# Are people of Northern Hemisphere smarter than people of Southern Hemisphere **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 8, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359 "2016-09-08T19:47:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/1 "2016-09-08T19:47:00Z")
To make this question less of imho and more factual maybe we should look at GDP, standard of living, poverty indices, nobel prize winners, scientic advancement, political stability, well being and educational levels etc etc. After factoring in population numbers obviously. Will that then tell us if either hemisphere has a clear lead in the smartness/intelligence stakes. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/2 "2016-09-08T19:52:16Z")
Moved to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/3 "2016-09-08T20:25:18Z")
Here’s a better idea. Look at those countries that straddle the equator and tell us if folks north of the line are smarter than folks south of the line. That’s a better way of controlling for factors not related to the equator itself. I suggest you start with Ecuador. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/4 "2016-09-08T20:34:27Z")
What do any of the factors you propose measuring have to do with intelligence? ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/5 "2016-09-08T21:13:08Z")
The colder the climate, the dumber we are. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/6 "2016-09-08T21:29:57Z")
Sounds like a dumb Northie question. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/7 "2016-09-08T21:43:34Z")
It sounds like a question that the book Guns, Germs and Steel answered. No, humans are more or less equal; the differences in tech innovation favoring northern white euros was due to environmental factors. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/8 "2016-09-08T22:16:17Z")
> [@Nansbread1](#): > > To make this question less of imho and more factual maybe we should look at GDP, standard of living, poverty indices, nobel prize winners, scientic advancement, political stability, well being and educational levels etc etc. When these factors improve greatly over a period of decades, as they have (for example) in South Korea, does that mean the population got smarter? When they plummet, as they have done in Greece and Syria, does that mean the population got stupider? > [@](#): > > Will that then tell us if either hemisphere has a clear lead in the smartness/intelligence stakes. Given that your entire premise is fatally flawed, no. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/9 "2016-09-08T22:44:59Z")
> [@Mallard](#): > > The colder the climate, the dumber we are. 😃 There’s actually a theory that claims the opposite - people in the north are smarter because they’ve spent more time inside and got book learning. The fact we willingly live where it snows seems to belie the idea. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/10 "2016-09-08T22:58:26Z")
What you me “we” Mr. snow-putter-up-with??? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/11 "2016-09-08T23:11:43Z")
If you’re looking at human groups in the past the northern geography, particularly in the old world, was advantageous to sharing of information. The most important information you could share with people was information relating to agriculture. The people whom sharing agricultural knowledge is most advantageous are people at the same latitude as you are since a short trip north or south has a dramatic change on the types of plants that can be grown as well as the techniques required to improving that growth. If you are on the Eurasian land mass there are a lot of people east and west of you with similar growing conditions and thus there are a lot of people trading information back and forth. The more people the higher likelihood of innovation and since knowledge is already being transferred even information that is not about agriculture would come along for the ride. So it’s not that the people in the southern hemisphere have a lower IQ as much as it is that due to the skinny nature of the land masses in the southern hemisphere there is less trading of innovations and thus they didn’t advance the way that peoples of the northern hemisphere, especially Eurasia, did. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/12 "2016-09-08T23:46:32Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > If you’re looking at human groups in the past the northern geography, particularly in the old world, was advantageous to sharing of information. The most important information you could share with people was information relating to agriculture. The people whom sharing agricultural knowledge is most advantageous are people at the same latitude as you are since a short trip north or south has a dramatic change on the types of plants that can be grown as well as the techniques required to improving that growth. > > If you are on the Eurasian land mass there are a lot of people east and west of you with similar growing conditions and thus there are a lot of people trading information back and forth. The more people the higher likelihood of innovation and since knowledge is already being transferred even information that is not about agriculture would come along for the ride. > > So it’s not that the people in the southern hemisphere have a lower IQ as much as it is that due to the skinny nature of the land masses in the southern hemisphere there is less trading of innovations and thus they didn’t advance the way that peoples of the northern hemisphere, especially Eurasia, did. Thank-you, Jared Diamond. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/13 "2016-09-09T06:11:22Z")
Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals, Hawaiians, etc. are all from the same genetic population as the Japanese. If you compare grades by ethnicity, your average Japanese kid will probably be near the top of the spectrum. Your average Native American kid will probably be near the bottom. Just a few years before the first submarine was developed for the American Civil War, the Japanese were still living in the feudal ages. They were still living in an age where knights ride around on horses and swung swords at each other. A few decades later, large numbers of Japanese were convinced to move to Brazil, to work in their industrial sector. The Brazilians were ahead of the Japanese economically and technologically. In the Americas before the Europeans came, most of the large, organized empires were in Central and South America. North Americans largely stayed as hunter gatherers (with exceptions). But since the land bridge from Asia to the Americas was in Alaska, everyone living in Central and South America are presumably the descendants of North Americans. Basically, there’s no evidence that any particular ethnic group is inherently more or less intelligent than any other. Just following one ethnic group, there’s no particularly consistency in the level of social and technological development that was achieved among all the different political entities within that group. Nor is there any North/South divide. In the Americas, the Southerners tended to be more impressive. More importantly, most of the Southern Hemisphere is water. Only 1/3rd (or less) of Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of Australia is a desert. Only 12% of the current human population exists in the Southern Hemisphere. On that basis alone, we can already expect 8 times more geniuses to be born in the Northern Hemisphere. When you add in access to education and a free economy, you wouldn’t expect to see much coming out of the South. But, as we’ve seen with Japan, things can change drastically in just a few hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/14 "2016-09-09T06:20:45Z")
