I’ve seen several people write that Asians cannot possibly be smart because they haven’t invented enough, with Charles Murray’s Human Accomplishment being cited as proof.
There’s no doubt that white people invented more than anyone else, but the achievements of the cream of the crop don’t necessarily mean that the average person will be proportionally as talented.
Compare men and women, for example. Men clearly invented far more than women. Even when it comes to things women do more often, the great ones are almost ways men. (Think: cooking, clothes design, poetry.) This isn’t proof that men are much more intelligent than women. There may be a small gap of 3-5 points between white men and women, but there’s an even bigger gap in favor of women among blacks. Among all races, the IQ gap between sexes isn’t significant.
This is because the dysfunctionals tend to be overwhelmingly male. Men make up over 90% of the homeless, criminals, etc. Men just have a much wider IQ range than women.
Same for whites vs. Asians. Whites do have a slightly lower average IQ than Orientals, but due to a greater range, whites have a greater number of geniuses. Orientals, on the other hand, have very few dull people and almost no geniuses. Honestly, have you ever met any dumb Orientals? (When I say dumb, I don’t mean dumber than the average person working as an engineer or teacher or whatever else you do. I mean ghetto dumb, incapable of passing 9th grade.)
Self-described supremacists may clash with me on this. But really, what’s there to clash about? Who cares if their IQ is 4-5 points higher on average? For one, ours is also high. Two, because of a greater range, we invent more. Three, jealousy is the refuge of the failed, and we aren’t a failed people.
We are a highly successful people in inventions, sports, high culture. We have nothing to be jealous of. If Orientals score a little higher than us on IQ tests, I really couldn’t care less other than to be aware of facts as they are.
“Same for whites vs. Asians. Whites do have a slightly lower average IQ than Orientals, but due to a greater range, whites have a greater number of geniuses. Orientals, on the other hand, have very few dull people and almost no geniuses.”
Even though it’s true that Asians are smarter than Whites on average, I’ve been bugged with this particular question myself. Not out of pride either, but it’s just weird. If IQ determines success, why not innovative success?
- It’s just strange that Asians don’t invent more stuff, isn’t it? After reading Murray’s “Human Accomplishment” it becomes even more clearer how influential (mainly Italian-, German- and West-)Europeans have been. That’s despite their much lower numbers and smaller proportion of smarties.
- There’s many speculation on this, La Griffe thinks Whites are still smarter because of their high verbal IQ — higher than Asians. But even that doesn’t quite explain enough to me. Why is verbal IQ more important than other IQs? His second hint was lower variance among Asian IQs, but I believe this idea has been debunked on Steve Hsu’s blog “Infoproc”. http://infoproc.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/asian-white-iq-variance-from-pisa-results/
(Also, even the variance is smaller, but average IQ higher and the amount of people larger (over 1,5 billion), than how is it possible that the disbalance is still so large?)
- Nisbett believed that it was the ‘closed’ culture and group-mindedness of Asians. But I doubt that this is the smoking gun either. Why are Westernized Asians not inventing more stuff either? What’s holding them back? Beats me.
I don’t know what the heart of the matter is, but there are three options: 1) Asians underperform, 2) Whites overperform or 3) we’re overlooking something else. Otherwise, it’s a mystery. Agnostic once wrote about genius germs, maybe there’s something to that.
http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2006/02/genius-germs-preliminary-evidence-part_18.html
(Who knows? Europeans don’t seem terribly innovative these days. It’s nothing like two centuries ago.)
[GW: I responded to this here: http://guywhite.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/iq-and-inventiveness/]
I’ve argued that accomplishment involves verbal ability. Spatial ability isn’t as important.
Dear Mr GW,
Commenting on your last two paragraphs I just want to say that averages are used to compare nations or races, Geniuses are just the few that may be created by God for all the people in this world. Americans are descendants of imigrants from european ethnics they were a selected group of people having many supperior qualities including high IQ, courage , brave , initiative, innovative and many more, so no wonder. The afro americans were not volntary immigrants they were a group of people transplanted involuntarily from their original environments with no superior qualities and now causing aself created problem for the US Gov.
