I now have data on 12 people who have taken both my crossword puzzle and a well normed verbal intelligence test (SAT verbal, Wechsler verbal index, WAIS-IV Information, WAIS-IV Similarities). Nine of these people are self-reported scores from readers and three are from family members I personally witnessed taking both the crossword and a verbal test. The Pearson r correlation between the crossword scores and the verbal intelligence test scores is an astonishing 0.86 confirming once again that vocabulary is a powerful test of IQ.

When all the verbal test scores are converted to the Wechsler IQ scale (U.S. mean = 100; SD = 15) and plotted along the Y axis, and crossword scores (out of 17) are plotted on the X axis, we get a remarkably linear relationship.

Source: https://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/linear2/

The sample has a mean verbal IQ equivalent of 126 (SD 13.8) and a mean crossword score of 11 (SD 4.4). From here we can make some rough equivalencies:

0 = verbal IQ 92

1 = verbal IQ 95

2= verbal IQ 98

3 = verbal IQ 101

4 = verbal IQ 104

5 = verbal IQ 108

6 = verbal IQ 111

7 = verbal IQ 114

8 = verbal IQ 117

9 = verbal IQ 120

10 = verbal IQ 123

11 = verbal IQ 126

12 = verbal IQ 129

13 = verbal IQ 132

14 = verbal IQ 135

15 = verbal IQ 139

16 = verbal IQ 142

17= verbal IQ 145

Because all the words in the crossword were selected at random and thus have a true zero point (retrieving none of the words in the sample), we can say some interesting things about the distribution of receptive vocabulary. Someone with a verbal IQ of 111 (average U.S. university graduate) has roughly twice the receptive vocabulary of the average American.

Someone with a verbal IQ of 120 (average person with advanced degree) has roughly triple the receptive vocabulary of the average American. These large gaps help explain why society is so stratified along educational and occupational lines.

These norms probably work best for people just under 40. Those above 40 may deserve a bonus of perhaps 1 IQ point a decade since retrieval ability declines with older age.

I created a very special crossword puzzle. In order to take it you must register by giving a first and last name but you don’t have to use your real name or even the pseudo-name we know you by, but whatever name you choose, please write it down somewhere safe so you’ll remember it for next time I post one of these tests which will likely be very soon.

By using the same name every time you take a test, not only can you build a diagnostically informative cognitive profile, but you allow me to calculate how well my tests intercorrelate.

So what makes this crossword puzzle so special? I created it by selecting 17 words completely randomly from the English language. The crossword clue for each word was simply each word’s definition from the most authoritative dictionary.

Because the words were completely chosen at random and thus are a representative sample of all English words, a perfect score means you can retrieve close to 100% of the English language from seeing just the definitions and a 0 score means you can retrieve close to zero percent.

Further, because this test has a true zero point, someone who scores 4 out of 17 has arguably twice the receptive vocabulary as someone who scored 2 who has twice the receptive vocabulary as someone who scored 1. This is rare chance to study the true distribution of cognition on an absolute scale.

I’ve been a huge fan of this woman since she LOUDLY OPPOSED the Afghanistan War BEFORE IT BEGAN. Not only do I support her dovish foreign policy, but I agree with her support for unions. This may come as surprise for a free market capitalist, but if employers can organize and form a unified negotiating block (which is what a corporation is) logic dictates that workers can do the same. To suggest otherwise promotes supply/demand asymmetry which violates the free market.

And even though I believe the U.S. black-white IQ gap is at least 100% genetic, I support Marianne’s call for slavery reparations. Being smarter than another race does not give you the moral right to enslave them, and if Germans gave reparations to Jews over the Holocaust, why shouldn’t America give reparations to the descendants of American slaves? However one could argue that reparations have largely already been paid in the form of affirmative action and other social programs, so we would need a team of economists to do the math. However I believe that even if white Americans gave 100% of their wealth to black Americans, within a few generations, whites would once again be richer because HBD.

I strongly disagree with Marianne on a wealth tax for people worth over $50 million, not because I think the rich deserve all the money they have, but rather because once you own something, you should not have to pay taxes on it. This also applies to property tax which I also oppose.

The way to get the rich to pay their fair share is to tax capital gains and inherited wealth the same way you tax earned income and to strengthen unions so that corporations can’t get so rich in the first place.

Despite being Negroid in skin color, even the blackest Indians are often 100% Caucasoid in facial structure and hair texture

Popular stereoypes, as well as psychometric and historical data, had left me with the impression that South Asians were more intelligent than sub-Saharans. For starters, South Asians had left Africa. had created an arguably independent civilization and were part of the Caucasoid race. In addition, immigrants from India are overachievers in North America.

So imagine my surprise when I started noticing that Indians appear to have smaller brains than sub-Saharans. At first I didn’t notice this because HBDers like Rushton and Lynn would lump South Asians in with Caucasoids or Middle Easterners respectively, or just ignore them completely.

However an excellent data-set analyzed by Rushton showed that North Indian and South Indian men averaged 1305 cm³ and 1237 cm³ respectively. Splitting the difference, this suggests an Indian man mean of 1271 cm³. By contrast, West African men averaged 1339 cm³!

Of course given the extreme levels of malnutrition in 20th century India, the brain sizes are likely well below their genetic potential, however the same might be said for sub-Saharans.

Invoking notions of evolutionary progress, Rushton argued that sub-Saharans were the least advanced race because humans evolved in Africa, with non-African Sapiens emerging later in evolution. If so we’d expect Indians, who are arguably Caucasoid, to have bigger brains than sub-Saharans, but the opposite is the case. Was this another flaw in Rushton’s theory or could the paradox be solved?

