One of the downsides of being famous is you begin to attract haters. An HBDer named “Misdreavus” (his avatar above)has been going on a month long tirade against me on Twitter. Misdreavus was heavily promoted on JayMan’s blog and gained attention for being a black gay HBDer who makes witty sassy comments on twitter. The fact that JayMan so effusively and repeatedly promoted him is an example of Rushton’s genetic similarity theory. Both JayMan and Misdreavus share sub-Saharan genes, as well as genes that cause them to believe in HBD while also both being extremely socially liberal. This is a very unique genetic combination, so evolution predisposed JayMan to use his clout to advance another organism who shares so many of his genes. Allow the great scientist Rushton to explain:

Both JayMan and Misdreavus deny such an evolutionary process exists but I’m a huge believer in the process, and that was one of the first things Misdreavus complained about, but sadly, he then started attacking my statistical work. In my opinion, Misdreavus has high verbal IQ and high social IQ (Theory of Mind), but lacks the self-awareness to stay in his lane when it comes to math. Back in early April he wrote:

It turned out there were no errors, and the test has proven so difficult that out of the thousands of people who read this blog, only one so far has been granted a degree in heritability from the prestigious Pumpkin Person institute of behavioral genetics. And no one has even come close to obtaining a perfect score.

A month later he wrote:

This is supposed to be some kind of backhanded complement but Richard Lynn has arguably contributed more to HBD than any living human.

A day later he wrote:

This comment is ironic for someone who denies the existence of ethnic genetic interests. For the record, I’m not a neocon; I opposed all the wars in the Middle East. Canada famously opposed the war in Iraq. And I don’t have any Jewish characteristics except for obviously high intelligence.

Weeks later he wrote:

Once again, no specifics are given. Two days later he wrote:

More stupidity from pumpkin person: http://t.co/A7AMY3uvtv How many errors can you count here?

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) May 30, 2015

He declines to expose any errors.

Garry Kasparov is arguably the best chess player in the World, and he’s an Ashkenazi Jew. Assuming there are about 10 million Ashkenazi Jews in the world, normalizing the distribution of chess skill makes Kasparov 5.2 standard deviations above the mean chess skill of his ethnic group. Given the 0.35 correlation between IQ and chess skill, Kasparov’s IQ should be 0.35(+5.2 SD) = 1.82 SD above the Jewish mean.

Assuming Ashkenazi Jews have a mean IQ of 110 (SD = 15?), this would mean an IQ of 1.82(15) + 110 = 137. Of course given the very imperfect correlation, there would be a huge amount of uncertainty around this prediction. Also, the correlation was based on chess club participants and can’t necessarily be generalized to entire ethnic groups, many members of which don’t even play chess.

Nonetheless, Kasparov was actually given an IQ test by a German magazine and he scored 135…remarkably close to the figure predicted from simple linear regression.

In the Scientific American article that links to my blog, there’s a link to a study correlating chess skill with IQ. The correlation with general intelligence is 0.35 (see table 1), which is not a weak correlation, but not a strong one either.

When I was a kid I thought there should be an almost perfect correlation between chess and IQ, especially after my high school chemistry teacher defined intelligence as the ability to adapt: to take whatever situation you’re in and turn it around to you advantage. For chess is all about adapting to a changing board, and turning it to your advantage; maximizing strengths and minimizing weakness.

So why is the correlation not higher?

1) Practice: Malcom Gladwell popularized the idea that you need 10,000 hours of practice to be truly good at a complex mental task, and while that claim has largely been debunked, it applies more to chess than other fields because there are so many strategies that can be explicitly taught. Also, the tendency to practice chess to the exclusion of all else might be negatively correlated with IQ, since smarter people tend to have a wider range of interests and opportunities.

2) Chess is only one type of environment: A talent for chess might not correlate well with other situations where you must gain an advantage over a rival such as trial law or debate clubs.

3) IQ tests are not perfect measures of intelligence: I think chess measures a part of intelligence that IQ tests miss…and one of the most important parts. The ability to think strategically and the ability to make wise decisions; judgement.

I was delighted that the Scientific American article which links to my blog (in the part about Ted Cruz) has been picked up by Salon. Salon is a very very big deal. I am constantly seeing writers from Salon all over television, so being linked to by Salon is a great honor.

