s anti human, sexist and racist agenda.
Because their research is principally driven by their premise that nations die or
succeed depending on their average intelligence, any figure that runs contrary irritates them, and for these they always find explanations. For instance, the low intelligence of Ireland and Israel. In the case of Ireland from where one of the authors appears to originate selective migration has caused the most intelligent Irish to emigrate, leaving
the poor and less intelligent farmers behind. In the case of Israel, the authors explain,
that Jews from many areas are of low intelligence along with Palestinians. This is
simply to deny the huge economic, political and social/cultural capital present among
the Ashkenazi Jews and other Sephardim (oriental) Jews, and likewise between the
Jews and Israeli Arabs (Berhanu, 20005a, 2006c).
It is also important to point out that the supposedly intelligent nations are the ones
which regularly administer IQ test-like examinations in their educational system. It
seems reasonable to assume that the more testing a nation has, the higher its average
IQ score on such tests will be (cf. Mackintosh, 1998; Vernon, 1979).
The countries of Africa with IQs 50 – 69 (seven in number) are referred to as "feeble
minded" and others with IQs of 70 – 79 as "border line deficient." Already racist
groups are making much of this on the internet, a convenient platform for
dehumanising the black race and “committing intellectual genocide.” Can the authors
claim that they are doing just pure science with no implications or consequences for
over one billion dark skinned people and a billion more colored people?
Lynn and Vanhanen seem bent on dehumanizing the poor in general and black people
in particular when in the introduction to the book (p. xvi) they attempt to debunk Kofi
Annan’s and Ayittey’s (1999) statements concerning black intellectuality. That is: “…
that intelligence is one commodity equally distributed among the world’s people”
(Annan in Hoyos and Littejohn 2000). “… the notion that Africans are intellectually
inferior is offensive mythology” (Ayittey, 1999, p.2-3). Lynn and Vanhanen contend
that these statements are false. In Chapter 4, they present a review concluding that low
intelligence is a significant determinant of the syndrome of the social pathology
known as the “underclass.” These social pathologies include crime, unemployment,
welfare dependency, and single motherhood. In simple words, what the authors try to
tell us is that poor and jobless people and offenders are stupid whether they are black,
white or blue, and very little can be done to improve their lot as this syndrome is
inherited. Scaling the argument to a global level, the authors stated “…unfortunately,
the results of our study imply that it will be impossible to eradicate the gap between
rich and poor nations and that there is very little hope for most poor nations ever to
catch up with the rich nations.” (p. 183)
One major fallacy in their argument is that they present no evidence that intelligence
is substantially heritable and that intelligence is differentially distributed among the
world’s people. As mentioned earlier, the principal evidence that they refer to again
and again is that identical twins reared apart in differing life circumstances are much
more similar intellectually than fraternal twins reared under the same roof. This
statement was originally made by Sir Cyril Burt who has been accused of distorting
the data. In the words of Stephen Gould (1981, 1996), Sir Cyril Burt juggled,
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 17
finagled, and fabricated data to support his own research in an attempt to confirm the
superiority of the Caucasian race and place North Europeans at the apex of
civilization and the rest of the human race lagging far behind. This so-called principal
type of evidence that leads to the conclusion that intelligence is substantially
genetically determined and from which its heritability6 can be calculated is substandard
argument and lacks scientific vigour.
Theory of economic development
Attempts to decipher what lies behind wealth and poverty are not new. The classic
works of Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Montesquieu and others touched on this area
and since then a number of theories have emerged each with specific elements. In
economic and development studies, there are several theories (developed during the
last 250 years) advanced by professionals in the field as to what factors help or
impede economic successes. There are no rankings of the significance of each factor,
as many factors are usually at work or inextricably intertwined in explaining why
countries differ in economic development. The most established theories in the field
are culture theories, climate theories, geographic theories, psychological theories,
modernization theories, multi-causal theories, neoclassical theories, dependency and
world system theories, and market economies (see Landes, 1998). Although Lynn and
Vanhanen have reviewed the literature on the alternative theories of economic
development, they argue that it is the intelligence of the populations that provides the
most powerful and fundamental explanation for the gap between rich and poor
nations, deeming the other explanations partial or negligible.