Body Size

When I was in high school, an extremely muscular Indian classmate was dismayed that everyone thought he was black. I explained to him that it was because his physique fit the stereotype of black explosive strength and not the nerdy Indian stereotype the school had come to embrace.

Indeed, despite living in the developed World, a New Zealand study found Indian men were a colossal 1.94 standard deviations (SDs) smaller than White men as measured by fat-free body weight. To put that in perspective, the height gap was 1.16 SD and the overall weight gap was only 0.48 SD.

Source: Rush, E. C., Freitas, I., & Plank, L. D. (2009). Body size, body composition and fat distribution: comparative analysis of European, Maori, Pacific Island and Asian Indian adults. British Journal of Nutrition, 102(04), 632. doi:10.1017/s0007114508207221

Meanwhile, another study found black American men are 0.13 standard deviations heavier on lean mass than are white American men, but because black Americans are only about 75% sub-Saharan genetically, we should probably correct this figure for white admixture (0.13 SD/0.75) which increases it to 0.17 SD.

Source: Lean mass, muscle strength, and physical function in a diverse population of men: a population-based cross-sectional study by Andre Araujo et al .

Although fat-free mass (FFM) and lean mass (LM) are not quite the same thing and were not measured the same way in both studies, and although neither study directly compared blacks to Indians, by adding the Indian-white gap in FFM (1.94 SD) to the black-white gap in LM (0.17 SD), we should get at least a rough proxy of the Indian-black gap on measures of intrinsic size and that gap is 2.11 SD.

Now at least among soldiers of the same rank, the correlation (within race and sex) between cranial capacity and weight is 0.41 (Rushton 1992). Assuming the same within race correlation between cranial capacity and intrinsic weight (solders have low fat) among men in the civilian population, then a 2.11 SD gap in intrinsic weight predicts a 0.41(2.11 SD) = 0.87 SD gap in brain size. Since the within race SD for men’s cranial capacity is about 91 cm³, at least among enlisted soldiers (Rushton, 1992; inferred from standard error) then this predicts a brain size gap of 0.87(91 cm³) = 79 cm³.

In other words, if the average man in India (brain size = 1271 cm³ ) had as much intrinsic mass as the average West African man (brain size = 1339 cm³) his brain would increase by 79 cm³, making it 1350 cm³.

Paradox resolved!

The following interview with UFO whistle blower David Grusch is really interesting:

But is he telling the truth? Is the U.S. really in possession of air travel vehicles created by non-human intelligence?

But if so why are we only finding out about it now? The U.S. government has been supposedly covering up UFOs since the 1940s so why only now are mainstream sources like the New York Times taking it seriously? Could it be because powerful people are desperate to distract us from the Epstein case and the only conspiracy theory big enough to do so is UFOs?

But let’s suppose a non-human intelligence really has made contact. Is it more likely that these are aliens, or as Dr. Michael P. Masters has proposed, they are our descendants traveling back in time to visit us? What’s more likely: That in the future our lineage evolves into time travelers that come back and visit us, or that a humanoid creature independently evolved on another planet and master space travel advanced enough to visit us?

If it’s the latter, this validates the views of Rushton because 1) If humanoid creatures evolved independently on at least one other planet, it shows evolution is arguably progressive, 2) assuming the popular grey alien image is correct, super intelligent life resembles Orientals, who Rushton deemed superior, and 3) if America had access to UFO technology since the 1940s, it explains why East Asians, fell behind technologically, despite being superior.

I think I’m the first person on the planet to have noticed that Jason from the Friday the 13th movies and Donald Trump have virtually the same birthday. Jason was born June 13, 1946 and Trump was born June 14, 1946. Indeed if Jason was born right before midnight, and Trump was born right after midnight, they could be twins born from the same pregnancy.

Perhaps in the next Friday the 13th movie, Jason could be Trump’s Vice President as he returns to the White House, but when a jury sends Trump to jail, Jason takes over as President and decides to nuke everyone since all he knows how to do is kill.

One of the best writers of all time, the great Cormac McCarthy passed away last night at the age of 89. Known for verbally painting a dystopian image of the American landscape, he saved almost all his words for the page, and granted virtually no interviews. A rare exception came when he gave his very first interview to Oprah in 2007.

The interview was a huge coup for Oprah, especially after literary snob Jonathan Franzen had publicly worried that her book club was too feminine, schmaltzy and middlebrow. So to have such a prestigious male writer accept the book club with pride, made Franzen look like a total poser. And even better, The Road, with its male leading characters and apocalyptic story bereft of hope and inspiration was a decidely off-brand pick for Oprah; the opposite of a stereotypical Oprah book, a way of telling the World, her club can not be pigeon-holed.

But getting the famously reclusive author to agree to an interview would be no easy task. Knowing his first impulse would be to say “no” Oprah instructed him to not answer right away. “I’ll call you back in 24 hours”. Oprah knew that in those 24 hours, other people would clue him in to what a huge opportunity it was and how crazy he’d be to turn her down. More specifically, there had been people like McCarthy’s publisher who had sacrificed for him for years and selling a lot of books on Oprah was a rare chance to pay the publisher back.

So when Oprah phoned back, McCarthy said yes. Far too shrewd to risk letting him change his mind, the second Oprah got the green light she flew to the research institute where McCarthy liked to hang around and filmed the interview right then and there.