The question of Indian IQ is a big puzzle. Far trickier than China’s IQ which I think I’ve basically figured out (101-102 today; 106-108 genetic ceiling).
The PISA-adjusted IQ of India – as extrapolated from the states of Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, which are relatively rich and are reputed to have good school systems by Indian standards – is a miserly 75.4; Richard Lynn, in his latest estimates based on an international standardized test from 1970 and a more recent TIMSS study in the states of Rajasthan and Orissa is 82.2. The chart above compiled by Steve Sailer from Lynn’s data on numerous IQ tests also indicates it is the low 80′s. In my opinion the low 80′s figures given by the IQ tests is more accurately reflective of today’s Indian g because PISA is after all an academic test and Indian schools leave a lot to be desired.
Regardless, the differences between Indians, and East Asians and Europeans, are huge. India is in fact at the upper level of sub-Saharan African IQ which typically ranges from 65 to 80. There are lots of factors holding India back: Malnutrition (which is on average perhaps worse than in sub-Saharan Africa), vegetarian diets, poor education system, a moderately high rate of consanguineous marriage. But all that said the sheer size of the gap makes me skeptical that all of it is down to environmental factors alone.
On the other hand the average IQ of Indian immigrants to the US is an Ashkenazi Jewish-like 112. Ramanujan was assessed by G.H. Hardy, no lightweight himself, as the most gifted mathematician of his age. Going back further in time, India has a pretty stunning religious, linguistic, mathematical, and philosophical heritage. Only a continuous stream of very high IQ individuals could have both created and sustained such a heritage.
Another very telling feature of India is the pervasive inequality that has characterized it throughout time. Kenneth Pomeranz notes in his book The Great Divergence on why it was Europe and not China that underwent the Industrial Revolution that Early Modern India had levels of inequality significantly in excess of that of either China or Western Europe. Consider that (1) redistributive wealth mechanisms were virtually non-existent then, (2) that India unlike China or Europe nonetheless still had a lot of unused resources which typically puts a damper on inequality; (3) the always relevant correlation between wealth and IQ. All this implies an “IQ Gini index” considerably greater than in either Europe or China even in the pre-industrial past. And according to Sailer, even today whereas “China focuses on giving the masses a solid basic education that prepares them for manufacturing jobs” India on the other hand “focuses more on giving outstanding university educations to the meritocratic elite.”
Finally, we also know that India remains a heavily caste based society, despite very vigorous government attempts to legislate it away. They don’t tend to intermarry. They eat different foods. And they do appear to differ markedly in IQ. Brahmins occupy a lot of the intellectually demanding positions (I cannot find the source but I recall reading that almost all members of India’s version of the Manhattan Project were composed of Brahmins). A lot of the (super high IQ) US Indian immigrants appear to be Brahmins. Meanwhile Indian immigrants to Britain or those who live as diasporas in sub-Saharan Africans tend to under-perform Anglo whites by about 0.5 S.D. These are the “Patels”, etc were talking about who are mostly Vaishya or Shudra and who constitute the vast bulk of India’s population. If they are typically scoring in the low 90′s and India’s average is in the low 80′s then *that* difference can plausibly be ascribed to the Flynn Effect.
So let’s do the power summary for India:
- Many cultural achievements (philosophy, religion, literature) that up until the Early Modern period compared respectable with those of European, Near Eastern, and East Asian civilization, but were much less prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Levels of inequality in Early Modern times that were higher than in Western Europe, China, or Japan even though on objective factors (e.g. lower levels of land stress) should have been lower.
- The caste-based nature of traditional Indian society that the government has been powerless to stamp out.
What I conclude from this is that in terms that would be familiar to Westerners: India is a nation of Gypsies and Jews.
Over the centuries, Brahmins have been selected for intelligence. They were expected to master requisite texts and those who couldn’t handle it dropped away. These selective pressures did not apply to the lower castes who made up the vast majority of the population.
The reason for why India split along caste lines was because of Hinduism and its origins as a religion/ideology to hold society together under the boots of the conquering light-skinned Aryans who brought down the original Harappan civilization (indeed 4 millennia on Bollywood still glamorizes lighter-skinned actors and this is not very controversial within Indian society). These invaders became the Kshatriya military caste, and the Brahmins became their spiritual apologists and enablers. (The Kshatriya were also the one major caste that was allowed to eat meat to build up muscles. Quite logical). The darker skinned aborigines had to continue tilling the soil for their new masters.
Christianity.proclaimed the spiritual inequality of all men. In fact it was a very special religion in that it took a very strict line against within-kin marriages in general. Hence why a caste society or anything resembling it is pretty much impossible under Christianity as long as everyone is considered a fellow Christian. (Whereas caste is inherent to Hinduism). Nonetheless we learn that even a millennium after the Norman invasion of Britain people with Norman surnames such as Darcy, Percy, Baskerville and Mandeville are still on average richer than Anglo-Patels like Smith, Mason and Cooper. Nonetheless British society as Western Europe in general traditionally considered itself as one organic society with only small groups of “service nomads” like Gypsies (peddlers, fortune tellers) and Jews (moneylenders) outside it.
