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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

""How Deep Are the Roots of Economic Development?""

18 Comments -

1 – 18 of 18
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've noticed that southern Germans (Baden-Wurttemburg and Bavaria) have higher IQs than northern Germans, and those states are more economically developed these days. They (plus the fairly brainy Swiss) are generally shorter and darker and have more Celtic/Alphine ancestry than the more Nordic northerners which cuts against higher northern intelligence to some extent. These were also the areas that were ruled by the Romans so maybe that plays into it.

10/12/12, 2:41 AM

Anonymous Peter A said...

True "Northerners" don't seem to be particularly above average in intelligence. The indigenous populations of Siberia have a reputation for being a little slow in fact. Same goes for Laplanders,the Inuit, Greenlanders, etc. So the connection would seem to be north enough to have real winters, but south enough to allow agriculture - i.e. Korea, Japan, Central Europe. Anecdotal evidence from 17th-18th century Europeans suggests that the Native American populations of what is now the Northeast US and Southern Canada probably were also of above average intelligence - the Oneida, Algonquins, Iroquois, Mohawks, etc. But it seems that European civilization basically absorbed the high achievers among the native American/Canadian populations.

10/12/12, 3:44 AM

Anonymous Marlowe said...

But in farming economies, enough food can be produced to support urban sophisticates.

Who proceed to undermine the civilization which created them.

The correlation between high-IQ and foresight seems to have vanished.

10/12/12, 4:13 AM

Anonymous Black Death said...

Another Russian peasant story (and it's really from Russia) -

During Stalin's time, inmates from one of the Gulag camps were taken out in the forest to gather wood. A group of them came upon a goat. Having been deprived of sex as well as just about any other type of pleasure for a long period of time, one of the men fell upon the hapless animal and began to sodomize it. The peasant woman who owned the goat discovered them, and they fled. The woman returned to her hut with the goat and began to complain bitterly to her husband. "W#E must kill the goat!" she told her husband. "Why?" he asked. "Because he is befouled - he had sex with a man!" she sputtered. "Well," the husband answered, "We've been having sex for twenty years - does that mean I have to kill you?"

....

The Russians thought it was hilarious.

10/12/12, 6:01 AM

Blogger neil craig said...

Switzerland also appears beside the Scandanavian countries on most of these lists. While further south it is also full of snow covered mountains so may have a comparablke climate. And of course we Scots played a disproportionate role to the English in establishing the British empire.

Or it may be climate breeds a useful amount of aggressiveness. Vikings, Swiss pikemen, Scots Highlanders, Mongols & Afghans were not necessarily scientifically ahead of Europeans, Italian Renessaincers, Englishmen, Chinese and Hindus respectively but they were more aggressive.

10/12/12, 6:01 AM

Anonymous Tristero said...

For an earlier look at this issue, see "The Northward Course of Empire" (1922) by V. Steffanson:

http://archive.org/details/northwardcourse00stefgoog

10/12/12, 6:12 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 2:41: Check the temperatures. Is northern Germany warmer or cooler than southern Germany? A comparison of Munich and Hamburg puts Munich as having colder winters.

http://www.climatedata.eu/climate.php?loc=gmxx0087&lang=en

http://www.climatedata.eu/climate.php?loc=gmxx0049&lang=en

10/12/12, 7:34 AM

Anonymous Bob Cocking said...

"enough food can be produced to support urban sophisticates."

That's when it all starts to go down hill. Hipsterpocolypse!

10/12/12, 10:01 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

All this nonsense emanating from economics depts reminds me of a man who's 'lost' his door-keys but who's really left them in his jacket pocket.
Looking everwhere, but looking nowhere.

10/12/12, 11:31 AM

Anonymous jody said...

"On the other hand, within continents there often aren't obvious latitude-related IQ disparities. For instance, the IQ differences among most European countries are too small to worry about."

uh, aren't the maghreb people smarter than the saharans and subsaharans? aren't the northern europeans smarter than the mediterranean europeans? aren't the eskimos and aleuts smarter than the navajo and cherokee and sioux?

10/12/12, 12:56 PM

Blogger pat said...

Rushton seemed right on the cusp of suggesting another theory for why people from higher latitudes are smarter.

