[flagged]

This paper and line of research is famously garbage. It's based both on Richard Lynn's fraudulent numbers (I have a hobby-horse on HN, and it is pointing out that no country-by-country study of "national IQ" has ever been performed --- in this one case, we'll leave "how then did Lynn come to claim that data existed?" as a question for the reader, but it's got some fun answers) and on a handwavy claimed correlation between GDP and IQ (the Koreans would like a word).

Nonetheless, once a clever-sounding claim like this hits the message board ecosystem, you never hear the end of it, and it's a favorite argument among a certain cohort of motivated Internet commenter.

>http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2005.04.002

>correlational study

Without trying to adjust for confounders, this study makes as much sense as "heat is bad for GDP".

That doesn't pass the sniff test. Ramanujan had loads of melanin. And I could go on.