> You're probably downvoted because the assertion is controversial, but it shouldn't be.
Fascinating. Would you mind showing me your sources for this assertion you claim shouldn't be controversial. I'm sub-saharan African, but I think I'll manage to read the papers just fine.
Your suggestion that entire countries with an average IQ below what's considered developmentally challenged (70-75) is ... suspect. Additionally, considering international high school examination board exist in Commonwealth countries whose results do not reflect your theory. So, let's have a fact-based discussion and not unsourced "good faith" discussion
Some sources online list the average IQ of the bottom 14 countries to be under 60. I find this really hard to believe and to me indicates more of an issue with testing IQ than the intelligence of people across various countries
What do you call someone who doesn't understand genes create biochemicals which create physiology ?
Look at the end of the day we are biochemical robots, ignoring gene differences is good for no one.
African populations have higher prevalence of sickle cell, Europeans have higher prevalence of Alzheimer's. both are thought to be have evolved for some reason.
Genes are not magic. They are very complex code. The idea genes exist for no purpose died with the advent of metagenomics. If there are any gene differences, they have likely behaviorial implications.
"I'm sub-saharan African, but I think I'll manage to read the papers just fine."
You ask for a good faith discussion but immediately start out with taking it personal. In quite a low effort way, as surely I don't have to explain what a "median" is, and how this has nothing to do with you as an individual?
As for sources, you'll find an endless amount of them by searching for "IQ per country". There's a lot of research methods that are criticized and refined over time but the conclusion stays the same regardless.
Causes are also discussed: lack of education, malnutrition, infectious diseases, the like.
Whether it's IQ or education level or the correlation between them (it's complicated) the original point by the parent commenter is that this disadvantage is catastrophic.
> You ask for a good faith discussion but immediately start out with taking it personal. In quite a low effort way, as surely I don't have to explain what a "median" is, and how this has nothing to do with you as an individual?
Now we've got the personal stuff out of the way - may you kindly provide your sources to save yourself time explaining what a "median" is.
We can not have a decent discussion if we are not basing off of a common set of priors, which is why I'm asking for citations on your end. One cannot have constructive Physics discussion with an alien from a universe with different fundamental constants - citations are a way for me to check if we have the same constants, otherwise the discussion will be unfruitful to both of us.
Hitchen's razor applies here: a claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. GP should show their work first before I waste my energy shadow boxing quasi-science
Since you sound geniunely curious: a number of former colonies of Britain utilise high school examination boards overseen by prestigious British universities, stats on the results are routinely published. I'll leave the details as an exercise to the reader, or when provided with respectable sources that state the contrary.
Unless most of the population takes these exams you have only identified generally, it’s not going to reflect the average person. All that good performance by a small number of students would tell us is that smart people exist, which I already know, but not how many stupid people exist, which is what will affect average numbers either on exams or median income. So the evidence you claim exists would not even be capable of supporting your argument.
> Unless most of the population takes these exams you have only identified generally, it’s not going to reflect the average person
Is the sample size of "all final-year high-schoolers in a country" big enough for you?
> So the evidence you claim exists would not even be capable of supporting your argument.
What makes you think that?
Also - I will not be playing defence here: the burden of proof is on the side that put forward the hypothesis, for which no evidence has been cited thus far. So much for wanting to have a "good faith" discussion
Note that I’m not defending the original claim you responded to, because I don’t think it’s using great data.
Test scores would work great only if almost everybody reached the final year of high school and took the test, or if it came with info about what proportion of the students took it, but it would only say anything about the region or country taking it, not directly about others. (What it could also do is help refute the applicability of historical third world IQ measurements in general, too. But only if you actually identify the exam and location by name.)
