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Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis

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The book's central finding: the world average IQ is no more than 90, and declines from north to south. An IQ of 90 is equivalent to the mental age of a White14-year-old. (Standardized IQ tests are normed to 100, the mental age of the average white 16-year-old.). Lynn also draws attention to the fact that a north-south IQ continuum has evolved, apparently through selection for survival in cold winters.

These findings in Lynn's latest book have profound geopolitical significance. They imply it may simply not be possible to transmit Western-style democratic and economic systems to the populations of Latin America and Moslem North Africa and the Middle East, let alone sub-Saharan Africa. They mean that the world's long-term problems will stem from its populations' capabilities-much deeper and more intractable than any "Clash of Civilizations"-style competition between different political concepts.

The implications for immigration are obvious: it can have fundamental, and permanent, consequences.

Lynn's book reviews more than 500 published IQ studies worldwide from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the present, devoting a chapter to each of the ten "genetic clusters", or population groups, as identified by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues in their mammoth 1994 book, The History and Geography of Human Genes.

Lynn regards these genetic clusters as "races". He concludes that the East Asians-Chinese, Japanese and Koreans-have the highest mean IQ at 105. Europeans follow with an IQ of 100. Some ways below these are the Inuit or Eskimos (IQ 91), South East Asians (IQ 87), Native American Indians (IQ 87), Pacific Islanders (IQ 85), South Asians and North Africans (IQ 84). Well below these come the sub-Saharan Africans (IQ 67) followed by the Australian Aborigines (IQ 62).

The lowest scoring are the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert together with the Pygmies of the Congo rain forests (IQ 54).

After the ten chapters setting out the evidence for the average IQ of each of these ten races, there follows a chapter on the reliability and validity of the measures. These show that, although additional evidence may be required to confirm some of the racial IQ estimates, many have very high reliability in the sense that different studies give closely similar results. For instance, East Asians invariably obtain high IQs, not only in their own native homelands but also in Singapore, Malaysia, Hawaii, and North America.

To establish the validity of the racial IQs, Lynn shows that they correlate highly with performance in international studies of achievement in mathematics and science. And racial IQs also correlate with national economic development. This means they can help to explain why some countries are rich and others poor.


Lynn's last three chapters are concerned with the book's subtitle-An Evolutionary Analysis. They discuss how race differences in intelligence have evolved.

Lynn argues that as early humans migrated out of Africa they encountered the cognitively demanding problem of having to survive cold winters where there were no plant foods and they had to hunt, sometimes big game. They also had to solve the problem of keeping warm. This required greater intelligence than was needed in tropical and semi-tropical equatorial Africa where plant foods are plentiful throughout the year. Lynn shows that race differences in brain size and intelligence are both closely associated with low winter temperatures in the regions they inhabit. He gives a figure of 1,282 cc for the average brain size of sub-Saharan Africans, as compared with 1,367 cc for Europeans and 1,416 cc for East Asians.

Since I have argued many of the same positions as Lynn, I will add that Lynn's brain size data are backed by a great deal of independent, converging evidence, including that from brain weights at autopsy, endocranial volume, and external head size measures. (My book provides many details of individual studies.) Moreover, magnetic resonance imaging studies make clear that the relation between brain size and intelligence is highly reliable. Lynn is on very safe ground in his statements here.

It would be difficult to fail to discriminate between Pygmies, Swedes, Japanese, American Indians and Australian Aborigines. Wearing evolutionary spectacles, the physical differences are clear racial adaptations to different environmental conditions, with climatic adaptations being particularly evident. Why would levels of intelligence not also have been differentially selected for between races?

Chapter 1 defines `intelligence' and motivates why IQ is a measure of it. Chapter 2 justifies the concept of `race' - depressing that this is thought to be necessary - and makes the argument of the first paragraph above.

Chapters 3 - 12 then itemise in great detail the results of numerous intelligence tests given to nine racially-distinguished populations: Europeans; Sub-Saharan Africans; Bushmen (South Africa) and Pygmies; South Asians (Middle-East, India, Pakistan) and North Africans; Australian Aborigines; Pacific Islanders; East Asians (China, Japan); Arctic People and Native Americans.

Base-lining Europeans at IQ = 100, Sub-Saharan Africans come out at around 67. Corrected for poor environmental conditions, Lynn estimates the genotypic IQ (the mean IQ Africans would have if raised in the same environment as Europeans) as around 80. Conversely, East Asians seem to have IQs centred around 105 (p. 130) while some populations of Ashkenazim Jews have mean IQs between 107-115 (p. 94).

Chapters 13-17 summarise racial differences, and propose an explanation based on the geographic radiation of homo sapiens out of Africa, the resulting geographical isolation of sub-populations, and the impact of two ice-ages (the first from 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, and then the more severe Wurm glaciation, 28,000 to 10,000 years ago). These culled the less-intelligent in those racial groups most exposed to arctic conditions as well as driving the more obvious physiological adaptations. The East Asians were particularly stressed by harsh conditions north of the Himalayas and east of the Gobi Desert.