In India basically the entire population appears to be composed of “service nomads” who belong to their own groups and exchange services with other groups. The Vaishya are traders and artisans; The Shudra are farmers; the Kshatriya are warriors; the Brahmins are priests and scholars. Their religion is what binds them together and keeps the whole thing flowing, hence why it is not opposed even by those ostensibly disadvantaged by it. Over several millennia of this caste society operating, in which different castes hardly ever intermarried, you got a plethora of distinct populations that were adapted to their particular divinely-appointed task in life.
In practice this meant a small subsection of Ashkenazi Jewish-like Brahmins with very high IQ’s; and a huge mass of peasants with genetic IQ ceilings somewhere in between those of Europeans and Negroids.
(I would also hypothesize that after the coming of medical modernity this makes for a bad dysgenics situation because Brahmin families will probably have far lower fertility rates than say Shudra, so their share of the Indian population will dwindle; in contrast, homogeneous European and East Asian populations would appear to be more insulated against dysgenic trends because in those societies dysgenics only occurs via lower IQ segments of the population having more kids, while in a place like India – or increasingly multicultural America/Europe – not only lower IQ individuals have more kids but also lower IQ population groups).
So my estimates: (1) India’s current IQ is in the low 80′s; (2) The Flynn effect could yet bring it up to perhaps the low 90′s if India successfully develops (in China the gap is about 5 points but China is of course far richer now and eats far more meat); however, successful development is much harder than in China because starting point IQ’s are far lower. We can expect India to continue growing and gaining on the developed nations but at a pace that will never match China’s; nor, barring technological revolutions (brain-computer interfaces, etc), will it feasibly ever develop to the levels of majority East Asian or European societies.
India will continue benefiting from an extremely intelligent and culturally creative but also very small intellectual upper class of Brahmins. Unfortunately much like Jews they cannot be expected to be all that loyal to the Indian nation (to the extent that an Indian nation exists).
Very thorough analysis…
Incidentally, I clicked on the link to your discussion of the Pomeranz book, and agreed wholeheartedly. I just happened to read it a few weeks ago and also think it’s one of the most impressively detailed and persuasive “Big Think” books I’ve ever read, totally in a different league from Landes and others in the same general subject.
Btw, Mr. Unz, I enjoyed your article on IQ’s: it was beautifully written and informative. I feel sorry that you’re being attacked by many bloggers (who often use condescending or dismissive language in their analyses), but I thought you made great points and backed your statements up with great evidence. Keep up the good work
Thanks.
I agree that Pomeranz is far superior to Landes, whose book though big is really just a huge collection of historical anecdotes for the most part. Unfortunately Landes is also about 10x better known than Pomeranz and his son gets to write inane editorials for the WSJ.
Also agreed with Ryan G. Unfortunately there is a large degree of overlap between racists and race realists, and as Lynn is on the far right side of the spectrum as regards the Flynn/genetics debate a lot of the shadier characters flock to his work.
(Some general thoughts:) Mr. Karlin, while I agree that the Brahmins (~5% of India’s pop.) have a very high average IQ, I don’t quite think that the Indian masses are quite as dull as you propose. You claim that the Indians in UK have an average IQ a half standard deviation below Whites, but Indians in Britain outperform Whites on most indicators of social and economic wellbeing. You claim that most Indians in UK are ‘Patels’, and that accounts for their supposedly ‘poor’ performance. Not quite: a large chunk are Jatt Sikhs (i.e. agricultural laborers), Ismailis, and Hindu Bengalis, plus Indian immigrants from E. Africa. Most of the Indians that migrated to Britain were poorer immigrants that came to do factory work or below. In fact, Lynn himself has stated multiple times that Indians there have average IQ’s in the high 90′s.
Indians in Mauritius and Trinidad are largely descended from plantation laborers, yet, based on the PISA scores of those countries, this would strongly imply an IQ in the early 90′s (about 93) for these two groups (keeping in mind that Trinidad is 40% black, plus 20% Mulatto, Mauritius is ~29% Black- and this probably depresses the scores of these two islands greatly). This may not sound plentiful, but keep in mind that a large percentage (if not an outright majority) of the Indians in these countries are descended from field laborers taken from India’s downtrodden Untouchable castes (many being taken from India’s most backward regions, such as Bihar), who comprise ~15% of India’s population. If a couple of generations of good diet and OK education can raise the average IQ’s of such highly downtrodden peoples to Southern European levels, then I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss the masses of Indians.
