While IQ scores are normed such that the average IQ of British whites or all Americans is 100 at any given time, the tests must constantly be made more difficult to keep the average score at 100, because performance on IQ tests has been rising at a rate of about 3 points per decade (or roughly 2 standard deviations (SD) per century). Meanwhile a similar rise has occurred in cranial capacity, with white male crania being 200 cc bigger in white American men born in 1980 compared to white American men born in 1820. Similarly, white female crania has increased 180 cubic centimeters. I estimate that’s an increase of about 2.2 SD for men and 2 SD for women, so let’s split the difference and say it’s 2.1 standard deviations in 160 years, or 1.31 SD per century. So the biological Flynn effect is 66% as large as the psychometric Flynn effect. Two thirds.
So if IQ performance has been increasing at a rate of 3 points per decade, does that mean that 2 out of every 3 of those point reflects enhanced biology? Assuming the rise in crania measures a rise in real brain size, I think it does mean exactly that. Although Arthur Jensen noted that the correlation between brain size and IQ is only 0.4 so each SD increase in brain size would only cause a 0.4 SD increase in IQ, it seems reasonable to assume that if nutrition has increased brain size by 1.31 SD a century, it has also increased many other properties of the brain that determine intelligence, so I would interpret the rise in brain size as a proxy for a rise in overall neurological power, not brain size only as Jensen implied.
So if real biological intelligence has increased 1.31 SD (20 IQ points) per century since at least the 19th century, why have IQ scores increased 2 SD (30 points) per century? That’s easy, schooling. As scholar Richard Lynn pointed out decades ago, skipping high school causes your IQ to drop by nearly 10 points, but it does not, in my opinion, cause your intelligence to drop 10 points, it simply impairs you on the culturally biased sections of the test, spuriously dragging down your score. Americans today get at least four more years of schooling than Victorian Americans, but correctly for the spurious nearly 10 point IQ boost of attending high school, reduces the Flynn effect from 30 points a century, to 20 points a century (which perfectly parallels the 1.31 SD per century rise in brain size).
However the fact that IQ tests are so sensitive schooling is a huge problem that needs to be solved. For example, excellent research in the 1920s showed that canal boat children who lived a nomadic existence where they were virtually deprived of schooling, showed massive declines in IQ as they got older. Because IQ tests are normed for age, and because these kids were kept out of school they fell further and further behind their chronological age-mates on the type of knowledge that IQ tests measure. Young canal boat kids would have an IQ around 90, but older canal boat kids would have an IQ of 60. However in a footnote on page 1001 of this document, scholar Arthur Jensen writes:
When the canal boat children were tested on nonverbal performance tests, there was much less decline in scores and the average IQ of the children was 82, which is a typical value for unskilled workers, as the canal boat people were. Fewer than 1 in 10 obtained performance IQs below 70, and in fact there was a slight positive correlation between performance IQ and age
This demonstrates that some IQ tests really do come close to the culture fair ideal. People understood that in the 1920s, but decades of post-modern propaganda has brainwashed generations of credulous university students into thinking otherwise. Even the great Arthur Jensen began started getting sucked in by the “no such thing as culture reduced tests” people towards the end of his life, mostly because he was surprised to discover that that the Flynn effect was much larger on the culture reduced tests than the culture fair tests. However what scholar Richard Lynn understood was that non-verbal IQ is more sensetive to prenatal nutrition than verbal IQ is. So in a way both culture loaded and culture reduced IQ tests overestimate how smart people have become, but for different reasons. Culture reduced tests overestimate because they are biased towards spatial IQ which is more sensitive to nutrition and culture loaded tests overestimate because they are biased towards more schooling.
But when one looks at the most culture fair “verbal” test on the Wechsler scales (Digit Span) and the most culture fair non-verbal test (Block Design) on the Wechsler tests, we find that the former had a Flynn effect of 0 points per century and the latter had a Flynn effect of 30 points per century. A statistical composite of both shows a Flynn effect of about 20 points per century (consistent with the both the 1.31 SD rise in brain size), which should be taken as a real increase in biological intelligence.
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Inuit tend to have large brain size. They are super smart??
They’re pretty freaking smart for hunter/gatherers. Prior to agriculture they were probably the smartest race on Earth. Post-agriculture there was a population explosion that increased the odds of freak mutations that increased brain efficiency, allowing smaller brained races to become as bright as Inuits. The Inuits were too geographically isolated to acquire these mutations
This is a widely accepted theory by hbd community to explain the lower complexity of Inuit intelligence. But I think in very harsh environments, people with some physiological weakness or disability, are more likely to be eliminated, resulting in a loss of mental diversity. Were the crazy invented civilizations. Religion, philosophy, civilization are an important part of the work of people with psychopathological predispositions, ie creative people.
There no seems to be a creative class in these societies, so they are frozen in time.
I’m not saying that the Inuit are stupid, in fact, their collective behavior is very clever, of course, adapted to the climate in which they live, that is, strong previous selection.
In more moderate environments, gifted people who usually come with ‘physiological costs’ linked to their condition, tend to breed more than in extremely cold or any other extreme weather environments. It’s a balance between mutations (pathogens) and health.
As a creative borderline schizotypal, I resemble this remark and therefore agree enthusiastically.
If the intelligence is polygenic, is a phenotype (or many phenotypes), so we have to stop believing that a single feature is crucial for all its manifestation.
Better nutrition increased the height of the Americans. The size of the skull can be increased, but it may be that has just followed the increase in height.
So are you denying that brain size has increased?
Increased brain size only if the increase is greater than the increase height.