I have some quibbles. Lynn's timeline of geographic dispersal makes no mention of the Toba event, 70-75,000 years ago, which was said to have created a genetic bottleneck. If today's races emerged from a radiation out of east Africa which post-dated that event, how would that affect the argument?

Secondly, the early evolution within east Africa (p. 225) is poorly argued. The contemporary IQ of 67 is not the one to use, as it factors in present-day malnutrition. In the `environment of evolutionary adaptedness', this would not have been the case, so why not use 80? Lynn then appears to suggest there is a `continual directional selection for intelligence' based on its utility, as if species always got smarter and smarter. However intelligence comes with large costs, in terms of the energy required for big brains, so one would expect instead an equilibrium where a species is no smarter than it has to be. So rather than a drift to smartness in Africa, isn't it more likely that we saw waves of replacement populations radiating from groups who got smarter in more isolated niches where they were stressed more?

This is not a coffee-table read. It is somewhere between a scientific book for the academic community and a popularisation. I think Lynn hopes to move the goal posts so that we can move onto some of the interesting consequential issues clearly identified in his research programme. If at times he seems to stray into IQ-reductionism, then this is probably symptomatic of the existing research community being currently below critical mass.

There may well be public policy implications of the research results aggregated, summarised and theorised in this book. But they are rightly not addressed here.

This superbly-researched and thought-provoking work is a must-read for anyone interested in trying to understand "big picture" human history, and to make sharp policy decisions that are based on facts as well as good intentions. The book is eminently readable, but contains so much information that sometimes it's easy to miss material. For example, the previous reviewer stated that Lynn "surprisingly forgets to connect his IQ data with historical facts such as: that the first great civilisations emerged in the Near East and Northern Africa not in Northern, Central or Eastern Europe..." Actually, this point is addressed on page 237, where Lynn discusses the retreat of the ice sheets, which still left heavily forested, cold regions in northern Europe, but milder areas in southern Europe that allowed for civilizations to gain a toehold.

This book is perhaps of ultimate importance in its discussions of the importance of micronutrients--a factor that is possible to improve. Highly recommended!

Richard Lynn is a courageous scientist, unafraid to let the chips fall where they may. Truth beats wishful thinking and propaganda every time. He provides in this book the most comprehensive data set seen so far on an important question: do races differ on average in their intelligence? His answer is delivered with a review of studies from around the world, a plethora of data, and a cool head. It comes with dozens of tables drawn from about 500 peer reviewed, published studies from the scientific literature. It has over 50 pages of references. It is overwhelming.

Besides the tables, it has a worthwhile discussion of "race denial" among certain (mostly) American academics, and the usage of unhelpful euphemisms for race, such as "geographic groups" and "clusters" used by such as Cavalli-Sforza. I had to agree with him.

However, I am not sure that his explanations of the data (ice-age challenging environment) are anything more than plausible. They are certainly incomplete. His discussion of nutritional effects, so often proposed to explain the data, was clear and devastating, I thought. But, on the other hand, I wish he had included some discussion of the other moments of the distributions among different races. Surely there is some data on this. Averages are very important, but so is the variance, and skewness too.

This is an important book. It brings the data into sharp relief, and should be read by all race deniers. Some might even be cured.

What Lynn has concluded is beyond dispute. On a logical plane the argument is won. There have been no statistical works to refute Lynn's work such as "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" or "The Bell Curve." There are ample critics of his motives and methods and the completeness of his analysis. Lynn would agree there is room for more work. The truth is, however, that there have been no serious statistical studies undertaken to refute his findings. While his critics claim that Lynn has painted an incomplete picture, none of them are bringing hard science to bear in an effort to find contradictory results.

People find it morally wrong to accept Lynn's argument. Lincoln's "All men are created equal" is our dogma. We have dropped Abe's qualifier "...under the law." It is taken as the most egregious form of racism even to raise the question that intelligences might be different. Scholarly minds work hard to forget that within our lifetimes it was well known in California that Chinese and Japanese kids were smarter than we white kids were, and ignore the accumulating evidence that nothing has changed since. Here follow two typical paragraphs, these from the introduction to "Measured Lies".

"For the past three decades American society has become increasingly addicted to blatant or unabashed utterance of the unutterable. It is now fashionable to say what one's parents would not have dared to say: perhaps the poor and aged should be terminated; women ought to be replaced with life-like replicas fashioned by Disneyland engineers; children cost more than they are worth; Blacks really are sub-human and dangerous after all; the Indians better stop bellyaching or they'll get their butts whipped again.