I agree, the problem with these test is that, Indian education system is in English. We are given education in English while our brain works in Hindi. Myself, I found that when I read numbers in Hindi my brain works fast while on the other end when I took them in English, it slow downs. Also, in lectures (in English) my brain shutdown after sometime even when I am excited about the lecture. If the lecture is in Hindi, my brain never felt sleepy. Also quota system is the problem of resulting in lower IQ. Earlier you will find mostly all the students were having high IQ, but it has fallen these days due to quota. I have worked with different countries students and I can tell you Indian student IQ is not low. They are similar to other students and so do other students.. IQ is just a definition. It is the initial training which makes difference, if Indian politicians give me just one chance (for 20 years). IQ has nothing to do with genetics, you can find that many kids of noble prize winners were born with even low IQ. I can produce a breed of students having IQ of average 100. Indian training is the problem, as we are just following the training system of Britishers, who intelligently used a system which will produce a stupid intelligent workers.
Another issue: you take the PISA score of these 2 Indian states as Gospel, yet it has several flaws when I look at it. The Indian PISA score showed almost NO high scores (none in the top two levels). This is in contrast to the TIMSS test (given to Orissa and Rajasthan), where a respectable 9% of the students in Orissa passed the high international benchmark (and 1% passed the advanced), and whose 95th percentile spread was similar to Norway’s (despite a low average).
It’s shocking that this distribution would show up in India’s poorest state (Orissa), yet it would be LOWER in two significantly wealthier states? If we take the PISA average as Gospel of India’s abilities, there should be NO Indian students AT ALL who are able to perform high-IQ work. This is in stark contrast to what one sees in India. Somehow, India can build and maintain a space industry, an advanced nuclear weapons program, a top notch IIT program, a burgeoning pharmaceutical industry, replicate Western weapons (aka nuclear subs), etc. India has received millions of high IQ jobs in programming and engineering from other countries. If there were NO high scorers in India (as PISA indicates), then India could not have performed these tasks AT ALL.
I graduated with chemical engineering and work for a top engineering firm, so believe me when I say this: you need a bit of brainpower to do these things…
You can dismiss these accomplishments by saying that India has 1 billion people to play with, but this is flawed too. There are 400 million Muslim Arabs, 500 million SE Asians, 800 million Africans, and 400 million Latin Americans, yet I don’t really see many of these achievements duplicated in any of these other regions (save some White-areas of Latin America)…
There’s no doubt that India’s AVERAGE level of human capital is low, but I would be quick to take the PISA results as Gospel. Isn’t it Steve Sailer who keeps saying that finding a representative average in India is hellishly difficult due to India’s genetic+environmental diversity? I don’t believe the PISA results were either representative or accurate of India’s total capabilities (aka they paint a misleading picture, though they do convey useful information).
* I am most emphatically not saying what you are saying I am saying. A large part of the post was indeed about how India manages to achieve great intellectual feats both in the past (Mahabharata/Ramayana, the zero, Buddhism) and present (nuclear subs, space, etc) but have such a bizarrely low IQ in general. My postulate is that Indian castes, especially the Brahmans relative to the rest of the population, are somewhat genetically distinct, and that Brahmans have faced the same selection pressures for intelligence as Ashkenazi Jews.
This theory is supported by the vast over-representation of Indians with Brahman family names in tabulations of Indian achievement, as well as historical evidence that inequality was higher in India than in China or Western Europe in the Early Modern period when on objective factors it should actually been lower.
* As I noted in the post, I do not take the PISA results as Gospel. In fact I consider India’s current IQ to be in the low 80′s (as per intelligence) as opposed to 75 (as per the PISA tests).
* “Isn’t it Steve Sailer who keeps saying that finding a representative average in India is hellishly difficult due to India’s genetic+environmental diversity?” Yes, it is. Hence what I wrote in the first two sentences of this post.
* Aren’t field laborers Shudra, not untouchables?
* I think a genetic Indian IQ potential in the mid-90′s as plausible as one in the low-90′s. However I doubt it is in the high 90′s, and I am almost positive that it is under 100.
That’s what all the (necessarily back of the envelope) estimates converge on (1, 2, 3).
I am not under the impression that you fundamentally disagree with this. However you free to write a guest post outlying your own arguments what whatever you estimate the average Indian IQ potential to be. I will be happy to read and publish it.
* Incidentally, one aspect I find praiseworthy among Indian commentators is that they tend to be mature about HBD discussions. That is unlike the Han/East Asian supremacists who boast about their high IQ’s even though it doesn’t help them get laid, nor are they prone to many of the victimization narratives / racism accusations that seem to characterize Black responses to HBD/intelligence theory.
Your question was already answered by me months ago.
More relevant to the point is that the benchmark for advanced ability for the TIMSS is significantly lower than it is for the PISA which is why no one (or rather the numbers were statistically insignificant) in the Indian states surveyed in the PISA showed up on on right side of the curve this time around why an Indian elite was evident for the TIMSS. For example the latest TIMSS results showed 7% of American students exceeding the advanced benchmark on that test, but only around 1.9% could achieve the lvl 6 on the math section of the PISA test. Likewise Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan managed to have 44, 38, 35, 31, and 24% score at the advanced benchmark on the TIMSS but the lvl 6 PISA math results were 16.5, 11.3, 7.8, 10.8, and 6.2 respectively. The Indian states surveyed were only able to eke out a 1% advanced benchmark rating on the TIMSS and the sample who could score at lvl 6 on the PISA was not large enough to even warrant mentioning.
