Human Biodiversity, Psychometrics, and Evolutionary Psychology

That ancient question - what accounts for the wealth of nations? Don't tax yourself with Adam Smith or Landes. It's mostly intelligence, with a small dash of social cohesion.

Only 15% of Scandinavian Pupils can do Basic Fractions

This about HBD, tagged , , was written by for on July 22, 2013 .55 Comments

Further to my post on the remarkable failure of Scandinavian education systems to develop their students to anywhere near the levels indicated by their IQ potentials, a professor of mathematics at a Wisconsin university sent me data on the percentage of respondents in the TIMSS who gave the correct answer to the following question: Which […]

Preliminary Thoughts on TIMSS/PIRLS 2012

This about HBD, tagged , , was written by for on July 15, 2013 .11 Comments

I had been meaning to post about this for a long time. Better late than never, I suppose. The TIMSS and PIRLS are international assessments of academic ability in math, science and literacy that are conducted once every four years. They are similar to the PISA tests, although the latter are less purely academically focused […]

Birth Defects, FBD Marriages

This about HBD, tagged , , was written by for on April 22, 2013 .40 Comments

While researching a different topic I stumbled upon the following 2006 report on the Internet. It contains comprehensive estimates for the prevalence of birth defects all around the world. The relevant graph is reprinted below (you can click on it to get a bigger picture). What leaps out at first sight is the sheer extent […]

The Farewell To Alms Theory – Older Than We Think

This about HBD, tagged , , was written by for on March 19, 2013 .1 Comment

I am currently (re)reading The National System of Political Economy by Friedrich List (published in 1841), and this jumped out at me: In no European kingdom is the institution of an aristocracy more judiciously designed than in England for securing to the nobility, in their relation to the Crown and the commonalty, individual independence, dignity, […]

Flynn Effect DOES Apply To South Korea

This about HBD, tagged , , , was written by for on February 18, 2013 .1 Comment

Regular readers of this blog may remember my comments regarding Ron Unz’s theory that East Asians have high IQ’s independent of time/nutrition/urbanization whatever it is that causes the Flynn Effect. Here is his original article on his theory of the “East Asian Exception” and my two responses are here and here. Anyway a new paper […]

Antisocial Punishment: Why China Will Defeat Corruption, But Russia And The Arabs Won’t

This about HBD, tagged , , , , was written by for on February 15, 2013 .7 Comments

One of the books I’ve been reading lately is Steven Pinker’s massive door-stopper The Better Angels of Our Nature. Incidentally, I found it a very interesting read with tons of cool factoids, although it could have done with a third of its text and a tiny fraction of its liberal sanctimonious. But that’s for the […]

New Delhi Cuts Ties With PISA

This about HBD, tagged , , was written by for on August 22, 2012 .16 Comments

India backs out of global education test for 15-year-olds. Indians were put to test for the first time in the last assessment in 2009. On the global stage, they stood second last among 73 countries, only beating Kyrgyzstan on reading, math and science abilities… This time around, sources said India shied away from the assessment as […]

Minorities’ Cognitive Performance In The UK

This about HBD, tagged , , , , was written by for on August 22, 2012 .69 Comments

Here is data from the Cognitive Abilities Test for UK students in 2009/10 via Ambiguous. Some interesting things to take away here: (1) The sample is very large. Verbal IQ has the highest correlation with academic performance in most subjects, followed by Quantitative IQ, and then Non-Verbal Reasoning (recognizing patterns and such, I imagine). (2) Indians […]

Policy On Racism

This about HBD, tagged , was written by for on August 20, 2012 .13 Comments

As I noted in my old post on the false dichotomy between race denial and racism, there is a regrettable degree of overlap between racism and race realism. This shouldn’t however blind us to the real distinctions between the two, which were very succinctly summarized by Half Sigma thus: The race realist understands The g Factor, The […]

Analysis Of Russia’s PISA 2009 Results

This about HBD, tagged , , , was written by for on August 18, 2012 .18 Comments

A few months ago I posted a table and map of Russian IQ’s as derived from regional PISA performance. Those figures are based on Jarkko Hautamäki’s slideshow comparing regional PISA performance in Finland and Russia. That material is a bit inadequate because, as had been my custom up that point, I was only making IQ estimates based […]

rec1man On Indian IQ

This about HBD, tagged , , , was written by for on August 18, 2012 .64 Comments

My post on Indian IQ (max potential is low to mid 90’s) spawned an interesting analysis by commentator rec1man. It is not very well organized but he does have a ton of useful information that deserves to be highlighted. It’s reprinted in full below interspersed with occasional commentary by myself: Caste Analysis 75% of the Indian population gets […]

The Evolution Of Chinese IQ

This about HBD, tagged , , , was written by for on August 17, 2012 .62 Comments

In the discussion at the previous post, in which I took exception to Ron Unz’s theory of the East Asian Exception, he alerted me to so additional work on the matter he’d done as a Harvard freshman on Chinese IQ. You can read his summary of Social Darwinism and Rural China as well as Steve Sailer’s commentary on […]