Monthly Archives: September 2014

Caste & IQ in India

29 Monday Sep 2014

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Blogger Alcoholicwisdom wrote on this blog:

Are there any studies on IQ differences between indian castes?

I am in strong favor of the idea that there are IQ differences between castes, of course we need some studies. In every society there are castes, classes, based on intrinsic abilities and intelligence. Nobody would accept a priest which cannot even understand basic religious subjects. Religion at that time was like philosophy which requires a high intelligence, and the smartest people were probably brahmins. The smartest jews are also from rabbi families (my belief). The priests were like scientists, philosophers of their times. Nowadays, the picture is different, as the religions lost their smartest kids mostly to hardcore sciences.

I would seriously doubt there have been any published studies on IQ and caste in India, but there’s a fabulous expert named rec1man who posted on Steve Sailer’s old blog. rec1man did the following analysis of India’s potential IQ:

25% Dalit and Tribal = 80 IQ
15% Muslim = 85 IQ
40% Backward Caste = 95 IQ
15% Upper Caste = 110 IQ
The only item missing is the 5% brahmins

…Making a worst case assumption that
Brahmin IQ is no more than Upper caste IQ , would give a brahmin IQ estimate of 110

My private real numbers are a lot higher, but I wont stir up a controversy , until we reach a consensus on average Indian iQ

Average Indian IQ = 0.25*80 + 0.15*85 + 0.40*95 + 0.15*110 + 0.05*110 = 92.75

The upper caste + brahmin segment = 20% of 1.1 billion = 220 million
at near Ashkenazi levels

Note that rec1man is obviously estimating what India’s IQ would be if India had a first-world environment, because India’s actual IQ is 82 not 93. But as I explained in my last post, India, like sub-Saharan Africa, is probably functioning 13 IQ points below its genetic potential because of sub-optimum nutrition, so a genetic IQ in the mid 90s is realistic (just keep in mind that all of rec1man’s numbers are about a dozen points higher than current phenotypes reared in India).

In other words, India’s genetic IQ distribution looks very much like the United States. The U.S. also have an average IQ in the mid-90s (97 to be precise). This may sound confusing to people who are used to reading that America’s IQ is 100 by definition, but rec1man appears to be using the old IQ scale (which has become popular again thanks to scholar Richard Lynn) in-which IQ 100 represents the average of only people’s of Northwestern European ancestry. Since the U.S. is not overwhelmingly Northwestern European, they are 97 on this scale.

The United States also resembles India’s genetic IQ in that the U.S. also has some social groups with IQ’s around 110 and others around 80 in their purest form. For example the New York Times cites research showing Ashkenazi Americans have IQ’s around 110.

The only thing I find strange about rec1man’s numbers is the assertion that Indian Muslims are 8 points lower than the average Indian intelligence. I don’t buy the Islamophobic crap about Islam making people stupid or violent. Not because I’m some liberal, but rather because I believe real intelligence is a biological variable that is virtually insensitive to cultural influences. I could be completely wrong about that, but my belief is based upon research.

If you agree with the New York Times article about some ethnic IQ differences being potentially genetic, you should know that Indians are not exactly one ethnic group. The original Indians were probably proto-Australoids taking the Southern route from sub-Saharan Africa to Australia. Ancient Australoid genes probably drag India’s IQ down because this population branched off the human-evolutionary tree prematurely. According to Richard Lynn Australian aboriginals have an IQ of 62 but in my opinion this is greatly depressed by sub-optimum nutrition.

India’s average IQ got a huge boost when it was invaded by the non-white Caucasoids who genetically mixed with the native proto-Australoids. According to Richard Lynn, non-white Caucasoids have a respectable average IQ of 84 (but even this IQ, high as it is, would be even higher if the Arab world had first-world nutrition which it doesn’t, despite it’s great oil wealth).

India’s IQ might have got yet another boost if there was an Aryan invasion. We don’t know anything about the ethnicity or IQ’s of the ancient Aryans and they probably weren’t exactly white as we define it today, but as stated above, Richard Lynn estimates North-Western Europeans have a mean IQ of 100. If we average all three groups together, we get India’s current IQ of 82.

The intelligence of Indian Americans

29 Monday Sep 2014

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One of the great mysteries in IQ research is why Indian Americans are such super achievers despite the fact that India reportedly has an IQ of only 82 according to the book IQ and Wealth of Nations.

And yet Indians in North America are known for their high intelligence and scholastic achievement, and despite being new to America, are already slightly over-represented on Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. In some parts of Canada (particularly the maritime provinces like Newfoundland) if you’re Indian, all the white will people will assume you’re a doctor.

So how can Indians in North America be so smart when India’s average IQ is not great? Many people in the HBD-blogosphere invoke the theory that India is nation of many micro-races (castes) and that largely the smartest castes migrate to America, but the truth is usually much simpler.

Of the 2.8 million Indians in America, probably no more than 25% (700,000) are the ones who initially gained immigration (and the remaining 75% are the spouces, siblings, parents, and children, who came alone for the ride). But these 700,000 who actually gained immigration for themselves and their families are probably roughly the most occupationally successful 700,000 Indians out of a population of nearly 1.3 billion. In other words, they are above the +3.3 standard deviation mark in occupational status, and are on on average +3.5 SD. Since occupational status (mostly a function of education and income) correlates 0.7 with IQ, we should expect their IQ’s to be 3.5(0.7) = 2.45 SD higher than the average Indian (assuming Indians have a mean IQ of 82 and an SD 15, those who initially gain immigration to America should have an IQ of 119).

But because the IQ correlation between a parent and his adult offspring is about 0.45, the children of these high achieving immigrants from India should regress precipitously to the Indian mean:

0.45(119 – 82) + 82 = 99

Thus we should expect second-generation Indians born in America to have IQ’s around the U.S. average which is inconsistent with their incredible achievements. Can their achievements thus be explained by Tiger Moms? According to excellent Jamaican American blogger JayMan, parenting has zero impact.

So how do we explain the high achievements of second generation Indian immigrants? Nutrition. Blogger Steve Sailer was perhaps the first to notice that even un-mixed black Americans who have lived in the United States for centuries are several inches taller and about 13 IQ points smarter than black Africans. This suggests that first world nutrition adds about 13 IQ points (and several inches of height) to people of third world ancestry.

So the children of these high achieving immigrants would only have had an average IQ of 99 if born in India. Since they’re born in America, they should have IQ’s of 99 + 13 = 112.

Is it really plausible that Indian Americans could really have an IQ that high? Forbes magazine writes:

Just how smart are Indian Americans? We don’t know with much certainty. Most data sets with information on ethnic groups do not include IQ scores, and the few that do rarely include enough cases to provide interpretable results for such a small portion of the population.

The only direct evidence we have comes from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, in which a basic cognitive test called “digit span” was administered to a sample of newly arrived immigrant children. It is an excellent test for comparing people with disparate language and educational backgrounds, since the test taker need only repeat lengthening sequences of digits read by the examiner. Repeating the digits forward is simply a test of short-term memory, but repeating them backward is much more mentally taxing, hence a rough measure of intelligence.

When statistical adjustments are used to convert the backward digit span results to full-scale IQ scores, Indian Americans place at about 112 on a bell-shaped IQ distribution, with white Americans at 100. 112 is the 79th percentile of the white distribution. For more context, consider that Ashkenazi Jews are a famously intelligent ethnic group, and their mean IQ is somewhere around 110.

Indian American Deepak Chopra shares his deep spiritual wisdom with big brained Oprah.