Book Review Article: National Income, Intelligence, and Climate

Abstract

IQ and the Wealth of Nations Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen Praeger, Westport. Connecticut 2002 256 pp., U.S. $64.95, ISBN 0-275-97510-X Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen in their IQ and the Wealth of Nations have exhibited great courage. Anyone who mentions that people or nations may differ in intelligence is denounced. Yet as many readers know, intelligence tests consistently show the races to differ in intelligence, and the evidence points strongly to genetic causes for these differences. Yet, if the races differ in intelligence, and nations differ in racial composition, then the intelligence of nations may differ. Without ever mentioning the term race, it is this possibility that Lynn and Vanhanen explore. They make a good case that not only do nations differ in intelligence, but that these intelligence differences make a major contribution to national income differences. One of the authors, Tatu Vanhanen, is a Finnish political scientist who has written on such subjects as democratization (which is one of the variables used in this study) and on ethnic conflict. The other, Richard Lynn, is a UK psychologist. He is probably the leading expert in international comparisons of intelligence (an earlier survey of national IQs in this journal is Lynn 1991a). Such comparisons are complex because there are a wide variety of tests that have been given at different times, to different groups (children, students, conscripts, etc.) and for different purposes (virtually never was the purpose to make international comparisons). To make these comparisons numerous adjustments must be made. The situation is further complicated because there is evidence that intelligence scores have been increasing over time. This increase is sometimes referred to as the Lynn-Flynn effect in honor of the two authors who have drawn attention to it, one of which is a co-author of this book. Naturally, Lynn has adjusted the scores for the date of the tests. A major contribution of the book is a set of consistent estimates of national IQs. These estimates will probably be used by others to investigate various hypotheses and to expand on Lynn and Vanhanen's work. The book provides an appendix giving the sources for the IQ scores for each nation and the adjustments that have been made Perhaps the first question to be addressed is whether the measurements of intelligence that have been made are sufficiently accurate to build an argument on. This is tested by locating 45 countries in which more than one test has been given. When more than two tests have been given, the two extreme values were used. The correlation of the two tests is .939. This correlation is high enough to establish that the tests are reliable. The first finding of the book is that nations do indeed differ in IQ. The country scores were calculated on a scale in which the IQ of Britain is 100 and the standard deviation 15. There were 81 countries for which national IQ could be calculated (including Hong Kong and Puerto Rico as countries). The US scores 98 on this scale. The authors grouped these by region. The highest scores were not in Europe or the US, but in East Asia. The highest reported was 107 for Hong Kong, followed by 106 for Korea, 105 for Japan, 104 for Taiwan, and 100 for China (mainland). The charge is frequently made that the nationals of the countries for which the test were designed will always do best. Virtually all of the IQ tests were devised in the UK or the US, but yet the highest scores were obtained in East Asia. The natives of the country where the tests were developed do not always do best. Lynn and others who work on differences in intelligence are frequently accused of being racists who believe in white superiority. Yet Lynn's data shows that the most intelligent nations are non-white. Looking at other regions, European countries range from 102 (Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands) down to 90 for Croatia, 92 for Greece, and 93 for Ireland. …