As Volken (2003, p. 412) correctly pointed out, the authors "simply disregard
fundamental theories of economics and economic sociology. In the light of even the
6 There is simply no valid evidence that the race gap in cognitive test scores is caused by
genetically determined differences in intellectual capacity. In contrast, there is a good deal of
evidence that supports an environmental explanation of the gap. And recent research is
uncovering more of the specific environmental factors that generate the gap. The basic
hereditarian argument, that heritability estimates are so high that they rule out the possibility
that the entire race gap can be explained by environment, is fundamentally flawed in three
ways. First, some of its theoretical underpinnings are simply wrong. Heritability estimates, no
matter how high, put no upper limit on the potential effects of environment on cognitive
ability. They do, however, establish a lower bound, which leads us to the second flaw in the
argument. There has been a downward trend in heritability estimates since 1969. Most recent
estimates fall in the range of .40 to .70 for IQ scores (Flynn, 1987). This suggests that
environment explains no less than 30% to 60% of the variation in IQ and perhaps very much
more when causal relationships between genes and the environment are taken into account.
So, in fact, heritability estimates do not suggest that environment explains little of the
variation in IQ (and other cognitive test scores as well) but, rather, just the opposite. They do
not in any way rule out the possibility that environment explains the entire gap. But we should
not put too much faith in any heritability estimates. They are extremely sensitive to both the
method and nature of the data. They vary from virtually 0 to virtually 1. The most
theoretically valid method compares identical twins reared apart. But this is where the third
fatal flaw comes in. Those data are virtually worthless because so many of the twins were
adopted into extremely similar, or even related, families. Moreover, there are reasons to
believe that some of the twins in these studies may not really have been separated (Kamin,
1974) (see Crane, 1994, p. 203).
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 18
most basic growth theory, a mono-causal IQ-centric explanation is highly
inappropriate. Output and growth cannot be regarded as a simple function of
intellectual capacity, since human capital is only one agent of production and needs to
be accompanied by real capital, social capital, and other productive resources to
unfold its full potential." In his thorough environmentally based analysis, Jared
Diamond has demonstrated the importance of historical and geographic factors in
development. In his book Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed, Diamond
(2005) describes what has happened to societies that have ignored the natural
imperative to preserve trees, soil, and biodiversity. In Guns, Germs, and Steel: The
Fates of Human societies (1997), he presented a fascinating historical analysis that
shows the 13,000-year interplay between geography, climate, natural resources, and
human activity that has allowed some societies to thrive while others merely survived,
stagnated, or died.
A network of conspiracy in the name of science and objectivity
Who funds the kind of research that Lynn and Vanhanen do? A long line of
researchers involved in the politics of IQ are funded by, among others, Wickliffe
Preston Draper and the Pioneer Fund (see Tucker, 2002) which also publishes a
journal, Mankind Quarterly, aptly described as a fascist journal, closely linked with
the eugenics movement. Lynn and Vanhanen’s study was also supported by the
Pioneer Fund. This is not surprising knowing that Lynn is associated with the Pioneer
fund, co-editing the Mankind quarterly. The pioneer Fund, established in 1937 by
Wickliffe Preston Draper, is one of the most controversial non-profit organizations in
the United States. Long suspected of misusing social science to fuel the politics of
oppression, the fund has specialized in supporting research that seeks to prove the
genetic and intellectual inferiority of blacks while denying its ties to any political
agenda (Tucker, 2002).
Tatu Vanhanen has wrote a book review in the Mankind Quarterly in 1995. In that
review, he expressed admiration for the works of Seymour W. Itzkoff (1991, 1992 &
1994). Seymour Itzkoff7 did not write or produce anything original. He simply argues
that there are inherited intellectual and mental differences between groups and
individuals and that we could see these expressed in wide variation in learning
capacity, educability, social and economic successes and intellectual achievements.
Itzkoff lashed out at sociologists, liberal egalitarians, socialists, and humanists who
claim that our social institutions are mainly responsible for the gap between poor and
rich. His statements are elitist but both Lynn and Vanhanen magnified Itzkoff's
agenda in their current book as they did in different articles in the past.
