The Indian/Chinese IQ puzzle

@ Big mouth, there is a correction

your quote***Yet with the same globalisation, and with more investments, worldwide large scale donations and the UN Food Aids for decades, India and Sub-Sahara Africa haven’t been lifted by the West even under democratic rules.  How come the Chinese made it and India/Africa failed?

Who said India failed ? India is the 3rd largest economy, mind India is only 1/3rd in size of China and hence, don’t act dumb. What is the place of Africa in GDP do you know ? Even south Africa is only in 25th place, Nigeria is 30th. Why this idiotic comparison with Africa?. I thought you are more smarter ?

IQ is one of the many parameters affecting the average income of a country. The discussion here always seemed pointless to me as both countries are extremely poor and still be very poor decades later. What interests me is the guess of Kenichi Ohmae who guessed everything correctly up to now. The Japanese economy grew so fast in the 80’s that the rents of the real estates went up like a rocket. In 1989 the value of the real estates only in Tokyo was greater than all the real estates in America, that is to say if you sold only Tokyo you could purchase America. But 10 years later the value of the real estates was less than 20 percent. Ohmae guessed the exact value of the real estate market in 1999 only in 1987 realizing that though the value of the real estates was going up manipulatively the number of the unrented real estates too was increasing. The banks couldn’t see the relationship and continued mortgaging the estates. He knew the collapse of the real estate market and bank crisis in the 1990’s. Though being a nuclear engineer Ohmae has a far-seeing talent than any other economist. If he doesn’t see any chance for China in the future I would surely bet he should be right. ))) Though really it is not necessary I would like to learn what he thinks for India.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/why-do-chinese-read-fewer-books-57424.html

Another is an article in the Wall Street Journal: ‘Will China Go to A Low IQ Society?’ author Zhang Tao http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/rssall.xml started the article quoting a paragraph from Japanese scholar Kenichi Ohmae’s “Low-IQ Society” published several years ago, expressing his concern on national quality. It states: “When traveling in China, I found that massage parlors are everywhere, but bookstores are hard to find. On an average, the Chinese people spend less than 15 minutes a day to read, only a small portion of the reading time of the Japanese people. China is a typical ‘low IQ Society,’ with no hope of becoming a developed country in the future.”

These days I remain a little busy, so I will not be able to reply very frequently.

@indian strategy

I am not sure what one or two of the studies you posted really prove. I think they don’t prove anything at all.
I have seen all kinds of studies with all sorts of claims. You can never trust psychological studies. And most studies seem to agree that IQ can be raised AT LEAST temporarily. In fact, even the study you posted seems to agree with that to a certain extent. Others argue that there has been at least partial long lasting changes.

IQ obviously can be changed. The Flynn effect is good enough to show that. The dutch IQ increased by more than 20 points in 3 decades with virtually no immigration.
And like R.Lewontin said in the video that I posted, even Identical twins don’t have identical IQs - in fact, their IQs can differ by more than 20 points.
In fact studies show that in tests like Raven’s PM, you can rise the score of the subjects by at least 5-6 points simply by motivating the subjects enough.

Now you can say that some particular kinds of tests like general knowledge or vocabulary don’t seem to rise much with time, but like I said, anyone with common sense can tell that these components are likely to have a large cultural bias as well as motivational bias. Quite clearly, an average American will not know many things that a typical Indian will know and vice versa.

To bring back the witch doctor analogy of Feynman - suppose someone is ill and you try to treat that person. You say that I have tried honey, I have tried olive oil, I have tried carrots and I have spent lots of money and tried almost all herbs that I heard about. But this person despite showing some temporary improvements doesn’t seem to get cured fully - therefore this disease is incurable. The problem is- while you might draw such easy conclusions, someone with more advanced knowledge of medicine can actually prove you wrong by treating the patient with more advanced medicine like antibiotics. The same applies to these psychological studies of IQ.

@Astro
I told you, you are are just being way too nice to big mouth. He doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. He is just blinded by his anti-India sentiments.

And you are correct, children with half their brains removed can perform fairly normal in various tests. The brain is very plastic.