"It would be nice if one could merely ignore such utterances; and as Kincheloe and Steinberg argue in their Introduction to Measured Lies, it would be nice to be able to ignore Herrnstein and Murray's utterance. But to do so would be much too dangerous, for unutterables have a way of assuming a persuasiveness and realism that often undergird destructiveness of various sorts. So Measured Lies had to be written."

I too believe it is a moral question, but come to an opposite conclusion as to the moral course of action. Holding the conclusion that all races are equally capable, we have felt compelled to explain the vast difference in observed achievement in moral terms. Either
a) Certain peoples are morally inferior, unwilling to work, avoid drugs, get married before having children, etc., or
b) White people are morally culpable for systematically frustrating the aspirations of blacks, Indians and others through subtle racism, disparagement, etc.

Either way, simultaneously holding the hypothesis that all peoples are equally capable, and observing the manifest differences in their situations, many social observers have felt compelled to assign blame. That has led us to adopt measures to remedy problems that may be overblown or not exist. An ongoing effort to eradicate supposed white racism. Efforts to encourage minority children to give up their self-destructive habits. Vast expenditures inspired by NCLB to arrive at equal school outcomes on the assumption that all children are equally capable of success, which at once frustrates many by asking more than they can achieve, and withholds from more capable students the level of preparation they will need in a competitive world economy.

The assumption of equality also precludes us from observing that the antisocial behavior of some members of society may make sense from within the constraints of their existence. We like to think that dealing drugs and mugging people is not a rational course of action for anybody. For a kid with an IQ of 70 and no marketable skills, however poor the odds, these could be among the most probable paths to success. The decisions he makes may be uncomfortably reasonable given his circumstance. Wouldn't the moral thing be to attempt to see him as he is an attempt to integrate him into society?

To me the argument in the sphere of biology is over. Lynn and company have won. We need to consider ways to legitimize the discussion of public policy options that take different peoples' different average abilities into consideration.

The statistical review Lynn provides is overwhelming: hundreds of studies covering tens of thousands of subjects by dozens of researchers over many decades. This has been his life's work. His evolutionary history borrows more heavily from others, chiefly Cavalli-Sforza, with some references to Coon, Diamond and others.

Human evolution isn't my forte, but I was struck by a few omissions. The first is war. I would expect warfare to exert a strong evolutionary pressure. A related question is whether or not, as Murray and Herrnstein proposed, cognitive stratification has increased since the introduction of agriculture and commerce. It would seem that civilization would bring more mating opportunities to the wealthy and powerful, and that sexual selection would play a more powerful role in communities of more individuals. Think of the Biblical record both of King David's wars and amours. Lynn chose likewise not to address the question of the strong selection for intelligence among Ashkenazim recently raised by BYU researchers. There is a follow-on book to be done.

I add later, see Nicholas Wade's "Before the Dawn" for a fascinating analysis of mankind's evolution over the past 50,000 years. It seems wholly consistent with Lynn's findings.

This is a comprehensive survey of the IQ research on the peoples of the world. Lynn uses genetic analysis to define the different races and then shows that there are systematic and established differences in test scores between the races. The test gaps are then explained with a persausive application of evolutionary theory. This is scientific analysis aimed staight at the heart of egalitarian wishful thinking. Darwin would be proud.

Very thoughtful and well researched book on a subject that is basically taboo. Mr.Lynn makes a strong case for heredity playing a substantial role in the differences in race intelligence and behavior. I highly recommend this book for those who are not afraid of learning a lesson you won't learn in many biased school systems.

Richard Lynn has written several books and I just picked up this one because I was curious. The subject of the book is currently a taboo subject.

Lynn starts out by providing evidence that races exist. There is nothing racist anywhere in this book. The author only states that races exists and provide references and arguments. In much of social science race does not "exist", because researchers are not comfortable with the implications of the term. The harder sciences cannot afford such frivolous luxury. In medical science for instance race exists and is a rather non-controversial issue (Many studies catalog relationship between certain diseases and race as well as the response to certain pharmaceuticals and race.)

Lynn then moves on to discuss the relationship between race and IQ - the main topic of the book. The basic model suggest that IQ is higher when the climate is harsher and Lynn speculates why this might be the case. He also describes twin studies where only one twin had been adopted into a family of another race. These studies can show the different effect of race versus upbringing.

There is a lot of references and data tables in the book. The book isn't particularly well written, but it is a fascinating read. If these findings are correct it has a lot of consequences for economic development policy. And please do not attribute the term racism to this book. I don't know about the author, but in this book I could not find anything even slightly racist.



UPDATE: I want to comment on the reviewers who state that Lynn's research is of poor quality. The book is a summary of existing research so it is not a book about Lynn's research findings. It is a review of the whole field. Off course some of the referenced studies are not up to current standards. However, the book also reports the result of twin studies that certainly pass the most stringent methodological critiques.