What shocks and saddens me is that even Scandinavia, which was once and, hopefully
still is, the hub of egalitarian thought and practices, is becoming a target of attack by
its own scholars. The Danish developmental psychologist Helmuth Nyborg, a close
associate of the authors, has repeatedly and openly expressed his racist and sexist
opinions. A number of Danish tabloids circulated his outrageous statements, e.g.,
“women are dumber than men,” Denmark has to forbid the reproduction of less
7 Seymour Itzkhoff is the current editor of Human Evolution, Behaviour and Intelligence
series in which IQ and the Wealth of Nations was published.
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 19
talented people, and assortative mating must become the norm. In a tribute to Arthur
Jensen (Nyborg, 2003), he stated that intelligence is essentially immutable and
primarily genetically based. A book he edited entitled The scientific study of human
nature (Nyborg, 1997) is a prime example of the resurrection of Scandinavian
scientific racism. More depressing is the limited response from other more capable
and responsible academicians and legal and moral authorities. Again people have not
heeded Emperor Haile Selassie’s warnings about being silent in such cases.
How can blacks and poor people trust European and American societies that are
dominated and manipulated by white males and that remain silent in the face of such
persons as Nyborg? How can Somalian children in Finland trust a system in which the
very prime minister’s father blatantly tells them “you are stupid” and “you are not
educable,” and “blame your genes.” Vanhanen is no ordinary citizen. He is a
professor and his opinions are looked upon by the public, including pedagogues, as
authoritative. The message to these children is “don’t work hard, you will not succeed
anyway…. better to concentrate on manual work. We need people who mow our
lawn, sweep the yard, wash the dishes, and mind our kids.” And the message for the
educators appears so: “whatever effort you put in, you can make no difference for
these children.” (Also see Eysenck, 1994.)
William Bennett, former US Education Secretary, now a syndicated talk-show host
said “If you wanted to reduce crime you could—if that were your sole purpose—you
could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." He
added that it would be an "impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to
do, but your crime rate would go down.”8 This and the above statements are
intellectual genocide, the product of an "obsession with proving that minorities, poor
people, foreigners, and women are innately inferior to upper-class white males of
northern European extraction" (Tucker, 1994, p. 4). Tucker provides an overview of
racial research from Condorcet (1795) to the present and concludes that this has been
an attempt, quoting Condorcet, “to make nature herself an accomplice to political
inequality.” (p. 5).
In a previous work, Richard Lynn had more to say about intelligence and brain size,
statements right in line with those made by Nyborg. Lynn asserts that women have
smaller brains than men even when allowance is made for their smaller bodies. This
implies that men should have higher average IQs than women (Lynn, 1999). Lynn
claims that he has new evidences showing conclusively for the first time that lighter
skinned blacks have higher IQs than darker skinned blacks, and he further argues that
this supports the theory that the proportion of white ancestry is a determinant of the
intelligence of African Americans (Lynn, 2002). Lynn's assertions do not rest on
sound genetic principles. In a “Report of a Task Force established by the American
Psychological Association (Neisser, 1996), Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, the
task force concludes: "It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in
psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is
not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the
genetic hypothesis.” (p. 95). However, Lynn (2005) continues to make even stronger
statements in his latest book Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary
analysis. Also see Rushton and Jensen (2004) for a position quite similar to Lynn's.
8 As reported in Time, October 10, 2005, p. 15).
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 20
Crane (1994), having given a detailed and convincing argument in his acclaimed
article, concluded that “…it is not surprising that we should find no evidence of
genetic differences in intelligence between races. Race is fundamentally a socially and
politically defined concept. It is not by any means clear that any one race is
genetically homogeneous enough and genetically distinct enough from other races to
make sense as a biological category” (p. 205). Similarly, Gould (1966, p. 399) rightly
stated that we will need many years, and much pondering, to assimilate the
theoretical, conceptual, and iconographic implications of this startling reorientation in
our views about the nature and meaning of human diversity. For starters, I might
suggest that we finally abandon such senseless statements as “African blacks have
more rhythm, less intelligence, greater athleticism.” Such claims, apart from their
social perniciousness, have no meaning if Africans cannot be constructed as a
coherent group; in fact, they represent greater diversity than all the rest of the world
put together.