Let me first explain something. I don’t have the time and patience to answer every question here but I try best as I can. No, there is no test in the history which raised the IQ more than 20 points. If you don’t trust the psychological studies then why do you trust the Flynn effect? There is the critic of the study you mentioned. The enrichment studies in America are the most expensive and trusted ones worldwide as they are funded by the government and are supervised from both sides (right handed racists and left handed liberals) and the liberals have responsibility to the government. A charlatan may easily come up with a claim that he managed to raise the IQ of the children with hard work by changing or teaching the type of questions etc (I think this is the way in India). No, he can’t do any trick in America because he is being watched by everyone, the racists and moreover the government supervisors. The people should be satisfied that their taxes are not wasted by the government. There are numerous studies and there is not even one study that could raise the IQ of the children only 5 points at age 15! Abecedarian was very close to it. The Head Start costed multibillionaire. The racists say ‘we watched this film before’ because every time the liberals come up with different new claims that they will try new methods. Anyway the IQ scores gained faded out but there were other social outcomes of these experiments for the society. Racism has different meanings. One can claim that IQ is genetic but IQ doesn’t need to be the most important genetic trait. The term inferior or superior depends on what is demanded by the environmental conditions and they can always change. And finally James Watson, the cofounder of DNA and winner if Nobel Prize is known for his views that the blacks are genetically less intelligent than the whites. I think he deserves more attention than unqualified idiot geneticists like Suzuki.

http://www.neoeugenics.net/TRC.htm

Flynn states this fact succinctly, “Moreover, data whose quality cannot be challenged have posed the same question. The Dutch military data, like those of Israel, Norway, and Belgium, are near exhaustive; but even better, Vroon compared a sample of the total population of Dutch examinees with the scores of their own fathers. There is simply no doubt that Dutch men in 1952 had a mean IQ of 79 when scored against 1982 norms. Has the average person in The Netherlands ever been near mental retardation? Does it make sense to assume that at one time almost 40% of Dutch men lacked the capacity to understand soccer, their most favored national sport?”
Of course not, and that is why the Flynn effect is not taken seriously as an increase in real intelligence, because we just do not see one generation as more intelligent than previous ones, on a myriad of social indication scales. One would have to assume that the Greek philosophers were all mentally retarded, and yet wrote with such elegance that we still read and try to interpret their works today. It is absurd. And not one scholar in this book believes that real intelligence is changing but ever so slightly over time from environmental effects.
He goes on, “However, a careful survey of serious Dutch publications revealed not a single reference to a dramatic increase in cognitive ability or escalating giftedness among schoolchildren. The number of inventions patented in fact showed a sharp decline over the last generation (Flynn, 1987a, pp. 172, 187). . . . This means that in 1918, when scored against today’s norms, Americans had an average IQ of 75 on tests in which the crystallized component is at least as great as that of the Wechsler tests. Does that mean that during World War I about half of White Americans lacked the capacity to understand the basic rules of baseball?”

@Curious Indian, I think this guy “Big mouth” seems to be a genuine one, that is why he did not get back to us with some kind of insane argument, like normally the racial morons do, that is why I was nice to him. Hope this answers your concern.

Your argument on Flynn effect cannot be disputed sanely.  Multiple studies have documented significant IQ gains over time even by changing the test patterns. Data from both developed and developing nations show IQ gains over time, most notably in culturally reduced tests like the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. The hypotheses that resonate best with the findings are those related to parents’ literacy, family structure, and children’s nutrition and health. This doesn’t mean that all ancients were dumb, the contributions in philosophy / science whether ancient or modern are all from a specific category of people ( genius ) spread across races/nations and nothing to do with an average high IQ of a particular nation or society rather than a trend prevailing in those societies in a particular period. EX:- Greeks were after philosophy, Romans were after Imperialism, Indians were after spirituality, Chinese were after martial arts, Europeans were after Science & Technology. Now everybody is after science and technology, these are the trends. Average IQ can be elevated with the early mentioned factors, which helps in building up better economies and nations for sure.

I found an interesting paper below on this proving the Flynn effect substantiating your argument. Your points were very thoughtful and up to the mark.

Intelligence

@indian strategy

I thought you will ask this. I indeed don’t take psychological studies too seriously. That includes everything, including the Flynn Effect. However, in logic, it is far more EASIER TO DISPROVE something than it is to prove something. In logic and mathematics, there is a term called “Proof by counterexample”. If you have a theory and you want to disprove something, it is enough to show a counter-example. What the Flynn Effect does is that it provides a counter example to the claim that “IQ cannot be raised”. Therefore, it is more credible than the heritability hypothesis.

On the other hand, the claim that “iq cannot be raised” can only be disproved and not proved using counterexample. To prove such a claim one requires much more precise understanding of biology which may as well be far beyond modern science.

When you try to prove something, the important thing is not how much money you pour, but what methods you use. I already tried to explain that in my last post using the medicine example. The methods used to prove that IQ cannot be raised look very dubious to me.

James Watson never put it the way you put it here. The words he used were much more ambiguous. And while he might be a very important figure, he is only one old man- the majority of geneticists do not believe in genetic determinism. Too bad Crick is isn’t alive. I would be very interested in what he had to say.