There’s definitely been an increase in brain size. Autopsy data in Britain showed an increase of 52 g in 80 years but that’s probably an underestimate because in the past people died younger when brain size was maximized
In addition, there’s been a
1.5 cm increase in the circumference one year old British heads in just 50 years. Baby head size is an almost perfect measure of brain size
‘As scholar Richard Lynn pointed out decades ago, skipping high school causes your IQ to drop by nearly 10 points, but it does not, in my opinion, cause your intelligence to drop 10 points, it simply impairs you on the culturally biased sections of the test, spuriously dragging down your score.’
Why do HBDers have such an aversion to Occam’s razor?
Yes, you could posit that “oh it’s just that you won’t do so well on the cultural sections and that’s the only effect education has.” OR…IQ ONLY measures certain intellectual skills that are of prime importance within the dominant culture. Education increases one’s proficiency in these skills.
‘Americans, but correctly for the spurious nearly 10 point IQ boost of attending high school, reduces the Flynn effect from 30 points a century, to 20 points a century (which perfectly parallels the 1.31 SD per century rise in brain size).’
Of course, you can ONLY get here by assuming that nutrition is the chief cause behind the Flynn effect. Pre-1950, you have a solid case for that. Post 1950, not so much.
Further, IQ gains due to nutrition would show up mostly in the lower half of the distribution. And in some countries this pattern holds, but in several others this pattern does not hold. The United States is an example of an “anomalous” case. Norway is a complete counter-example: height gains in the upper distribution while IQ gains in the lower distribution. Enhanced nutrition wouldn’t have a negative effect on height and a positive effect on IQ. Britain is yet another anomaly.
A cause that is consistent with all data is the cultural shift produced by the Industrial Revolution.
The phenotypic change in the brain can also be accounted for by learning certain mental skills.
‘This demonstrates that some IQ tests really do come close to the culture fair ideal. ‘
Not really. Nonverbal tests have also been shown to be culturally loaded. So the increase in IQ scores merely reflects a decrease in cultural load. I don’t think it means they “come close.” It only means that some tests have less “cultural loading” than others. And that’s probably only because those tests measure a lower amount of skills.
Why do HBDers have such an aversion to Occam’s razor?
Yes, you could posit that “oh it’s just that you won’t do so well on the cultural sections and that’s the only effect education has.” OR…IQ ONLY measures certain intellectual skills that are of prime importance within the dominant culture. Education increases one’s proficiency in these skills.
Occam’s razor is the simplest explanation that explains the facts. Your explanation (education) can only explain about a third of the Flynn effect, hence i argue nutrition explained the rest.
As Einstein(?) said, science should be as simple as possible, but no simpler
Yes, I’ve already made that point about the razor. My explanation isn’t “just” education. There’s more to culture than education.
So what else is causing it?
Different and new societal norms brought about by tech progress is another one.
On the other hand, Flynn has pointed to 20-point gains on Dutch military (Raven’s type) IQ tests between 1952, 1962, 1972, and 1982. He observes that the Dutch 18-year-olds of 1962 had a major nutritional handicap. They were either in the womb, or were recently born, during the great Dutch famine of 1944 – when German troops monopolized food and 18,000 people died of starvation.[30] Yet, concludes Flynn, “they do not show up even as a blip in the pattern of Dutch IQ gains. It is as if the famine had never occurred.”[2][31]
Lynn has a very low IQ. Flynn not as low.
note that low IQ pp has given a skull capacity figure for 1820, before there were any IQ tests. what were they in 1900? were the old skulls representative? were the skulls of the rich also smaller? can a difference in intellectual environment produce a difference in brain volume? if so at what age would this effect cease? there was an hypertrophied region of Einstein’s brain due to his violin playing.
it is a mere scholium but brain volume and cranial capacity aren’t the same thing, and the .4 correlation is for brain volume iirc. and what population is this correlation good for? over what range of IQ and brain volume is it a good fit? or is it just picking up s few cases of abnormally small heads and is pp assuming a bivariate normal distribution again?
both SCZ, alcohol, and nutritional deficiencies can reduce brain volume yet have no effect on cranial capacity, although the effects of alcohol are usually trivial and reversible.
Yet, concludes Flynn, “they do not show up even as a blip in the pattern of Dutch IQ gains. It is as if the famine had never occurred
Did they show up as a blip in Dutch brain size gains? Did they show up as a blip in Dutch height gains? If not, this is irrelevant
Different and new societal norms brought about by tech progress is another one.
You accused me of violating Occam’s razor because i asserted 2 causes of the Flynn effect but now you’re asserting a second cause too, the difference being there’s evidence nutrition affects IQ, no evidence technology norms does
why does the discover of the Flynn Effect disagree with you pp?
Flynn deserves great credit for popularizing & fully documenting the Flynn effect, but saying he discovered it is a bit like saying Columbus discovered America. It had previously been “discovered” by Lynn in Japan & originally discovered by Runquist in 1936
the question goes unanswered.
the only thing Lynn ever discovered was ewes in heat.
his IQ and the Wealth of Nations was so mathematically retarded i still can’t understand how he could ever have been hired let alone tenured at any university, even one in Northern Ireland.
‘You accused me of violating Occam’s razor because i asserted 2 causes of the Flynn effect but now you’re asserting a second cause too, the difference being there’s evidence nutrition affects IQ, no evidence technology norms does’
” It seems likely that the ultimate cause of IQ gains is the Industrial Revolution, which produced a need for increased intellectual skills that modern societies somehow rose to meet.”
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf
Scientific consensus agrees with me again.
And the violation of Occam’s razor comes from hanging on to a primarily genetic explanation in the face of so much data regarding cultural effect. We have gains on IQ tests that are probably not genetic in origin. To say ‘oh, well because IQ is genetic, these gains reflect cultural gains on the tests and leave the genetic component untouched.’ It is simpler to say ‘IQ measures several skills important to a culture. As more societies become exposed to these skills/cultures, their scores will increase.’
” It seems likely that the ultimate cause of IQ gains is the Industrial Revolution, which produced a need for increased intellectual skills that modern societies somehow rose to meet.”
