Imagine you had a random sample of 16 white men with the following heights measured without shoes on:

Todd: 75 inches
Dave: 74 inches
Bill: 72 inches
Tim: 72 inches
Ted: 71 inches
Mike: 70 inches
Joe: 70 inches
Ed: 70 inches
Rick: 70 inches
Henry:68 inches
Ian: 68 inches
Andy: 68 inches
Don: 68 inches
Steve:67 inches
Eric: 67 inches

The average raw height of these men is about 70 inches and the standard deviation is about 2.4 inches. Now if we wanted to express these heights on the same scale as IQ, where the white mean is set at 100 and the white standard deviation is set at 15, instead of calling it IQ (Intelligence Quotient) we would call it HQ (Height Quotient). In order to convert the heights to HQ, we would use the following formula:

HQ = [(Height – 70 inches)/2.4](15) + 100

When this is done, the men have the following HQs:

Todd: 131
Dave: 125
Bill: 113
Tim: 113
Ted: 106
Mike: 100
Joe: 100
Ed: 100
Rick: 100
Henry:88
Ian: 88
Andy: 88
Don: 88
Steve:81
Eric: 81

We would call the HQs listed above fluid HQs, because they were taken without shoes and thus measured the raw physical height, uncontaminated by the socioeconomic opportunity to buy better shoes.

Now imagine we asked all the men to put their shoes on and found the following heights measured with shoes:

Todd: 77 inches
Dave: 76 inches
Bill: 74 inches
Tim: 74 inches
Ted: 72 inches
Mike: 71 inches
Joe: 71 inches
Ed: 71 inches
Rick: 71 inches
Henry:68 inches
Ian: 68 inches
Andy: 68 inches
Don: 68 inches
Steve:67 inches
Eric: 67 inches

Now the mean height has risen from about 70 inches to about 71 inches, and the standard deviation has risen from about 2.4 inches to about 3.13 inches. So the shoes have not only increased the average height of the men, but increased the differences between them. Why? Because the short men were unable to find employment, and thus couldn’t afford to buy shoes at all. This is analogous to how people with low fluid IQ are denied access to more education to prop up their crystallized IQ.

By contrast, the men who were at least 70 inches tall could afford to buy shoes which increased their height one inch, and the men who were at least 72 inches tall could afford to buy shoes that increased their height by two inches. This is analogous to how people with high natural IQs get full academic scholarships, and thus can afford graduate school with greatly increases their crystallized IQ.

So let’s call HQ measured with shoes on (if you even have shoes), crystallized HQ, because it reflects both the raw biological trait, and the cultural perks that trait allows you to acquire (in this case of HQ, shoes. In the case of IQ, schooling). In order to calculate the crystallized HQs that are also scaled to have a mean and SD of 100 and 15 respectively, we invoke the same formula used above, except we amend it to reflect the new distribution of heights:

HQ = [(Height – 71 inches)/3.13](15) + 100

With the above formula, the men in whatever shoes they have, get the following crystallized HQs:

Todd: 129
Dave: 124
Bill: 114
Tim: 114
Ted: 105
Mike: 100
Joe: 100
Ed: 100
Rick: 100
Henry:86
Ian: 86
Andy: 86
Don: 86
Steve:81
Eric: 81

Notice how the HQs of the men calculated with whatever shoes they have, are virtually identical to their HQs measured without shoes on. So even though an environmental intervention (buying shoes) greatly increased the absolute difference in height between men, measured in inches, it did nothing to increase the relative difference between men, measured in HQs, which by definition have a standard deviation of 15.

Analogously, even though factors like education, parenting, studying, etc, greatly increase performance on crystallized IQ tests like vocabulary and the SAT, they have little effect on the relative difference between people, as measured by the IQ scale. This is why both HBD extremists and extreme HBD deniers can both be right simultaneously; because culture has large effects on absolute differences while biology determines relative differences.

It’s only when you get environmental effects that are uncorrelated with individual differences in biology (i.e. 20th century increase in schooling partly responsible for the Flynn effect), that the effect of culture becomes unmasked.

Ottawa is the most educated, powerful, and technological city, in the smartest country, in the most powerful continent, on the face of the planet. Ottawa is the capital of Canada! The home of the prime minister, and members of parliament and all their high IQ employees and family members.

