People in Developing Countries 'Have lower IQs because their bodies are focused on surviving'

Daily Mail UK ^ | July 1, 2010 | Daily Mail Reporter

[wac3rd]

People in developing countries have lower IQs because their bodies divert energy from brainpower to fighting disease, researchers claimed today.

In hot nations blighted by deadly infections, the priority is survival and populations have evolved to develop stronger immune systems rather than intelligence, according to the controversial theory.

Some critics warned the study could become an excuse for racism if it was used to suggest that people in the Third World are not as intelligent as those in cooler, richer climes.

Others pointed out that the ancient Persians, Greeks and Romans lived in hot climates and still boasted extraordinary civilisations. U.S. researchers claimed their work could explain why national IQ scores vary around the world and are lower in some warmer countries stricken by diseases such as malaria, tetanus and tuberculosis.

Infection could have as important an impact on intelligence as education, diet and wealth, said researcher Randy Thornhill and a team from the University of New Mexico. Children under five use most of their energy for brain development and this can be restricted if the body has to fight disease, they wrote in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. They compared data from worldwide IQ studies with disease maps drawn up by the World Health Organisation and concluded that the higher the level of infectious disease in a country, the lower the average national IQ.

'The effect of infectious disease on IQ is bigger than any other single factor we looked at,' said Chris Eppig, lead author on the paper. Disease is a major sap on the body's energy, and the brain takes a lot of energy to build. If you don't have enough, you can't do it properly. (snip)

[artaxerces]

I would argue while IQ scores are not a reliable predictor of individual people’s success in life. It is a very good predictor of the performance and capabilities of entire societies of people. Societies with higher average IQs tend to assimilate technology better than societies with lower IQs. To see some examples of countries in each IQ standard deviation:

1. Average IQ of 70-85 leads to unstable, collapsed or non-existent governments, tribalism, very low(pre-industrial) technology base. (e.g Ghana, Zimbabwe, Sudan, the Congo...etc)

2. Average IQ of 85-100 leads to semi-stable central governments, pre-industrial or early industrial level of technology (India, Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Indonesia...etc)

3. Average IQ of 100-115 leads to well organized societies with advanced industrial technology base. (Russia, Germany, USA, China, Japan...etc)

4. Average IQ of 115-130 leads to highly organized societies with high standards of living and extremely advanced levels technological innovation. (Israel, Singapore)

[artaxerces]

Education does not produce a significant increase in IQ. There are only 3 ways of reliably increasing a population’s average IQ:

1. Improved nutrition with more animal protein in the diet can create something like a 10 pt increase in IQ. (Implemented by all industrialized countries)

2. Selecting immigrants with higher IQs. (Implemented by the U.S from the 1890s to the 1930s, China present day, Singapore present day)

3. Eugenics/Selective breeding aka get higher IQ individuals to have more kids, lower IQ individuals to have less kids. (Implemented by the U.S up to the 1930s and by Singapore in the present day)