Somehow rose up to meet is not explanation
Yes it is. It’s a general explanation. Just like “nutrition” is a general explanation. Regardless, the “nutrition” hypothesis is weak for the reasons I explained above.
More on how powerful culture can be and how simple cultural explanations can account for a lot of data:
“The differences in achievement between Asian Americans and White Americans are not hard to explain on
cultural grounds. East Asians are members of cultures having a Confucian background. An endemic belief in
those cultures is that intelligence is primarily a matter of hard work.”
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf
Nutrition explains not only IQ gains but brain size gains, height gains, athleticism gains, life span gains…the list goes on & on.
In other words it fits the Flynn effect into a broader framwork. By contrast your explanation is ad hoc & vague speculative ad hoc to boot
‘Nutrition explains not only IQ gains but brain size gains, height gains, athleticism gains, life span gains…the list goes on & on.
In other words it fits the Flynn effect into a broader framwork. By contrast your explanation is ad hoc & vague speculative ad hoc to boot’
Nutrition does not explain all of those at all. AINEC. Life span gains result mostly from the decrease in infant mortality, which has more to do with medicine. Brain size may be explained by using different parts of our brains. Improved nutrition is, at best, a contributing factor. It primarily may explain height.
My explanation is so “vague and speculative” that experts in the field agree with it and reject yours lol. Is this more of the “conspiracy?”
and this is also inculcated by Judaism or was…that is to be a scholar was a virtue as much or more than it was a gift from God. that is, even after Jews stop being religious they maintain a very high value for learning and scholastic achievement.
the same Flynn of the Flynn Effect has reported that Chinese Americans do NOT actually score higher on IQ tests than European Americans, but they DO perform as if they did. and the difference is quite large.
My explanation is so “vague and speculative” that experts in the field agree with it and reject yours lol
Experts in their field also said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
that was a howler.
HBDers and the “It’s a slam dunk” W people have a lot more in common than either has with any scientist.
Actually the masterminds of the Iraq war were all postmodern liberal academic think tank types. Bush & Cheney & republicans were just the fall guys
The experts actually disagreed about Iraq and most did not agree with them having wmds. Way to be ironic
I guess Swanknasty thinks the CIA are not experts
http://nation.time.com/2012/09/06/iraq-how-the-cia-says-it-blew-it-on-saddams-wmd/
The CIA are not the only experts. You can’t have consensus with one lone expert or ‘camp’ of ‘experts.’ Further, there was even more dispute between them at the time: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2002/10/04/8587/cia-report-reveals-analysts-split.html
“NIE stated that Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009, owing to inexperience in building and operating centrifuge facilities to produce highly enriched uranium and challenges in procuring the necessary equipment and expertise.
This conclusion, though presented as the opinion of the Intelligence Community, was not shared by the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR). INR stated that it believed that although Saddam still desired nucelar weapons and pursued at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities, the evidence at hand was not enough to conclude that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Specifically, INR disagreeded with CIA and DIA regarding the nature of aluminum tubes procured by Iraq.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/nuke-prewar_intel_2003.htm
HBDers are more like the Bush administration…hence the irony that WMC picked up on.
The CIA are not the only experts
But they’re the most authoritative ones . And the APA you cite are not the only experts too. Plenty of psychologists disagree with many of their conclusions
And how is bush like an HBDer ? He supported no child left behind.
‘But they’re the most authoritative ones.’
Not really. Not on that issue. Regardless….consensus requires looking at what the group of experts believes. Most experts disagreed with the CIA. Experts within the CIA disagreed. It’s that simple. The main issue was going into Iraq without clear evidence. The consensus was that there was no consensus.
‘And the APA you cite are not the only experts too. Plenty of psychologists disagree with many of their conclusions’
Okay. Point me in the direction of another psychological association that disagrees with the APA’s ‘conclusions’ on the issue.
‘And how is bush like an HBDer ? ‘
Facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts. Overstating the case.
Even the most “scientific” of the bunch just goes out and rehashes other data from their pet HBD psychologist, retools it, and passes it off as “see the research is just right there!”
Plus, even if the above weren’t true and the experts got it wrong one time…ooookay?
It’s the same lame flat-earther argument — “the experts have been wrong before!”
So the CIA with their gazillion dollar budget & virtually unlimited power to acquire info are not authoritative experts, but a subset of psychologists who call themselves the APA are even though the vast majority of them have never published anything on the Flynn effect. Absurd
It’s the same lame flat-earther argument — “the experts have been wrong before!”
War is a pretty freaking huge thing to get wrong
Furthermore, research shows expert opinion is not especially accurate. Steve Hsu wrote:
I recently came across this excellent talk (podcast number 84 on the list at the link) by Philip Tetlock about his research on expert prediction.
Putting aside the fox vs hedgehog dichotomy, I think the main takeaway is that “expert” predictions are no better than those of well-informed ordinary people, and barely outperform simple algorithms.
‘So the CIA with their gazillion dollar budget & virtually unlimited power to acquire info are not authoritative experts, but a subset of psychologists who call themselves the APA are even though the vast majority of them have never published anything on the Flynn effect. Absurd’
Actually, it really doesn’t matter which way you want to go with this strained analogy. First, the CIA are not “scientists,” and so there’s a difference in the level of rigor underlying the process. Second, if the CIA were or are authoritative, that does nothing to harm the point — several other experts disagreed with them. Enough to disrupt any consensus.
And yes ‘war’ is a huge thing to get wrong. And? So are stock market crashes (not scientific method there either, no real peer-review). So is spacetime. etc. etc. etc.
‘Putting aside the fox vs hedgehog dichotomy, I think the main takeaway is that “expert” predictions are no better than those of well-informed ordinary people, and barely outperform simple algorithms.’
In fields without rigor, sure. However, the scientific method makes it so that it’s very hard to get a lot of experts agreeing, because they have every incentive to prove one another wrong.
