I think 'bad methodology' is an uncharitable way of characterizing it. It's a difficult empirical problem and Lynn went to great lengths to make reasonable estimates anyway. I don't think that's cause for opprobrium. As a comparison, would you make the same criticisms of climate science? I think the data on which they base their models is even noisier. I have much more faith in Lynn's African IQ estimates than I do in any prediction of global temperatures for 2100.
> I don’t want to get into the ‘Richard Lynn was racist, funded by eugenicists and that coloured the quality of his research into Negroid IQ’ argument here.
For those who don't know what Lizzard is referring to, let me quote my comments on Scott's post.
>He was the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, a white supremacist journal that was founded by people like:
[...] Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer who was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of anthropology human heredity and eugenics in Nazi Germany. He was a member of the Nazi Party and the mentor of Josef Mengele, the physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp infamous for performing human experimentation on the prisoners during World War 2. [...]
It's funded by the pioneer fund, an organization he was a board member of and that has been classified as a white supremacist hate group, with one of its first projects being to fund the distribution in US churches and schools of "Erbkrank", a Nazi propaganda film about eugenics. <
Did this 'color' (pardon the pun) the quality of his research? Well, to expand on Lizzard's example of the 1989 South African study, let me quote my comment again:
>
He would use the IQ of 69 for South Africans, cited by Owen (1989), which is referred to by Richard Lynn as:
> “the single best study of Negroid intelligence.”
The study in question examines test and item bias in the Junior Aptitude Test (JAT), a standardized test originally designed for white pupils in South Africa. Owen’s study aimed to assess whether this test was suitable for students from different racial backgrounds—white, Indian, and black pupils.
The abstract of the study states:
> “This study was undertaken to shed light on problems concerning the construction and use of a common test battery for various South African population groups.”
Essentially, the study evaluated whether the JAT, developed for white students, was appropriate for non-white groups. It selected schools across South Africa but faced challenges, particularly with black schools. The study notes that the majority of the selected black schools could not participate “owing to the unrest situation.” As a result, the testing was limited to black schools in the KwaZulu region, one of the segregated areas designated for black residents under apartheid.
The study analyzed the performance of students on various JAT subtests. A significant issue identified was that the test was administered in English to black students in KwaZulu. Several JAT subtests heavily relied on language ability. Owen assumed that language would not significantly impact the results because the black students in KwaZulu had ostensibly been learning English in their schools. However, this assumption ignored or disregarded critical issues, such as the lack of teaching equipment, the low number of certified teachers, and pupil-teacher ratios that were more than double those of white schools. As the study itself states:
> “Language was not expected to play a significant role in test performance in this investigation.”
However, the results showed this assumption to be entirely incorrect. Language played a critical role, and the black students’ poor knowledge of English rendered certain sections of the JAT, such as the synonym test and the memory paragraph test, “virtually unusable.” Yes, that's an actual quote, the study explicitly states:
> “Certain tests proved to be virtually unusable.”
Owen further noted that language bias was not the only issue. In a section titled “Item Bias in the Tests of the JAT,” he identified other forms of cultural and economic bias. For example, several test items presupposed familiarity with objects like electrical appliances, microscopes, and Western-style ladies’ accessories. Owen writes:
> “In the case of both the Indian and black testees, it seems that the single largest cause of bias lay in the fact that the pupils were not familiar with the objects represented by the pictures. Cultural and socioeconomic status factors probably also played a role in this regard.”
Despite the study concluding that the JAT was biased and that some results were “virtually unusable,” Richard Lynn still considered this “the single best study of Negroid intelligence.” Lynn used this study, which, again, tested children in segregated schools using a non-native language, as a key foundation for his estimate of the average IQ of black Africans. In his own words:
> “The mean IQ of the sample in comparison with Caucasoid South African norms is 69. [...] It is proposed, therefore, to round this figure up to 70 and take this as the approximate mean for pure Negroids.”
Will the effort people put into doing well on the IQ test depend on the setting and culture?if someone badgered me to take some test and I didn’t care about the results, I just might not try hard or even give random answers
Your article is reasonable and I'm not disagreeing with it, but the fact is that no one wants to do a proper IQ study because they know that the results will be very low. Publishing it would possibly be a career ender.
I feel sadder that people are so cruel and hierarchical with their thinking that they can't trust themselves, or others, with the idea that not all groups of people are equal in every way.
Interesting read. I've personally learnt to love Lynn and I understand the source of the misunderstanding in whatever he did. From my end, there are several ways to look at the issue:
First, we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water. We all agree Lynn had a "few" bad studies. I stress the word few because the bad studies are known and you'll never here complains about IQs from countries such as Kenya. This is because in most countries, the IQ studies used are actually robust.
Second, Lynn's findings whether based on bad studies or the good ones, show African studies within a certain range of 60 to 80. There's no single study showing an IQ of any African group exceeding 90. This tells us that even if the largest IQ study was conducted in Africa, the means of all these countries will still fall within this range.
