Book Review: Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis, 2nd Revised Edition (Lynn, R.)

Abstract

Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis, 2nd Revised Edition. Richard Lynn Athens, Georgia: Washington Summit Publishers 2015, 425 pagesRichard Lynn is perhaps best known for his work on national differences in IQ, conducted with Tatu Vanhanen. In 2006, in the first edition of this book, he brought together all the studies then known to calculate race differences in intelligence. This second revised edition adds another 100 pages and many more studies to Richard Lynn's first definitive compilation of racial IQs. The conclusions given in the first edition are largely confirmed by many more studies in this new edition and are summarised in the table below.Clearly, this new book will now be the definitive resource for anyone interested in understanding race differences in intelligence. There are many important changes when comparing it to the first edition. One of the most important of these is the discussion of the IQ of Europeans. In the first edition (apart from a few low IQ outliers such as Ireland and Greece) Europeans were argued to have an IQ of roughly the Greenwich median of 100. In this edition, drawing upon more recent studies, it is argued that both Eastern Europeans (i.e. much of the former Communist Bloc) and southern Europeans have lower average IQs than Western Europeans by about 3 points on average. In the case of Eastern Europe Lynn puts this down to poor living standards, but it could also be a function of dysgenics: more intelligent Latvians, for example, being disproportionately slaughtered by the Soviets as they cleansed the intelligentsia and also having been more likely to have made the necessary plans to flee the country around this time. In the last edition, the Balkan countries were shown to have lower IQs than Western Europe. Lynn argues that they are clines, reflecting genetic admixture with peoples from the Near East, where the IQs are in the range of approximately 90 (Turkey), 87 (Lebanon) and 83 (Syria) and hence the peoples of the southern Balkans are a mixed race cline of European and Near-Eastern populations with IQs intermediate between the two peoples. Likewise, in the last edition, Lynn noted that Portugal's IQ was significantly lower than other Western European countries, something he put down to Early Modern African slaves, an issue which was not a factor in Spain, for example. In this edition, it is shown that the IQ in the far south of Western Europe is, in general, significantly below 100. In Sicily and in the South of mainland Italy it is 90, and in southern Spain it is 95.5. Lynn argues that the populations here are a European-North African cline, so the IQ is intermediate between Europe and North Africa. He quotes many expert sources -often verbatim and at length-to back up these interpretations and also substantiates his interpretation with gene frequency data.In this new edition, Lynn takes pains to respond to many critics of his findings of his earlier work. For example, he sets out in detail how the conclusion that the Sub-Saharan African IQ is 76 is erroneous and based on elite samples. However, based on more recent information, this edition revises the Sub-Saharan African IQ up from 67 in the first edition to 71. This edition also discusses the relatively high intelligence of African infants which it puts down to their developing more quickly than European children, who soon surpass them. Lynn responds to the criticism that the estimated IQ for Bushmen, of 55, is impossibly low because it would render them severely mentally retarded by European standards. He notes that 55 IQ points (according to adult norms) is the average intelligence of a European 8-year-old, these generally being literate. Apes, with the mental ability of human 4-year-olds, notes Lynn, survive well as foragers. One potential criticism here is that Lynn doesn't take the time to pull apart the popular (but ludicrous) theory of 'stereotype threat,' which is logically incoherent but is widely used by Lynn's critics. …