On the other hand the North East Asians (China, Korea and Japan) were also voluntary immigrants from nations /races with God given high average IQ levels, with also supperior individual qualities, no wonder many of them are now university professors. They are part of the succesfull people of America, no reason for jealosy Mr GW.
Actually it is becoming more and more common–the knowledge that White men cheat and steal more of their inventions, and are more likely to tout them as great accomplishments, even if the ideas are someone else’s.
Take the Karaoke machine. The Japanese man who invented it, did not do it for the money, or recognition. He just wanted people to have a good time.
And now take Thomas Edison. He never invented a single thing. He bought patents from people, or made them partners, or flat out stole the ideas from trusting souls, who he made promises to. Nikolas Tesla was a real inventor, a genius by all standards, and yet Edison, rather than admit being a lesser man, tried to destroy Tesla for being better than him.
So it stands to reason, how sly and cunning little runts use unfair business tactics to succeed in all areas, and thus tout themselves as innovators, strictly for the prestige, with no regard to the development of human society.
Oh, and there are super geniuses in China. Some of the highest IQ’s in recorded history were Chinese kids. But when they come to America to learn physics, the Edisons of America do whatever they can to destroy them.
I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. No more lies. Only truth will ever come from my mouth–as an enlightened man.
Oh yeah! It’s just really becomming more and more common. Well, it’s practically common knowledge that the evil white male never invented a single, solitary thing or, for that matter, didn’t contribute anything at all to advance the betterment of mankind. He was lurking, nay, waiting in ambush to malevolently hinder non-white geniuses clad in white lab coats, who are really the true inventors and innovators. Not whites. Whites only achieve greatness on the backs on non-whites. Why, even the moon landing was not the accomplishment of any one wo had white skin! Lies! The white man is just a big liar! He never accomplished anything but took credit for it all! It’s time to get the word out. We have to re-write all the history books to correctly give credit to all the non-white geniuses who accomplished so much to the advancement of mankind while the evil white race toook credit for all the achievements of non-whites. We have to do it, folks! EVEN THE KAROAKE MACHINE!!!
actually, we do have to re-write the history books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsien_Hsue-shen
nobody gives chinese people credit for helping our country do shit: “During this time, Colonel Qian worked on designing an intercontinental space plane. His work would inspire the X-20 Dyna-Soar, which itself would later influence the development of the American Space Shuttle.”
this guy died recently, but have you even heard about him? it’s an interesting story.
this dude:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_K._Kao
is the “Father of Fiber Optic Communications.”
a lot of oriental folk out there that i had no clue about. i think it’s in between: a lot of inventions by orientals have been more recent, but a small part of it is that we really don’t acknowledge any of it.
in my opinion, there is a much more interesting question: why do countries “explode” in creativity at certain times in history?
egypt. middle east. greece. rome.
think about the middle ages. then think about renaissance italy. the northern renaissance. and then the industrial age in england. the us and russia in the 20th century. japan in the late twentieth century.
western europe really “rose” at a certain time, during the renaissance. asia “rose” largely at the same time also, (south korea, taiwan, japan, but NOT CHINA).
because of ancient civilizations collapsing, “experts” predict it will happen to the US and they will be replaced by china and india.
i have a different theory. i think the smaller asian countries and the western european countries will mostly remain strong. but i don’t think china or india can “arrive” as quickly as people predict. however, i think brazil will be “rising” very soon.
it’s about the spirit of a group of people–the zeitgeist, which can propel a nation to do incredible things in my opinion.
brazil, i believe, might have that je ne sais quoi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jets
Jordan-
So what you’re saying is that Colonel Xian didn’t actually design anything that was ever built. But he still belongs in the history books? I’m just teasing you. No one is knocking asians or chinese. That wasn’t the point of this thread. Personally, I expect an increasingly larger share of future developments and innovations to come out of Asia.
I do not, however, share your optimism with respect to Brazil or India. Granted their growing very well right now. But their potential is more limited than China’s. According to figures from the book, “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” India’s, Brazil’s and China’s average IQ’s are 81, 87 and 100, respectively. There is only so much development a country with an average IQ of 81 or 87 can support. India and Brazil do have large populations. And therefore, even a modest average IQ will result in a reasonable number of higher IQ persons. And those people should do quite well for themselves. But the average person will not do that well because they simply won’t be able to perform in the more advanced fields.