Anatoly,
Do you believe in hybrid synergies in humans, particularly with regards to cognition?
If you mean in the sense that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, then no. The evidence is very strong that the relation between the average IQ of the offspring from two different population groups is just the mean average, of the average IQ of the two groups.
No, at a deeper level. I’m talking about mutations resulting in a mental orientation vastly different from what you would expect from the “averaging” of the parents’ own orientations. This may or may not be reflected by an increase in IQ.
75% of the Indian population gets affirmative action quota in India and is genetically low IQ
25% of the Indian population is upper caste and higher IQ and does not get quota
Most of the upper caste population has Y-DNA = R1A = Russian / Slavic
In North India there are 3 levels of quota, each quota level corresponding to a different IQ level
In North India Upper caste > Other Backward Caste > Dalit – Untouchable – Tribal
In South India, there are 4 levels of quota
Brahmin > Dravidian Backward Caste > Dravidian Most Backward caste > Dalit-Untouchable-Tribal
Upper castes and Brahmins dont get quota. In North India, upper castes and Brahmins are genetically the same of Aryan origin. In South India, the only Aryan origin caste is Brahmin
The others are dravidian
5% of the Indian population is of Oriental race and they dont have a high IQ
Next vegetarianism = Most upper castes, the higher IQ segment is vegetarian
The lower castes are non-vegetarian and have lower IQ.
Jains are a 100% vegetarian merchant caste and they have beaten the Jews in the diamond trade, even in Tel Aviv
The world chess champion Vish Anand comes from a vegetarian brahmin family
In India, a non-vegetarian person is likely a low IQ affirmative action caste
You can check a persons caste rank by simply asking whether they are vegetarian, which implies higher caste
In the Indian Manhattan project team of 18, of which 15 were brahmin and 3 merchants
Each Indian diaspora is different and has a different caste blend and a different IQ
The lowest level IQ diaspora is the agricultural laborer , 50% Shudra, 50% untouchable
This forms about 95% of the Indian population in South Africa, Fiji, Malaysia, Trinidad, Guyana etc
The Patels and Sikhs are Upper-Shudra / Vaishya and this is 80% of the diaspora in UK
In UK, they outperform whites academically and per Lynn , in the 2nd generation, measured and IQ of 97
In the USA, 60% of the Indian diaspora is upper caste, and 40% from middle-level castes like Patels and Sikhs
well done! thats telling him!
Well fish eating will increase your Iq level.So comment like being vegeterian means higher Iq isn’t true because in kerala and Bengal people eat fish and these two community have highest IQ(avg) in India.
Qatar School Ranking, top 30 schools out of 153
Mean PISA = 500 = IQ 100
SD PISA = 100 = IQ 15
Science, Math, Reading scores
—
For comparison Shanghai = 575, 600, 566 = 112 IQ
1. Al-Khor Indian Stream, ( GEMS ) = 566, 592, 604 = 113 IQ = Indian Hindu technicians and Engineers of NGL
2. The International School of Choueifat ( SABIS ) = 554, 562, 565 = 109 IQ = Lebanese Xtian
3. Doha College Private ( British Embassy ) = 572, 553, 563 = 109 IQ = UK
4. DPS Modern Indian School ( Delhi Public School Society ) = 552, 538, 563 = 107 IQ = Indian Hindu
5. Qatar Academy ( US educators ) = 540, 547, 562 = 107 IQ
6. American School of Doha, ( US Embassy ) = 553, 546, 559 = 108 IQ
7. Park House English ( UK ) = 568, 528, 552 = 107 IQ
8. Birla Public School = 586, 539, 549 = 108 IQ = Indian Hindu
9. Qatar Intl Private School ( UK ) = 539, 529, 540 = 105 IQ
10. Al Bayan Girls = 481, 464, 516 = Muslim Arab = 98 IQ
11. Cambridge Intl Private School = 531, 484, 514 = 101 IQ
12. Doha Modern Indian School ( Jai Gopal Jindal ) = 554, 525, 514 = 104 IQ = Indian Hindu
13. Al-Khor British Stream ( GEMS ) = 507, 505, 503 = 102 IQ
14. Dukhan English School ( UK ) = 529, 501, 500 = 102 IQ
15. Debakey High School for Health ( USA ) = 492, 467, 493 = 98 IQ
16. Qatar Canadian School = 451, 456, 491 = 95 IQ
17. MES Indian School ( Muslim Education Society ) = 484, 469, 490 = 97 IQ = Indian Muslim
18. Ideal Indian School Girls, ( Muslim ) = 481, 450, 489 = 96 IQ = Indian Muslim
19. Sudanese School = 463, 411, 488 = 93 IQ , remarkably high for black-arab mullatos
20. Al Arqam = 454, 451, 484 = 95 IQ
21. The Gulf English = 468, 448, 482 = 95 IQ
22. Philipine School = 466, 461, 480 = 96 IQ
23. Jordanian School = 446, 422, 472 = 92 IQ
24. Tunisian School = 459, 436, 463 = 93 IQ
25. Lebanese School ( Muslim ) = 444, 501, 463 = 96 IQ
