Why is southeast Asia so advanced?

Great Debates
241

You referred to “this wonderful relationship,” so obviously you had a particular relationship in mind.

Please spell it out.

Why don’t you? You are the one who is claiming the study is worthless.

If somebody gave an IQ test to a random sample of 50 English schoolchildren what is the likelihood that the average score would be 90 or less? By my calculation, it would be approximately a 5 sigma event.

So if somebody gives an IQ test to a somewhat random sample of Colombian school children and gets an average of 89, it is decent evidence that the average IQ is well under 100.

Of course, you would need to do a lot of additional work to nail things down, but even assuming that some of Lynn’s data is bad, his results still appear to be significant enough that they should not be dismissed out of hand.

Perhaps it is you who is desperate to reject Lynn’s hypothesis.

242

I have no interest in assigning motives to these guys. Since their book is a preposterous jumble of fudged numbers, I am quite content to simply dismiss them. As long as nothing they do is foolishly dragged into the U.S. as the basis of any policy decisions, I have no more interest in discovering why they cooked their numbers than I have in discovering why Dan Brown pretended to base his novels on historical events.

243

The Japs have toilets that shoot water up your butt. As far as I’m concerned, that’s about as advanced as you can get.

244

Heck, some of the most advanced Japanese toilets are apparently capable of analyzing your urine, and even capable of sending the data to your doctor if his system is set up for it. 0_0

245

Suit yourself. The point is that if you actually crunch the numbers, the data doesn’t seem to be as worthless as you claim.

And please: Spell out your charges against me. What exactly is “this wonderful relationship” that I supposedly desire?

246

There are no useful numbers; they were made up or are too small a sample to mean anything. What they have latched onto are either absurd, false on the face of them, or insultingly manipulated. The data is worthless no matter how many times you claim otherwise.

247

If somebody gave an IQ test to a random sample of 50 English schoolchildren what is the likelihood that the average score would be 90 or less?

248

If I remember my stat correctly, <0.001%

249

But the point is we don’t know anything about the methodology or appropriateness of those tests, or about the selection of the children. Without that, those numbers are meaningless.

If you accept that an IQ score of 70 means the same thing in Africa as it does in the US, then the study is false on its face. You can clearly understand when you are speaking or interacting with someone with an IQ of 70, let alone half the population, and anyone who has been to these countries can tell you that is not the state of things. Any attempt to dispute this will be laughed at by those of us who have visited 3rd world countries. As we’ve said from the beginning, this idea is a non-starter. You can prove it to yourself for the price of a plane ticket; millions of us have.

If you say that an IQ score of 70 means something different in Africa then it means in the West then you have to explain yourself. I have no idea what it could mean otherwise, so I’m at a loss as to your point.

250

The exact same argument would apply if 10,000 children had been tested. So your objection that the sample size is too small doesn’t make any sense. If you think there’s a problem with the methodology of the study, the burden is on you to go find the study and tell everyone what the problem is. It’s illogical to just sit back, wave your hands, and say that the study must be meaningless because only 50 people were tested. Even if you don’t like the results.

Yet again we have the argument from personal observation. Let me ask you a question: Do you live in the United States? If so, do you accept, based on your personal observations, that approximately 1 in 4 blacks in America have IQ’s of 75 or below? Or is that too false on its face?

251

The issue is not with the sample size. It is that the ‘data’ they generate from those samples are tosh, and the conclusions they draw from them are nonsense.
If I ‘analyse’ three populations and come back with average values of “prickly”, “buttered toast” and “blue Ford Pinto”, and from those results conclude that

then the number of people I sample is irrelevant.

Even if you are prepared to overlook the fact that the majority of the numbers were in essence pulled out of somebody’s butt, there remains the problem that they don’t make any sense when compared with the real world.
If intelligence correlates with wealth then how come Europeans are supposedly more intelligent than people from Egypt, India and Mesopotamia/Persia (Iraq/Iran) while for pretty much the whole of recorded human history Europe has been the ignorant backward armpit of Eurasia while those have been wealthy advanced civilizations? Did Europeans suddenly get smart, did everyone else suddenly get dumb, or does this supposed IQ/GDP relationship only hold true for the last three centuries or so? Heck, west africans started using iron four to six hundred years before Europeans did, if we are to believe Wikipedia, despite being allegedly retards.
The premise that average intelligence might be related to a society’s state of economic advancement is interesting and should be investigated, but not by these two clowns. The way they have produced their numbers would earn a D- in high school statistics, never mind undergraduate level.

As for the OP - China and the countries around it have historically been more advanced than European societies other than for certain brief periods, but I’m not sure that it’s correct to say that they are currently ‘more advanced’, rather it seems a case of their economies being structured differently (more emphasis on making stuff) and different preferences for consumption. Althought it wouldn’t surprise me if the latter derives at least in part from the former due to differences in relative prices.

252

A few posters in the thread seem to think otherwise.

Exactly why?

Actually, it seems to me that they make a certain amount of sense. The countries with really low average IQ’s do seem to be quite poor. And many of the countries with high average IQ’s seem to be a lot wealthier.

I’d be curious to know how wealthy and advanced all of these civilizations were in comparison to eachother. It does seem like a lot of them were pretty poor by modern standards. What average IQ’s were like 2000 years ago is pretty uncertain. Also, while you claim that Europe has been an ignorant backwater armpit of Eurasia for the whole of recorded history, I think it’s worth noting that the Greeks and the Romans both were significant in terms of wealth and power.

In any event, my feeling is that not enough is known about past civilizations to confirm or refute Lynn’s hypothesis.

253

But they don’t seem to be dumb. We’ve been there, we’ve met and interacted with the people, they don’t have an average IQ of 70. You can complain about personal observations all you want, but you might as well complain about personal observations about gravity. Objects fall; Africans aren’t dumb.