What binds Nyborg, Vanhanen and Lynn to Itzkoff (from the other side of the
Atlantic) is their belief in the general decline of intelligence and the remedy they
propose. The remedy they offer is that the most intelligent and educated men and
women should bear and raise many more children than those from the bottom of the
economic and educational social class structure. As to national differences in
economic growth, Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) conclude that “if differences in national
IQs are genetically determined to a significant extent, as we believe, we have to
conclude that it would not be possible to eradicate these differences by any
environmental interventions or manipulations except possibly by massive eugenic
measures that would not be practical. For this reason, it will be impossible to achieve
economic equality between nations” (p. 194).
The Bell Curve (Hernstein and Murray, 1994) was written in exactly the same spirit as
the above; the book claimed that blacks were less intelligent than whites and therefore
advocated that they should be quarantined from whites and treated like prisoners
(along with other "stupid people"). Hernstein and Murray, on whose work Lynn and
Vanhanen leaned extensively, produced no new knowledge. Instead they pandered to
white resentment and right wing conservative ideology. This can be clearly seen in
their recommendations. They explicitly called for (1) dismantling programs intended
to serve children living in poverty; (2) increasing spending on gifted students (where
they believe the investment will payoff); and (3) implementing school choice policies
presumably to liberate intelligent kids from the less able pupils in the public school
system. Therefore, they contend neither effective schools nor a healthier environment
can do much to alter a person's destiny. However, the improvement in scholastic skills
seen in most previously disadvantaged children speaks against their contentions
regarding the importance of the heritability of intelligence. Also many
"compensatory" or enrichment programs have been based on the premise that
differences in intelligence are primarily a consequence of environmental variations
rather than genetic factors (see Berhanu, 1997, 2001).
The beliefs of the authors of IQ and the Wealth of Nations and their liked minded
colleagues around the world serve an establishmentalism that justifies and perpetuates
racism, sexism, and classism as natural and inevitable. The authors elevated the
rhetoric and stated that average IQ differences between nations are substantially the
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 21
products of heredity, despite manifest and profound variation in life standards, wealth
and quality of life. “Evolution and quantification formed an unholy alliance; in a
sense, their union forged the first powerful theory of 'scientific' racism – if we define
'science' as many do who misunderstand it most profoundly: as any claim apparently
backed by copious numbers” (Gould, 1981, p.106). Higgins, having reviewed The
Science and Politics of Racial Research (Tucker, 1994) has correctly captured the
work of scholars such as Lynn and Vanhanen in the following words:
The reasoning of scientific racists goes like this: science can tell us the facts and,
once we know the facts, we will know what to do. However, science cannot
provide a basis for human judgement precisely because science can never
provide all the facts. Science is, at best, a statement of probabilities, an
approximation, a contingency statement. The judgement that all men are created
equal is not a scientific fact but a political and moral judgement about which
science has nothing to say.
In connection with the eugenics movement, Vanhanen’s position is clear. At the
conclusion of his review of Itzkoff’s three books, Vanhanen praised Itzkoff’s proposal
for remedying the general "decline of America." In his book The Decline of
Intelligence in America, Itzkoff put the blame for the decline of intelligence partly on
African American and other disadvantaged minority groups and suggested that the
government should try “to establish a long-term social policy that will ‘encourage’ the
birth of 50 percent more children from the upper half of the social and income
brackets than from the lower.” (Itzkoff, 1994 as cited in Vanhanen, 1995, p. 8)
In agreement with Itzkoff, Tatu Vanhanen wrote in his concluding remarks “ that
Itzkoff has focused on one very important aspect of human nature, to hereditary
intellectual differences between individuals and groups, and he has disclosed its social
and political relevance in superb manner.” This pseudo science continues a line of
work begun in the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth by such
individuals as Paul Broca, Francis Galton, Samuel George Morton, Cesare Lombroso
and the like, even though these people were more focused on linking physical traits
with behavior (e.g., the study of brain size, craniometry, craniology, evolution
recapitulation, and criminal anthropology). The more modern manifestation of this
same line of research involves IQ testing, pursued by the likes of H.H.Goddard,
Lewis Terman, R.M.Yerkes, Charles Spearman, Cyril Burt, Hans Eysenck, Arthur
Jensen, Richard Hernstein, Philippe Rushton9, Charles Murray, Richard Lynn, and
9 When Rushton, an advocate of genetic race theory, wrote in his book Race, Evolution and
Behaviour (1995) that “...the human DNA closest to that of the apes occurs most commonly
in Africa” misrepresenting the scientific work compiled in The History and Geography of
human Genes (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994), a number of his colleagues, whom I mentioned
above, commented on the book in the following way: “This brilliant work is the most
impressive theory-based study…of the psychological and behavioural differences between the
major racial groups that I have encountered in the world literature on this subject”―Arthur R.