And because of the more sophisticated political discourse that occurs in Canada, thanks in part to the parliamentary system, the diminished role of money in politics, and classy media like CBC radio, Canada’s political class appears to be significantly more intelligent than America’s. For example U.S. elites supported the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, as did countries as powerful as Britain and Israel, but Canada’s big brained prime minister Jean Chrétien had the good judgement to oppose it, before it began, and he did so in gorgeous Ottawa.

The average U.S. president probably has an IQ of about 130 (higher than 98% of whites). The only Canadian prime minister whose IQ I’m aware of is Kim Campbell who reportedly scored a stratospheric 154. Assuming that’s a deviation IQ, it would make her almost certainly smarter than any president in American history, but even that might be an underestimate because the test wasn’t hard enough to find her ceiling. “I’ve never seen anyone who could absorb so much,” her shocked teacher recalled.

Not only is Ottawa flowing with the greatest minds in politics and public policy, and all their high IQ families, but Ottawa is overflowing with high tech talent. Nicknamed the silicon valley of the North, Ottawa has a jaw dropping 1,700 high tech companies. An astonishing figure for city with not even a million residents.

So not only does Ottawa have the greatest political minds in North America, but it combines that with high tech genius, and on top of that, it’s a bilingual city where folks switch from English to French without missing a beat. There might be more brain power per capita in Ottawa than any other city in North America, not to mention all of Europe, the middle-east, South Asia, and Africa. You have the best and brightest people from all over the World flocking to this beautiful city in droves.

There’s just a level of sophistication and class that occurs in Ottawa that you simply can’t find anywhere else.

When I was in my senior years of high school (I’m now in my 30s) I had administered a very long IQ test to a friend. I did it for old’s time’s sake, as we hadn’t been friends since we were 13, when we had a falling out over a prank I played.

Almost immediately after testing him, he suggested I test his mother, who, like me, had also been largely out of his life until about that time. I was reluctant; did his mother really want to be tested by some teenager? But my friend insisted, and since I was always looking for new test subjects, I allowed him to introduce to me her. She did extremely well on the tests which was not especially surprising since it was likely from her education (a PhD in math) that she was highly intelligent. Just the fact that she lived in Ottawa, the most educated and powerful city in the most educated country in the World’s most powerful continent, was evidence of superior genetic stock. She was also the first person I had ever met who was able to define the hardest word on the vocabulary subtest I administered.

But what really impressed me was the discussion about intelligence we had later, when I asked her how she would define intelligence. She pondered the question for a few seconds and said “I would define intelligence as the ability to synthesize information usefully.”

I was speechless. Out of all the definitions of intelligence I had read or heard, none had ever been so succinct, and you could tell she had just made it up on the spot.

I went on to tell her my high school chemistry teacher’s definition. The mental ability to adapt: to take whatever situation you’re in and turn it around to your advantage.

“I think we’re both saying the same thing,” she replied. I was stunned at her level of comprehension…that she could so immediately see that the two definitions were identical, despite their superficial differences.

My friend thought his mother was very bright, but he thought his father, who was a great physicist, was ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. He would constantly gush about how brilliant his father and it was creating great tension in our friendship.

Thus it was with great satisfaction that I watched my friend’s mother say to him “I’m smarter than your father.”

To my friend this was blasphemy. His father was everything to him. He absolutely hero worshiped him.

But his mother got in his face…this tiny 90 lb woman just wouldn’t back down: “I’m smarter than your father. I have the higher IQ. I’m more intelligent!”

I said nothing as I watched, but inside I was cheering. Finally someone has stood up to his childish hero worship.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Sadly, I no longer see this woman because he son and I drifted apart again…this time over a prank I played at age 23.