In a previous post, I had assumed Ashkenazi Jews had larger brains than white gentiles, given that they average 10 IQ points higher, and given that brain size has a direct causal effect on IQ.  But an HBD blogger named “n/a” has just showed us a source saying otherwise:

The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment
By Maurice Fishberg

One of the methods of determining the volume of the brain case, and approximately the weight of the brain, is the determination of the cranial capacity. Very few direct measurements of this kind have been taken, because only few Jewish skulls have found their way into anthropological museums, where they could be studied carefully. But from the few studies of this character that have been made, it appears that the Jews are somewhat at a disadvantage. Lombroso’s studies of the Jews in Turin, Italy, which were made in an indirect fashion, showed that the Jews have a smaller cranial capacity than the Catholics of that city.2 Weinberg collected measurements of seventeen Jewish skulls in various museums of Europe, which were made properly, and are not approximations. The average cranial capacity was 1421 c.cm., which is about thirty to forty c.cm. below the average cranial capacity of the population of Europe. Of course the small number of skulls thus measured is not sufficient to draw positive conclusions.

As to the weight of the brain, there are also very few observations on record. The author knows only of twentythree Jewish brains reported by Giltchenko,3 four by Weisbach,4 and three by Weinberg.5 The average weight of these brains, as calculated by Weinberg, was 1320.4 gm. Since the average weight of the brain of the European is 1350 gms., the brain of Jews is rather lighter by 30
gms. , or nearly one ounce. Considering that the Jews are shorter of stature than the average Europeans, it would be expected that their brain should also be smaller. But, as Weinberg points out, the average for Germans was found to be 8.22 gm. of brain tissue for each centimetre of stature, while for the Jews it is only 8.05 gms. This shows the Jewish brain lighter not only absolutely, but also relatively.

It seems strange that Ashkenazi Jews could have evolved such high IQ so quickly, yet not seen a rise in brain size given its direct independent causal effect on IQ.  Is this evidence that the high Jewish IQ is cultural, not biological?  On the other hand, as The New York Times reported, Ashkenazis do have certain genetic diseases indicative of high IQ, so perhaps that was enough?

Einstein was about 5.53 standard deviations (SDs) more academically successful than the average Ashkenazi Jew.  The correlation between IQ and academic success is 0.65, so based on simple linear regression, Einstein’s IQ was likely 0.65(5.53 SD) = 3.59 SD higher than the average Ashkenazi Jew.

On a scale where the average white has an IQ of 100 and SD of 15, Ashkenazi Jews likely have a mean IQ of 110.  We don’t know their SD so we’ll assume 15.  So if Einstein is 3.59 SD smarter than the average Ashkenazi, his IQ would be 3.59(15) + 110 = 164.

On the other hand, Einstein’s brain size was probably 1.93 SD smaller than the average Ashkenazi Jewish male of his era.  The within sex correlation between IQ and brain size is generally thought to be about 0.4, so based on simple linear regression, Einstein’s IQ should be 0.4(1.93 SD) = 0.77 SD lower than the average Ashkenazi Jew.  Thus based on brain size, his expected IQ would be 110 – 0.77(15) = 98.

So if academic success predicts an IQ of 164, but brain size predicts an IQ of 98, what is his IQ likely to be?  Averaging these two estimates would be extremely sloppy.  Instead, many years ago a Promethean advised me to use multiple regression.  This requires us to know not only how well each predicting variable (i.e. academic success, brain size) correlates with IQ, but also how well they correlate with one another.  Well assuming the correlation between brain size and academic success is mediated entirely by IQ, then the product of each variable’s correlation with IQ (0.65*0.4=0.26) tells us their correlation with each other, and from their we can calculate how well each variable predicts IQ independent of the other.

In this case, the standardized regression equation would be:

IQ Z score = 0.59(academic success Z score ) + 0.25(brain size Z score)

So plugging in the variables for Einstein

IQ Z score = 0.59(+3.59 ) + 0.25(-1.93)

IQ Z score = 2.12  – 0.48

IQ Z score = 1.64

In other words, Einstein’s IQ should be 1.64 SD above the Ashkenazi Jewish mean.

In other words:

Einstein’s IQ = 1.64(Ashkenazi SD) + Ashkenazi mean

Einstein’s IQ = 1.64(15) + 110

Einstein’s IQ = 135

Even though an IQ of 135 is extremely high, many people will claim it’s ridiculously low for Einstein and will hate me, and consider me an idiot for even entertaining the possibility that he is anything less than 160.  How dare I, a mere blogger, put a number on someone as brilliant as Einstein?  I don’t know what Einstein’s IQ was, but 135 would be the statistically expected IQ for an Ashkenazi Jew of his academic success and brain size, assuming I didn’t make any errors and assuming linear correlations through the full range.  The combination of academic success and brain size should be quite g loaded, yet perhaps it still gives a wildly wrong number in Einstein’s case.

