Customer Reviews

The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide

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For the last 25 years of IQ-research, the books by Richard Lynn are the only ones which are making a substantial difference. Around 1980 the last but one step forward had been made by Arthur Jensen, Hans Jürgen Eysenck, Helmar Frank, Siegfried Lehrl and myself in discovering the relationship between elementary cognitive tasks and IQ and hence working memory storage capacity. In a world where even the pages of such a journal as "Intelligence" are inflated with a lot of plagiarism and mediocrity, we had to wait long for such a new breakthrough, and we are struggling still for even a far greater one, the discovery of the genes underlying psychometric intelligence.

Even I myself, active in this field for 40 years, till then did believe that the low mean IQ scores of some populations were mainly the result of inadequate sampling (caused by social stratification of samples) and environment. Since I read Lynn, I am convinced that population differences are not mere artefacts. This new book adresses IQ differences within societies as Brazil, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Southeast Asia, where social inequality is correlated with racial stratification.

In 2002, after the publication of IQ and the Wealth of Nations and the preliminary reports of PISA 2000, I became aware that PISA tests can be understood as IQ tests and that the transformation of PISA scores into IQ results yields very similar numbers. PISA scores, mean 500, standard deviation 100, can easily be transformed into IQ values, mean 100, standard deviation 15, by adding or subtracting the deviation from the mean in the relationship 100 : 15 = 6.67, that a mean of PISA 433 corresponds to IQ 90, PISA 567 to IQ 110, if PISA 500 is set to be IQ 100. Heiner Rindermann in his publications has confirmed that PISA transformed scores of nations and social strata nearly identical with IQ means, published by Lynn.

The The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less, the law of the vital few, states that, for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The power of a nation does not depend of its mere number, but of the percentage of its cognitive elite, optimized by social evolution. Highly intelligent people are networking, and the economic effect of networking is the square of the nodes of the network, i.e. in our case the square of the number of people involved.

Even within developed nations without substantial racial stratification the difference between prosperous and more backward regions amounts to 10 and more IQ points. For example, in Germany the IQ average of Bavaria is about 10 points higher than that of Bremen; in Italy the difference between Venice and Sicily is 13 points; in Spain the difference between Aragon and Andalusia 8 points; (and in the United States the difference between New Hampshire and Mississipi is 10 points). Such differences, aggravated by internal migration between the economic core and the backward regions -- but not always of such magnitude -- will be found in any country. Within Brazil, the federal states of the south have an average IQ and GDP per capita similar to South Europe and four times higher than the states in the north-east of Brazil.

As we know, political turmoil and ethnic cleansing can eliminate or drive away the gifted of a country, and within a very short time harm the economy for decades to come. Highly-skilled citizens from stagnating economies are unlikely to merely watch their standard of living decline, and they will vote with their feet. Their migration amplifies economic divergence.
There are three types of men: men (with IQ above 123), who invent machines, men (with IQ above 104), who repair machines, and men, who use machines. In a country where there are not enough men (with IQ above 123) to construct and to repair (with IQ above 104) a bridge, sooner or later traffic by railway will break down. This is one of the messages of this extraordinary book, published by Washington Summit Publishers.

In my youth in former communist East-Germany it was forbidden to listen to the broadcasts of the "Voice of America: a free voice in a free world". Therefore, it is very disconcerting for me to read in a foreword by the publishers: "We are distinguished by the fact that we are not a publisher of choice but one of last resort. We celebrate that status as it grows directly from our resolve not to tolerate the strictures of political correctness. Our authors come to us after having been worn to a nub by rejection slips from established houses that only a few years ago would have been figthing for their manuscripts. But now a velvet tyranny seeks to oppress the mind."

The lastest offering in Lynn's vast and ever growing corpus of works is perhaps his most convincing. The Global Bell Curve synthesizes all of his vast research on race and intelligence, takes the basic idea of The Bell Curve and expands it world-wide. The breadth of scholarship and explanatory power of Lynn's framework are tremendous. Liberal equalitarian dogma's aside, the evidence Lynn lays out clearly shows that there are racial differencs in intelligence and achievement. Further, by utilizing intelligence, Lynn has a extremely parsimonious theory. Most social scientists explain the low achievement of african americans by recourse to racism. However, this explanation is hard to believe because north east asians and jews have certainly experienced similar racism, yet they have achieved high levels of socio-economic status in almost every nation. Lynn's explanation cuts through this obfuscation.

It is hard to give this book a five star rating, however. The quality of the book is mediocre- at best. Typos appear on many pages, tables are double printed, or incomprehensible, the writing style is inconsistent.

Yet despite all these flaws, which may or may not be minor depending on your politics, the book still presents a challenge to many bromides of our era. The evidence on race, iq, and achievement is accumulating and it seems to be falling in one direction. For those concerned with real science and for those willing to let go of the moralistic fallacy such evidence demands an explanation. The real question is: Can anybody take the world wide data and come up with a more satisfactory explanation? If not, then I suggest Lynn's conclusions are provisionally accepted. Science is science, data is data. We do not get to pick and choose which data we accept based on our own whims.