Then one day I was shopping for some groceries and I looked up at the cashier, and there she was, beaming with enthusiasm over her new job:

I thought it would be fun to try to write a post while drunk out of mind. My colleagues and I believe in working hard and playing hard, so after an incredibly productive week at work, it was time to get trashed, and so the designated driver parked his car at parliament hill and a bunch of us went bar hopping. I just wanted to get started, but one of my colleagues kept insisting that each bar we entered was too low class, and we needed to find somewhere better, even though the patrons in all the bars in that area were dominated by impeccably well dressed white collar professionals such as government policy analysts, lawyers, and high tech types, all of whom lived in the most educated city in the most educated country of the World’s most powerful continent. My social IQ is not high enough to distinguish between very high class and super high class, so I relied on my colleague’s judgement.

Once we found somewhere he approved of, I ordered two long island ice teas which came to $13.95. I gave the bartender $20 and asked for $2 change. He thanked me so profusely that I feared I tipped too much, so the next time, I ordered two long island ice teas, I asked for $3 change. This time he thanked me not at all. So the third time I ordered two long island ice teas, I was back to asking for only $2 change.

I then started working the jukebox and an extremely attractive young woman started looking at me nervously, like she feared I was going to put on hip hop or something. Instead I put on 1973 by James Blunt.

Followed by Last Friday Night, by Katy Perry:

Followed by Telling Stories by the fabulous Tracy Chapman:

Followed by a song that extremely few people are smart enough to understand: ummm ummm ummm

Followed by Hotel California

When I put on Hotel California several well heeled couples got up to slow dance. My fiance wasn’t there so I had no one to dance with. It irritated me that these couples were enjoying the song I paid for more than I was.

Lastly, I put on the theme song of my life. The elegant My Way by Frank Sinatra:

There is a recent article in The Telegraph linking high childhood IQ to bipolar disorder in young adulthood. The finding is based on a massive study of 1,881 people, and replicates an earlier study showing that among 700,000 Swedish teenagers, those with high grades had nearly four times the risk of adult bipolar disorder as those with average grades, and their increased risk persisted even when controlling for the education and socioeconomic background of their parents. The link was highest for subjects emphasizing verbal and musical abilities, and weaker for math and science.

Daniel Smith, who led the more recent study, is quoted as saying:

There is something about the genetics underlying the disorder that are advantageous.
One possibility is that serious disorders of mood – such as bipolar disorder – are the price that human beings have had to pay for more adaptive traits such as intelligence, creativity and verbal proficiency.

This new research may explain a lot. For example, if intelligence can be defined as the cognitive ability to adapt: to take whatever situation you’re in and turn it around to your advantage, I’ve always wondered how some ridiculously brilliant people can achieve so little wealth an power. But if high IQ folks are more likely to be burdened with a huge emotional problem like bipolar disorder to adapt to, their lack of conventional success is easier to understand.

It’s also evidence for something I would call organic giftedness. One has often heard the term organic retardation to describe people with Downs Syndrome and other genetic mutations that are not part of the normal polygenetic variation in IQ, and thus create a surplus of people with IQs below 50; far more than the normal curve (which is based on biologically normal people) would predict.

Organic retardates are contrasted with familial retardates who can have equally low IQ, but their low IQs are related to normal genetic variation, not any kind of disorder, and thus they physically and behaviorally blend into society; some are even called six hour retardates, because their problems are confined to do the abstract reasoning of school, but they can be perfectly functional when school lets out.

Perhaps a similar organic vs familial dichotomy might apply among the gifted. We might have the organic gifted, whose high IQ is caused by some harmful genetic mutation, and thus are afflicted with burdens like bipolar disorder, and the familial gifted, whose high IQ is just caused by biologically normal polygenetic variation.

This might also explain the popular idea that there is an optimum IQ, usually thought to be anywhere from 125-150, where those above IQ 150 are disproportionately likely to be failures. Indeed a member of Prometheus told me that up to half of all people he knew with IQs above 150 grew up to be what society would consider losers, working in very low status jobs or living off welfare, but those with IQs of 130-140 were almost always successful.

Of course I’ve never seen any scientific evidence to prove this theory, but very few studies have the sample size, or the incredibly high ceiling tests, to meaningfully study folks with adult IQs above 150. The Promethean felt not even the older much harder SAT, which has a ceiling of IQ 170, was actually measuring IQ above 140 because the questions weren’t hard enough.

