My sibling comment understates the critique. There is no such thing as "average IQ". Countries don't IQ test representative samples of their population, so hucksters like Richard Lynn just make shit up and pull samples from mental institutions (where IQ tests are used, as they should be, as diagnostics).

This is a pretty simple and obvious observation. Have you ever been asked to take a proctored IQ test to help establish the "average IQ" of your own country? Presumably not. So why do people keep getting took by this silly idea that "average IQ per country" is a thing?

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cakealert 23 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Why the focus on Lynn?

Focusing on his critics is more illuminating and damaging to your presumed position:

Systematic review by Wicherts et al: "In light of all the available IQ data of over 37,000 African testtakers, only the use of unsystematic methods to exclude the vast majority of data could result in a mean IQ close to 70. On the basis of sound methods, the average IQ remains close to 80."

They of course follow it with the conjecture: "Although this mean IQ is clearly lower than 100, we view it as unsurprising in light of the potential of the Flynn effect in Africa (Wicherts, Borsboom, & Dolan, 2010) and common psychometric problems associated with the use of western IQ tests among Africans."

It's always curious how "common psychometric problems associated with the use of western IQ tests among Africans" don't carry over to economics and other things. Wouldn't you expect them to have similar problems with other western "ideas"? Also interesting how Easterners adapted to western IQ tests so well they are better at them than the West.

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tptacek 7 minutes ago | parent [-]

Part of the point of the Wicherts papers was to refute the Lynn data, observing that even taken on its own premises Lynn's team pretty clearly excluded data unfavorable to the conclusion they wanted to draw. But look at Wicherts 2009, at the samples they're talking about. One of the largest was 800 students in Nigerian high schools (a test arranged by IQ researchers to for a cross-cultural comparison, back in 1981). Lynn's data includes, and is materially influenced by, a sample of 59 Senagalese children who were tested while recovering from malaria. The malaria thing is just funny, but it's the numbers that stick out to me.

I'm not getting further into the details here because the easiest-to-understand point here is that there are not in fact programs to generate reliable "average IQ" numbers in different countries. I am struck by the fact that message board nerds from America believe these programs exist, when almost none of us have ever taken an IQ test.

	▲	cakealert 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The purpose of IQ tests is to derive a value that would predict other values. The inverse is also true. Given a multitude of such values it would even be possible to get back to a precise IQ value. IQ tests are just factor analysis artifacts. You can dream up 100 questions that you conjecture may have something to do with intelligence and not even know the answers and have 10,000 people answer them. Product of the factor analysis of the answers will yield a bell curve which you can then center on 100. Calibration can be more complicated than that but you get the point.

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asdiovjdfi 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Possible conscripts are usually IQ tested in some way. If you have national consciption, then it would be a pretty good sample of the 18 year old male population.

	▲	tptacek 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Some armed forces administer general cognitive tests (like the US does with the ASVAB --- of course, not a random sample in the US, since we don't conscript) but most of these are not in fact IQ tests. Additionally, some western countries have done cross-sectional IQ tests for scientific reasons. In most countries, neither applies. Richard Lynn, responsible for the most widely known and cited "national IQ score" numbers, really did rely on mental health hospitals, and really did impute made-up scores to countries where he found literally no data at all. What you do see are attempts to synthesize IQ from aggregate economic and educational attainment data. But obviously these are really just proxies for economic development, which then begs the question.