Check out these maps of GDP
When you see the map, it becomes radically apparent just how firmly Britain was the root of the Industrial revolution. With the lone exception of Japan, the darkest places on the map are either next to Britain, or former British colonies. And aside from Saudi Arabia and Chile, all the growth seems to spread outward from those Anglosphere points of infection. Nowhere, not even Saudi Arabia, has the income density of Western Europe and North America.
This map tells pretty much the same story, but adds a lot of new information:
GDP again seems to spread out from the Anglosphere infection--but only where there are ports. Ten thousand years or so after the first humans built sailing ships for trade, the coast still matters immensely. In fact, there are only two prosperous landlocked countries of any size: Austria and Switzerland. And at roughly 8 million people apiece, neither of them is what you would call "large". It's telling that three out of four of Europe's landlocked countries are best known for their bank secrecy laws--an export that requires little effort to transport. The energy savings of moving goods by water is so immense that a good coastline is a really good substitute for rich neighbors--think Chile. Meanwhile, those who wonder why Africa remains mired in poverty can observe how few dark spots there are along the coasts. In part this is horrible institutions, but it's also due to the fact that Africa has very few good sites for ports--the best ones are on the north and south of the continent.
The final map shows growth:
Growth is inversely correlated with wealth, but positively correlated with having rich neighbors.
It's a pity that geography is so rarely taught in schools above the third grade level--there's an enormous amount to learn about societies just from looking at maps.
Update In the comments, Susan of Texas informs me that schools have started teaching geography again. I'm glad to hear that we're finally rectifying a tragic mistake.
The GDP density map looks quite similar to the famous photo showing a nighttime view of the world from space.
I actually see three exceptions on the first map: Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. You could make a pretty convincing argument that these countries (and Western Europe) jumped feet-first into industrialization under the eyes of another Anglophone nation (Guess which).
Comparing the first and second map (look esp. at Kenya, India, Iraq, and South Africa) exposes an epicycle in the hypothesis that "former British colonies are more likely to be prosperous today." I'd rephrase it as "former British colonies where the native people were largely exterminated or displaced are more likely to be prosperous today." This is a weak correlation though (witness Malaysia, Singapore, and Israel).
Finally, I like your point about ports, but GDP might map more closely with population density or generally, or perhaps soil quality. Cities are the world's engines of wealth, and cities grow up where they're close to good farmland.
What map are you looking at where the Levant, Iraq India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, and Burma are the darkest places on the map?
rereading my comment above, I realized I might take issue with my own assertion that the natives of Israel (former Palestine) weren't "exterminated or displaced." I was just thinking about modern population density as an (inverse) proxy for colonial genocides. So Israel is kind of a double exception.
Rick: good catch.
Logical fallacy. All rabbis are Jews; not all Jews are rabbis.
So your hypothesis is only about rabbis, not Jews? ("Rich countries are in the Anglosphere" not "Anglosphere countries are rich.") Because the second is more interesting (and controversial). Jared Diamond wrote a whole book about it.
"Ten thousand years or so after the first humans built sailing ships for trade"
I've heard that humanity is 6,000 years old and 30,000. you must be using the average.
To whom did the first humans expect to trade their ships? Did they have a map to the second batch? And what would they get in return?
Without denying the importance of ports to development and industrialization, I think your point about land-locked countries is something of an exaggeration. First of all, there are actually relatively few landlocked countries, according to Wikipedia, forty-three. Most of them are in, Central Asia, Saharan, and Sub-Saharan Africa, with a few in Europe and South America. Only about 35 of them, and I am speaking generously, are really large economies.
It seems clear to me that many of these land locked poor countries, particularly in Africa, border non-landlocked countries that are just as poor. In Europe on the other hand Slovakia and the Czeck Republic two land-locked countries you did not mention seem to be developing and growing if not yet in the first rank of developed nations.
Aren't culture and urbanization, which Mr. Sounders mentioned above, more important than these simplistic geographical indicators? Of course, I won't deny that culture and urbanization are effected by geography but I think that we fall into dangerous simplification when we attempt to make it explain too much. While I've loved geography since the days of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and think we should, as a nation, teach more of it to our children, it has its own limitations.
"but it's also due to the fact that Africa has very few good sites for ports"
Megan, I think this is just flat out wrong. The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest port in North America and when combined with the adjoining Port of Long Beach, is the 5th busiest in the world.
Nothing about the Port of LA naturally lent itself to becoming a port. Nearly all of what made it functional as a port was man-made.
So to say that Africa's lack of ports explains its lack of prosperity is inverted, at best. No one desires to import/export goods there strongly enough to build a good port.
Comparing similar states that differ only by the colonial power (or lack of one) is illuminating.
Belize(ENG) is in about the same economic state as Nicaragua and Costa Rica(SP), though a little better than Guatamala(SP).
Cote d'Ivoire (FR) is doingg better than Ghana (ENG).
Suriname(NETH) is doing better than Guyana(ENG).
Algeria(FR) is doing better than Egypt(ENG).
Most illustrative is Thailand, which was not colonized by Europeans. It is doing much better than Burma(ENG), Cambodia(FR) or Vietnam(FR).