26. Middle East Intl = 484, 452, 461 = 95 IQ
27. Al Andalus = 446, 397, 454 = 90 IQ
28. Ideal Indian School, boys ( Muslim ) = 462, 465, 453 = 94 IQ = Indian Muslim
29. Egyptian School = 463, 435, 434 = 92 IQ
30. American Academy = 462, 434, 434 = 92 IQ
Qatar, 153 school average = 379, 368, 372 = 81 IQ
School -1 and School-13 are both identical, run by GEMS, and solely for children of
employees of NGL
School-1 has Hindu students and School-13 has white students from UK
and the Hindu students are ahead of white students by nearly 1 SD
Indian muslims significantly lag behind Indian Hindus
In the California 2012 National Merit list, there were 184 Indian winners of which
Brahmin = 112
North Indian Aryan Upper castes = 40
Dravidian Upper castes = 25
Patels ( middle ranking ) = 3
Sikhs ( middle ranking ) = 4
In the US diaspora, Sikhs and Patels despite being 40% of the diaspora, win just 4%
In the UK, these same Patels and Sikhs are 80% of the Indian diaspora and easily outperform whites academically
The above data, also shows that sampling has to be very accurate to reflect the various caste IQs
Be advised that this poster rec1man is a south indian brahmin supremacist who is notorious for making up data with the sole intent of making brahmins look like super geniuses.
Calculating Average Indian IQ from PISA
TN raw math PISA score = 351
TN implied IQ = 100 – 1.5 x 15 = 78
HP raw math score = 338
HP implied IQ = 100 – 1.62 x 15 = 76
Indian Avg IQ based on raw PISA = 77
–
Next step is to remove the bias caused by the PISA sample having
75% bilingual kids
( Tibetan kids facing Hindi PISA exam and Telegu kids facing Tamil PISA exam )
TN mono-lingual = 378
Implied IQ = 500 – 1.22 x 15 = 82
HP mono-lingual = 401
Implied IQ = 500 – 15 = 85
–
Next there is a 40 point difference between scores for ‘Village’ and scores for ‘Large city’
In HP and TN, The village category is over-represented by a factor of 4
Even worse, in HP, City and Large City are entirely removed from the survey sample
So adding an urban correction of 20 ( half the village-large city difference )
TN semi-urbanised mono-lingual = 378 + 20 = 398
Implied IQ = 85
HP semi-urbanised mono-lingual = 401 + 20 = 421
Implied IQ = 100 – 0.79 x 15 = 88
Current Indian IQ = 86
–
Next we look to the future as malnutrition is removed
The only Indian kids who go to govt school is for the mid-day meal,
If they are not starving they go to private school
Private schools score 45 more than govt schools and thats the future as poverty reduces
–
HP – future – semi-urbanised- mono-lingual = 401 + 20 + 45 = 466
Implied IQ = 95
TN – future – semi-urbanised – mono-lingual = 378 + 20 + 45 = 443
Implied IQ = 91
Future Indian IQ = 93
Given the huge bias in sampling towards over-representing the lower end IQ,
by the poverty pimp NGOs, I am certain that none of the CBSE or Cambridge schools
that serve the top 15% are included in the survey
And they have an entirely different IQ profile and cause an IQ bulge at the top end
Great analysis Anatoly
Anatoly,
I think you seriously overestimate the IQ of Indian, India government, which understandably embarrassed by their result in 2009 test, decided to back out of the test in 2012. Maybe you just read too much into it.
Here is the link: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-03/mumbai/33019239_1_india-backs-global-stage-math-and-science
The notion that “India – A Country Of Gypsies And Jews” is very flawed. A lazy remark if i dare to say.
“Brahmins have average IQ in the US of 112 ” is the key here. Assuming (I have yet to look at detail from which generally recognised stats 112 comes from) this is a fact, it won’t automatically deduce that Brahmins as a tribe have average IQ of 112, for if test the most recent sub-sahara H1B1 arrivals to USA by idenifying one specific African tribe as we do to Brahmins, then one might get the same conclusion that ” Kenya(or whatever) is a Country Of Gypsies And Jews”; or if single out H1B1 Russians or Germans or Mongolians or Iranians, we’ll get Russia ( or Germany or Sweden or Mongolia or Iran) is nation of Country Of Gypsies And Super Super Super Jews, aren’t they? lol. It makes no sense anymore in such contex where basically you get top 3 or 4 sd.
If all brahmins in India are free to travel and work in USA by only showing their identity cards to the customs, will Brahmins in the US have the same or remotely close to “112 average IQ” (here again, assuming the stats behind is legit)? I guess we all know the answer here, don’t we?
Or look from another angle, actually the RIGHT question here that should be logically asked, and asked loudly, is that
“Why it is so so low of ONLY 112 average IQ”?
