# Race differences in average IQ are largely genetic **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 27, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236 "2012-05-27T12:28:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/201 "2012-05-31T15:38:47Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > (Hell, for that matter since Orientals are genetically much smarter, shouldn’t Japan have greeted Perry’s black ships with rail gun barrages or something ?) Actually, given that Japan was very late (200-500 BCE) to the whole agriculture and urbanization thing, **NDD** ’s thesis inescapably predicts that modern Japan should be kind of like Somalia, only with more crime and less infrastructure. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/202 "2012-05-31T15:41:23Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > It took less time for Ashkenazi Jews to develop an even higher average IQ of 112. Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy, an undisguised attempt to use _the claim you’re trying to prove_ as part of your _evidence_. Every time I think your arguments can’t get any more inane, they do. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/203 "2012-05-31T15:46:51Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > In The Jews among the Greeks and Romans: a Diasporan Source Book Margaret H. Williams demonstrated that during the Roman Empire Jews were not considered to be of superior intelligence. The superiority of the Ashkenazim evolved quickly. So… you’re asserting that a change in _belief_ implies a change in _fact_? As in, for example, the planets stopped revolving around the Earth and began revolving around the Sun during the sixteenth century? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/204 "2012-05-31T15:49:49Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I cannot explain the superior intelligence of the Koreans and Japanese Well, yes, in the sense that a moon hoaxer “cannot explain” why the Soviets didn’t call the Americans on their bullshit. When confronted with a fact that fatally undercuts a thesis (e.g. the history of Japan and its modern condition, as has been repeatedly noted on this thread), shrugging off the fact as something that one “cannot explain” is often the best one can do, if one is too firmly wedded to the thesis to accept the reality. ---
**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:** [May 31, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/205 "2012-05-31T15:51:05Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Several genes enable lactose tolerance. The most common is the 13910-Y allele. It is found among Europeans. Yes, I know this - that still means what _you_ said was wrong. ---
**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:** [May 31, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/206 "2012-05-31T15:55:59Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Philosophy and art. …and theirs was superior to every other contemporaneous culture’s philosophy and art…how, exactly? Certainly wasn’t superior to the Indian, or they wouldn’t have adopted Buddhism overwhelmingly over their local religions. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/207 "2012-05-31T15:58:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Yes, I know this - that still means what _you_ said was wrong. My point is that a genetic difference can develop quickly, if it gives individuals competitive advantages. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/208 "2012-05-31T16:03:29Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > So… you’re asserting that a change in _belief_ implies a change in _fact_? As in, for example, the planets stopped revolving around the Earth and began revolving around the Sun during the sixteenth century? :rolleyes: It would be kind of awesome if it were true, though :p. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/209 "2012-05-31T16:04:02Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > So… you’re asserting that a change in _belief_ implies a change in _fact_? As in, for example, the planets stopped revolving around the Earth and began revolving around the Sun during the sixteenth century? :rolleyes: Two thousand years ago Jews did not give evidence of superior intelligence. Now the Ashkenazim do. This change happened quickly. It can be explained in terms of population pressures that were somewhat unique to Jews living in Christian Europe. What all of this means is that racial differences can evolve within historical time. Racial differences between blacks and whites can be explained by the number of generations that separate each race form a paleolithic existence, and also by the fact that whites developed civilization five thousand years ago, but the ancestors of the Bantu never did. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/210 "2012-05-31T16:04:35Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Agriculture entered Europe about eight thousand years ago. The Bantu only adopted it about three thousand years ago, four thousand at the most. They never developed indigenous urban civilizations with systems of writing and mathematics they developed themselves, the way the Mayans did in the New World. And yet the Germans, who were winning a third of all Nobel prizes in the first couple decades of the 20th century, were as recently as [Julius Caesar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples#Economy), a predominantly pastoralist, semi-nomadic people: _“They do not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large portion of their food consists in milk, cheese, and flesh; nor has any one a fixed quantity of land or his own individual limits; but the magistrates and the leading men each year apportion to the tribes and families, who have united together, as much land as, and in the place in which, they think proper, and the year after compel them to remove elsewhere.”_ ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/211 "2012-05-31T16:10:12Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Actually, given that Japan was very late (200-500 BCE) to the whole agriculture and urbanization thing, **NDD** ’s thesis inescapably predicts that modern Japan should be kind of like Somalia, only with more crime and less infrastructure. The Jōmon period lasted from about 14,000 until 300 BC. The first signs of civilization and stable living patterns appeared around 14,000 BC with the Jōmon culture, characterized by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of wood stilt house and pit dwellings and a rudimentary form of agriculture. > **[History of Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan#Ancient_Japan)** > > The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD. > Around the 3rd century BC, the Yayoi people from the continent immigrated to the Jap... The author uses the word “civilization” differently than I do, but it is clear that agriculture is much older in Japan than in sub Saharan Africa. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/212 "2012-05-31T16:13:28Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > And yet the Germans, who were winning a third of all Nobel prizes in the first couple decades of the 20th century, were as recently as [Julius Caesar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples#Economy), a predominantly pastoralist, semi-nomadic people: > > _“They do not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large portion of their food consists in milk, cheese, and flesh; nor has any one a fixed quantity of land or his own individual limits; but the magistrates and the leading men each year apportion to the tribes and families, who have united together, as much land as, and in the place in which, they think proper, and the year after compel them to remove elsewhere.”