Why is southeast Asia so advanced?

[Telemark]

@brazil84

The links I gave indicate that people who are “mildly retarded” (IQ 50 to 70) can often live independently.

Define independently. You’ll find that they have all sorts of help from able people in work, living, purchases, and all aspects of life. There’s a very large infrastructure in place to teach them these skills and then to assist them in life. There are facilities set up for them to live and special industries where they work under supervision. Independent living doesn’t mean what you think it means. It has absolutely no relationship to a country with 50% of the population in this state. Who would be assisting them? Read about the facilities in just one VA county - http://www.cmcsb.com/mentalretardation.htm - for an example of what would be needed.

Why should I accept your general impression?

Because it’s simply defies logic that people could visit a country like Nigeria and NOT NOTICE that half the people were incapable of sustaining a meaningful conversation, let alone feed themselves.

Let’s flip this; can you provide one single account of someone visiting Nigeria and noticing that half the population were mentally retarded? You’d think that someone would notice, right?

In that case, it’s a little inconsistent for you to claim that a non-Western country with an average IQ of 70 could not function as a country.

No, it isn’t. There is a lot of evidence that this is simply not possible. You’ve provided no evidence to the contrary and seem to be ignoring anything that disagrees with your hypothesis.

[brazil84]

@Telemark

Read about the facilities in just one VA county - http://www.cmcsb.com/mentalretardation.htm - for an example of what would be needed.

The link you provided covers services for people with all levels of mental retardation, not just those who are mildly (or even moderately) retarded.

Here is one interesting snippet:

Lebanon Group Home is a six-bed residence for adult males and females who are transitioning into independent living. Residents must demonstrate the ability to perform daily activities of living independently and must also demonstrate safety at home and in the community.

First, many of the dangers that would be faced by a mentally retarded person living in the community are the products of Western technology. Second, Lebanon Home obviously wants its residents to do a decent job of taking care of themselves before releasing them into the community. If a lousy job were sufficient, probably a lot more would be released.

Because it’s simply defies logic that people could visit a country like Nigeria and NOT NOTICE that half the people were incapable of sustaining a meaningful conversation,

I would guess that a person with an IQ of 60 could sustain a meaningful conversation. It may not be a very intellectual conversation, but it could be done. I’ve interviewed many people who seemed to be mentally retarded to me (although I didn’t know their IQ scores). If the person is not a native speaker of English, it’s sometimes not clear whether it’s language or their lack of intelligence that prevents them from understanding and responding to complex questions.

Let’s flip this; can you provide one single account of someone visiting Nigeria and noticing that half the population were mentally retarded? You’d think that someone would notice, right?

If I can do that, will it change your mind?

No, it isn’t.

So you see no inconsistency between claiming (1) that a non-Western country with an average IQ score of 70 could not function as a country; and (2) that IQ cannot be reliably measured in non-Westerners?

[tomndebb]

@brazil84

The links I gave indicate that people who are “mildly retarded” (IQ 50 to 70) can often live independently.

I’ve looked back over your links and do not find any unqualified claim that people in the 70 - 50 range can live independently. I found a few claims that with sufficient training and education they might get by for some period of time–training and education that would hardly be available to 50% of an entire nation.

Your later remarks in response to Telemark simply reinforce that idea. It seems that you would like to dismiss the efforts of the Lebanon Group Home on the grounds that it is, somehow, more dangerous to live in a society with clean running water, USDA inspected food, 24 hour electricity and gas, and similar accommodations to all people as opposed to living in places where those things are either non-existent, intermittent, or significantly impaired and which have a greater number of venomous or otherwise dangerous animals and far less competent law enforcement.

So we start out with people who are given as many years of education as a lawyer or an engineer (obviously following different curricula), then work with them to engage in some undefined level of “independent” living, (recognizing, of course, that

Residents and family take part in service planning. Payment for residential services is made by the resident and is usually a percentage of the SSI or Social Security benefit.

So, the families (those members with IQs closer to the 100 norm) are expected to participate in the support for these individuals while some substantial portion of their livelihood is provided by the state.