Most people who believe in the optimum IQ theory (and I’m extremely skeptical of non-linear IQ theories), explain it in terms of high IQ causing social isolation and values and priorities that conflict with what society defines as success. However a more interesting possibility is that IQs above 150 are so rare on the normal curve, that many people who are that brilliant are actually genetic mutants, and it’s the side-effect of their genetic mutations (i.e. bipolar disorder and who knows what else) that is causing their problems, and not the high IQ itself.

The mutation theory would also explain the fact that far more people score above IQ 150 than the normal curve would predict, especially on the older chronological age ratio IQs that were not forced to fit a bell curve the way modern deviation IQs largely are.

On the other hand, I know of no physical abnormality linked to high IQ the way unique physical characteristics in Down syndrome and Williams syndrome are linked to low IQ. I know of no chromosomal abnormalities linked to high IQ the was trisomy 21, Fragile X syndrome, and Turner syndrome are linked to cognitive impairments. As commenter Swank is always saying, intelligence is extremely complex, so genetic mutations are more likely to harm it than improve it.

However while massive genetic abnormalities like having an extra chromosome seem to dramatically lower IQ and create a very different physical appearance, it seems there might be many weaker mutations, that enhance IQ to some degree, and do damage to sensitive traits like personality, yet leave the body and face largely unscathed. Indeed we’ve had people on this blog who claim to have incredibly high test scores, yet don’t seem all that mentally stable. 🙂

I just watched the documentary Apocalypse Neanderthal which explores the extinction of the Neanderthals.  Although Steve Hsu estimated that Neanderthals had an IQ around 70, this documentary argued that they were just as intelligent as modern humans, or just as intelligent as modern humans were at the time we coexisted with Neanderthals.

It’s unclear whether modern humans living 40,000 years ago were smarter or dumber than we are today.  Indeed a scientist in the documentary mentions that it took him a year and a half to learn to make the stone tools Neanderthals made all the time.  Neanderthals were also praised for inventing the first adhesive, a kind of prehistoric crazy glue used to attach blades to their spears.

From an HBD perspective, it makes sense that they would have been smart because they were exposed to the ice age far longer than modern humans were, and their brain size exceeded that of people today, though that’s partly because of their robust body builds.  Their brains were especially larger in the occipital region involving visual processing.  This makes sense because even today, cold adapted people such as East Asians do especially better on spatial tasks than whites who do especially better than blacks.  Probably because cold climates required the spatial ability to hunt, build tools, shelter and clothing, and this also explains why men have better spatial ability than women.

Scientists in the documentary were puzzled by how the Neanderthals could have gone extinct despite being cognitively and socially equally to moderns, and physically superior.  Though I question whether they were physically superior.  Neanderthals were incredibly strong and barrel chested,  but modern humans were taller and skinnier which appears to be a more evolved body type because it’s more efficient, and allows you to move faster, jump higher, endure longer, and reach further in combat, despite being less metabolically expensive.

Ultimately the documentary concluded that Neanderthals died out not because of genocide, but because they were too specialized to Europe, unlike modern humans who thrived in multiple continents.  So when Europe’s biggest volcano of the last 200,000 years erupted 39,000 years ago, it whipped out virtually all Neanderthals.

However the documentary reminded us not to feel superior because although Neanderthals went extinct, they last 300,000 years which is 100,000 years longer than our species has yet lasted, and warned that another apocalyptic volcano is expected to absolutely decimate North America.

I’m extremely impressed with the new generation of black activists.  Unlike the black activists of the baby boomer era who mindlessly supported the Democrats, this younger generation is holding Democrats accountable and demanding a return on their 90% investment in the party.  This is partly because the internet is making people more politically aware, but it might also be because better prenatal nutrition over the last several decades has increased the brain size and neurological development of the younger generation, giving them the cognitive ability to question propaganda.

And it’s great to see some hard-core full-blooded blacks standing up for their ethnic genetic interests, instead of always letting the light skinned blacks own the leadership.  It was great to see a hard-core black looking black aggressively confront a liberal white woman as privileged as Hillary.

I suspect Hillary was trying very hard to contain her anger.  As the most worshipped woman in America and a liberal to boot, Hillary is used to being treated like a Queen.  She’s not used to being questioned by anyone, let alone regular people; let alone regular black people who are supposed to be so grateful for the decades of liberal activism of Hillary and her husband.