His paper last July on melanocortin synthesis relates aggression and sexuality to pigmentation. We know that people's skin color is a function of latitude. If the process of acquiring more pigment affects aggression and sexuality perhaps it affects intelligence too. If this happens to be true it would answer a lot of unresolved questions. The theory that humans have to be smarter for colder winters has always seemed thin to me.

In the mean time does anyone know if dogs from the north are smarter than dogs from the south? Dog IQ is a bit different than human IQ but it is very well studied and has reliable quantitative scales. For example are Huskies smarter than Presa Canarios?

I can't find another breed that was bred further south. There does seem to be a trend for northern people to work their dogs and southern people to eat them.

Albertosaurus

10/12/12, 4:00 PM

Anonymous Volksverhetzer said...

As a Norwegian, and after having had friends from all over Europe, I don't think we are much smarter than others.

What I find separates more, is that Scandinavians don't so often engage in petty rivalry, and that people tend to do, what they say they will do. Scandinavians are also good at following rules.

All these are traits that might increase survival more than just high intelligence.

10/12/12, 5:30 PM

Anonymous Rob said...

As a Norwegian, and after having had friends from all over Europe, I don't think we are much smarter than others.

What I find separates more, is that Scandinavians don't so often engage in petty rivalry, and that people tend to do, what they say they will do. Scandinavians are also good at following rules.

All these are traits that might increase survival more than just high intelligence.


And they are the traits that will destroy you when you bring in millions of non-Whites into your countries and expect them to behave as you do.

10/12/12, 7:47 PM

Anonymous jody said...

"His paper last July on melanocortin synthesis relates aggression and sexuality to pigmentation."

yeah, except he's wrong, and i busted his hypothesis. the very dark south asians are relatively meek, meanwhile, the fairer mongolians of central asia were rampaging across the continent for centuries. even in africa we find that some of the east african peoples are very dark indeed, while being less aggressive and warlike than most of the west african groups, who are less dark than the darkest east africans.

the idea itself is not preposterous, from the perspective of pigmentation mutations perhaps affecting an animal in more ways than just it's skin, hair, and eye colors. we know even in humans that this happens in some cases. a melanocortin 1 receptor mutation can have peripheral effects in a person's nervous system and cardiovascular system.

however, the data just don't support the hypothesis. you have to exclude over 1 billion south asians from the "darkies are violent because they're darkies!" data. and then also ignore that the han chinese, who are relatively fair, are some of the most violent, aggressive, and cruel people on earth.

10/12/12, 8:59 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You seem to contradict yourself when you write:


Thus, in the 21st Century, the Nordic social democracies are at the top of most measures of societal competence. The usual winner in recent years is Norway.
Nor should we assume this is wholly coincidental.



But then write:


On the other hand, within continents there often aren't obvious latitude-related IQ disparities. For instance, the IQ differences among most European countries are too small to worry about.


Well, if the differences between European countries aren't worth worrying about, then we shouldn't expect Norway to be ahead of Albania.

10/13/12, 1:50 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Scandinavians seem to be at the top of the list in a lot of things, at least among Europeans. Average IQ, Nobel laureates per capita, Olympic gold medals per capita, various quality of life indices, most blonds per capita, etc.

The only area in which Scandinavians don't seem to excel is in the arts, especially music. Musical talent seems to increase the further south you go.

10/13/12, 1:53 AM

Anonymous jody said...

"The only area in which Scandinavians don't seem to excel is in the arts, especially music"

isn't modern techno pop fairly scandinavian? all these current songs by black americans with techno beats and choruses, that's mostly a german/dutch/scandinavian thing. the sound which has taken over US studio pop music comes from northwest europe.

scandinavians also write songs for the korean pop music wave. i'm not sure what percentage of writing credits go to them, but lots of the girl group songs, if you check the credits, it's foreign names, not korean names.

10/13/12, 1:46 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Foresight is needed to survive cold winters. So harsher, more northerly climates select for higher average intelligence. And intelligence is useful in war"

There's a reasonably well known English novel of the past 50-odd years, the name of whose author escapes me, in which the hero's father opines that a beer-drinking country will always beat a wine-drinking country.

10/15/12, 2:37 PM

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