( logically assuming the stats behind don’t include some illegal Brahmins who work in cornershops, 7/11, motels and cashwash…at all, but only include those with official SS numbers who primarily in unis and basic code-writting IT firms of H1B1 type)
If not Brahmins, but say Lower Saxon Germans or Flemish Belgians or Alps Italians primarily on H1B1 instead, their average IQ in the US would probably shoot up to the roof towards 130 or more!
Indians in Singapore academically perform right in the middle between Chinese and Malays who have an IQ of 108 and 93 respectively. Indians in Singapore are mostly the descendants of indentured labourers.
Indians in the UK do significantly better than average academically, just somewhat behind Chinese while Bangladeshis (the poorest group) do slightly better than average, only Pakistanis do somewhat worse. In one IQ test Indians were found to have a non-verbal IQ of 103 with a verbal score of 89, that was back in the 80s though. In another a test on recent immigrant children found that their IQ got higher the longer they were in the UK, reaching slightly over 100.
There’s zero evidence to suggest that Brahmins were selected for intelligence, or even that that they have higher intelligence.
Exactly. The flaw in Karlin’s reasoning is this: the brahmins who underperform remain brahmins. There is no evidence that intelligent brahmins outbreed the not so intelligent ones. So there is no selection for intelligence.
Brahmins are not from a single ethnic stock. As various tribes and communities were assimilated into the Hindu social structure, each tribe’s shaman or medicine man or priest or philosopher would be accepted as a Brahmin, while their ruler would become a Kshatriya, and things like that. That’s why South Indian and Bengali Brahmins are significantly darker skinned than north-west Indians – there has clearly been a lot of gene flow into the brahmin pool. This would result in higher IQ genes flowing into the brahmin pool.
And the reason for Jewish intelligence is given the same way, higher IQ Jews thrived and reproduced more than lower IQ ones since their professions involved intellectual activity.
Ryan G is just wrong about Indians in UK. It is well known that most Bangladeshi/Pakastani immigrants came over as factory workers — they are performing at the bottom of the intellectual ladder, worse than Africans. However, most Indians came over as educated doctors, teachers, engineers. Their kids perform better than whites a) because of selective immigration, b) they are beaten and bullied and blackmailed into spending enormous amounts of time ‘swotting’ while their european contemporaries are out drinking, chasing girls, getting tattoos and otherwise displaying the disfunctionality of liberal society
Nevermind, New data is right here based on thousands of UK students. Most Indians were not all that educated btw,
https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/glassessment.pdf
The table is around the bottom. Note the difference between verbal and non-verbal scores in South Asians, a modest one in Indians and a marked one in Pakistanis/Bangladeshis, this is probably due to lack of English proficiency among a lot of them. Oh and note the Chinese non verbal score at around 110.
That is some very interesting data, thanks. I will post on that as well.
Thanks. It amazes me that while the UK regularly publishes quality data like this some people are STILL taking seriously nonsense by people like “recmann”!
(Sorry I’m slow in commenting, I work +6 days a week): Ambiguous, I’m looking at the data at the bottom page-the one for ethnicities-and it seems that the Indians in Britain are not doing terribly. They’re not Ashkenazis, but they seem to be doing fine. Am I missing something, or misunderstanding your comments?
Doesn’t this data suggest that the Indians in Britain are not all that dull??
And yes, while Rec1man makes some good points, much of what he says in unintelligible blather (both in grammar and in content). I believe that, corrected for nutrition+literacy, Indian IQ’s would rise substantially across the board (from Dalit to Brahmin), but there is other evidence to demonstrate this than by claiming that Brahmins are supermen and the rest of India is made of donkeys.
My two cents…
I don’t think he makes any good points.
Anyway the data for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis is also relevant. Bangladeshis are the poorest group in this study with the least educated parents and the average of their quantitative and non-verbal scores is 97, just 4 points below whites that’s a BIG gain on what they score as 3 year olds and 5 year olds when they’re the lowest scoring group.
What was your original point about Indians? Were you claiming that Indians in the UK were dull, or that they’re doing well?
I never claimed they’re dull, did I? The data clearly shows they’re not, neither are other South Asians.
It’s also worth noting that girls performed better than boys on both verbal and non-verbal tests. Naturally, you’d expect the boys to do better on the non-verbal test. I suspect that some cultural elements are at play.
Boys do significantly (for a gender gap) better in quantitative reasoning though, and the girls only do 0.4 points better in the non verbal bit. Overall girls score 100.5 while boys score 100.3.
I was about to say that I didn’t see the “quantitative reasoning part”. Even so, a 1 point difference between boys and girls in that criteria is not “significant”. Moreover, the difference is not as big as I (and probably you) expected.
Yeah it’s not a large gap at all I meant significant in the terms of it being “robust” across such a large sample.
I would argue it is seeing that the boys and girls come from exactly the same background
I don’t understand. Can you please elaborate?
Ambiguous: “I never claimed they’re dull, did I? The data clearly shows they’re not, neither are other South Asians.”