Third, results of international assessments which have modest correlations with IQ, such as SACMEQ done by students in East and Southern Africa, still showing dismal performances compared to the west. This is a hint that Lynn's IQ estimates may be legitimate.
Fourth, I'll answer why no one wants to do a large study on African IQs. The reason is obvious - no one wants to be called a racist. It's such a sensitive topic that anyone who openly proposes it may be accused on sinister racist motives.
Lasty, does the environment matter or not. At least, for Kenya, we had a study conducted in Embu testing the Flynn Effect. The findings were a rise in IQ between the two test periods. I also agree with the concept of genotypic IQ, whereby the African genotypic IQ is around 85. Countries with a phenotypic IQs lower than the genotypic IQ maybe subject to very harsh environments.
Hi. I have addressed most of these points in this (https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1i2jaw5/contra_scott_on_lynns_national_iq_estimates/) Reddit thread. But to sum it all up for you, I don't necessarily disagree with the range of numbers. I'm mostly asking for the opposite of an isolated demand for rigour. I'm asking for good scientific practice and a similar degree of rigour. Actually in this case, my intention is to throw out the baby, the bathwater is the victim. [The baby = Richard Lynn, his eugenic funders and his bad methodology; The bathwater = IQ numbers that may or may not be close to accurate]
I don't understand your fourth point. If someone does not want to be called a racist, they should avoid talking about the issue altogether. It seems they are juuuust afraid enough to not do a good large study but not afraid enough to use the results of bad studies. That kind of empirical disrespect seems even more racist to me. Charitably, I would say that the reason no one has done good studies in Africa is that there is simply no incentive to.
Could you send me links for the 2 claims in your last paragraph?
Doing an IQ study requires money, people, and co-operation from the local government. All three together is not easy in this area. Imagine telling the government of Malawi, "we want to do a study to see if you people are stupider than white people," Of course, no one would put it that way but I doubt anyone would be fooled.
I suggest reading Cremieux's response to all of this:
https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/national-iqs-are-valid
Thanks!
I don't necessarily disagree with the numbers but with the defense of bad methodology
If the results are good, then perhaps the methodology is not bad.
I think 'bad methodology' is an uncharitable way of characterizing it. It's a difficult empirical problem and Lynn went to great lengths to make reasonable estimates anyway. I don't think that's cause for opprobrium. As a comparison, would you make the same criticisms of climate science? I think the data on which they base their models is even noisier. I have much more faith in Lynn's African IQ estimates than I do in any prediction of global temperatures for 2100.
> I don’t want to get into the ‘Richard Lynn was racist, funded by eugenicists and that coloured the quality of his research into Negroid IQ’ argument here.
For those who don't know what Lizzard is referring to, let me quote my comments on Scott's post.
>He was the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, a white supremacist journal that was founded by people like:
[...] Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer who was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of anthropology human heredity and eugenics in Nazi Germany. He was a member of the Nazi Party and the mentor of Josef Mengele, the physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp infamous for performing human experimentation on the prisoners during World War 2. [...]
It's funded by the pioneer fund, an organization he was a board member of and that has been classified as a white supremacist hate group, with one of its first projects being to fund the distribution in US churches and schools of "Erbkrank", a Nazi propaganda film about eugenics. <
Did this 'color' (pardon the pun) the quality of his research? Well, to expand on Lizzard's example of the 1989 South African study, let me quote my comment again:
>
He would use the IQ of 69 for South Africans, cited by Owen (1989), which is referred to by Richard Lynn as:
> “the single best study of Negroid intelligence.”
The study in question examines test and item bias in the Junior Aptitude Test (JAT), a standardized test originally designed for white pupils in South Africa. Owen’s study aimed to assess whether this test was suitable for students from different racial backgrounds—white, Indian, and black pupils.
The abstract of the study states:
> “This study was undertaken to shed light on problems concerning the construction and use of a common test battery for various South African population groups.”
Essentially, the study evaluated whether the JAT, developed for white students, was appropriate for non-white groups. It selected schools across South Africa but faced challenges, particularly with black schools. The study notes that the majority of the selected black schools could not participate “owing to the unrest situation.” As a result, the testing was limited to black schools in the KwaZulu region, one of the segregated areas designated for black residents under apartheid.
The study analyzed the performance of students on various JAT subtests. A significant issue identified was that the test was administered in English to black students in KwaZulu. Several JAT subtests heavily relied on language ability. Owen assumed that language would not significantly impact the results because the black students in KwaZulu had ostensibly been learning English in their schools. However, this assumption ignored or disregarded critical issues, such as the lack of teaching equipment, the low number of certified teachers, and pupil-teacher ratios that were more than double those of white schools. As the study itself states:
> “Language was not expected to play a significant role in test performance in this investigation.”