In fields without rigor, sure
And there’s very little rigourous research into the Flynn effect, hence expert consensus means little, particularly when the experts you cite have largely not published a single paper on it in peer reviewed journals
1. the WMD stuff was clearly bullshit before the war. Joschka Fischer called it.
2. the expert prediction of money managers is necessarily crap on average, because almost all money today is managed by such professionals. they are the market. they can’t beat themselves?
‘And there’s very little rigourous research into the Flynn effect, ‘
a) that’s not what I said, and b) says you.
I said that the field itself — national security — is a field with necessarily limited peer review and standardized rigor. That lessens the accuracy and weight we’d give the assessments. The field of interest is one that follows the scientific method and thrives on peer review. I already explained this in an earlier post about the weight to give different expert opinions — they aren’t all the same.
Not only that, but again…most of the experts also disagreed with the CIA anyway.
Swanknasty,
1) who you consider an expert is arbitrary
2) what you consider a consensus is arbitrary
3) you have no data showing the great judgement of experts; in fact the data shows just the opposite so you cook up some ad hoc excuse to dismiss it & arbitrary decide that excuse excuses Flynn effect experts (most of whom don’t study the Flynn effect) based on utter speculation.
That’s all
‘1) who you consider an expert is arbitrary’
I see. So the published opinion of the APA is an “arbitrary” source of consensus. lulz.
‘2) what you consider a consensus is arbitrary’
See above.
‘3) you have no data showing the great judgement of experts; in fact the data shows just the opposite so you cook up some ad hoc excuse to dismiss it & arbitrary decide that excuse excuses Flynn effect experts (most of whom don’t study the Flynn effect) based on utter speculation.’
I actually put forward the reasons why the nutrition explanation, at present, is unpersuasive. I wouldn’t be surprised if those reasons weren’t part of the consensus rejection of it.
Instead of saying the “consensus doesn’t mean shit” and pretending that the academics aren’t against you, why not acknowledge it — sans navel-gazing “conspiracy” excuses — and move on?
You’re always welcome to READ the PAPERS and produce REASONS that their opinions are flawed. Or if you want, I could just scan through and give you whatever arguments they give in response to HBD contention X or Y.
Swanknasty your argument against nutrition was based on denying data showing height has increased since the 1980s by asserting that said data is sampling error. Unconvincing.
You’ve done nothing to counter the cranial capacity data
‘Swanknasty your argument against nutrition was based on denying data showing height has increased since the 1980s by asserting that said data is sampling error. ‘
Actually, because apparently you missed it:
‘IQ gains due to nutrition would show up mostly in the lower half of the distribution. And in some countries this pattern holds, but in several others this pattern does not hold. The United States is an example of an “anomalous” case. Norway is a complete counter-example: height gains in the upper distribution while IQ gains in the lower distribution. Enhanced nutrition wouldn’t have a negative effect on height and a positive effect on IQ. Britain is yet another anomaly. ‘
I’m not the only one who believes that US height has leveled off, btw.
Your source contradicted itself. First it said nutrition affects mostly the low end but cites height gains in Norway affecting the high end. So are height gains at the high end not caused by nutrition? What’s causing them then?
It claims Norway IQ gains have been in the low end but IQ gains on which tests ? I bet on the most culture reduced most spatial tests, scores went up at the high end too in Norway
‘So are height gains at the high end not caused by nutrition?’
Why would improved nutrition only mainly affect the right side of the distribution for height while only mainly affecting the left side of the distribution for IQ? Pre-nutrition, the right side would be filled with more people who had reached their genotypic potential and were well-fed, and vice versa for the left. The pattern doesn’t make sense.
The hypothesis has been considered and pretty much shown to be insufficient…
You could modify it….maybe there’s some sort of “special nutrition” that the wealthy receive exclusively. Maybe the ceiling for “IQ” is just way higher/takes longer to reach than the ceiling for average human height genotypic potential.
But the nutrition hypothesis just really falls to shit post-1950. Do people eat better than they did back then? The obesity epidemic suggests not.
Also, like I said, I’m not the only who believes that height gains in the US stopped a long while ago.
Why would improved nutrition only mainly affect the right side of the distribution for height while only mainly affecting the left side of the distribution for IQ
That was found in one study in one country on one test at one point in time. Other studies have found very different patterns. Rising IQ has been found on so many tests in so many countries at so many times that it’s very easy to retrsospectively microanalyze looking for anomalies. It’s called data mining & it proves nothing because there is enough unreliability in measurements & samples that all sorts of strange patterns can be discovered post hoc if you look hard enough.
Further, i said that only on the most culture reduced tests is the Flynn effect driven overwhelmingly by nutrition. The tests in Norway were not especially culture reduced so the Flynn effect in that study was likely education induced.
Ummm. The anamolies don’t end with Norway. In the US, height gains have stalled while the Flynn effect continues. Other countries, such as Britain, don’t follow the pattern.
These researchers aren’t rejecting the hypothesis because of some conspiracy…
Steve Sailer showed evidence of recent height gains. You failed to debunk him
http://isteve.blogspot.ca/2010/03/are-people-still-growing-up-taller-than.html?m=1
now peeeepeeee is citing another racist blogger as if he were a “scientist”.
WMC calling someone else racist. LOL
His evidence, when taken in the context of at least one omitted paper, hid the measurement error. .4 gain for one, .2 gain for two.
Measurement error between .1-.2 puts the gain at .06-.16. Nothing significant and the fact that Steve didn’t mention or even think of these factors reminds us of what I’ve already said several times: SCIENTIFIC opinion is what counts. And yet again it agrees with me .
Jesus….
Error could go either way. The gains he reported are just as likely to be underestimates.
And the fact that sailers height data had standard errors shows how good it was. Flynn effect studies don’t even report sampling error stats half the time but the Flynn effect is just as small in SD units as height gains.
