Consistency of race differences in intelligence over millennia: A comment on Wicherts, Borsboom and Dolan

Abstract

Wicherts, Borsboom, and Dolan (2009) question whether contemporary national and racial IQs can be taken to represent the general intelligence of peoples in prehistoric eras, and hence whether theories based on this assumption have any plausibility. It is shown that contemporary differences in national and racial IQs can be identified at 10,000 years ago from differences in brain size, in making the Neolithic transition from hunter gathering to settled agriculture around 8000 years ago, in the development of early civilizations around 6000 years ago, and in scientific, mathematical, and technological advances during the last 2.5 thousand years. All of this evidence shows that race differences in intelligence have been present for at least the last 10,000 years.