Jensen. “Rushton is a serious scholar who has assembled serious data. Consider just one
example: brain size. The empirical reality, verified by numerous modern studies, including
several based on magnetic resonance imaging, is that a significant and substantial relationship
does exist between brain size and measured intelligence after body size is taken into account
and that the races do have different distributions of brain size”―Charles Murray. “Should, if
there is any justice, receive a Nobel prize.”―Richard Lynn. “Professor Rushton is widely
known and respected for the unusual combination of rigour and originality in his work….
Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 22
Helmuth Nyborg. These individuals are utterly convinced of the heritability of
intelligence and the validity of the ranking of individuals, classes, and races in
relation to IQ (see Gould, 1996, for further critique). As far as I am able to determine
these researchers are all white males coming from the middle or upper classes. It is
not difficult to explain why a few privileged white educated males are so eager to
dehumanize blacks in the name of science, making them even more vulnerable to
attacks. One plausible explanation at the psychic level can be read in the works of
France Fanon (1967), John Griffin (1961, 1996) and Sven Lindqvist (1997). It is also
true that misogyny runs deep among male academics.
The authors Lynn and Vanhanen adopt a single approach—psychometric and
laboratory-based views of intelligence—that is only one among a number of other
rather more widely accepted notions of intelligence for which there is a large body of
empirical research, e.g., Reuven Feuerstein’s mediated learning theories (the theory of
structural cognitive modifiability), Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences, Piaget’s
developmentally based intelligence, Lev Vygotsky’s socially based intelligence, and
the list goes on. Lynn and Vanhanen have either purposely ignored these lines of
inquiry on intelligence or lack the insight to review others’ work that seems opposed
to their line of inquiry. Are they more interested in committing black intellectual
genocide than opening themselves to other perspectives and open dialogue? It is time
that the international community of scholars takes steps against dehumanizing
campaigns, such as those of Lynn and Vanhanen. Their efforts are directed at hurting
a sizeable proportion of the world population in the guise of science and objective
quantification. Let the International Court of Justice incorporate in its mandate
intellectual genocide of the type seen in the work of these authors.
To sum up, I have chosen Gould’s statement that this subject of bio-determinism has a
long, complex, and contentious history. We can easily get lost in the minutiae of
abstract academic arguments. But we must never forget the lives diminished by these
false arguments—and we must, primarily for this reason, never flag in our resolve to
expose the fallacies of a science employed for pernicious purposes. As Gould (1996,
p. 50) wrote in The Mismeasure of Man: “We pass through this world but once. Few
tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than
the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from
without, but falsely identified as lying within.”
Finally, I close with a statement made over 170 years ago in the Voyage of the Beagle
(Dec 27, 1831 to Oct 2, 1836):
If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our
institutions, great is our sin.─ Charles Darwin
Few concerned with understanding the problems associated with race can afford to disregard
this storehouse of well-integrated information which gives rise to a remarkable
synthesis.”―Hans J. Eysenck.
Berhanu: Black intellectual genocide 23
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Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 28
About the Author
Girma Berhanu
Department of Education
Göteborg University
Box 300, SE 405 30
Göteborg, Sweden
E-mail: Girma.Berhanu@ped.gu.se
Girma Berhanu obtained a B.A. degree in
Sociology in 1983. He received a research
degree and a master’s degree in pedagogy in
1996 from Göteborg University; and in 2001, he
earned a Ph.D. in Special Education from the
same university. He was a research associate at the
ICELP (International Centre for the
Enhancement of Learning Potential) in Israel from 1999 to 2001. Currently, he is a
senior lecturer at the special education department, Göteborg University. Dr. Berhanu
is fervently engaged in discussion of equity issues in the fields of (special) education,
intercultural education and communication, and group based inequalities in scholastic
achievement. Presently, he is writing a research-based book with the tentative title
Ethnicity, Race and Education: The Case of Sweden.
Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to
the Education Review, http://edrev.asu.edu.
Editors: Gene V Glass, Kate Corby, Gustavo Fischman
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