Can I ask you something? What makes you think that IQ is any different from chess? IQ tests ask a certain type of question that has to be answered in a certain manner. What is your argument for saying that it is not real IQ if you study for it? In chess, master players specifically train for gaining knowledge of patterns inside the chess board. Nobody says that it is unfair to win by studying. So why is it wrong to gain IQ by studying?

And you said yourself that the rise of IQ as in flynn effect is not a real rise in intelligence. Then perhaps, IQ ITSELF IS NOT A REAL MEASURE OF INTELLIGENCE? You are again making a mistake - IQ and number of inventions -  the quality of inventions - etc - these are all very different things.

As for why IQ fades away by adulthood in some studies - I think it’s possible that there are some very good reasons for that. Firstly, notice that IQ is a relative measure. Therefore, if you stop getting intellectual stimulation and others do not , you start to fall behind in the relative terms. Several factors can easily cause you to get lesser necessary intellectual stimulation for IQ. Such as:
1> Extreme Poverty
2> Your Culture - it can cause you to have a very different set of GK and vocabulary than what’s required in these tests
3>Perhaps most importantly - your personal interests. This may be somewhat genetically influenced- but who the hell said that playing baseball makes you a lesser human being than doing physics?

And BTW, most of those test subjects in those USA based studies were Africans, not Indians.

@Astro
I don’t know what you mean by genuine, but what he said sounded pretty racist to me as he was insulting the Indians. But may be, like you said, he should be given the benefit of doubt as long as he doesn’t come back with more stupid comments.

Indeed, the flynn effect has a tremendous presence, simply because it is able to provide a counterexample.

If you ask me, I feel that IQ is not really that important, just like scores in schools are not that important. These are more like the side effects of the actual medicine and the not the medicine itself. Real intelligence or talent probably lies in emotional characteristics, knowledge of what’s important and the ability to pay attention.

You are wrong. Watson put it exactly that way. Here are 2 of many links.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/18/science.race/index.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fury-at-dna-pioneers-theory-africans-are-less-intelligent-than-westerners-394898.html

As to Crick, the other co-founder of DNA and Nobel Prize winner, he was found to be guilty too as a supporter of Jensen and eugenics. Today we have his letters.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/01/francis-crick-james-watsons-partner-was.html

Also in Crick’s letters we learn about William Shockley, the inventor if transistor and Nobelist in physics that he too was a racist and eugenicist. By the way here I have to explain that both Shockley and Alvarez (2 Nobelists) missed Terman’s IQ test with a few points. They were not among the 1500 students (140 IQ or higher). One reason was Terman’s test included only verbal questions and no math questions and both were math prodigies and lacked verbal talent. Also as a child, could Dr. Alvarez have spoken English as a second language, and have faced special problems on an English-based IQ test. Second as an inventor Shockley had very high spatial talents which many mathematicians even don’t have. Shortly though he was very talented both in math and spatial the test measured his weakest talent, verbal. Anyway it is good to know that he believed in racial differences in IQ and was eugenicist. If we go that way I have to remind that the greatest inventor Nikola Tesla too was a supporter of eugenics if you read the book of Margaret Cheney
http://www.margaretcheney.com/tesla___man_out_of_time_87234.htm

I have no idea about if the majority (!) of the scientists don’t believe in the racial differences in IQ. First science doesn’t work by voting and secondly the founders of DNA and many other famous Nobelists or inventors-scientists did believe. That is enough for me. Who the hell is the idiot Suzuki?

Your medical explanations don’t mean anything (that the brain is so plastic or what so ever). It is much easier to prove that IQ can’t be raised that it can be raised. If one can’t score better even if he took a long enrichment program and trained that is already over for any discussion. If one scores better in an IQ test some years later we have to be suspicious about if he learned the type of the questions. Then he wouldn’t be able to answer a different type of question and type of questions are limitless unlike the similarity of the positions in chess otherwise computers wouldn’t be able to beat the world champs. That is the difference. If one is trained only in verbal or math questions and if he can do better in spatial tests then I would be convinced that his IQ increased and due to the experiments in the US there is not an accomplishment like this. Furthermore even the biological correlates of g (reaction time, glucose rate in the brain) are not changing no matter how much the brain is plastic. If there is an increase in IQ there should be other correlates of it changing. As to Flynn effect it is possibly the misinterpretation of the different pattern of the questions in the tests. There is no necessity to make a big research but the questions about the Flynn effect are clear. If the Dutch men in 1952 had a mean IQ of 79 when scored against 1982 norms does it make sense to assume that at one time almost 40% of Dutch men lacked the capacity to understand soccer, their most favored national sport?” or the other question is Does that mean that during World War I about half of White Americans lacked the capacity to understand the basic rules of baseball?” The questions are so stupid that it is really not necessary what kind of a misinterpretation of pattern exists in the tests. It is true that most of the experiments were done with the blacks, whites and some adoption studies with the East Asians etc. I don’t know if there were any about the Indians but what would differ? Science is universal. Do you mean the others have solid brains but the Indians have plastic brains so that they could be taught better? Even your sentence contradicts you and has some real basis of racism.