Yes “it’s just as likely” if you want to completely ignore the trend observed in other developed countries as reported by SCIENTISTS.
more lies.
Flynn himself believes his effect is caused 100% by changes in the intellectual environment, 0% by changes in diet.
dike on a bike will have to take it up with Flynn.
I find when I get into an environment with a higher intellectual pace I at first feel stupid and retarded, then quite rapidly I catch up a little or a lot, until I crash into a ceiling where my adaption is no longer easy and natural. It gets slow and hard-won. With time I can adapt more, but people’s patience also goes away, so the opportunity for me to advance intellectually is removed usually. It can come back, but not necessarily. At those moments I get in touch with my limitations, and even if the limits are never totally impenetrable they are real. Question is where the limit comes from. Lack of practice may be it, but I have the strong feeling it has mostly to do with my biology.
Yes, the size of the brain ” grew ”, compared to that year to year or period ?? May be a common variation that follows the evolution and decline of civilizations.
You did not understand that it is not enough to have an increase in the size of the brain to increase intelligence and I showed the example of the Inuit. When it is not IQ, is brain size, when you will look at the whole of human intelligence ???
I agree that brain size alone does not determine IQ, but if nutrition increased brain size so much, it probably increased other brain properties too. Indeed the autopsy of malnourished kids show their brains are impaired in multiple ways, not size only. Size is just the most visible symbol
it is very important to compare apples with apples here pp.
cc varies a lot within Europe.
the Irish whom Lynn described as a “low IQ population” have the biggest heads in Europe.
further i think there may have been some selection going on here, and the selection has been for height which translates to larger everything usually…except penis size…
of my relatives with photos my great grandfather on my mother’s side was the tallest of any at 6’4″ or 6’5″. and he lived well into his 90s despite drinking two fifths a week.
so my brother and i and my two cousins are taller than both our fathers, BUT this is because my mother and aunt are tall. perhaps it was sexual selection?
yet another anomaly…
my great grandfather was half Spanish and ran away from home when he was 16. yet he had blonde hair and blue eyes and the Spanish are the shortest people in Europe.
it is very important to compare apples with apples here pp.
The study was on American whites & similar head size gains have been found in British babies
you’re still not getting it pp.
the skulls labeled as “American whites” would have to be representative of American whites in both studies.
there are Sicilian American whites and Irish American whites. “American white” is not sufficient specification, because this is not a homogeneous population.
and another scholium:
American whites have never been homogeneous, but even if they were and had been…
today’s whites are different from whites of 1820 genetically, due to enormous immigration from Europe after 1820. INCLUDING MILLIONS OF BIG HEADED AND FERTILE IRISH..
the same goes for the British. the UK was the America of Europe in the 19th c absorbing millions of immigrants.
the definitive study would be on a country like Iceland.
Sampling quality is generally poor in such studies, but when multiple studies in multiple countries all show massively rising brain size, it’s probably true since sampling error tends to cancel out
what are the multiple studies?
cc has increased everywhere in the (now) developed world by 2 SDs?
There have been a couple studies in Britain on baby head circumference (an almost perfect measure of brain size) & autopsy brain weight. They cover shorter time spans & the speed of the gains varies from study to study, but the point is its not a specifically American phenomenon. I suspect it’s occurred in virtually every country, & has been strongest in developed countries
must be “nutrition” right pp?
Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.”
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking
Still others believe that the reduction in brain size is proof that we have tamed ourselves, just as we domesticated sheep, pigs, and cattle, all of which are smaller-brained than their wild ancestors.
pp is quite tame.
another theory:
Now many anthropologists are rethinking the equation. For one thing, it is no longer clear that EQs flatlined back in the Stone Age. Recent studies of human fossils suggest the brain shrank more quickly than the body in near-modern times…As complex societies emerged, the brain became smaller because people did not have to be as smart to stay alive.
etc.
with civilization came a smaller brain. yet pp thinks more intelligence.
Combination of incredible malnutrition caused by agriculture & humans genetically becoming more gracile.
Yes! I referenced this article the other day. But it was DISMISSED.
Bigger heads sometimes only means as much as bigger feet. It can be just a different skeletal design for no good reason other than it looks attractive. There is a correlation, but a weak one, between skull size and iq. The correlation is weak within a population and even weaker if looking across populations and thousands of years. It may even be negative, also for no actual reason.
Why do you all think you can pick out a single factor and blow it up to something all-explaining. Ok, at least skull size is something concrete that can’t be interpreted away by any wishful thinking. It is a good starting point for a discussion with a total denier, but beyond that it is a minor point.
Hugh,
I doubt it. Dead weight in the head is too expensive biologically for there to be a negative correlation for “no actual reason.” Hominid skull sizes didn’t just get bigger over millions of years for “no actual reason,” and I doubt they suddenly got smaller over the Holocene for “no actual reason.” There must be some reason, even if we don’t fully understand it yet.
I agree Pumpkin tends to take a positive correlation of some significance and blow it out of proportion. But he’s young. Give him time.
Lots of animal have big heads but small brains. Big head makes you look threatening to an enemy. Being physically big is a way to keep warm, and be strong. If the torso is big, the head has to be… seems like it to me at least.
Different human population have different head-shapes, that has to be a local aestetical thing, or pure chance, or maybe climate adjustment for warmth. I agree that the very long term evolutional trend ought to be towards bigger heads, for the reason of hosting a bigger brain, but that trend can easily be occluded by other factors along the way.
Hugh,
And if that is also true for some hominids, then that’s an “actual reason.” It may not be the reason we anticipated, but it’s still a reason.
But it appears that over the long term that hominids were selected for larger brains because they needed the additional brain power to survive. It also appears true that larger brains are correlated with higher IQs. And, finally, it appears to be the case that racial skull size and IQs also follow this general pattern – at least among the continental races.