The reason countries prosper & explode in creativity is because they have 1) political stability 2) economic freedom and 3) private property rights. Once those conditions are met a country will develop. That is why China did not develop along with the other Asian countries. They had political stability but they lacked economic freedom and private property rights.
The United States will slowly fade because we are importing too many people from low IQ 3rd world countries. Not only will this harm our competitiveness but it will likely lead to political instability which will in turn undermine economic freedom and private property rights. In other words, poor dummies will get jealous and demand goodies from rich nerds. That’s called “socialism” and it doesn’t work. Now, obviously the poor dummies won’t be smart or organized enough to pull it off. But there will be opportunistic demagogues who will recognize the class envy and exploit it.
not that it matters in my opinion, but i think brazil is majority white.
plus, think about IQ in italy in the year 1000. then the IQ in 1500 italy.
either IQ changed, or if it didn’t, something else clearly did.
jordan-
Slightly less than 50% of Brazilians consider themselves white. However, it’s my understanding that in South America many mixed persons consider themselves white. And you’re right that race doesn’t matter. It’s IQ that matters. Case in point. Hong Kong and Taiwan are populated by Chinese. But they have a higher average IQ than mainland Chinese due to the self-selection of those who colonized the islands.
In regards to Italy, I mentioned the relevant factors” Political Stability, Economic Freedom and Private Property Rights. Italy’s situation is almost the reverse of what I mentioned in my previous comment concerning China. Italy had economic freedom and private property rights but lacked political stability. The Renaissance took off when they managed to get all three.
I’m didn’t say anything about any “space shuttle”. I said the “moon landing”. Two different tecnologies.
Is it our fault that before just a few years ago, the Chinese school curriculum didn’t often include their people designing innovative technologies? And the Chinese press is just as bad. Do the Chinese even have the equivolent of a “Wickopedia” that they can consult? I could be wrong but isn’t Wickopedia a Western invention? So who’s providing the information about the good Colonel’s space plane to the masses? The West, that’s who. Getting that word out is their responsibility just as much as ours.
Or did the Colonel live here at the time? Guess I should have read your Wickopedia reference. I’ll do that.
I often read the claim that Asians are not creative, but I totally disagree. I think Asians are creative in a different type of way than Europreans. Look at the Japanese and S. Koreans. They create most of the electronics that we all use today. It’s sometimes argued that Asians only take existing technology and make it better. Well, doesn’t that require a certain level of inventiveness? After all, since when has building the better mousetrap not been considered a creative endeavor? It may be so that Europeans tend to have had the most visionary ideas, but I don’t think that anyone should discount Asians and their contributions to humanity.
fred,
i don’t know about italy’s history. i might be wrong, but i believe there were a lot of warring states in italy during the renaissance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars
so actually, maybe it is INSTABILITY rather than stability that engendered innovation?
http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Warfare-Renaissance-Europe-Technology/dp/0801855314/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1258069334&sr=8-1
check out this tank:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/images/tank_image1.jpg
could it be possible that during all this war, creative types, engineers and scientists could flourish because dukes understood their value and allowed them unfettered access to resources so that they could produce weapons and basically have a lot of free time to do whatever they wanted?
what about religion? churches had huge resources from their members. they could dole out to whichever architect could design the most bad-ass dome. since they were competing with other cities for the most bad-ass dome.
jordan-
I’m similarly no expert on the Italian Renaissance but I just read through the history on Wikipedia and it looks like it follows the principles I laid out. There were warring families. But I would say progress was made in spite of them and not because of them. Otherwise, we should all be warring all the time. Then we’ll be riding around in flying cars like the Jetsons.
I know the conventional wisdom is that WW2 ended the great depression and I won’t argue it. But I don’t share that view. And I’ll give you an example of why, if a vandal goes around breaking all the windows in town it might be great for a window repairman’s business. But there is no net gain. What’s the difference between that and just taking 20 bucks to not fix a window wasn’t broken in the first place?