There are many other clues about the racial differences that the cold weather selected the best men hunters who thought ahead and used the tools better (verbal and spatial) so the bell curve of the men is much greater than the women in cold climates. The reason why the people of Inuit living in Siberia have 90 IQ is because of very low population they were not highly selected and mutated. In Africa there was no selection due to the cold weather and the women have larger bell curves. Only in cold regions the men of the smart races have larger curves than the women. And the Jews used Judaism as an evolutionary strategy (Kevin MacDonald) for eugenics. That is why they have better verbal and math scores. Due to the caste system some Indian races did the same thing. That is why they have similar genetic diseases with Ashkenazim.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0718_050718_ashkenazim_2.html
This is the first time I see Lynn’s last table in http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/IQ+and+Global+Inequality?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744:v0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID:9&ie=UTF-8&q=IQ+and+Global+Inequality&sa=Search#979
Lynn estimated India as 82. He also agrees that India suffer malnutrition more than Africa. The Indians worship the cows instead of eating. Lynn’s study has been criticized. I don’t know how much he might have manipulated. But I know about his studies about the Jews. He first found the Backman study representative and later changed his mind (though it is known as the best and most representative study) and one unrepresentative study in Britain. Anyway it is very likely that there may be many errors in his table like that Laos as 89, Thailand as 91 or Vietnam as 94. I don’t know if there were migrations to these countries from the cold regions. Anyway it is likely that the mean IQ can increase in India with nutrition and better health care. But India’s climate can’t have selected for high IQ in the past. The other possibility is that there were migrations from Eastern Europe and Central Asia as the link supports. And the other chance is the high heterogeneity. And lastly there was the eugenicist strategy in the high castes. Though the estimations for the East Asian countries seem to be highly manipulated for me I don’t think the Indians have any chance in math except the high castes. And yes, maybe the East Asians are good in pictorial memory as they remember thousands of symbols but might (?) lack vocabulary skills as they can’t learn languages fast.

http://tanmoy.tripod.com/bengal/races.html

Northwest India shares with west Asia and eastern Europe (and pockets in Africa and South East Asia) the maximum heterozygosity known among world populations, with means between 0.35 and 0.37; and the rest of India (and Europe) is only slightly lower: 0.33 to 0.35. This shows the vast amount of admixture that has gone on in these regions: to be contrasted against Australia which has a homozygosity of less than 0.25.

However, there is significant admixture of the Central Asian populations, more in the North than the South and even less in the Northeast, and more among the upper castes than among the lower.

There are 9 scientist of Indian origin who are in list of Philip Barker’s world’s top 1000 scientist/mathematician.Among these 3 had done their work in abroad and rest 6 had done their work in India.

rest 6 are-1 Parsi-H.J.Bhaba.
          1 tamil-S.ramanujan.
          4 from bengal-J.C Bose,S.N Bose,C.V Raman,M.N.Saha(All from univ.of calcutta)

from usa-1.Punjabi-H.KHorana
          1.Tamil-S.chandrasekhar
          1.up-Ashoka .J.Prasad.

Now Venkat Raman Ramakrishnan will be added on that list from abroad.

and in top category two other from calcutta-Sir Ronald ross,Subhas mukherjee can be added as later was recognised Lately.AND Ronald Ross was India’s first Nobel prize winner among their total 9 nobel prize winners.
         

From china-Probably 6 ethnic Chinese(including,taiwan,hong kong) are in the list and all are Huns.

According to Law of the Jungle, a Mongol or Chinese have to be very clever or he will die soon. Story of Genghis Khan or Emperor Taizong explain the theory clearly. The core of chinese culture is “the Law of the Jungle” instead of Confucius. The Saint (Duke of Zhou) respected by Confucius had killed brother to be king. As we all know, Confucius’s culture is totally meaningless.

It’s meaningless to show how successful and intelligent the top 10k are. The score mentioned is about the average or median of the whole population. Go back to love your underrepresented people, rather than tell everyone here you are a different type. Stop discrimination of the lower cast people, so your country can have a better score.

