05-09-2008, 02:07 PM
G.Sub while these assumptions may be correct, they cannot compensate for hard data, there seem to be very few IQ tests conducted in India, and even the ones conducted have been confined to certain areas.
Unlike in the case of demographics we have no hard data and are left to speculate based on things like performance on GRE which may correlate with high IQ but does not tell us the entire story, let me give an example, Srinivasa Ramanujan flunked all other subjects except Maths because he didn't find the others interesting, now on things like SAT and other tests his Maths score would have been off the charts but quite poor in other components, if you based your IQ on his SAT score he would have come up with some avg IQ like 120, but I strongly suspect that his IQ was much higher. That is why there is no substitute for hard data based on IQ tests administered with as little cultural bias as possible.
You also raised another important point, the disparity in literacy rates between India and China, all IQ tests have components which tap acquired knowledge, and this also plays a role in the comparitively low IQ of Indians.
Also correct me if I am wrong, the 13 or so IQ tests which Steve Sailer uses in his article on Indians were conducted between 1940s and 1980s when India was much more poorer and illiterate, so I suspect that there may have been a slight increase in the current IQ with an improving diet and economy (thanks to abandoning socialism of Nehru).
Unlike in the case of demographics we have no hard data and are left to speculate based on things like performance on GRE which may correlate with high IQ but does not tell us the entire story, let me give an example, Srinivasa Ramanujan flunked all other subjects except Maths because he didn't find the others interesting, now on things like SAT and other tests his Maths score would have been off the charts but quite poor in other components, if you based your IQ on his SAT score he would have come up with some avg IQ like 120, but I strongly suspect that his IQ was much higher. That is why there is no substitute for hard data based on IQ tests administered with as little cultural bias as possible.
You also raised another important point, the disparity in literacy rates between India and China, all IQ tests have components which tap acquired knowledge, and this also plays a role in the comparitively low IQ of Indians.
Also correct me if I am wrong, the 13 or so IQ tests which Steve Sailer uses in his article on Indians were conducted between 1940s and 1980s when India was much more poorer and illiterate, so I suspect that there may have been a slight increase in the current IQ with an improving diet and economy (thanks to abandoning socialism of Nehru).