However, the results showed this assumption to be entirely incorrect. Language played a critical role, and the black students’ poor knowledge of English rendered certain sections of the JAT, such as the synonym test and the memory paragraph test, “virtually unusable.” Yes, that's an actual quote, the study explicitly states:
> “Certain tests proved to be virtually unusable.”
Owen further noted that language bias was not the only issue. In a section titled “Item Bias in the Tests of the JAT,” he identified other forms of cultural and economic bias. For example, several test items presupposed familiarity with objects like electrical appliances, microscopes, and Western-style ladies’ accessories. Owen writes:
> “In the case of both the Indian and black testees, it seems that the single largest cause of bias lay in the fact that the pupils were not familiar with the objects represented by the pictures. Cultural and socioeconomic status factors probably also played a role in this regard.”
Despite the study concluding that the JAT was biased and that some results were “virtually unusable,” Richard Lynn still considered this “the single best study of Negroid intelligence.” Lynn used this study, which, again, tested children in segregated schools using a non-native language, as a key foundation for his estimate of the average IQ of black Africans. In his own words:
> “The mean IQ of the sample in comparison with Caucasoid South African norms is 69. [...] It is proposed, therefore, to round this figure up to 70 and take this as the approximate mean for pure Negroids.”
<
[ original comments here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-to-stop-worrying-and-learn-to/comment/86319730 ]
Will the effort people put into doing well on the IQ test depend on the setting and culture?if someone badgered me to take some test and I didn’t care about the results, I just might not try hard or even give random answers
Your article is reasonable and I'm not disagreeing with it, but the fact is that no one wants to do a proper IQ study because they know that the results will be very low. Publishing it would possibly be a career ender.
We are stuck at a point where doing actually good science would be a career ender so all that's left is questionable science.
Sad!
I feel sadder that people are so cruel and hierarchical with their thinking that they can't trust themselves, or others, with the idea that not all groups of people are equal in every way.
Interesting read. I've personally learnt to love Lynn and I understand the source of the misunderstanding in whatever he did. From my end, there are several ways to look at the issue:
First, we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water. We all agree Lynn had a "few" bad studies. I stress the word few because the bad studies are known and you'll never here complains about IQs from countries such as Kenya. This is because in most countries, the IQ studies used are actually robust.
Second, Lynn's findings whether based on bad studies or the good ones, show African studies within a certain range of 60 to 80. There's no single study showing an IQ of any African group exceeding 90. This tells us that even if the largest IQ study was conducted in Africa, the means of all these countries will still fall within this range.
Third, results of international assessments which have modest correlations with IQ, such as SACMEQ done by students in East and Southern Africa, still showing dismal performances compared to the west. This is a hint that Lynn's IQ estimates may be legitimate.
Fourth, I'll answer why no one wants to do a large study on African IQs. The reason is obvious - no one wants to be called a racist. It's such a sensitive topic that anyone who openly proposes it may be accused on sinister racist motives.
Lasty, does the environment matter or not. At least, for Kenya, we had a study conducted in Embu testing the Flynn Effect. The findings were a rise in IQ between the two test periods. I also agree with the concept of genotypic IQ, whereby the African genotypic IQ is around 85. Countries with a phenotypic IQs lower than the genotypic IQ maybe subject to very harsh environments.
Hi. I have addressed most of these points in this (https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1i2jaw5/contra_scott_on_lynns_national_iq_estimates/) Reddit thread. But to sum it all up for you, I don't necessarily disagree with the range of numbers. I'm mostly asking for the opposite of an isolated demand for rigour. I'm asking for good scientific practice and a similar degree of rigour. Actually in this case, my intention is to throw out the baby, the bathwater is the victim. [The baby = Richard Lynn, his eugenic funders and his bad methodology; The bathwater = IQ numbers that may or may not be close to accurate]
I don't understand your fourth point. If someone does not want to be called a racist, they should avoid talking about the issue altogether. It seems they are juuuust afraid enough to not do a good large study but not afraid enough to use the results of bad studies. That kind of empirical disrespect seems even more racist to me. Charitably, I would say that the reason no one has done good studies in Africa is that there is simply no incentive to.
Could you send me links for the 2 claims in your last paragraph?
I believe the failure of people to do larger IQ studies is a failure of academia rather than a failure of anyone in particular. For instance, you can read about Scott Alexander's IRB nightmare here and how the way academia is designed may actually prevent such studies from being done: https://web.archive.org/web/20171107003444/http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/
Here's the Flynn Effect for Embu: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9280.02434
I read about Scott's IRB nightmare but I don't think that's a major deterrent for African studies. Even private institutions could do it.
Thanks for the Embu link!
Doing an IQ study requires money, people, and co-operation from the local government. All three together is not easy in this area. Imagine telling the government of Malawi, "we want to do a study to see if you people are stupider than white people," Of course, no one would put it that way but I doubt anyone would be fooled.
You need cooperation from test takers. If they don’t have a reason or motivation to try, the scores will be low