@harry

    is your post a reply to my previous post?

      If that is the case then I can say not every whites are Newton,Galileo Or Da Vinchi.

  The people I have mentioned belongs to different ethnics.You have made a whole mess of caste and ethnicity.In india there are 28 states and 7 more central occupied region and there are many ethnic groups.But unfortunately apart from 3 indian states others have not contributed anything.The city calcutta has brought more laurels to the country than entire rest of the nation.Those bengali or Tamils are two different ethnic groups-not upper caste.Expand the horizon of your knowledge;otherwise don’t make stupid comments.

@indian strategy
Your entire post was basically just about claiming how some famous scientists have been in favor of genes determining IQ and IQ being important.(part1)
However, after that I feel that you have almost completely ignored or misunderstood the other points I was trying to make.(part2)

While replying to part2, I couldn’t help but agree with Astro that you seem to go in circles without making any real point.

<u>Part1</u>

I was aware of Shockley’s view-point, I wasn’t really aware of Crick’s.
Watson never said it as directly as you are making it, but I honestly can’t guarantee what his actual view points are.
Firstly, neither Watson, nor Crick discovered the DNA. They discovered the structure of it. The idea of DNA was already there in the 19th century.
One thing I do believe in is that there should be freedom in research. I believe that sometimes your support for freedom of research can be mistaken as you believing a certain thing when it might not be true.
I think it should be noted that Watson or Crick have done very little racial research themselves and were mostly just backing other people doing research. However, some their comments indeed sound a bit racist and not just supporting research.

However, I am always going to be skeptic about claims made about dead scientists. I am much more willing to listen to living scientists - those who are alive - and in their own words. And I am pretty sure that the vast majority of today’s geneticists do not believe in genetic determinism. Today, the much more accepted view point is that genes and environment interact - making “determinism” vitually meaningless
For example- here is what Craig Venter says:“We simply do not have enough genes for this idea of biological determinism to be right”

As for dead scientists, I can easily produce a list of equally famous or possibly much more famous people who didn’t support racism. Here is one- Albert Einstein. I already showed you how Feynman doesn’t believe in the importance of talent. His views were largely echoed by many of the greatest intellects in mankind’s history. Darwin didn’t believe in Eugenics either. He opposed the view points of his cousin Francis Galton.

Nobel Prize winner biologist John Cairns believes that evolution itself might be somewhat adaptive to the environmental pressure.

So what does a few famous people having outdated and biased racial or genetic-determinism views mean? Nothing, I would imagine.

<u>Part2</u>

You completely missed my medicine example. I wasn’t just talking about brain-plasticity. I was talking about this- just because someone has tried hard or spent money and was unable to completely cure a disease doesn’t mean that the disease is incurable. Read it again if you didn’t understand.
Also, read my points about proof by counter-example.
you said: “It is much easier to prove that IQ can’t be raised that it can be raised.”
NOPE! This is totally ridiculous because of the two above points.

When it comes to Flynn Effect, you completely ignored the main question I posed : Perhaps what this Flynn effect proves is that IQ itself is not a real measure of intelligence? It’s hardly a surprise that there is some correlation between IQ and well-being, given that our society selects people for jobs on the basis of IQ.
You can’t have double standards - if the dutch IQ has increased, for whatever reason, then so can the Indian IQ.

And you completely ignored my question as to why it is OK to study in chess, but not study for IQ tests. Where is your evidence that those who score high in IQ have not gathered the relevant knowledge?

I don’t know if there were any about the Indians but what would differ? Science is universal.

I think you are mistaken, there is no science here at all.

The idea that Indians don’t have the capacity for spatial thinking is your hypothesis, your imagination. There is no evidence for it. Perhaps we are reversing the cause and effect here? Maybe the Chinese are good at pictorial stuff precisely because they have to remember so many letters at an early age?

One correction: Cairns didn’t win the Nobel, my mistake, but he is/was a prominent biologist.

@Curious Indian

I must point this out to you that Crick-Watson was largely a duo over-hyped by media. I have seen some laymen who actually “remember” that these two “discovered genetics”.
The work of Frederick Griffith, Oswald Avery or Erwin Chargaff were much more important than these two.(None of them got the Nobel)
Erwin Chargaff said that their chemical knowledge was rather poor.
They just collected the findings from their colleagues, assembled them and presented it as their own, by building this model.
The work of Wilkins and Franklin was also very important, probably at least as important as that of these two. Franklin died, so only Wilkins shared the Nobel with these two, but Wilkins is not nearly as popular as these two.