So, you’re left with two options:

  • Believe that everyone who has ever visited these countries has only interacted with the few percent that are at average (90+) intelligence, or can’t tell when they are interacting with people of less the 70 IQ. Ignore the huge industrial, agricultural, cultural, and social infrastructure that couldn’t be supported by a society with an average IQ of 70. Refuse to acknowledge the countries have gone through major changes in their economic fortunes with no change in their population, thus effectively eliminating this supposed correlation between IQ and economic fortunes.

  • Or, open yourself to the possibility that the data, which is clearly flawed via sample size and methodology, cherry picked to within an inch of its life, and complied by people without the basic understanding of scientific processes, is flawed and shouldn’t be relied upon quite so heavily.

That’s my last comment on this, I believe the argument you are proposing is without merit and has been adequately debunked to even the most casual observer. Good day, sir.

254

So why don’t you answer my earlier question:

Do you live in the United States? If so, do you accept, based on your personal observations, that approximately 1 in 4 blacks in America have IQ’s of 75 or below? Or is that too false on its face?

255

Indeed they do, but I’m comfortable classifying something as a turd based on smell and appearance, rather than moving on to the finer details of taste and texture.

Read the thread again. Take notes this time if it helps.

Would those be the ‘average IQs’ that were taken from years ago and arbitrarily adjusted, the ones based on children, the ones made up by extrapolated from half-arsed ‘measurements’ of neighbouring countries, or the single number purportedly summarising a diverse population of a billion or more?

How does it matter how they compared to each other? Go to the library, pick up a history book and see how the Greeks and Romans compared to their contemporaries. Significant in wealth and power? Not particularly.

Well, since what they have presented gives us less information about the modern world than we have about e.g. China 2000 years ago, I feel pretty comfortable dismissing their hypothesis as potentially interesting but irrelevant until someone does some actual research that might support or disprove it.

I’m struggling to understand why you are so invested in a ‘theory’ that is founded on crap.

256

You have every right to do so, but there’s not much point debating anything if all you refuse to specify the basis for your conclusions.

Can you please quote the posts you think are relevant?

I think that’s a different objection. There’s a difference between attacking Lynn’s methodology and claiming that his conclusion doesn’t make any sense.

It matters a lot, if we are to consider your argument that non-European states were a lot more wealthy and advanced than European states. I guess you are giving up on that argument.

Are you really claiming that the Romans were not particularly significant in terms of wealth and power? And that they were part of an “ignorant backwater armpit”?

What was the average IQ in China 2000 years ago? What was their GDP? Cites, please.

257

Just in case anyone ever entertained the idea that there was any semblance of a practical end to discussing this issue besides wasting a lot words saying that black people are stupid…

258

What’s bizarre about this thread is that numerous people have suggested that their personal observations about groups’ intelligence should carry significant weight in this discussion.

As I’ve asked before, what would happen if somebody came into this thread and said “Gosh, black people seem pretty unintelligent to me.”? How much weight should that carry?

259

The way this generally works is that people putting forward a position contrary to what is generally accepted need to support their position, not the other way around. You’re the one claiming that black and brown folks is poor because they’re dumb and white folks is rich 'cos they is smarter - provide some evidence that isn’t pulled out of a random ass somewhere.

I could, but I can’t be bothered, quite frankly. It should be pretty obvious to anyone with a basic education which parts of this thread are sensible and which are tosh.

Well, a conclusion drawn without a recogniseable methodology isn’t really a conclusion , is it?

I’m not giving up on anything apart from the opportunity to spend my spare time giving you a basic education. Read some history books. For pretty much the whole of human history the wealthiest states in the world have been either in Mesopotamia, Perisa, India, or China, with the Levant and Egypt occasionally getting a look-in. The exact leader-board positions have changed occasionally, but Europe has not had much of a look-in until recently.

What are you basing your high opinion of the Romans on? Exactly what did the Romans achieve in terms of technology, organisation or wealth that was superior to the achievements of the Parthians, Indians or Chinese? Most of their wealth was drawn from control of the more advanced economies of Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant, or from using slave labour to extract raw materials - are you now arguing that agression, looting, corruption and extortion are signs of a high IQ?

What is the average IQ in China today? What is the average IQ in the US today? What is the average IQ in Nigeria today? What is the average IQ in the Netherlands today? What is their current GDP? Methodologically sound peer-reviewed cites please.

You don’t seem to understand how this works. You’re claiming these two have a wonderful new insight into the functioning of development economics which the entire academic and business establishment have completely missed, but which is pretty universally derided as being utter twaddle. You get to back up your opinion in a way that convinces the skeptics. Otherwise your pet idea gets dismissed as being a waste of time, and you get dismissed as being either ignorant, racist, or both.

260

Please provide a cite that the generally accepted position is that “the ‘data’ they generate from those samples are tosh, and the conclusions they draw from them are nonsense.”

Thank you.

If you can’t back up your claims, I will draw my own conclusions about your claims.

That’s interesting, because earlier you stated “the ‘data’ they generate from those samples are tosh, and the conclusions they draw from them are nonsense.” (my bolding) Now you are claiming that they didn’t reach any conclusions at all?

If you don’t feel like reading the thread, you may want to at least re-read your own posts.

I’m a little confused as to why you asked the following question:

Does it matter or not?

Who says I have a “high opinion”? I am merely stating that the Romans were significant in terms of wealth and power.

You, on the other hand, seem to be stating that the Romans were NOT particularly significant in terms of wealth and power and that they were part of an “ignorant backwater armpit.”

You first, please. You are claiming that Lynn’s study gives less information that what is known about China 2000 years ago. Show me what’s known about China and we’ll see how Lynn’s info compares.

Please quote me where I claim this.

Thank you.