There are twists in the story. And the Holocene brain reduction is a big twist. but where in the story of evolution are there not twists?
Sure, but we were taking about size, not shape. A larger size is more expensive; a different shape may be neutral in cost.
Actually head shape is related to size. Mongoloids have the biggest brains & also the most spherical brains because this maximizes volume. Smaller brained populations have relatively longer but short heads
It may be in some cases, but the old anthropologists recognized several head shapes in Europe that I have not heard being discussed as different in size.
Pincher,
..And if that is also true for some hominids, then that’s an “actual reason.” It may not be the reason we anticipated, but it’s still a reason.
I can imagine that if a population is started off by a tiny bunch of alpha males, whatever physical traits they happened to have, big eyebrows, broad cheek bones, short legs, would define the look of the later much bigger population. In such a case there is a “reason” but not of the kind we usually mean by reason, I would say.
I also looked up the article referred to by Mugabe above. He’s picking and choosing. The article also says
“Over the very period that the brain shrank, our DNA accumulated numerous adaptive mutations related to brain development and neurotransmitter systems—an indication that even as the organ got smaller, its inner workings changed. ”
I don’t believe for a moment that humans have got dumber since the stoneage.
indeed Hugh.
the big head follows directly and indirectly from physical adaptation to cold as does head shape.
all else being equal one would expect to see more dolichocephalic people in hotter areas and more brachycephalic in colder places, because a sphere has the least surface area to volume of any shape.
black Africans sometimes have an “occipital bun” as a result of forcing a big human brain into a long narrow skull.
biggest famous brain:
reminds me of another genius:
Hugh,
You’re changing the subject again, as you did when you began discussing head shapes. But just as the size of the head is likely to be more important in humans than its shape, so is the head likely to more important than legs, eyebrows, and cheek bones – and thus more susceptible to evolutionary change if the size is not efficient.
However a human population starts off, its head size got there by evolution, and evolution continues to work on it. Why? Because larger heads on babies make it more difficult for women to give birth. Their offspring require more time to become independent after being born. Large heads are expensive in terms of calories and don’t appear to provide much in the way of benefits for humans apart from housing a brain. Something which requires that much energy to operate is unlikely to have its most important features (like size) randomly wander in various directions. That makes it very different from eyebrows.
I find that very hard to believe, too, but the importance of brain size in hominids is so hard-wired in those who study hominid evolution, that some scientists do make that claim.
Pincher,
I don’t like changers of topics, so I try to avoid being one.
To summarize my view on heads.
1. Size matters, in particular within a closely related population with similar wiring structure. Like if you have two processors based on much the same technology, like i5 and i7, i7 is “bigger”. A comparison with AMD is more complicated, not necessarily a straight numbers game.
2. Shape matters not, but part of shape is size. Some shapes only come in large, because a tribe with that head design got lucky and found a herd of cows, and another tribe got killed by the mongols. Accidents in other words.
Hugh,
Because so much militates against a large-brained creature, like an ape, randomly developing an even-larger brain, we should expect that only significant selective pressure caused it to happen in hominids over the last few million years. A hominid population just doesn’t split apart and randomly develop a larger head. There’s too much negative selective pressure against that happening.
You’re still conflating two different issues. If the size and shape of a head in a population are different, then we have good reason to expect that the additional size matters more than the different shape because of energy and birth requirements.
(Although I’m sure there are very important evolutionary reasons for different shaped heads in hominids and human races, we are less clear on the significance, whereas with head size the relationship to brain size and intelligence is clear and often just assumed.)
That constant selective pressure works against heads randomly getting larger. It prevent “accidents” from mattering. If a big-headed tribe kills a small-headed tribe, is it random? Or is it nature?
Pincher
I would probably prefer if evolution was that rational, that whatever “shape” of a human has evolved did so for a chain of reasons not having much to do with chance. But you see so many different ethnic groups, some who have lived under the same conditions for thousands of years. For instance mongols and slavic peoples, and turks given that they are not indigenous to the warm sunny anatolia that they inhabit today. They are quite different in looks, and in temperament and so on. Their differences suggest to me that there is more than one way of adapting, and which way wins out in a particular case has to do with chance, or circumstance not purely natural.
Hugh,
I’m sure evolution has a certain stochastic element, but the main story still has to be rational.
Ask yourself this: How did an ape-like creature with, say, an average 300 CC cranium evolve into an apelike creature with an average 310 CC cranium? And how did one with a 310 CC cranium evolve into another apelike creature with a 320 CC cranium?
Now continue that line of thinking for several million years.
Small selective differences must be important in hominid evolution or we wouldn’t have any discernible patterns at all. Nothing would make sense. Our skull sizes would just zigzag around randomly.
Perhaps the initial conditions aren’t as identical as they first seem.
Again, Hugh, your aside here is the equivalent of changing the subject. We were talking about skull size and intelligence, not temperament or looks.
I agree that evolution has a random element, but I disagree that a high degree of randomness would matter for a part of the body that is so strongly selected for.
You can take a right turn instead of a left turn and end up with, say, bushier eyebrows for no apparent good reason; but you can’t take that right turn and end up with a bigger head for no good reason. There’s just too much working against it.
I see the difference and it’s a logical point you are making. However, Cro Magnon had bigger heads I just learned here, and that shows that intelligence can develop in different ways. I never heard any claim that Jews have bigger heads. I they had, that would probably decide it for me.
Hugh,
The Holocene brain reduction is definitely a puzzle. No doubt about it. Especially since that reduction has taken place even as mankind and its cultures have grown increasingly sophisticated. In the hominid evolutionary record, increased tool sophistication has usually (but not always) been associated with increased brain size, and I don’t think it’s ever been associated with smaller brain size. But tool sophistication and brain size have been negatively correlated over the last ten thousand years.