Overall, I must say that you made some excellent points.

Curious Indian, it seems that you confused everything and didn’t understand some points.

1 – IQ is genetic
2 – IQ is important
3 – Some races have higher IQs

These 3 are all different things. The word ‘racist’ is used for many different meanings. Neither Rushton nor Watson calls themselves as racist but this doesn’t mean that they believe IQ is environmental and all people have the same IQ. It is meaningless to say one race is superior to another because no one knows which genes including IQ will be important to survive in the future. Some liberals claim IQ is environmental, some of them say it is genetic but not important and some say think that though it is genetic and all races have different IQs it is much better to act as if we are all equal (politically correctness). Some really believe that all races have different IQs but think that as it is against the human rights it is much better not to talk about it and do anything. Some liberals also think that creativity is more important. The word ‘racist’ can also be used for the opposite meaning for democrat. I don’t know why you gave Einstein as an example but I am pretty sure that he didn’t say anything like that IQ isn’t genetic or all races have the same IQ. As a Jew he certainly knew the dangers of racism and that the Jews suffered much from racism especially in Germany. For political reasons the people can easily be provoked for the destruction of another race like that the Germans did against the Jews in the past. It is a great danger but this has nothing to do with science. The Germans didn’t kill the Jews because they really thought that they were superior to them in any kind of measurement like IQ or creativity but just because they were provoked. I don’t support eugenics because it is against the human rights and secondly it is really not worth the price paid for it but it is important to understand how it is made to understand the mechanism of evolution. Surely there may be more talented scientists than the Nobel Prize winners. Nobel Prize doesn’t need to be a correct measure but it is ridiculous for one to claim that X had more knowledge. Who is the jury? Who decides?

I didn’t imagine anything for the Indians. In the US they spent billions of dollars to improve the IQ of the children with various methods and all of them failed but there were other gains in personality so that they still continued the experiments. What do you mean by there were no Indians in the experiments? It is a ridiculous question. As to Flynn effect again, it is just an ILLUSION of scoring. There is no gain in IQ because of the questions I asked before. It is impossible and ridiculous to assume that the Dutch men had a mean IQ of 79 in 1952! They can’t be so stupid not to understand soccer. Surely it is always difficult to assume how much difficult a question is in an IQ test so that the psychologists adjusts the scoring. But is surely much more difficult to adjust the scoring of tests belonging to different periods and the so-called Flynn effect comedy is the result of it. I answered your question about chess before. Learning certain types of questions doesn’t make you smarter because you will fail to do a different type of question. I know that Mark Henshaw (HarkenBane@juno.com) wrote in his book that 3 different studies in Germany proved that that chess talent correlates close to zero unlike most people wouldn’t imagine. The mean IQ of German chess players with 2300 ELO rating was found to be only 110. That chess correlates to 0 doesn’t mean that we don’t use our brain while playing. It means chess and math require different cognitive abilities. The abilities just don’t overlap, that’s it. Chess is not of course a poker game, it requires thinking. These players must have spent thousands of hours studying, analyzing positions on chess board. That they just score 110 in an IQ test is the perfect proof that no matter how much you think you just learn, not improve your IQ as your other correlates of g remain the same. It is not important that chess correlates to zero because you use your brain to think. If thinking on different subjects has any effect that your brain might begin to work more efficiently (not just learning the type of questions but with a different reaction time or glucose rate) then you should be able to use it in IQ tests. You can spend thousands of hours studying chess positions and might be pleased to have the illusion (!) of having elevated your IQ but your study won’t help you to score better in math. There was a link about the 3 studies in Germany but it doesn’t work anymore. You should ask Mark about it.

The Chinese or the other East Asians in the US also have very spatial scores when tested though they don’t learn their alphabet as they are born in the US.

Once again, I just pointed out to the links that Watson said that the blacks were genetically less intelligent than the whites. You can find lots of similar links. But you still don’t say how he put (!) it if he didn’t do this way. Obviously he believed in the racial differences in IQ but doesn’t call himself as a racist. That is another story depending on what you want to do with it. It is also ridiculous of you showing Einstein as a liberal. He never said that he didn’t believe in the racial differences in IQ. He was just against racial enmity. It is also ridiculous of you saying that the IQ scores in the experiments faded out because they lost their personal interests. Then if they didn’t fade out the racists could also say that the students gained some personal interests, but not IQ! This is not an answer.