While the US, Canada and Australia are obviously doing well, they represent the virtual elimination of the native population and replacement by a modern state. There is nothing to compare them to. I suppose Argentina comes close, but it is not side by side with the others with similar resources and environment.
I think what we need is another map that shows GDP Density per Capita because it is hard to parse out pure polulation density from GDP density.
The imporance of ports should be measured using the difference in GDP within countries. For example, coastal areas of many countries (US, China, France, Brazil) seem so be doing much better than inland regions. But again, coasts are where most of the population is concentrated. Hard to tell which is the cart and which is the horse.
Also not to nitpick but while Chile is looking good compared to its neighbors, it isn't doing THAT much better. It has a lower GDP per capita than say Czech Republic or Hungary which do not have good ports but do have good neighbors. On the other hand, say 30 years ago Japan was thousands of miles away from any remotely developed country and was among the fastst growing countries in the world, so you can make that point either way.
Not clear what point you are trying to make. Wouldn't it be more useful to look at GDP/Income changes over time and also in terms of both availability of and ability to use natural resources? Classifying countries in three categories - 1. had and used natural resources (e.g. USA), 2. did not have natural resources but obtained from other areas either through trade or exploitation (e.g. UK), 3. had natural resources but were unable to use them. One could also add another dimension - exploitation and trade.
Geography's disappearance from American classrooms during the 1960s is now ancient history. Since then, the discipline has made a stunning comeback in K-12 and university education, in government agencies, and in business. Geography was one of five core subjects identified in the President's Goals 2000. A new Secondary Human Geography AP Exam debuted last year, and a Physical Geography exam is forthcoming. College and university enrollments are surging.
There is much room for improvement, but you are wrong stating that geography is rarely taught above third grade.
How come Zimbabwe is so dark on that first map?
Nessuno,
Then again, the USA was not dependent on the LA port to become a prosperous nation, it only created it after it became prosperous.
Let me rephrase that second part:
the USA only created the port of LA after the USA became prosperous
cutting corners to save time just costs more time...
dearieme-
Because everyone is a millionaire!
dearieme: I think you are looking at Botswana. Zimbabwe is to its northeast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana
North Carolina doesn't really have much in the way of ports (the barrier islands prevent that, so they get used for beaches instead, which is why you see so many people up near DC with "OBX/Outer Banks" stickers on their cars.')
But eventually things like railroads and highways substitute for ports and canals.
Although this coastline hypothesis you put forward is cute, I'll go with the more simple explanation, which is white-europeans and nort eartern asians have higher IQ's.
But, they're not functionally landlocked, as the Danube runs through them (and Austria too). Tom Sowell has written a lot about the role access to water has played in the development of economies.
Africa, in addition to having few natural ports, has very few navigable rivers. Most great cities in the world are either natural harbors or on navigable rivers--London and Paris,
Most illustrative is Thailand, which was not colonized by Europeans. It is doing much better than Burma(ENG), Cambodia(FR) or Vietnam(FR).
Not a very good example because surely the more recent history of these countries is of more relevance.
Heinz, Njorl's point seemed to be that colonial history *is* important. You can't argue that it's unimportant by just stating that recent history is of more relevance.
The more salient attribute most of the rich countries have in common is high IQ. Compare, for example, the high IQ populations of Hong Kong and Singapore (both former British colonies, with some of Britain's former colonies in Africa. There are plenty of countries in sub-Saharan Africa with coastlines. Had they been sufficiently advanced technologically, they could have sailed to Europe and traded their spices, etc. with the Europeans, instead of the Europeans dominating that trade, and getting rich off of it.
I didn't elaborate my point, but I assumed that it is not necessary to explain that what happened in recent history is more important for the current state of affairs than events of 50 or 100 years ago.
More specifically, Njorl claimed to compare similar states that differ only by the colonial power.
Burma became independent in 1948 without joining the Commonwealth, later on turned into a military dictatorship that claimed to follow socialist policies.
Thailand has never been a colony. During the cold war, however, it was an ally of the US.
So with due respect, I do argue that there is a difference between Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, and it is more relevant than the question which colonial power succeeded in controlling these countries for a few decades.
"More specifically, Njorl claimed to compare similar states that differ only by the colonial power.
Burma became independent in 1948 without joining the Commonwealth, later on turned into a military dictatorship that claimed to follow socialist policies.
Thailand has never been a colony. During the cold war, however, it was an ally of the US.
So with due respect, I do argue that there is a difference between Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, and it is more relevant than the question which colonial power succeeded in controlling these countries for a few decades."
Without doubt, the conditions of those nations under colonial rule had direct impact on their post-colonial history. The fact that Thailand had been independent strongly influenced it's relationship with the US. They could engage in a relationship with the US with minimal anti-imperialist backlash. Cambodia and Vietnam could not. Any involvement with the west did more harm than good. In Burma, the heavy handed use of military force by the British to establish and maintain rule and the formation of Burmese militias by both sides during WWII, strongly contributed to the formation of the military dictatorship in post-colonial Burma.