As I noted, this is a taboo subject so it can be expected that some people would like to tarnish the author instead of arguing specifics. I urge you to buy the book and read it with a critical mind.

I find the results presented in this book to be quite shocking and almost unbelievable. Could there be some systematic methodological errors for such large disparities. For instance, could the testing not be completely language or culturally neutral? How much difference would it make if neutrality is achieved? How can we correct for nutrition? Since I live in the United States and am in contact with many nationalities; the Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians etc. that I meet all appears to be extremely intelligent even when compared to indigenous white population. I know there may be self selection, and impressions don't really count in science but....

Second, if brain size really mattered, why do the Arctic people, who have the largest brains, score lower than the Europeans and East Asians in g. The Arctic people also is closely related to the East Asians, why don't they test like the East Asians? Shouldn't they score higher than the Europeans and even the East Asians? They lived in the coldest environments for the longest time.

One of the reviewers also commented on the paradox that some very bright mathematicians and scientist came out of India and all the modern science and mathematics came out of the Europeans and but not from the East Asians. Why?

Instead of attributing the selection to just surviving the ice age (who is to say that surviving in the desert of Africa may not be even more challenging), perhaps there are alternate explanations (if you accept the results of this book). I am thinking that the East Asians all came from the basic Chinese culture that places a high value on scholarship. Since China was unified four or five thousand years ago (earlier than India), and instituted the Mandarin system of selecting the governing class by civil service testing wherein IQ rather than strength was culturally selected. Could it be possible that several hundred generations later this would have produced some effect? This could explain why the Arctic people tested lower, perhaps because their culture selected for strength rather than IQ. This also explains the high IQ of European Jews.

With respect to the questions of Indian mathematicians and European science, my theory is that there is so much overlap in IQ that any large population will have thousands of super geniuses that are capable, under the right circumstances, of producing the results achieved by the Indian mathematicians and Europeans. The crucial difference is government. If the government is stable and set up the infrastructure for learning and research (universities), the population will naturally flourish and produce. There is a compound affect wherein scientific advances beget scientific advances. The Indian mathematician had the advantage of entering into the British system that allowed their intelligence to shine. Where were these mathematicians in the preceding 2000 years of Indian history? The Europeans should certainly receive credit for the modern scientific advancements, but they were also very lucky to have good governments. I also believe the Jews in Europe, with their average IQ of 110, had a lot to do with this outcome. This is clear if you just look at the number of Nobel laureates and Field medal winners that are Jews.

However, the Jewish population is small, and China is being governed better than before. Additionally, the Internet will neutralize some of the Western existing advantages. Therefore I believe we will see more East Asian and other non-Europeans Nobel laureates and Field medal winners in the next 100 years. Already the BBC recently reported that, based on an UK study, China will surpass the United States in scientific paper publications by 2013. The IMF is projecting that the Chinese economy will overtake the United States in five years. Richard Lynn might still be proven correct.

"Race Differences in Intelligence" is an absolutely brilliant meta-analysis that confirms Lynn's stature as one of the most important psychological theoreticians of our time. With surgical precision, Lynn's formidable intellect objectively dissects the various arguments for and against the stance that different ethnic groups have radically divergent average levels of intelligence. "Race Differences in Intelligence" convincingly demonstrates that genetic research has categorized humanity into a taxonomy of 10 major races, that intelligence in a genuine trait that is primarily determined by genetically-based factors such as brain size and specific alleles that foster neurocognitive processing, and that evolutionary pressures have caused the tropical races to have lower average levels of intelligence than the northern Eurasian races (Caucasians and East Asians). Lynn effectively anticipates counter-arguments just as they occur to the reader, and he dispatches virtually every possible objection that somebody might propose to his conclusions. Lynn has mustered incontrovertible scientific evidence that irrefutably proves that the primary underlying cause of socioeconomic disparity is intelligence. Because in natural populations malnutrition only depresses phenotypic IQ by a maximum of 13 points, we must conclude that genes account for most of the IQ variance between groups, and that even adverse environmental factors are indirectly influenced by heritablity through "gene-environment covariation".

Lynn did neglect to mention the work of Martin D. Jenkins, although reports from the 1930s by this African-American psychologist are contradicted by so much other evidence that they do not seem plausible. Lynn also did not cite the important 2006 article "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" by Gregory Cochran et al., possibly because this had not been published in time for inclusion in Lynn's book. Nevertheless, "Race Differences in Intelligence" is the most comprehensive treatment available about this topic. There are only two types of people who will not be persuaded by Lynn's excellent presentation. First, there are those who desire to stay willfully ignorant in order to avoid having to modify their unexamined preconceptions. Second, there are those who deliberately remain in denial to avoid having to admit that affirmative action and other unjust failed social policies are in dire need of reconsideration. This book is a thrilling intellectual adventure.