Wealthy countries developed the IQ test - so intelligence traits valued in those countries will of COURSE be weighted more heavily. But since the bias in the test is in line with the national trait being measured, it is therefore an accurate predictor of national wealth.
DUH....
"The IQ test is heavily culturally conditioned,” he said."
This is an obsolete and discredited notion. What James would be saying if he were up on the facts, is that "IQ is heavily culturally conditioned."
The tests simply mirror reality, they don't create it.
Cultures which enable and support openness and adaptation to new information, such as Western and Pacific Rim cultures, narturally produce more cognitively adept populations.
Subsaharan African cultures, which are virtually impervious to input from external sources, change at only glacial rates, if at all. Thus they produce populations of people who are unable to utilize novel information or to readily grasp and apply new concepts.
A common critique of IQ tests are that they are culturally biased. Even a moment’s reflection would show that the Chinese tests would thus be invalidated, yet they score higher than the rich and developed West. Further, it would be trivial to change the few tests that depend on, for example, common pictures and language phrases to those of the target group. The fact that this IS done and has not changed the overall scores of low-performing groups is ignored. Specific groups do differ in certain categories of test - language, graphic and numerate, as would be expected, but the overall effect is limited. Finally, most parts of the tests are totally non-cultural e.g. geometric puzzles.
And to those who trash IQ tests because they are “unfair” are very quiet about physical attributes that also differ in groups. Consider height, running ability, lung capacity, colouring, areas of fat repositories, hair type and texture. Why should IQ be the same in all groups and these characteristics patently not?