[BretLudwig]

Richard Lynns The Global Bell Curve€”The Explanation That Fits The
Facts

By Professor J. Philippe Rushton

"Richard Lynns new book The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ and
Inequality Worldwide builds on Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murrays
The Bell Curve. Its subject: whether the same type of racial hierarchy in
IQ and socio-economic status that Herrnstein and Murray documented in the
US is present in other parts of the world. Its answer: they do.

In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray found that the average IQ for
African Americans (85) is lower than for Hispanic (89), White (103), East
Asian (106), and Jewish Americans (113). In The Global Bell Curve, Lynn
shows in detail that similar racial IQ/socio-economic hierarchies are
indeed present within Africa, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, the
Caribbean, Latin America, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Throughout the world, Europeans and East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and
Koreans) average the highest IQs and socio-economic positions. The lowest
averages are found among the Aborigines in Australia and in Africans and
their descendants. Intermediate positions are occupied by the
Amerindians,
the South Asians from the Indian sub-continent, the Maori in New Zealand,
and by the mixed race peoples in South Africa, Latin America, and the
Caribbean.

The same pattern is found on many other social and life history
indicators, such as educational levels, earnings, health, accidents,
crime, marriage, fertility, and mortality.

Lynns new book provides fascinating historical vignettes of all the
migrations and mixing of peoples. It also provides clear tables of data,
which allow the reader to check the facts for themselves.

For example, in Brazil, it is the Japanese who are the highest-achieving
group. They were brought in as indentured labourers to work the
plantations after slavery was abolished in 1888. Yet, today, the Japanese
outscore Whites on IQ tests, earn more, and are over-represented in
university places. Although they are less than one percent of the total
population, they comprise 17 percent of the students at the elite
University of Sao Paulo.

In Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Trinidad, and Guyana, it was the
Chinese and South Asians who were brought in after the end of slavery.
Subsequently, they too began to do well, with the Chinese excelling and
the South Asians placing intermediate to Whites and Blacks.

In Britain large numbers of Blacks from Africa and the Caribbean, and
South Asians from Africa, India, and Pakistan began to enter the country
in the 1950s and 1960s. Twenty-two studies find Afro-Caribbeans have a
median IQ of 86, which is similar to the African American mean of 85.
Twelve studies find the South Asians have a median IQ of 92.

In Africa and Australia too, South Asians average intermediate to Whites
and Blacks in IQ scores, educational achievement, and economic success.

At the other end of the IQ distribution, seven studies of Jews in Britain
yield a median IQ of 110. In educational achievement, East Asians in
Britain also outperform the indigenous Whites.

Similarly in Australia, East Asians (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese)
average higher than Whites in IQ, educational achievement, and earnings.
Lynn describes pockets of ethnic Chinese elsewhere in the world such as
in
Mexico, Argentina, and especially Hawaii, where they also do well.

In Canada too, there is an IQ hierarchy: Jews (109), East Asians (101),
Whites (100), Amerindians (89), and Blacks (84).

These results are remarkably consistent over time, place, and situation,
irrespective of the original status of the people, or the language,
history, and political organization of the country concerned.

Racial stratification of what social scientists now call
€�socio-economic
positions€� have been extensively documented by sociologists, economists
and anthropologists for around half a century.

But Lynn points out that none of these have noted the associated IQ
differences. The commonest explanations:
bullet Discrimination theories hold that Europeans and East Asians
maintain their power by politically discriminating against other races.

bullet Cultural values theories state that Europeans and East Asians
socially transmit cultural values such as a strong work ethic and
Confucianism (among the Chinese) that promote socio-economic success.

bullet Human capital theories maintain that Europeans and East Asians
retain their high socio-economic position by acquiring better education.

Lynn agrees that these theories are plausible, to some degree, for some
countries. But they are often ad hoc, obviously improvised in the face of
embarrassing facts, and do not explain the world-wide consistency of
these
differences.

For example, political discrimination theory does not explain the high
socio-economic status of Whites and East Asians throughout Latin America
and the Caribbean, where they are often tiny minorities. It is also 50
years or more since the end of colonialism€”the political force which
was
once held to be the decisive discriminating factor.

Similarly, the successes of the Chinese in Southeast Asia can only be
superficially explained by their possession of Confucian values, or the
successes of the Jews to the motivating effects of their minority status,
or the problems of African Americans and Australian Aborigines to their
being involuntary minorities.

It is particularly difficult for social scientists to explain how some
peoples who have arrived in new countries as impoverished immigrants
have
nevertheless risen quite rapidly in the socioeconomic hierarchies and
within two or three generations joined the elite. How to explain the
rapid
socioeconomic achievements of the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in the
US,
Canada and Latin America, in Hawaii, in Europe, and in Southeast Asia?
How
to explain the rapid successes of the Jews in the US, Canada, and
Britain?

Furthermore, cultural values theories are often vague, impressionistic
and
anecdotal. And Human Capital theories fail to explain why some racial
groups acquire more education than others.

Separately, in How to explain high Jewish achievement: The role of
intelligence and values, an article published in Personality and
Individual Differences, by Lynn and Satoshi Kanazawa (PDF), we showed
that
only IQ had predictive value when pitted against values theories.

Of course, if average IQ differences are the crucial determinant of
racial
socio-economic hierarchies, this raises the question of what causes them.

In principle, they could be wholly environmentally determined. However,
Lynn argues that their consistency across time and circumstance points to
genetic factors. And he reviews other data in support including
hybridization studies and finds that €œmixed-race€� populations fall
between parental populations. This is true for Aborigines in Australia,
Amerindians in Mexico, and Blacks in North America and South Africa. (See
also my Personality and Individual Differences article on racial
admixture
in South Arica Testing the genetic hypothesis of group mean IQ
differences
in South Africa: Racial admixture and cross-situational consistency,
2008,
PDF).

To achieve credibility, a theory must explain the totality of the
phenomena. Only one theory does: hereditary differences in average IQ."


J. Philippe Rushton ( E-mail him) is a professor of psychology at the
University of Western Ontario and the author of Race, Evolution, and
Behavior: A Life History Perspective. This article adapted from a book
review [Pay archive] that appeared in the July 2008 issue of the Elsevier
Science journal Personality and Individual Differences. The Global Bell
Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide is also available direct from
the publisher.

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URL:
http://www.vdare.com/rushton/080616_lynn.htm



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