@ strategy

I don’t know why you gave Einstein as an example but I am pretty sure that he didn’t say anything like that IQ isn’t genetic

Einstein not only fought racism with his political power, his formula for success was this
A= X+Y+Z
A=Success, X= To Work,Y = To have Fun, Z = Not to talk big

He said ” I don’t have much talent or intelligence, I just have a tremendous amount of curiosity”
Notice that an emotional factor like curiosity is much more important to him than intelligence or talent.
So forget IQ, he doesn’t even think that intelligence or talent is important.

Also remember what Feynman was talking about :”...there is no miracle people… It’s just that they get interested in these things and study hard ...”. So, Feynman too gives greater importance to emotional factors like personal interests.

Similar things have been said by Grothendieck(hard work and persistence) and many others. For example, Newton gave importance to the quality of persistence and curiosity - again two emotional attributes, rather than intelligence.

one of the greatest inventors of all time is J.C.Bose, even though he never gets the recognition he deserves in the west partly because he never cared about filing patents - saying knowledge shouldn’t be bought with money.His view was ,” It is the invention which is of importance for the mankind, not the inventor”. In truth , he invented a lot of the most important things - from radio to semiconductor solid-state diodes to the idea of P-N junction to crescograph, from Resonant Cardiograph,  Galena detector for detecting infrared waves to Horn aerial, which is the ancestor of the modern-day parabolic dish aerials to polarizer rotators, diffraction grating device to measure the wave length of radiowaves to the fact that plants have living tissues very similar to animals; and many more. But in most of the cases, shamefully western scientists took the credit because in the west you only invent if you have the patent. But now IEEE has accepted each of his inventions. And a lot of his discoveries were made with cheaply manufactured materials or even completely natural materials.

Here is what J.C.Bose said about castes and religions:
”...It was because of my childhood friendship with them that I could never feel that there were ‘creatures’ who might be labelled ‘low-caste’.. I never realized that there existed a ‘problem’ common to the two communities, Hindus and Muslims…”

it seems that you confused everything and didn’t understand some points.

1 – IQ is genetic
2 – IQ is important
3 – Some races have higher IQs

Sorry, but you are the one who is confused.
I perfectly understood your points. In all these posts I was saying and giving reasons for
1. IQ is NOT genetically fixed.
2. IQ is not a real measure of Intelligence.
3. I am not sure if race is a biological meaningful concept, but some nations do seem to score higher right now, but that doesn’t mean anything really.

Astro already stopped replying to you because you simply ignore people’s points.
I too don’t have the patience to repeat my arguments over and over.
Watch the video of Richard Lewontin again. Think about the Flynn effect.
Like I said, even Identical twins can have more than 20 points difference in IQ.
And IQ is only important because we make it important. It is not a real measure of intelligence.

There is no gain in IQ because of the questions I asked before. It is impossible and ridiculous to assume that the Dutch men had a mean IQ of 79 in 1952! They can’t be so stupid not to understand soccer.

Wait , are you saying that Flynn effect itself is false? Sorry, but the Flynn Effect is a universally accepted phenomenon and is still observed all over the world, especially in developing countries. These are real data. Even herediterians admit this much. And it is Rushton and Lynn whose sources have been questioned, not the other way around. Even Suzuki at one point accused Rushton of having unscientific data. Cyril Burt is universally known to have falsified data.

Here is your assumption- A 79 IQ can’t understand football.
The average Indian IQ is supposed to be around 80. Yet I don’t know of any single Indian from any social class who finds it difficult to understand the rules of football or cricket. I don’t think even the 70 IQ Africans ever finds it difficult. And if an African with 70 IQ can understand football, why can’t a dutch have an IQ of 79 and understand football?
Double standards, eh?

The only thing it tells is that probably IQ is not a real measure of Intelligence. This is what I have been trying to tell for so long. This is what the Flynn effect proves.

In the US they spent billions of dollars to improve the IQ of the children with various methods and all of them failed

Firstly, IT IS A LIE!
I am myself aware of several kinds of studies even in USA that showed an increase in IQ. And if you have never heard of them, then I guess you have only listened to a select few of one side.
Certain adoption studies show increase in IQ. Certain educational programs with just limited hours of training produced as increase.
Recently, it was proven that training for the game dual-n-back can increase general intelligence.
Like someone posted earlier, even playing chess has shown to increase IQ by few points in countries like Venezuela.
It is also a well known fact that if you take the tests several time your IQ will automatically get better.

The only question that remained was whether these gains were permanent but there is no reason to believe that it isn’t so. IQ is a relative measure. If you don’t get stimulation when others are getting, it is bound to get down - that’s natural.
Flynn effect itself proves that IQ increases. The fact that identical twins sometimes have over 20 point difference proves that IQ increases.