I couldn’t agree more, as I’ve been arguing that for a while. I think I need to send you a bottle of champagne…
Sorry brahmins like central asian iranian so there iq must be around 85 only.In business sector vaishya out perform brahmins
There are over 50 million brahmins in India. More than 40% of them live in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (population:200 million), which also happens to be one of the poorest states in India, which itself is poor even by third world standards. How do you reconcile that with these claims of high brahmin IQ?
That being said, there does seem to be a separation of IQ between Brahmin and the rest of the Indian population. As they have their version of affirmative actions, plus personal observation is that there are a lot more people in the high tech fields are Brahmin. Higher than the 5% of the native population.
Here is my conjecture. Brahmins come from the Aryan population which is now modern day Iran or Iraq. Since the Iranians (and in general N Africans and Middle Easterners) have IQ in the mid to high eighties, it is reasonable for the Brahmins to also have similar IQ. Since the average for India was reported to be 82 by Lynn, the rest of the population might be a tad below this, say 80. That is half a standard deviation separation between the Brahmins and the rest. It should explain the pattern we see in the high tech world.
A lot of such speculations are wishful thinking on the part of brahmins such as rec1man and westerners who like to imagine that aryans were from their part of the world.
Visual inspection and genetic testing do not show any real distinction between castes. All indians are a mix of ANI and ASI which varies by region not caste:
http://www.harappadna.org/
Iranian and Middle Eastern IQs suppressed by their reclusive and insular religion
Unfortunately much like Jews they cannot be expected to be all that loyal to the Indian nation (to the extent that an Indian nation exists).
Why is this so? It seems you are hoping that India and Israel will fail. ALL Indians look towards Mother India. BTW what were European IQs in the dark ages and what were they in Rennassance period? What are the SDs of IQ scores? Are the East Asian SDs lower? Do they all clump around 102? Are the European SDs higher and do they spread more to genius levels? Is that why we see more craetive output from white people than others. You have to answer these. And BTW most brahmins are vegetarians. That is rule of caste. Vegetarianism is best for the tropics. Chinese eat very litle meat. Just a smattering scattred among their noodles. The big meat eaters are the Westerners. Meat is an excellent diet for cold countries. Meat screws up the system in the tropics.
When the light skinned Aryans first came to India, they were ALL meat eaters and beef eaters. But warm tropical climes changed their diets.
also Flynn is a Fool. He predicted that Japan would rule the world based on his IQ studies. Look what happened to Japan
and again I do NOT notice East Asian SDs. Why the secrecy
I don’t understand when the author said caste is inherent to Hinduism. That makes me feel that he is fairly ignorant and his research is incomplete. But the fact is today’s caste system is the outcome of fights between kings and invaders, greed of feudal lords in the dark ages of India. Varna(caste) system actually is not based on birth but on deeds.
For the validity of my argument let me quote Manu Smriti:
“A Shudra becomes a Brahmin and a Brahmin becomes a Shudra because of his Karma”
Karma means deed. That’s all
I had think all your writing as flimsy once you mentioned India being invaded by “Aryans”. If you still believe in such myths, the whole article instantly loses credibility, and appears as a weird hypothesis by a wannabe expert. To understand a diverse society with more than 5000 years of stable civilization, you have to do the required homework. So please educate yourself about India’s civilizational history, take into account historical research of the last 2-3 decades which has demolished colonialist history! I am sorry that I have to be blunt, but your article has only shown how utterly ignorant you are about this country and intellectual prowess of its people. Just look at the pre industrial revolution western society and compare with the then India. Before the British colonizers started the loot in India, it was the richest nation of the world. (if you are surprised, you need to read the economic history of the world)
As far as the study of IQ is concerned, it’s flawed.
Caste is perhaps the most misunderstood concept by foreigners. Caste had nothing to do with IQ. For example a couple of the most revered books: Ramayana was written by a tribal guy Valmiki and the mother of Mahabharata’s author Veda Vyas came from a fisherman’s family.
Please refrain from posting articles with tons of incorrect information.
All of you need to read, investigate history of India even before speaking about it.
1) The IQ figures are given for the time period of 1945-90. The study does not include current IQ figures.So based on the past figures we cannot compare the intelligence of Indians with any other people.
2) The upper caste people for hundreds of centuries had access to education. Woman and lower castes were prohibited and those who tried to study were prosecuted. In order to compensate the loss and to create equality and give them justice reservation was implemented. But this doesn’t mean that the lower caste people or women are not talented. They were and still are talented but to show their talent they were given this opportunity. The only people who are against it are upper caste men as it has taken away their power of controlling people through superstition and blind faith.
3) Archeological evidences show Aryans never existed.British linguist Max-Muller created this Aryan Invasion theory based on language and color. But it is now disregarded as it has been proved wrong by the archeologists. This theory was supported by the Europeans to prove their superiority and to justify that India was already colonized in the past. This created less opposition. The upper caste desperately trying to save their position jumped into the theory saying they were Aryans.