We also see that this particular facility is providing training for only six individuals at a time, while the same governmental agency is proving a host of other services for the entire range of other people at even lower IQs. They do not expressly say it on that web page, but in my county, “independent living” merely means the ability to live in a house or apartment without direct, daily supervision for cooking meals and washing clothes. However, everyone in my county living “independently” still has a caseworker who ensures that their grocery shopping is adequate to maintian a sustainable diet, that the correct portions of SSI and wages are set aside to pay bills, (some of which are directly taken by the service or product provider without the individual actually ever seeing the funds), and that deleterious changes to routine are corrected before they become health- or life-threatening.

@brazil84

So you see no inconsistency between claiming (1) that a non-Western country with an average IQ score of 70 could not function as a country; and (2) that IQ cannot be reliably measured in non-Westerners?

I am not sure what Telemark’s position might be, but I see no inconsistency in noting that IQ is only the roughest gauge of intelligence even in Western society, that people who display the level of intelligence roughly assoicated with a score of 70 could not function as a society regardless whether they were in the West or elsewhere, as well as noting that the tests administered in other cultures are liable to be even less accurate than those administered in the West.

[brazil84]

@tomndebb

24 hour electricity and gas,

It seems possible to me that a person of low IQ might be safer living somewhere that lacks electricity and gas, as well as cars and trains.

However, everyone in my county living “independently” still has a caseworker who ensures that their grocery shopping is adequate to maintian a sustainable diet, that the correct portions of SSI and wages are set aside to pay bills, (some of which are directly taken by the service or product provider without the individual actually ever seeing the funds), and that deleterious changes to routine are corrected before they become health- or life-threatening.

I would think that for a hypothetical person of low IQ living in a Nigerian village, handling money properly would much far less of a concern than in the West. As far as diet goes, do you agree that your person of low IQ could likely take care of himself or herself if social service agencies were willing to let him or her do a lousy job?

I asked you earlier: What do you believe is the most cognitively demanding task that would be faced by a hypothetical Nigerian villager with a low IQ?

I would guess that for a person living alone in the West, the most cognitively demanding task would be handling money.

I am not sure what Telemark’s position might be, but I see no inconsistency in noting that IQ is only the roughest gauge of intelligence even in Western society, that people who display the level of intelligence roughly assoicated with a score of 70 could not function as a society regardless whether they were in the West or elsewhere, as well as noting that the tests administered in other cultures are liable to be even less accurate than those administered in the West.

Here is what you said in Post #111:

There is no way in the world that a nation such as Jamaica (72) or Nigeria (67) or Ethiopia (63) could function on a day-to-day basis if the average intelligence of that nation, (mean, media, or mode), was at or below that of mental retardation.

You didn’t make it clear that you were assuming that the reported IQ score reflected a certain level of intelligence.

[Telemark]

@brazil84

You didn’t make it clear that you were assuming that the reported IQ score reflected a certain level of intelligence.

OK, I give up. I don’t think it’s possible to convince you at this point and I’m not interested in trying.

[tomndebb]

@brazil84

You didn’t make it clear that you were assuming that the reported IQ score reflected a certain level of intelligence.

Your’re joking, right? What in the world do you think is purportedly indicated by an Intelligence Quotient than intelligence? That is pretty much the whole point of the discussion. Lynn and Vanhanen are claiming that multiple entire nations can survive as nations with half or more of their population being mentally retarded.

@brazil84

It seems possible to me that a person of low IQ might be safer living somewhere that lacks electricity and gas, as well as cars and trains.

I think you’re making this up. Electricity, as it is wired in any typical home, even in third world countries, is not an inherently unsafe situation. No one is claiming that a person of low intelligence is less capable than a toddler who can be taught to not poke things into an outlet.

@brazil84

I would think that for a hypothetical person of low IQ living in a Nigerian village, handling money properly would much far less of a concern than in the West. As far as diet goes, do you agree that your person of low IQ could likely take care of himself or herself if social service agencies were willing to let him or her do a lousy job?

Handling money is how people in the West secure food and shelter. In Nigeria, the same would be true in the cities (e.g., Lagos: >200,000 in the city, proper, and almost 8,000,000 in the metropolitan area; Abuja: >400,000 city, 1,400,000 metro; Kano: ~4,000,000 metro, Ibadan: >2,500,000 city) while in the countryside, the ability to plant, cultivate, and harvest foods would be the most important methods. So the problem of handling money remains significant for much of the population and it changes to developing totally different skills if outside the cities. In addition, people in villages must be able to figure out how to build shelters without relying on “outside contractors” and to make or buy their cookware and food storage containers–including those containers that will preserve their food in an edible form from one harvest to the next (and the ability to plan their diet so that they do not eat 11 months’ worth of food in five months or fewer).

