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http://www.economist.com/node/16510958
A new article in the Economist explains a possible link between disease and average intelligence in a country. In a nutshell, the article makes 2 main points:
1. The more disease a country has, the less intelligent its population
2. Singapore has the highest average intelligence in the world
A quick look at the complete list of countries here:
http://media.economist.com/images/20100703/201027STC756.gif
reveals what some have always suspected - New Zealand has a higher average intelligence than Australia (99 vs 98), Britain has a higher average intelligence than France and America (100 vs 98) and Singapore has a higher average intelligence than everyone else, especially Malaysia (108 vs 98. Sorry guys).
South Korea scores 107, which is probably why they're leading the world in Starcraft.
I'd just like to point out that despite our high IQ, Singaporeans are unable to organise a TL.net meetup properly.
EDIT: Reading the article is advised before saying "correlation is not causation". This is the Economist, not the Sun, and there's an explanation of how the link was established in the article.
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I was skeptical at first because it seemed just like an obvious correlation and because the first link wasn't very compelling. But the 2nd link has interesting information for what they are trying to prove.
"Christopher Eppig and his colleagues make their suggestion in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. They note that the brains of newly born children require 87% of those children’s metabolic energy. In five-year-olds the figure is still 44% and even in adults the brain—a mere 2% of the body’s weight—consumes about a quarter of the body’s energy. Any competition for this energy is likely to damage the brain’s development, and parasites and pathogens compete for it in several ways. Some feed on the host’s tissue directly, or hijack its molecular machinery to reproduce. Some, particularly those that live in the gut, stop their host absorbing food. And all provoke the host’s immune system into activity, which diverts resources from other things."
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I almost spat out my food when I saw the second point! Singaporeans may have the best exam taking technique (for IQ tests and what-not), but pure intelligence? Of course, the research's scientific methodology is hard to argue with...
Could there also be a reverse causality, in that more intelligent people are more knowledgeable of the risks of infectious diseases and hence avoid them?
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Correlation does not imply causation.
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On July 08 2010 19:16 cheeseninja wrote:
Correlation does not imply causation.
Luckily, nobody claimed it did!
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On July 08 2010 19:16 cheeseninja wrote:
Correlation does not imply causation.
To quote directly from the article, "But correlation is not causation, so Mr Eppig and his colleagues tried to eliminate other possible explanations." They have provided several reasonable explanations of this.
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On July 08 2010 19:16 Vinnesta wrote:
I almost spat out my food when I saw the second point! Singaporeans may have the best exam taking technique (for IQ tests and what-not), but pure intelligence? Of course, the research's scientific methodology is hard to argue with...
Could there also be a reverse causality, in that more intelligent people are more knowledgeable of the risks of infectious diseases and hence avoid them?
Personally, I have two explanations:
1. It takes a lot of intelligence to figure out how to beat the exam system as opposed to just studying.
2. LKY and his talented family are so intelligent that they skew our average IQ up by 20 points.
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At the bottom of the list we find Equatorial Guinea. A country without any form of medical care and without any kind of schools.
It seems kinda obvious that there's a low IQ & high amount of disease burden.
If you compare countries with higher standards like South Korea (2,98 disease burden) and Switzerland (2.37 disease burden), Switzerland should have a higher "IQ", but actually it does not - not at all.
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On July 08 2010 19:27 Araex wrote:
At the bottom of the list we find Equatorial Guinea. A country without any form of medical care and without any kind of schools.
It seems kinda obvious that there's a low IQ & high amount of disease burden.
If you compare countries with higher standards like South Korea (2,98 disease burden) and Switzerland (2.37 disease burden), Switzerland should have a higher "IQ", but actually it does not - not at all.
I suppose while there's a correlation and disease burden is one of the factors affecting IQ, it is not the only thing.
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Stephen Hawking does not agree.
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Decease burden depends on the level of the country development, the level of country development defines the level of education, the level of education defines how familiar the population is with the IQ test and how to improve one's rating with it (being familiar with the IQ test increases the result. In fact most IQ test PROMOTE being familiar with it to put everyone onto even ground).
Decease burden < country development > level of education > IQ results
Decease burden >does_not> IQ results
On July 08 2010 19:25 The Storyteller wrote:
1. It takes a lot of intelligence to figure out how to beat the exam system as opposed to just studying.
You must be trolling. In how many cases would it be intelligence and to not "someone just gave me a link to a perfect guide in the internet how to beat IQ test" or something like that? 1%? After beating becomes common knowledge there is no intelligence involved.
P.S. this is a bragging thread really.
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lawl tis is interesting,
having a small tight-packed country really helps in those studies.
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
On July 08 2010 19:36 Cheerio wrote:Decease burden depends on the level of the country development, the level of country development defines the level of education, the level of education defines how familiar the population is with the IQ test and how to improve one's rating with it (being familiar with the IQ test increases the result. In fact most IQ test PROMOTE being familiar with it to put everyone onto even ground). Decease burden < country development > level of education > IQ results Decease burden >does_not> IQ results Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 19:25 The Storyteller wrote:
1. It takes a lot of intelligence to figure out how to beat the exam system as opposed to just studying.
You must be trolling. In how many cases would it be intelligence and to not "someone just gave me a link to a perfect guide in the internet how to beat IQ test"
But (as I am fairly certain but I'm not going to go out of my way to do research for you) the relationship between intelligence and disease holds not only between countries, but within countries as well.