4) DNA’s show that all the people in India including Brahmins are indigenous people not some foreigners.
5) If Aryans came to India and settled here, then why didn’t British , French and other European people settle here post Independence??? Why are more and more Indians spreading and settling across the world and fewer of foreigners settling in India?
6) There is no evidence that Upper caste people are Aryans. If you are thinking that color decides the caste system, trust me I have seen black coloured Brahmins and brown skinned Kshatriyas and fair/white
out-castes.Even the Hindu Gods are Black. So colour is not the basis of caste system in India.
7) According to one theory, the out-castes include real foreigners (including the Greeks who fought with Porous) settled in India. Out-castes also included people who were Buddhists but during the Revival of
Hinduism, Hindus harassed all these people who were against following Hinduism and drove them outside the city’s boundaries and socially isolated them.
8) Please read all the theories and riddles of Brahmanism, Hinduism, Buddhism in India without bias irrespective to who wrote it and then write/comment on it. Even most of the educated Indians are ignorant of
true history of India. Don’t believe in what people say or write without any archeological, scientific or concrete evidence or proofs.
“Skeptical on December 24, 2012 at 10:11 pm said:
6) There is no evidence that Upper caste people are Aryans. If you are thinking that color decides the caste system, trust me I have seen black coloured Brahmins and brown skinned Kshatriyas and fair/white
out-castes.Even the Hindu Gods are Black. So colour is not the basis of caste system in India.”
Actually the ‘Arya/ Ari’ and some other derivatives of word arya stand for ‘enemy’ in the language of upper caste. A popular Brahmin name is Aridaman i.e. the one who suppresses Aryans. On the other hand there is a strong evidence for untouchables being of aryan decent, both on account of history and genetics. Upper castes particulalry of Northern India have alot of Australoid blood and this have a lot of black/highly dark skins. This is true of brahmins/thakur and banias. Upper castes are non aryan. Further, other than ancinet Israel only Indian civilization (post Buddhist) has rejected God showing non aryan nature of Brahmin culture.
Please check the following articles for references:
http://centreright.in/2012/05/questions-aryan-invasion-theorist-never-answer/#.UNmGeGe9Hmc
http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/38A.%20Who%20were%20the%20Shudras%20Preface.htm
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/genetics-aryan-debate.html
If you want to know the truth, then read “Riddle In Hinduism” by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. It will answer all your questions and doubts esp.why Hindus follow Hinduism, which deity do they worship, etc
Scientific DNA analysis of data:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/indians-are-not-descendants-of-aryans-study/1/163645.html
http://indrus.in/articles/2012/06/06/europeans_and_indians_divided_or_united_by_dna_15923.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_new-research-debunks-aryan-invasion-theory_1623744
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-25/india/28107253_1_incidence-of-genetic-diseases-indians-tribes
http://indianrealist.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/aryan-dravidian-racist-theory-trashed-again-by-genetic-evidence/
So far as I have seen, the R1 gene not only has its largest number of individuals and highest percentage in North West India/Pakistan but also its highest diversity. This makes sense. The Harrapa civilization was early and must have been a spreading centre for agriculture. So, an R1 community established there post ice age (via Iran) would have spread back to Iran and Russia. The language may even have been PIE. The later Aryan invasion chronicled in Sanskrit was an elite replacement not a large scale population movement. It’s just that the people writing about it identified with the elite, just as with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England. Lots of then were already there. It was a movement within an existing R1 area. India is clearly a huge mix. Early in its spread, the human race in South India was wiped out by the Toba eruption and the area was recolonized from both East and West. The East African Asian success stories that I know socially, (some are in laws to other members of my family) are all Brahmins but I think that their success, like that of the Jews from Eastern Europe, relates to family tradition rather than innate superior intelligence. In Africa, they provided all the services in small towns for the African communities in the countryside, just as Jews in Russia were restricted from land ownership outside the Pale. It takes many generations to lose such acculturation. (Try the Iroquois 5).
Possible explanations for IQ gaps:
1. Selective reproductive advantage for intelligent individuals, similar to Ashkenazi Jews, since the community was limited to intellectual tasks.
2. Selective gene flow from intelligent individuals into the brahmin gene pool – India is not homogenous in ethnic origins. Waves of migrations and multiple indigenous cultures were formed into the matrix of Hinduism, and each community’s shaman, priest, poet and philosopher would have been granted the status of brahmins for that community – that is why there are dark-skinned Brahmins in the South and East of the country, where the people in general are darker complexioned, rather than a uniform sea of white skinned Brahmins.
3. Perhaps some epigenetic mechanism may be involved, transmission of acquired characteristics.
4. Maybe all cultural, no genetics whatsoever.
I’ am an Indian.
Caste System? Brahmins? You are wrong mister.
That was the past.It exist but not as prevalent and explict as you say it is.
Untouchables? Nothing sort of that exists now. Like In Many Other countries , the major inequality
is ofcourse based on wealth.
I still can’t get over the fact you have not properly researched before making such serious allegations.