But these hard-core blacks are not grateful, because they’re smart enough to know that her husband’s presidency put more folks in jail than any president before him, and a huge percent of them were black.  Not only that, but in what many saw as a ruthless political ploy, President Clinton executed a black man so mentally disabled, he saved his pie to eat after the execution.

Despite such behavior, President Clinton was a master manipulator whose social IQ was so high, black people absolutely worshipped him, and by extension his wife, and the only African American to win a Nobel Prize in literature crowned him America’s first black president.

But thanks in part to prenatal nutrition increasing brain size, the younger generation of blacks is smart enough to see through the nonsense, and unlike her husband, Hillary doesn’t have the social IQ to charm her way out of it.

Recently a commenter who goes by the name “Cale” had some HBD related questions. Cale is from France so his English knowledge is not advanced, but amazingly, he still manages to come across as brilliant through the sheer substance of his ideas and his ability to remember, comprehend and synthesize all the theories I discuss, despite the fact that we speak different languages. So I’m going to try to answer all his questions, but unfortunately, most of his questions have no known answers.

Question 1: Who have in the absolute the highest verbal IQ between Europeans and Orientals ?

This is an extremely hard question to answer because of the difficulty of comparing verbal ability between people who speak different languages. But research on Japanese kids has found that they score lower than U.S. whites on verbal tests until age nine or ten, and from then on score the same. However scholar Richard Lynn believes that they never truly catch up, but that their scores are artificially inflated by superior schooling which verbal tests are especially amenable to.

Question 2: Do you have the detail of verbal and spatial score by race ? (What I mean is the spatial IQ and the verbal IQ of each races)

No. Most of the international research on racial differences in IQ uses the Raven Progress Matrices test which was not intended to measure verbal or spatial ability but rather pure unadulterated abstract reasoning, which Charles Spearman considered to be the essence of g (general intelligence). There’s some verbal and spatial data on racial groups living in the West, but these are often of hyper-selected immigrants who often suffer from sub-optimum nutrition and language barriers in the first generations.

Question 3: Do you think its possible that average White or Asian IQ could have been in the 130 range if ice age last longer ?

No, I don’t. I think just as humans eventually got too smart to find the tropics cognitively demanding, we would have eventually got too smart to find the ice age cognitively demanding and selection would have finally relaxed there too.

Question 4: What is, in your opinion (or based on facts if you have them) the racial hierarchy in social IQ ? (I know that Blacks have a relatively high social IQ but what about them in the absolute?)

This is incredibly hard to answer because there are so few tests of social cognition, and the few that exist are used mostly to diagnose autism and thus are way too easy for neurotypicals. Scholar J.P. Rushton argued that blacks are more sexual than whites who are more sexual than East Asians, so based on that, I proposed that blacks should have high social IQs and East Asians should have low social IQs, at least after controlling for g, however my theory took a hit when I learned that on the WISC-R IQ test, blacks obtained their second lowest score on the Comprehension subtest, which has traditionally been regarded as a proxy for social judgement. On the other hand, the Comprehension subtest requires you to give the rationale for social norms imposed by the dominant culture, and many blacks reject those.

If I had to guess I would say blacks are equal to whites on what I would call dynamic social cognition (rapidly reading and adapting to body language, voice tones, and facial expressions in real time face to face interactions), but lower on theoretical social cognition (understanding the complex motives of others and predicting their behavior), but controlling for g, they would be superior to whites on dynamic social IQ. However I’m just speculating; I know of no research on the existence of this dichotomy, let alone racial differences therein.

Question 5: Who is the smartest man in the world in your opinion ?

I would guess the smartest man in the World is some East Asian American quietly working away as a scientist or mathematician, and the smartest woman in the World is some incredibly fast talking East Asian woman who can solve a Rubik’s cube with lightening speed, and is possibly living in Hong Kong, perhaps as the well dressed wife of some rich entrepreneur.

Question 6: Who is the smartest Black man in the world in your opinion ?

Probably someone very similar to President Obama (but with a much, much bigger head); that is to say some tall skinny well educated hybridized second generation East African immigrant to a Western country, with a very calm, rational, mature demeanor.