Also, there is no such thing as "a perfect guide to how to beat an IQ test." The US government has spent untold millions since the 60's on educational programs to close the IQ gap (as measured not only by official IQ tests, but also by tests strongly correlated with IQ such as the SAT) between certain racial minorities and the white majority population. The gap hasn't even budged.
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heh, you dont even have to know this to know this if you know what i mean.
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Crazy "scientist" makes a bold hypothesis. Crazy "scientist" makes some statistics that he throws in and interprets them the way he needs to. Crazy "scientist" says he has proven his idea. This has happened numerous times in world's history and I doubt that those guys here will be the last ones.
They say they have eliminated other possibilities as factors, e.g. education. Really!? How do you do that? How could you possibly claim that you have eliminated education as a reason to score better on IQ tests? Honestly, if you have never learned to read you will obviously not be able to even answer many questions. If you have encountered logical/mathematical problems at school you will obviously score better on the logic part. With a vast general knowledge (which by the way you do not acquire working on a field all day long) you will be able to do better on the IQ test.
Hasn't it dawned on those "scientists" that the better developed a country is the better its education system and healt care are?
Its totally plausible to say that illness causes decline of intelligence; of course if you are sick you will perform worse mentally; of course there are diseases that attack your brain and impair you even after you have survived the illnes. However, stating that they have eliminated all other factors from their studies and presenting the "illness burden" as the main (only) reason for the IQ disparity is probably just as bold as wrong.
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
On July 08 2010 20:23 ggrrg wrote:
They say they have eliminated other possibilities as factors, e.g. education. Really!? How do you do that?
For example, the backward digit span. You repeat the digits read to you in reverse order. This actually has a very high correlation with other IQ tests and has practically nothing to do with education and experience. (On the other hand, the forward digit span has a much lower correlation with IQ: it measures pure memory.)
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There is something awfully wrong with that set of data, only 8 of 184 countries have above average IQ in their population...
I wouldn't trust anything about this until this is explained. And don't talk about population since India is at 82 and that would more than compensate for all the above average countries togather.
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
On July 08 2010 20:40 Klockan3 wrote:There is something awfully wrong with that set of data, only 8 of 184 countries have above average IQ in their population... I wouldn't trust anything about this until this is explained.
The "average" used in norming IQ tests is not a world average. It is well-known that world-average IQ is, IIRC, about -2/3 sigma (or about 90 on the most frequently used scale).
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Korea (South)1897 Posts
On July 08 2010 19:08 The Storyteller wrote:http://www.economist.com/node/16510958A new article in the Economist explains a possible link between disease and average intelligence in a country. In a nutshell, the article makes 2 main points: 1. The more disease a country has, the less intelligent its population 2. Singapore has the highest average intelligence in the world A quick look at the complete list of countries here: http://media.economist.com/images/20100703/201027STC756.gifreveals what some have always suspected - New Zealand has a higher average intelligence than Australia (99 vs 98), Britain has a higher average intelligence than France and America (100 vs 98) and Singapore has a higher average intelligence than everyone else, especially Malaysia (108 vs 98. Sorry guys). South Korea scores 107, which is probably why they're leading the world in Starcraft. I'd just like to point out that despite our high IQ, Singaporeans are unable to organise a TL.net meetup properly. EDIT: Reading the article is advised before saying "correlation is not causation". This is the Economist, not the Sun, and there's an explanation of how the link was established in the article.
lol, your summary of the main points is a bit off.
1. Point 1, I agree
2. Point 2 should be that policy makers should focus on prioritizing disease elimination rather than assuming that it the IQ differences, as a given state, is the main causes of the development disparity between nations as IQ itself may be a result from over exposure to diseases.
But your point #2 brings up the lovely and full of discussion point about IQs and all I can say to that is, maybe Korea, Japan and Singapore have the highest averages, but definitely the US has more geniuses. ^^
I bet you, for the first 6 months when SC2 is fully released foreigners are going to own the game with their few geniuses of creative and insightful might, then Koreans will put their collective average IQ behind it, focus on nothing else, and then own for the next 11.5 years until SC3 comes out.
And I'll back up my claim with just one point about the Americans, regardless how bad the public education system is and the huge gap in income disparity in America, the best universities by far are in the US.
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On July 08 2010 21:02 MightyAtom wrote:
And I'll back up my claim with just one point about the Americans, regardless how bad the public education system is and the huge gap in income disparity in America, the best universities by far are in the US.
Correct, that's because there is no limit on the fees they can charge, so they have far more funds available than European universities.
IQ is basically a measurement of how well people have adapted to modern life and technology. That's why places like Africa have such low IQs and the Japanese and Koreans etc. who are all technology obsessed have the highest IQs.
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EPT