I expressed interest in similar research a couple years back. There needs to be more research into some of these details.
Bigger heads sometimes only means as much as bigger feet. It can be just a different skeletal design for no good reason other than it looks attractive. There is a correlation, but a weak one, between skull size and iq. The correlation is weak within a population and even weaker if looking across populations and thousands of years.
1) the rise is head size is significant because other studies suggest it reflects a rise in brain size
2) the correlation between IQ and brain size is not weak; it’s about 0.4 (some experts say over 0.5 when you correct for reliability & range restriction)
3) the correlation is intrinsic, meaning brain size doesn’t just correlate with IQ, each one SD increase in brain size causes a 0.4-0.5 SD increase in IQ
4) if nutrition increased the most visible neurological cause of IQ by 2 SD, then it’s reasonable to assume it increased other properties of the brain too
5) the correlation does not get weaker between populations, it gets much much stronger. That’s because all the individual exceptions cancel out.
6) arguing that the rise in IQ has nothing to do with the rise in brain size makes as much sense as arguing that the decline in disease has nothing to do with the rise in vaccines . Both play a major causal role
5) the correlation does not get weaker between populations, it gets much much stronger. That’s because all the individual exceptions cancel out.
I think the opposite in this case. Individual cancellation applies to effects, not causes. That’s my momentary feeling.
and again as is his wont, being at most 12 years old, pp assumes that there is one correlation between brain size and IQ scores for the whole world when in fact it has only been found locally and if the population weren’t homgeneous then you might just find that Koreans score higher than blacks or some other duuhhhhh.
hugh may know more about the Eskimos than anyone else on this blog as Denmark owns Greenland.
likely he’ll tell us the same thing Aussies say about the Abos…lazy drunks the lot.
pp assumes that there is one correlation between brain size and IQ scores for the whole world when in fact it has only been found locally
You’re making the same idiotic argument that got you banned from physicist steve hsu’s blog for low IQ. You’re a one trick pony. Don’t you think we know our data is local ? If we had data on the whole world we’d cite it but until then, generalizing from the local to global is the default assumption and the assumption holds until new data makes it untenable
That’s how science works. It’s based on assumptions.
Unfortunately you’re just too stupid to understand that
there is no default assumption.
or default anything.
you have an extraordinarily low IQ for someone so fascinated by IQ.
get yourself into the BGI study.
then you can have an opinion.
Science MUST make default assumptions. When actual data fills in the gaps, they get overturned if they are wrong
This is such a banal criticism on your part. You’re stupid.
Score high on a culture reduced test. Then you can have an opinion
I know loads about the eskimos, and we have lots of them in our capital. They are drunkards, yes, but mostly nice people. Other immigrant groups are less greatful let’s say.
It is that always speaks when it criticizes the Flynn effect. The IQ test scores are substantially different in this period, becauseTHE TESTS ARE NOT THE SAME. Because they were committed many statistical errors at that time, even today, it is not unusual to happen. About brain size and head circumference, you are comparing nineteenth century to the twenty-first century, but seems to be ignoring all the rest, that is, before the nineteenth century … I do not know, but it seems that few skulls were analyzed and do not know the provenance of them. If we know, provenances are very vague.
The mathematics of flynn effect is bizarre. Over the years the IQ test scores increased by 3 points per decade. In 90 years then, scores have increased 180 points ???
In the past, people ” had an average IQ of 80 ” ?? And you guys still take it seriously ??
I thought that was not smart enough to understand the magic calculations of the flynn effect, but now I know it’s not that.
Education as the Swanknasty say, in fact, acts as a manual for operating in society. It is a cognitive crutch. As people would be without it ?? Today we see a degradation of the vocabulary. In the past, even the beggars were more educated.
This subject is far from clear. Assumptions should be taken with caution.
I read that the French and Scandinavians have the largest heads of Europe.
Pumpkin,
I’ll ask you again. You can not accept that only brain size does not mean intelligence, specifically the complex intelligence ??
About IQ tests. Only when we produce a test that is holistic, practical (yes, culturally skewed), who despises the model of multiple choice and that is timeless, then we can compare them. Perhaps still have time, because we have many people aged 80 and more. We should consider their age to adjust the scores. Apply the same test in people aged 80 and over, and with young people of all age groups. However, taking into account that ” PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT ” as Hbd Chick said, because they are also cognitively different and this does not imply only through a hierarchical and quantitative perspective.
With the introduction of the cesarean section it’s no surprise we’re seeing growth in brainsize. The ability of human babies to fit their skulls through the birth canal is the primary limiting factor for how large the brain can be at birth. We took the cap off when we started cutting the big headed babies out. I was born this way, my mother is intelligent but very slight with narrow hips, likely a hundred years ago we would both have died but instead we both lived and she went on to have three more children all three also born by c-section.
I wonder how many who read this blog were born by C-section.
Me and my two brothers too, but in Brazil is very common caesarian-section.
Sisyphean,
but i born with slightly lower weight.
yet another “anomaly”:
the Japanese do not have especially large brains, the same size as SE Europeans, N Africans, and Middle East peoples.
yet…
Japan has a maritime climate again. its winters are mild, because it’s surrounded by water.
the simplest theory is that head size and cc are physical adaptations to cold.
this also explains the shrinkage since the Pleistocene. the whole earth has warmed.
but who needs Occam’s razor when you have “anomalies”?
So brain size tripling in 4 million years? Just a way of keeping warm? No selection for intelligence?
It’s a problem you measure circumference of the head, because brachycephalic and dolicocephalic SEEM to be almost the same thing. It’s like a bubble that expands horizontally and then vertically, with a zero difference in the size of the two expansions. Dolichos tend to have higher brows while brachy are more stubborn horizontally. Whatever…
this also explains the shrinkage since the Pleistocene. the whole earth has warmed.