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup\_M\_(mtDNA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_M_(mtDNA)) btw ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/15 "2016-09-09T06:22:58Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Basically, there’s no evidence that any particular ethnic group is inherently more or less intelligent than any other. Just following one ethnic group, there’s no particularly consistency in the level of social and technological development that was achieved among all the different political entities within that group. Nor is there any North/South divide. In the Americas, the Southerners tended to be more impressive. Really? > **[Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence)** > > Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence, often referred to as "Jewish genius", is the stereotype that Ashkenazi Jews tend to have a higher intelligence than other ethnic groups. > Jewish success in many intellectual fields often prompts the stereotype. Many who argue for Jewish intelligence have pointed out the List of Jewish Nobel laureates amassing 22% of Nobel Prizes across all scientific categories while Jewish people comprise only 0.2% of global population at roughly 14 million people. Even a small in... Through whatever selection medium it came about people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage are (an average) notably more intelligent than the US baseline and oddly have “below-average spatial intelligence” . > [@](#): > > One observational basis for inferring that Ashkenazi Jews have high intelligence is their prevalence in intellectually demanding fields. While only about 2% of the U.S. population is of full Ashkenazi Jewish descent,[2] 27% of United States Nobel prize winners in the 20th century,[2][3] 25% of Fields Medal winners,[4] 25% of ACM Turing Award winners,[2] 9 out of the 19 world chess champions, and a quarter of Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners have either full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.[4] However, such statistics do not rule out factors other than intelligence, such as institutional biases and social networks. Undue weight is also given to the Ashkenazi statistics because people of partial Ashkenazi ancestry (half or less) are included, but only compared to the portion of the US population of full Ashkenazi descent.[citation needed] > > A more direct approach is to measure intelligence with psychometric tests. Different studies have found different results, but most have found above-average verbal and mathematical intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews, along with below-average spatial intelligence.[3][5][6][7] > > The average IQ score of Ashkenazi Jews has been calculated to be 112–115 (Cochran et al.),[8] and 107–115 (Murray; Entine).[9][10][11] A study found that Ashkenazi Jews had only mediocre visual-spatial intelligence, while their verbal IQ (which includes verbal reasoning, comprehension, working memory, and mathematical computation) compensated for this with a high median of 125.6.[12][13] ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/16 "2016-09-09T08:14:07Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Really? > > [Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence) > > Through whatever selection medium it came about people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage are (an average) notably more intelligent than the US baseline and oddly have “below-average spatial intelligence” . Eh, possibly you could select for higher intelligence, if it’s a small enough group. But I’d still vote that it’s more likely that you’re looking at a cultural phenomenon than a genetic one. Other than maybe a higher percentage of Northern European blood, your average Jewish person is probably the same as your average Jordanian or Palestinian person, genetically. Are they particularly renowned for spawning geniuses? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/17 "2016-09-09T12:32:04Z")
The equatorial regions are the malarial regions, and malaria [grinds societies down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria#Society_and_culture). And it can cause brain damage leading to lowered intelligence, as can famine. > [@](#): > > Cerebral malaria is one of the leading causes of neurological disabilities in African children.[109] Studies comparing cognitive functions before and after treatment for severe malarial illness continued to show significantly impaired school performance and cognitive abilities even after recovery.[107] Consequently, severe and cerebral malaria have far-reaching socioeconomic consequences that extend beyond the immediate effects of the disease. So, on average they probably _are_ less intelligent - not because of generics, but from hunger and disease. Eradicate malaria and stop famine, and you’d fix that, presumably. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/18 "2016-09-09T12:41:46Z")
> [@Nansbread1](#): > > After factoring in population numbers obviously. [Well, then](http://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitude/). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/19 "2016-09-09T13:01:59Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > In the Americas before the Europeans came, most of the large, organized empires were in Central and South America. People always seem to think [Mexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toltec) [is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec) [not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixtec)[in](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec) [North](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization) [America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapotec_civilization), for some reason. And ignore the [Missisipian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture) which, while not an empire, was just as much a civilization as the Maya, Inca or Aztec. > [@](#): > > North Americans largely stayed as hunter gatherers (with exceptions). No, hunter-gathering [was](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_prehistoric_Southwest) [the](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Agricultural_Complex) [exception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_on_the_prehistoric_Great_Plains), not the rule. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359/20 "2016-09-09T13:06:33Z")
Perhaps I am the first person to openly point out that the vast majority of human beings live north of the Equator. It’s a striking imbalance - something like 90% of all people are in the Northern Hemisphere. You are going to struggle to make a lot of valid comparisons because there aren’t enough comparisons to make. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-of-northern-hemisphere-smarter-than-people-of-southern-hemisphere/765359.md?page=2)