I do not know any “dumb” farmers in the U.S. (and I am talking about their ability to understand the timing of the crop cycle and the requirements to keep their crops healthy, not their ability to fight with banks or markets), so I have no reason to believe that agriculture in Nigeria requires less intelligence. (With fewer extension services and chemical company sales reps coming around to give advice, it could even require even more native intelligence.)

[brazil84]

@tomndebb

Your’re joking, right?

No. The point is that if you think IQ doesn’t measure intelligence, you can’t honestly say that the average IQ in Nigeria couldn’t possibly be 70.

I think you’re making this up. Electricity, as it is wired in any typical home, even in third world countries, is not an inherently unsafe situation. No one is claiming that a person of low intelligence is less capable than a toddler who can be taught to not poke things into an outlet.

People in the West die all the time from carbon monoxide poisoning; gas leaks; fires that result from overloaded electrical circuits, car crashes, and so forth. Usually (but not always) a death due to one of these accidents is caused, at least in part, by somebody doing something stupid. Common sense says that a person of low intelligence is at greater risk of dying from such an accident. And in fact I recall seeing a study indicating that persons of lower IQ are at greater risk of dying in car crashes.

In addition, people in villages must be able to figure out how to build shelters without relying on “outside contractors” and to make or buy their cookware and food storage containers–including those containers that will preserve their food in an edible form from one harvest to the next (and the ability to plan their diet so that they do not eat 11 months’ worth of food in five months or fewer).

So these are the most cognitively demanding tasks faced by a hypothetical Nigerian villager of low IQ?

[DMC]

brazil84, do you have any other cites that claim that the average IQ in several African countries is at a mild retardation level, aside from the one we’re familiar with, the one that comes from two eugenics poster-boys who think the extinction of the above mentioned mildly retarded people would be a good thing?

Just curious.

[brazil84]

@DMC

brazil84, do you have any other cites that claim that the average IQ in several African countries is at a mild retardation level,

If I can find a few, will that change your mind? (I’m assuming that you don’t accept the cites to IQ and the Wealth of Nations)

the one that comes from two eugenics poster-boys who think the extinction of the above mentioned mildly retarded people would be a good thing?

That’s a very serious charge. Do you have any cites to back it up?

Just curious.

[Captain_Amazing]

@brazil84

So these are the most cognitively demanding tasks faced by a hypothetical Nigerian villager of low IQ?

The most cognitively demanding tasks faced by a hypothetical Nigerian villiager are two fold:

1. Growing and preserving enough food to feed him/her and his/her family throughout the year

2. In certain parts of the country, avoiding/protecting oneself from the violence between various ethnic and religious groups, as well as government violence.

[Captain_Amazing]

@brazil84

That’s a very serious charge. Do you have any cites to back it up?

Lynn did say:

What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of ‘phasing out’ such peoples.

[tomndebb]

No. The point is that if you think IQ doesn’t measure intelligence, you can’t honestly say that the average IQ in Nigeria couldn’t possibly be 70.

To repeat and expand on a variation of a comment I have already posted twice:

I believe that within the U.S., IQ can establish some very rough parameters of intelligence. I do not believe that everyone with a 110 IQ is “smarter” than everyone with a 100 IQ*, but I would accept that the difference between 100 and 70 indicates some serious difference in abilities. When we look at people with IQs of 70 or below in the U.S., we discover that they do not survive “independently,” but only with a support from family and society. If we presume, for the sake of discussion, that IQ has a genuine meaning and we declare that several nations have average IQs below 70, we are faced with the odd claim there are nations for whom one half of the population needs the specific support of the rest of the nation simply to stay alive long enough to breed and that that same half of the population is not smart enough to raise their own children, placing an additional burden of support on that half of the population that is not burdened with uch low IQ. Simultaneously we neeed to recognize that it is rather less than half the population that is even capable of providing that support, since some portion of those people are in the 70 - 90 range of IQ, requiring some minimal assistance (or at least recognizing their lowered capacity to assist in supporting the even lower IQ population).