I thought of that too but could be warming climate reduced the need for high IQ
as one with a rather large head i’m loathe to say there’s no relationship within the range of modern humans…which is pretty tight…or at least within the range of homogeneous populations.
but as I’ve said before the intelligence wasn’t what was selected for.
it was a spandrel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_%28biology%29
ya know I actually saw Gould and Suzuki in person when they gave speeches in my town.
on wiki a paper on rats from the 60s is cited. a very small sample and control group but the conclusion was that narrow nasal passages, broader head, and larger head were selected for by cold.
How do you know intelligence was not directly selected for? Perhaps head size was the spandrel
Are you saying intelligence just a spandrel when the brain size of our ancestors tripled in 4 million years or it only became a spandrel once we left Africa
direct physical adaptation to cold is the most parsimonious explanation. it has fewer “anomalies”
or in the other direction direct physical adaptation to heat.
notice the smallest cc isn’t the Abos, it’s in SW Ethiopia, Uganda, around there.
Why is the h^2 so high if the selection pressure is or was strong? Adaptive traits become less heritable over time. Even while populations increase in IQ, according to HBDers, the h^2 is constant. It supposedly evolved in enough places to preclude a special case like sickle-cell. If IQ is coded for by thousands upon thousands of genes and is very complex, then it’s also not like a simple adaptive case like skin color. Complex adaptations, if they are adaptations, have low heritability.
one must always be wary of adaptationism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptationism
so greater cc and head size could also be an indirect effect of a lager body or a more weeble-like body. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeble
that is, the larger cc and head size may follow from Allen’s rule acting on the body as a whole rather than just the head. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen%27s_rule
a weeble-like body selected in accordance with Allen’s rule:
If it was a spandrel, then you’d have to separate the specific populations and see how much genetic variation you saw in skull size etc. If you partitioned them out by the exact populations and found little real variation in skull size/frame/etc. but still saw similar variations in IQ….then that’d be huge support for the spandrel theory
the within populations vs between is unforgivable when speaking of h^2, yet isn’t even a sin for pp when speaking of the correlation between cc and IQ.
even Spencer Wells, an HBD denier as far as I can tell, mentioned Allen’s rule when he visited Siberia and how cold he was compared to the weeble-like natives.
If the IQ gap between races is bigger than the head size gap, then head size is probably primarily the spandrel
If the head size gap is bigger than the IQ gap, then IQ is probably primarily the spandrel
The preponderance of evidence seems to imply the former. There are a few exceptions like arctic people but there’s usually an obvious explanation like geographic isolation secluding them from new brain efficiency mutations
Cranial capacity for whites has an SD that is lower that that of blacks, which suggests lower variance.
http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/RushtonOsborne%20Intelligence%2095%20new.pdf
The IQ SD of whites and blacks also differs, with the black SD apparently being 13.5, according to La Griffe.
Of course that’s just one random paper I found. Maybe the link isn’t worth pursuing further, maybe it is. I’m open to it.
it’s all good but skip ahead to 5:30 on Allen’s rule…and Wells is part Danish btw.
Bergmann’s rule is confirmed by N Europeans to some extent, though the tallest people in Europe live in the Dinaric Alps. high jumper Blanka Vlasic is an example. it is also confirmed by the now extinct Fuegians. but it is disconfirmed by the Arctic peoples who tend to be small. though they are robust for small people. and by the very tall Tutsi and Wodaabe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann%27s_rule
and needless to say for those who aren’t retarded, like pp, there are many traits which are adaptive within contemporary developed market economies which:
1. produce nothing
2. are bad taste
2. are evil
for the Jews in America this includes:
1. selling…not promoting…not merely informing
2. pushiness and striverishness…in the case of education, especially in Canada and the US, perceived effort is rewarded above quality and understanding and intelligence
3. obedience
4. amorality
5. greed
6. class hatred and shame
7. sneetchery
8. etc.
much better to die out then send one’s issue forth into the world of the marching morons and the idiocracy. of all developed countries, Canada is the most “advanced” in this regard.
…than send one’s issue forth…
the moron’s shall inherit the earth.
oops.
they already have.
Mugabe, talking like that may send young impressionable male adolescents down a blind track. Believe in yourself and the world! 🙂
And Sweden ??
Mal de siècle.
I’m happy to be a dane, denmark’s got grip. But I think sweden will manage also.
the point is Hugh that,
1. adaptability is not in itself a virtue and
2. the ability to adapt and the willingness to adapt are two different things.
”Cranial capacity for whites has an SD that is lower that that of blacks, which suggests lower variance.”
Fuck statistics.
How many black people do you know ?? What are your personal impressions about them ?? Compare with people of other nationalities.
The Russian boy who thinks he came from Mars = highest operating schizophrenia = religion = modern leftism.
http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/12-03-2004/5051-martian-0/
Real World now,
Fuck the statistics, I want you to be as sincere as possible and tell me what their personal impressions of what you asked above.
Nationalities AND ethnicities.
”I’m happy to be a dane, denmark’s got grip. But I think sweden will manage also.”
I read that the Swedes have always looked down to their Scandinavian neighbors. Yeah, I think where we least expect will where we will start the resumption of the West and good sense, these nations ” devastated land ” as France, UK and Sweden.
Swanknasty,
Where are you to answer my questions ??
Liberals were the most responsible for the modern african American tragedy.
Instead of eugenics, the rotten apples are accumulating within the African American community.
Liberals love black people. Pity that are most responsible for the deaths of millions of them.
I also love dinosaurs, since ‘it” keep extinct. This is the kind of ” Platonic love ” that ” liberal ” feel for ” black ” people.
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Flynn effect explained:
If the dumbest people are having the most kids, there are smarter people who are subconsciously wiping them out. I dunno if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Evolution seems to hate when a certain population of people reproduce more than others. That’s where there’s a curbing effect in the gene pool. An explanation for why normies and aspies exist, Robert.