Secondly, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Just because it didn’t work so far(which isn’t true), doesn’t mean that it can’t. And the existence of counter-examples prove that IQ can rise.

I answered your question about chess before. Learning certain types of questions doesn’t make you smarter because you will fail to do a different type of question

No you haven’t answered my question.
I asked you how do you know that those who are taking the tests - even 6 year olds - that they somehow weren’t exposed to the necessary stimulation and knowledge to take these tests better. And the answer is that you simply can’t provide an evidence for that.

You make it sound like if you have higher IQ you can do anything better.
THIS IS CLEARLY NOT THE CASE! There have been recorded cases of horse-race betters like this - Person A has 115 IQ and 16 year experience. Person B has 85 IQ and 16 years experience. Yet, Person B is far better than person A in making bets. Betting requires calculations which are much more complex than anything in IQ tests.
This is just one example, there are many more - for example- there are grandmasters with IQ quite below average.
All these things just show one thing- higher IQ doesn’t predict higher everything. It doesn’t give any general intelligence like IQ proponents claim.

In fact, having high IQ might simply mean knowledge of a wide variety of topics. So, if that is the case, those who have higher IQ have simply studied a wide variety of topics. And there is simply no way that you can provide evidence that a high IQ person hasn’t studied a wide range of topics.

The mean IQ of German chess players with 2300 ELO rating was found to be only 110.

See, you just proved my point. IQ is totally not needed to gain a high ELO.

You can spend thousands of hours studying chess positions and might be pleased to have the illusion (!) of having elevated your IQ but your study won’t help you to score better in math.

LOL! What makes you think that I would choose IQ over chess ELO? If I can become a grandmaster, I would take that anyday over somethinng as useless as IQ. Chess does increase your IQ, many studies show that. But the gain is only a small amount.

In general higher IQ requires knowing a large range of topics.
Having a high IQ is a bit like being the jack of all trades, master of none.

Sorry, but I prefer master of some and jack of none.

@1234
Thank you.
However, it is not just in genetics.
Real life is rarely the fairy-tale that the media portrays.
In reality, ideas don’t fall on the head suddenly like an apple. Ideas EVOLVE. And very rarely a single man is responsible for anything significant.

For example, it is probably incorrect to say that the wright brothers invented the aeroplane. The basic designs were already there. They just got it to a satisfactory level.

Civilizations are built upon knowledge and attitude. IQ is largely irrelevant for the progress of a civilization.  But some people fail to understand this. Just look at Europe before and after reneissance.
What changed?
Firstly attitude and then knowledge(partly imported and partly due to industrial demands).

In fact, many studies suggest that chimps may have as much spatial or mechanical intelligence as us. But what chimps usually don’t do, but humans do is to ask the question - why?? But certainly, any human can learn to ask it?

In 1978 India’s nominal per capita GDP $200, China’s $150, yes back then india was a little bit richer than China. For most part of the last 100 years india was little bit richer than China.

Today india is $1060, and China $3800. India has changed only a little. But China for some odd reasons has completely Changed only in the last 30 years.

Communism > Democracy.

Just name one of those studies funded by the government which is said to have elevated the IQ of the children if you are so sure of yourself.

I asked you how do you know that those who are taking the tests - even 6 year olds - that they somehow weren’t exposed to the necessary stimulation and knowledge to take these tests better. And the answer is that you simply can’t provide an evidence for that.

Your question is so ridiculous. These experiments are made with thousands of children. After every failure will you keep on finding an excuse that all of these children were not enough stimulated?

You couldn’t understand the very simple example I gave about chess. You are not even close to it! If chess increases IQ like you claim then what do you think the mean IQ of the German chess players was before they spend thousands of hours studying chess? Do you mean they were just 80 IQ and after the study they gained 30 points? Or were they just 70 IQ and gained 40 points? If so then if you take a group of people with just 70 IQ and train them will you still find an excuse that they were not stimulated enough (!) after the failure? What do you think they were in the beginning? Not every psychologist accepts the so-called Flynn effect. There may be possible errors while measuring IQ. This doesn’t mean that IQ is changed with the environment. Identical twins can score differently in various tests. In a test one can score higher but in another test the other can due to excitement. This is due to the error. It doesn’t mean that one or the other has gained anything about IQ.

I know Venter’s explanations but I can’t see any correlation with the number of the genes and the genetic determinism. Humans have 30000 genes. If we had 1 million genes would it be the proof (!) that genes have a higher effect? LOL. It is rather like the effect of a melody and the number (!) of the musical notes the melody has.

Big Mouth stopped replying to both of you because he obviously realized you both weren’t worth losing time with. Maybe I am not as smart as him.)))