I have no idea what is the source of the numbers indicating IQs lower than 70 assigned to those various nations. Given that a person with an IQ below 70 in the U.S. could not function without support, I regard the claims as silly that people in other parts of the world could function at those same low levels when their daily lives require more intelligence and their societies are not capable of providing as much support. IQ provides a decent test to determine one’s ability to take tests and indicates, (frequently, but not always), general capacities for intelligence. Moved across cultural boundaries, I suspect that the scores are meaningless. However, since Lynn and Vanhanen chose to use those numbers and since we have a benchmark for human capacity that they have chosen to employ–then the very fact that Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Jamaica actually survive from year to year or decade to decade without collapsing into utter rubble indicates that the measurement Lynn and Vanhanen chose is meaningless. If the people of those nations were actually as low in intelligence as claimed by those authors, then those countries would be in worse shape than Haiti and Somalia without even the constant warfare of Somalia or the utter corruption and bankrupted land that the Duvaliers left behind in Haiti.

The most effective way to discuss the silliness of IQ and the Wealth of Nations is to accept their premise for the point of discussion, then note how it collapses under its own impossible foolishness. That is all I have done here.

@brazil84

So these are the most cognitively demanding tasks faced by a hypothetical Nigerian villager of low IQ?

You do not strike me as stupid, yet I doubt that you could wander into a Nigerian village in the Sahel and succeed without substantial help. (And I note that you have conveniently ignored the point that a substantial portion of the population is urban, requiring the same sorts of intelligence that people in North America require to survive.)

• One of my classmates had a tested IQ of 108, one of the lowest in my college prep school. He is the only classmate who earned a 4.0 in high school, college, and post graduate work and he is currently the person controlling a $154,000,000 enterprise. All due respect to the guys in my class with IQs of 125 and 130 and above, but none of them are close to accomplishing what he has, either financially or academically.

[brazil84]

@Captain Amazing

Lynn did say:

I did a google news archive search and couldn’t find this quote . . . do you know what publication it appeared in and when?

[brazil84]

@tomndebb

The most effective way to discuss the silliness of IQ and the Wealth of Nations is to accept their premise for the point of discussion, then note how it collapses under its own impossible foolishness. That is all I have done here.

But the problem is that your criticism is in many ways a nitpick. If you agree that IQ may have something to do with intelligence; and you admit that intelligence has something to do with GDP, then, fundamentally you cannot reject the basic “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” theory.

I doubt that you could wander into a Nigerian village in the Sahel and succeed without substantial help.

I doubt that I could succeed in a troop of baboons without substantial help.

(And I note that you have conveniently ignored the point that a substantial portion of the population is urban, requiring the same sorts of intelligence that people in North America require to survive.)

I’ve been trying to keep things simple. The majority of the population in Nigeria is apparently rural and one can imagine that there is an IQ bias in terms of who goes to the city. Anyway, if you want to be sickened, do a google search on Lagos Pipeline Explosion.

One of my classmates had a tested IQ of 108, one of the lowest in my college prep school. He is the only classmate who earned a 4.0 in high school, college, and post graduate work and he is currently the person controlling a $154,000,000 enterprise. All due respect to the guys in my class with IQs of 125 and 130 and above, but none of them are close to accomplishing what he has, either financially or academically.

I never had my IQ tested, but while in school I knew people who seemed to be smarter than me, some of whom are doing very well financially and some who aren’t. I also knew people who seemed to be less smart than me, some of whom are doing very well financially and some who aren’t.

I’m not sure what all this proves. Would you accept that there are studies (within North America) showing a positive correllation between IQ and income? That all things being equal, smarter people have a better chance of making more money if they try?

[brazil84]

@Captain Amazing

The most cognitively demanding tasks faced by a hypothetical Nigerian villiager are two fold:

1. Growing and preserving enough food to feed him/her and his/her family throughout the year

I agree with this. Would you accept that being a subsistence farmer is more cognitively demanding than being a hunter gatherer?

2. In certain parts of the country, avoiding/protecting oneself from the violence between various ethnic and religious groups, as well as government violence.

That I’m not so sure of, since intuitively, violence would seem to have a big wild card factor built in.

