I've seen a lot of these throughout the years and never gave much thought to the odd variations between them, and am glad to see the S tier approach. Here are the surprises to me:
1. Morocco. I typically think of it as one of the most stable countries in Africa and the broader Muslim world.
2. Ethiopia. Ethiopia has an extensive history of empires and resisting colonization, so I am surprised to see it below both Kenya and Sudan. I suppose there is a civil war going on?
3. The west-east axis in Africa. This is either an artifact of the Bantu expansion, or possibly the difference between British colonization and non-British colonization. I'm betting that Somalia will be the biggest beneficiary of potential political stabilization.
4. Pakistan. What the hell is going on in Pakistan? I understand there is cousin marriage, but relative to Afghanistan? To Saudi Arabia? This is very surprising.
What's the difference between the C tier World Bank Test scores and the A tier Harmonized Learning Outcomes hosted by the World Bank? Back in 2022, I wrote about the World Bank's Harmonized Learning Outcomes database:
But I can't tell from this which one I used. (I noted that the Chinese score of 441 seemed implausibly over-corrected for lack of representation in inland provinces.)
The PISA is designed to test educational systems, not IQ. To take an example, the Scandinavian countries don't do too well on international tests. However, they have an average WAIS score of 105, if I remember correctly.
Obviously, myriad factors influence how well kids in a nation do at school.
Finland and Estonia have fairly weak relationships between intelligence/education and fertility, even for European countries. It's possible this was recent selection.
I think we might be seeing an /underestimate/ of Uruguay here, rather than an overestimate on Lynn's.
For one: unlike other Latin American nations, Uruguay essentially rounded up & exterminated their Inditos; IIRC, the pop came back as something like >95% of European heritage, in the only rigorous analysis I've ever seen (although that was some years ago & I perhaps misremember a bit—but not by > ±4%, I bet you).
That makes me think we shouldn't expect to see *too* different a result from e.g. Spain or Italy, given that (IIRC, again) that's where the vast majority of Uruguayan genetic stock ultimately originates.
For two: this is pure intuition, so undoubtedly you'll have an explanation at your fingertips immediately and I shall slink away, embarrassed—but if this averages together other datasets, and we have a few 90+ estimates and then a bunch of 85-90 estimates, how is it we end up at... 85-90 again? (Okay, 86-91—but still, seems like Lynn's datasets didn't move the needle much!)
(But I am, of course, biased; visited Uruguay ten or so years ago, and loved it far more than any other Latin American nations I've traveled to. Way nicer, cleaner, safer, etc., in general!)
Firstly, it would be useful to provide a correlation matrix for all these estimates.
Secondly, it would be useful to compile and discuss a list of the critical nations. For the overwhelming majority of nations, the differences are so small that it is not worth talking about them.
I've seen a lot of these throughout the years and never gave much thought to the odd variations between them, and am glad to see the S tier approach. Here are the surprises to me:
1. Morocco. I typically think of it as one of the most stable countries in Africa and the broader Muslim world.
2. Ethiopia. Ethiopia has an extensive history of empires and resisting colonization, so I am surprised to see it below both Kenya and Sudan. I suppose there is a civil war going on?
3. The west-east axis in Africa. This is either an artifact of the Bantu expansion, or possibly the difference between British colonization and non-British colonization. I'm betting that Somalia will be the biggest beneficiary of potential political stabilization.
4. Pakistan. What the hell is going on in Pakistan? I understand there is cousin marriage, but relative to Afghanistan? To Saudi Arabia? This is very surprising.
Ethiopia is highly diverse. Also, some Ethiopian empires were founded by people from Eurasia
You'd think that a highly diverse empire would be even more easily toppled than a homogeneous state.
What's the difference between the C tier World Bank Test scores and the A tier Harmonized Learning Outcomes hosted by the World Bank? Back in 2022, I wrote about the World Bank's Harmonized Learning Outcomes database:
https://www.takimag.com/article/a-little-learning/
But I can't tell from this which one I used. (I noted that the Chinese score of 441 seemed implausibly over-corrected for lack of representation in inland provinces.)
The world bank test scores cite this document:
Patrinos Harry & Angrist Noam. (2018). Global Dataset on Education Quality: A Review and Update (2000–2017). 10.1596/1813-9450-8592.
The harmonized learning outcomes cite this:
Angrist, Noam, Simeon Djankov, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, and Harry A. Patrinos. "Measuring human capital using global learning data." Nature (2021): 1-6.
So the harmonized scores are a more recent version of the same project.
The first major difference I see is the floor
Are migrants included in national IQ estimates thus dragging the average down. Which obscures native IQ
What’s the matter with these swedes? Never met a smart one. Never met one at all, though.
The "field" of national IQ estimates should reconsider its whole project.
https://www.science.org/content/article/one-three-chinese-children-faces-education-apocalypse-ambitious-experiment-hopes-save#:~:text=Surveys%20by%20Rozelle's%20team%20have,don't%20complete%20junior%20high
The PISA is designed to test educational systems, not IQ. To take an example, the Scandinavian countries don't do too well on international tests. However, they have an average WAIS score of 105, if I remember correctly.
Obviously, myriad factors influence how well kids in a nation do at school.
Being smart but not school smart doesn’t seem that useful. PISA is provably a better tool than IQ and more standardised and rigorous.
Confounding with reliability.
An average IQ below that of Afghanistan, Haïti, and Guyana for Pakistan? Even taking into account inbreeding depression, that seems implausible.
Why do you think Estonians and Finns are so smart? I think Ed Dutton was talking about while back about Uralic intelligence even further east
Finland and Estonia have fairly weak relationships between intelligence/education and fertility, even for European countries. It's possible this was recent selection.
https://www.sebjenseb.net/p/immigration-in-europe-dysgenics-in
I think we might be seeing an /underestimate/ of Uruguay here, rather than an overestimate on Lynn's.
For one: unlike other Latin American nations, Uruguay essentially rounded up & exterminated their Inditos; IIRC, the pop came back as something like >95% of European heritage, in the only rigorous analysis I've ever seen (although that was some years ago & I perhaps misremember a bit—but not by > ±4%, I bet you).
That makes me think we shouldn't expect to see *too* different a result from e.g. Spain or Italy, given that (IIRC, again) that's where the vast majority of Uruguayan genetic stock ultimately originates.
For two: this is pure intuition, so undoubtedly you'll have an explanation at your fingertips immediately and I shall slink away, embarrassed—but if this averages together other datasets, and we have a few 90+ estimates and then a bunch of 85-90 estimates, how is it we end up at... 85-90 again? (Okay, 86-91—but still, seems like Lynn's datasets didn't move the needle much!)
The link cited by another commenter –https://international-iq-test.com/en/test/IQ_by_country – also lists Uruguay at ~95, FWIW.
(But I am, of course, biased; visited Uruguay ten or so years ago, and loved it far more than any other Latin American nations I've traveled to. Way nicer, cleaner, safer, etc., in general!)
Firstly, it would be useful to provide a correlation matrix for all these estimates.
Secondly, it would be useful to compile and discuss a list of the critical nations. For the overwhelming majority of nations, the differences are so small that it is not worth talking about them.
What about this? Although it is for Internet users, its sample is very large (1.6 million):
https://international-iq-test.com/en/test/IQ_by_country