On the other hand, scholar Arthur Jensen stated:

There are two famous scientific geniuses, both Nobelists in physics, whose childhood IQs are very well authenticated to have been in the mid-130s. They are on record and were tested by none other than Lewis Terman himself, in his search for subjects in his well-known study ofgifted children with IQs of 140 or above on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test.

Although these two boys were brought to Terman’s attention because they were mathematical prodigies, they failed by a few IQ points to meet the one and only criterion (IQ>139) for inclusion in Terman’s study. Although Terman was impressed by them, as a good scientist he had to exclude them from his sample of high-IQ kids. Yet none of the 1,500+ subjects in the study ever won a Nobel Prize or has a biography in the Encyclopedia Britannica as these two fellows did.

It should be noted that the Stanford-Binet back then was an age ratio scale, and thus gave increasingly generous IQs above 130.

Einstein was arguably the most academically successful person of the 20th century.  For example, Time magazine described him as the preeminent scientist in a century dominated by science. According to Stephen Pinker, 34 billion people lived some time during the 20th century.  If we normalize the distribution of academic success, Einstein was 6.53 SD more academically successful than the average human.

Assuming about 60 million Ashkenazi Jews lived during the 20th century, and Einstein was the most academically successful of them all, he was 5.53 SD more academically successful than even the average Ashkenazi Jew.

A reader asked me to estimate Einstein’s IQ, which I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  But first it’s important to note that his brain reportedly weighed 1230 g when he died.  However as scholar J.P. Rushton has explained, brain weight increases by 9% post-mortem so I will divide this figure by 1.09 to get the in-vivo weight which gives 1128 g. This sounds small but keep in mind he died at 76 and adult brain size averages 2 grams smaller each year of older age, which means had he died the same year but been 25 instead of 76, his brain would have been 1230 g which equates to 1274 cm³.

Rushton shows that Caucasian enlisted men in the U.S. army have a mean cranial capacity of 1468 (Standard Deviation (SD) = 91) however this data was from 1989, and because of better nutrition, cranial capacity has been increasing by 1.25 cm³  per year, so in 1955, the average Caucasian man should have had a brain size of 1426 cm^3,  so even adjusting for age and cohort, Einstein’s brain was 1.67 SD below average for a man.

Einstein was also Jewish.  The average brain size of Ashkenazi’s Jews does not appear to be known, but given that Ashkenazis average 0.66 SD better than white gentiles on IQ tests, and given that within sex brain size correlates about 0.4 with IQ, we might guess they average brains that are 0.66 SD(0.4) = 0.26 SD larger than white gentiles.  If so, that would make Einstein’s brain 1.93 SD smaller than the average Ashkenazi man of his age and cohort.  In other words the bottom 3% for his generation and ethnicity.

Given that Einstein is the poster boy for genius, this is a terrible symbolic blow to craniometry.  Because most people think anecdotally, not statistically, no matter how many studies report a positive correlation between IQ and brain size, people can always counter “but Einstein had a small brain.”

So I checked the stats section of my blog last night night and was puzzled by the sudden explosion in visitors. When I checked where all the new traffic was coming from I realized it was from this article about presidential IQs, which references my claim that Ted Cruz is the smartest presidential candidate.

I am honored that David Z. Hambrick of Scientific American linked to my blog. According to Swank’s Wikipedia, Albert Einstein (arguably the most influential man of the 20th century) wrote for Scientific American, and Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.

In this lecture, scholar J.P. Rushton talks about his genetic similarity theory:

The scariest part of the lecture is when Rushton imagines a person who goes around killing anyone who shares his genes.  Those genes would disappear.  Rushton is making the point that if killing people with your genes decreases fitness,  then helping people with your genes enhances fitness.

But the terrifying corollary of Rushton’s argument is that killing people with different genes must enhance your genetic fitness.  This is a powerful reminder that one should never equate evolutionary success with merit and worthiness.  In many ways evolution favors the most evil parts of our nature.

The Lion of the Blogosphere uses the term “beta male rage” which he explains as follows:

The overwhelmingly vast majority of violent crime is committed by thugs.

Beta-male rage is rare, but is on the rise. It happens when a lesser beta male, with no history of violence, criminal behavior or thuggishness, surprises everyone by committing a violent crime.

By a lesser beta male, we mean a male who has below-average success with women. Beta-male-rage crimes are never committed by men with girlfriends or wives.

It’s interesting that beta-male rage is committed by the nerdy kids, but most of the victims are the popular kids and the alpha male jocks.  In light of Rushton’s lecture, beta-male rage might be viewed as an evolutionary strategy.  Those who can’t replicate their genetic prevalence though sexual success, might instead end up increasing their genetic prevalence by decreasing the genetic prevalence of those with different genes (alphas).