[DMC]

@brazil84

If I can find a few, will that change your mind? (I’m assuming that you don’t accept the cites to IQ and the Wealth of Nations)

If you can find some that are at least moderately reputable, and not calling for their extinction, I’d certainly be willing to look at them. Wasting time swatting down every piece of BS from a eugenics poster boy (you did notice that the guy you’re relying on for information is a Director on the board of the Pioneer Fund, correct? When you want hard facts on homosexual issues do you go to Phelps?), on the other hand, not so much.

That’s a very serious charge. Do you have any cites to back it up?

Sure.

@Richard Lynn in a 1994 issue of Irish Journal of Psychology

What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of “phasing out” of such peoples. If the world is to evolve more better humans, then obviously someone has to make way for them otherwise we shall all be overcrowded. After all, ninety-eight per cent of the of the species known to zoologists are extinct. Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality.

Just curious.

Still curious?

[brazil84]

@DMC

If you can find some that are at least moderately reputable, and not calling for their extinction, I’d certainly be willing to look at them.

Ok I will see what I find.

Still curious?

In your cite, he seems to be summarizing somebody else’s argument. For example:

It is of course necessary to improve the society by better education, health and so forth. Everyone agrees with that. But it is equally important to improve the genetic quality of society. Cattell maintains that in order to do this we need to encourage the intelligent people to have more children and the unintelligent to have fewer.

Admittedly, it’s a little hard to tell which parts are summary and which parts are Lynn’s own thoughts. And he does seem to basically endorse Cattell’s viewpoint.

Do you have a cite for the other guy?

[tomndebb]

@brazil84

But the problem is that your criticism is in many ways a nitpick. If you agree that IQ may have something to do with intelligence; and you admit that intelligence has something to do with GDP, then, fundamentally you cannot reject the basic “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” theory.

Sure I can.
I recognize that IQ might be a gross measure of some form of intelligence.
I recognize that the numbers used by Lynn and Vanhanen have to be false in the case of the nations at the low end of the spectrum, so their conclusions there are without merit.
I maintain that the fine distinctions at the upper end are too close to be useful in the gross measurement that I concede is possible, therefore their rankings at the upper end are equally silly.

A distinction between 100 and 70 quite possibly has some value as an indicator that the lower score represents a serious disability. However, when assigned to an entire nation it indicates a disability so severe as to demonstrate that the number does not correspond to the real world.
A distinction between 97 and 103 is meaningless and has been thrown into the book simply to “prove” their flawed premise.

Is it probable that a country with a population that is “smarter” than that of another country will–all else being equal–be more successful? Possibly. The problem is that all else will never be equal and the levels of intelligence displayed by one nation over another will never be sufficiently different for us to ever know when it has happened. (If, at some future date, we actually discover a way to define and measure intelligence, my position will be open to revision, but g simply does not measure what is claimed for it and when we get results that oh so conveniently reinforce the ideas of people such as the Pioneer Fund that Asians are brilliant and Africans are stupid*–even when the numbers are clearly preposterous–then I am willing to wait until we see some genuine science before I accept such claims.)

@brazil84

I’ve been trying to keep things simple. The majority of the population in Nigeria is apparently rural and one can imagine that there is an IQ bias in terms of who goes to the city.

True. It is more probable that those with a lower intelligence who cannot survive in agriculture would be attracted by the possibility of manual labor in the cities.
(Without actual investigation, we can throw out scenarios all day long. The reality is that regardless whether we are talikng about people in the cities or on farms, there is no way for half the population to survive while demonstrating various levels of mental retardation.)

• The current director of the Pioneer Fund is J. Phillippe Rushton who has spent most of his career trying to prove that Asians are undersexed geniuses and Africans are oversexed fools and white folks, in the middle, are “just right.”

[Lust4Life]

@BrightNShiny

I don’t know why people always turn to intelligence in discussions like these. You can easily explain the advancement of certain nations with regard to others by looking at history and economics.

B.S. I’m curious, please help me out on this one ,is B.S. a communal user name ?maybe some sort of educational establishment or some such?

You go from abusive postings in broken English to an almost practiced fluency ,I’m sure I’m not the only person on these boards who wouldn’t mind their curiousity being satisfied.

[Captain_Amazing]

@brazil84

I agree with this. Would you accept that being a subsistence farmer is more cognitively demanding than being a hunter gatherer?

No, not without evidence. I’d accept that being a subsistence farmer requires a different skillset than being a hunter gatherer, but not that it’s more cognitively demanding.