Richard Lynn surveys the mounting evidence from the psychometric literature to support his thesis that Herrnstein and Murray's 1994 blockbuster The Bell Curve offers an irrefutable explanation for racial inequalities in multiracial societies. The gist of Lynn's thesis is that sociological paradigms (global racial inequalities are the result of social class differences, discrimination, etc.) inadequately explain these lingering racial inequalities. Lynn presents a logical case that average differences in IQ levels and achievement provide a better explanation for this global pattern of racial disparities. The book is a must read for anyone interested in the field of IQ research.
The biggest disappointment and the main reason the book doesn't warrant a five-star rating is the book's mediocre design and overall lack of professional editing. Tables of data are presented in a virtually unreadable format that paralyzes the reader's attention span. Style inconsistencies are rampant throughout the text. A desperate and awkward plea for donations, placed by the publisher on the inside front cover, undermines the legitimacy of the author's scholarship and cheapens the author's case for an otherwise solid account of a much-needed alternative to popular egalitarian fallacies of persistent racial inequalities in multiracial societies.

It's very useful book, summarizing a huge material. What is lacking, however, from this type of book (as title promises):

a) absence of estimations for huge groups of the population (the most important, frome Central Asia and Middle East, from Russia, etc.), with unproportional emphasis on some tiny groups
b) almost complete absence of the st.deviation estimates, which are critically important for this types of generalizations. It reduces the value of the studies very much;
c) lack of analysis of differences and practical (social, political, etc.) impementations (it seems, it is covered in other Lynn's works, but not here).

But except of this - it's great.

Igor Mandel, PhD

A great book. Sure to irritate those who think it isn't fair that all mankind isn't equally endowed. Those who hid their eyes at "The Bell Curve" will flee in horror. Well written and fun, even if what he reports on isn't so fun. Just is.

"The Global Bell Curve" is the latest production in a series by Richard Lynn. This Irish psychologist's books fall into three phases. His early treatises dealt with dry psychological topics of interest only to specialists. His "Dysgenics" (out-of-print), "Eugenics", and "Race Differences in Intelligence" are his masterpieces. This seminal trilogy forms the backbone both of his later productions and of a whole branch of literature by other authors - much of it with policy implications - emanating from Washington Summit Publishers and the American Renaissance web site book store. The follow-ups on Lynn's work has been done by conservatives, although liberals also need to wake up and pay attention to this important information. Lynn's recent books are "IQ and the Wealth of Nations", "IQ and Global Inequality", and "The Global Bell Curve". These books are logical extensions of "Race Differences in Intelligence", exploring in greater depth specific facets of the fact that intelligence is the fundamental determinant of socioeconomic disparities both between different countries and within multi-racial national populations. These latter three books are full of cogent arguments based on interesting data presented in easily readable form. Yet they are not as exciting as "Race Differences in Intelligence", which is an absolutely brilliant meta-analysis that confirms Lynn's stature as one of the most important psychological theoreticians of our time.

The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide

This is a great reading, especially for those who have read the Bell Curve and wish to further explore the issue of race, IQ and inequality. Richard Lynn has done an excellent job in taking the debate further and producing new data to explain global inequalities in wealth. If you thought the Bell Curve was thought provocative, then this book is thought explosive. The issue of IQ and socio-economic status has always been a controversial and divisive one. Its major implication has been to make some races inferior to others. While I admire the depth of Lynn's analyses, I fundamentally disagree with his conclusion that IQ theories best explain racial hierarchies. I don't think even the wealthiest people in the world today would explain their fortunes in terms of their intelligence. The history of world civilisation shows different periods of racial dominance--Africans, Europeans, Americans, etc. Does this historical trend show a rise and fall in IQ?

Many factors affect IQ--education, state of well-being, environment, etc. The IQ precept that Lynn postulates is at best an inference from selective data, which claims to provide a simple answer to a complex problem. The IQ research is further paralysed by the simple fact that there are no universally accepted criteria for measuring IQ. What constitutes intelligence or IQ varies significantly among different cultures. Lynn's methodology and approach to the subject is purely from the Western scholarship perspective.

Despite these inherent weaknesses, this is a book you must read and have in your library!!

Not a particularly well put together book. It covers what it says to do but there is also dogmatism that refutes the problems with the sampling.I overlook this because the premise of all these books is irrefutable.When we see an athletic man jumping over a fence do we think to ourselves , he came from a better off family and so had a much better chance to learn how to do this.NO! We think there is an athletic person .It is obvious the same applies to intelligence but the intellectuals and their indoctrinated acolytes refuse the obvious ! These PC nuts sling mud at any that even think in this direction AND they have become an existential threat to the civilised world , in exactly the same way the communism was. The irony is beyond them because they think they are RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT and an other is an evil person that should be marginalised and criminalised .
The author has done a brave job to alert the world to this TRUTH , alas the forces in the media and sections of our community who have managed to destabilise the Western World with their immigration policies taking us straight back into the communist nightmare.Every day we see the Gov straight jacket tighten.We are in for a perfect world , Comrade.

It simply deserves 5 stars only for its boldness in being published.
It simply deserves 5 stars only for the amount of data it presents.
It simply deserves 5 stars to fight against any attempt to vote down it in the name of political correctness.

I can't say strongly enough how repulsive this book's thesis is to me. It is racism and bigotry pure and simple. You can boil it down to one sentence: whites are genetically superior to blacks. There is no scientific evidence that the so called races are different. This book was warmly reviewed on a website called "Stormfront" which is a neo-nazi, white supremacist production. Beware the positive reviews of this book, as it is an outpouring of hate. The author should be shunned and should never write another book again!