_ The average IQ is Germany is 102. [http://sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm](http://sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm) This is still lower than the 112 average for the Ashkenazim. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/213 "2012-05-31T16:16:52Z")
I wanted to get back to this, however: > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Those who passed the imperial exams died before IQ testing was introduced. We cannot test them. Precisely. We cannot test them. Therefore, you cannot possibly prove your silly claims. And yet you keep asserting them like they’re Gospel truth. Why ? > [@](#): > > Nevertheless, it should be obvious that those who passed were more intelligent than those who failed. There’s nothing obvious about it at all. The whole system was notoriously corrupt, for one thing. And since Imperial China was very much a caste society, and an ethnically discriminating one at that, it’s sort of a given that the poor and the undercastes had fewer chances to get a pass than the sons of bureaucrats - or the sons of friends of the examinator. And, at the risk of repeating myself, since Imperial tests were specific to China ; and nothing like them existed elsewhere in Asia (well, Japan did have a short stint of something like it back when they were in their “China is AWESOME” phase the Heian period, but that didn’t last long) there’s _no reason whatsoever_ to conclude that Imperial testing had any relevance whatsoever to your genetic claims even if we were to accept them for the purpose of argument. Either your genetic claims are true, all Asians including Chinese are naturally super smart, and then they would be with or without Imperial tests ; or your claims are a steaming load of round objects in which case the tests are pretty much irrelevant either way. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/214 "2012-05-31T16:17:57Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Well, yes, in the sense that a moon hoaxer “cannot explain” why the Soviets didn’t call the Americans on their bullshit. When confronted with a fact that fatally undercuts a thesis (e.g. the history of Japan and its modern condition, as has been repeatedly noted on this thread), shrugging off the fact as something that one “cannot explain” is often the best one can do, if one is too firmly wedded to the thesis to accept the reality. It is not unusual for a theory not to explain all of the relevant facts. A possible explanation for higher average IQs in Japan and South Korea than in Europe is that most of Europe entered a dark age after the fall of the Roman Empire, while Japan and South Korea did not. Another explanation is that in Roman Catholic countries the priesthood was a means of upward social mobility for peasant boys. However, they were forbidden to have children. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/215 "2012-05-31T16:25:17Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Two thousand years ago Jews did not give evidence of superior intelligence. Now the Ashkenazim do. This change happened quickly. It can be explained in terms of population pressures that were somewhat unique to Jews living in Christian Europe. > > What all of this means is that racial differences can evolve within historical time. Racial differences between blacks and whites can be explained by the number of generations that separate each race form a paleolithic existence, and also by the fact that whites developed civilization five thousand years ago, but the ancestors of the Bantu never did. So waitwaitwaitwaitwait. Intelligence levels can change due to population pressures or education in the case of the Imperial Chinese. They can change very quickly. It follows that negros will always be inferior because their very distant paleolithic ancestors may or may not\* have developped agriculture 20 thousand years ago. Whelp, I’m convinced. This is sound, logical inductive thinking and no mistake. \*(BTW, they did. Before Europeans. You keep making non-factual statements about this for some reason. An honest mistake, no doubt) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/216 "2012-05-31T16:28:59Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > It is not unusual for a theory not to explain all of the relevant facts. Errr yes it fucking well is ? If your theory sweeps inconvenient facts under the rug and handwaves away discrepancies with what you hold for correct, it’s not a scientific theory. It’s what we in the biz’ call a fanwank. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/217 "2012-05-31T16:32:14Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > The average IQ is Germany is 102. > > [http://sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm](http://sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm) > > This is still lower than the 112 average for the Ashkenazim. Pardon my French, but I don’t give a flying fuck what a nation’s purported IQ is. The Germans have been one of the most scientifically creative of all the world’s peoples. And yet, until relatively recently (historically speaking), they were illiterate, pastoral, semi-nomads. These are both incontrovertible facts, unlike your implication that modern IQ scores are somehow indicative of a nation’s overall intellectual capacity. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/218 "2012-05-31T17:27:19Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Are you claiming that Ashkenazic Jews do not have an average IQ of 112? It is common knowledge that they do. They have won one fifth of Nobel Prizes. I simply note that you completely ignore - what, four? five? - scientifically sound refutations of your arguments, and instead simply reiterate the one statement which, as has been clearly explained, simply cannot be counted as evidence. Is it any wonder people don’t have much respect for your ability to think scientifically? ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/219 "2012-05-31T17:41:23Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > I simply note that you completely ignore - what, four? five? - scientifically sound refutations of your arguments, and instead simply reiterate the one statement which, as has been clearly explained, simply cannot be counted as evidence. Is it any wonder people don’t have much respect for your ability to think scientifically? The point I have made is that racial differences in IQ can evolve quickly. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236/220 "2012-05-31T17:44:50Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > The point I have made is that racial differences in IQ can evolve quickly. Are you willing to provide evidence that IQ is even genetic let alone that it has “evolved” Why have you ignored that Nigerian immigrants reach a far higher educational attainment here in the US than any other ethnic group? IQ tests are culturally biased, their number are less valuable than you imply but at least provide some causal relationship behind your concept of “race” and IQ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/race-differences-in-average-iq-are-largely-genetic/623236.md?page=12)