Yeah, clearly they're rich because of higher IQ's and not the other way around. It's ridiculous to think excellent nutrition, already having the wealth to provide universal education, and cultures that have valued intellectual achievement for millenia could be any part the reason whites and NE Asians do better on IQ tests. No, they must be rich because they're inherently superior to Africans, Native Americans and all those brown Asians.
Jackass.
SeanH, you do realize that greater wealth, better nutrition and valuing intellectual achievement could just as easily be the result of higher IQ as the cause of it.
While I would prefer to believe that causation goes in the direction you presuppose, it's not intellectually honest to dismiss out of hand the possibility that causation is in the other direction.
Ports have many interesting effects. I once saw a map of Germany showing percentages of people who smoke. It's highest in the Northwest, near where the ports (German and Dutch) are, tapering off to very low in Bavaria and Saxony. Probably because, centuries ago, tobacco came on ships and got rarer, and so more expensive, the farther one got from a harbor.
Sarcasm,
The first humans to sail that we know of were on the Nile. There is a nice, reliable wind that blows you upstream, and the current takes care of going downstream. They knew where they were going; sailing was simply an easier way of shifting things up river than towing from the bank.
My own guess is that the Egyptians got the idea from watching cormorants. Some of those birds use their spread wings to sail logs counter-current.
"Yeah, clearly they're rich because of higher IQ's and not the other way around. It's ridiculous to think excellent nutrition, already having the wealth to provide universal education, and cultures that have valued intellectual achievement for millenia could be any part the reason whites and NE Asians do better on IQ tests. No, they must be rich because they're inherently superior to Africans, Native Americans and all those brown Asians.
Jackass."
Hmm, so your theory is disproven if there is a country that was poor (due to some factor) but high IQ that had some sort of major change that made them go from poor to non-poor, right (China and communism)? If we can find some other country that shared the same factor and was low IQ then you remove that factor, they would stay poor (let's say Zimbabwe and colonization). Is that about right?
Lemme guess, there'll be some other factor then, right? Always another epicycle to be added.
It's IQ. It's obvious. You see the same exact patterns when people from various ethnic groups settle across the world.
Tell you what, you invest in the future of Botswana's (relative to the world ($16,400 per capita), high GDP per capita, so that high IQ will be rolling in any day now) high tech industry and I'll invest in the future of Vietnam's ($2600 GDP per capita, poorer, therefore will be lower IQ) high tech industry and we'll see who does better.
Certainly that's possible, but it's ridiculous to make that claim as if it were fact as TG did. It's highly debatable whether it's even possible to measure intelligence across such disparite cultures and educations without bias skewing results badly. It's silly to think we currently some have way to definitively and accurately measure and compare the intelligence of, say, a college-educated American and a miserably poor, completely uneducated, illiterate Burmese mud farmer.
To my knowledge there have been exactly zero attempts to systematically measure intelligence across all nations with large sample sizes. The only widely published study I know of was for the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations which was not peer reviewed, used data etirely made up of estimates for many countries, and has been very widely criticized as an unsound study.
Let's say for agument's sake that it is possible to accurately measure and compare intelligence across cultures and we do have peer-reviewed studies proving a correlation between national IQ and wealth. There still isn't any evidence anywhere to show that IQ causes national wealth rather than the other way around. On the other hand, there is abundant evidence from many studies showing that good nutrition and healthcare, both of which require wealth, do cause increased IQ.
So:
1. We don't know for sure if national IQ's can even be meaningfully measured.
2. Even if we can, we do not yet have any world-wide, systematic measurements of IQ.
3. Even if we did, we don't have any peer-reviewed, scientific studies proving a correlation between national wealth and IQ.
4. Even if we had all that, TG would still be arguing against the currently available scientific evidence when he says that the causation runs from IQ to wealth rather than the other way around.
I do concede it's possible TG is correct, but Occam's razor tells me he probably isn't. He's a jackass twice over either way. First for promoting a dubious hypothesis as if it were fact. Second, for acting as if Megan was being a fool for substantively exploring this issue when she could just buy the racist snake oil he's peddling.
China was poor relative to the industrialized west only for the temporary and fluky century and change because they lagged behind in the explosive growth in wealth industrialization brought the west. For the rest of recorded human history China was the wealthiest and one of the best educated nations in the world. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that thousands of years of wealth and education might lead to a culture that does well on IQ tests.
Most importantly, let's simplify the whole subject and make it solely about China. Anyone who claims they know definitively what the Chinese average national IQ's in 1500, 1900, and today are and thus can explain how changes in intelligence made China go from rich to poor to rich again is a liar.
"For the rest of recorded human history China was the wealthiest and one of the best educated nations in the world. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that thousands of years of wealth and education might lead to a culture that does well on IQ tests."
Ok, so it's not how much wealth a country has now that leads to IQ increases (or depresses IQ) but how much wealth a country had in 1500 that matters. Is that it?
So IQ isn't permanent or genetic but tracks wealth from 500 years ago. I'll get ready for the Botswana renaissance in 2500 or so. You've got a great theory. It makes such useful predictions.
Epicycles. Look them up.
1) Humans are animals that are subject to natural selection.
2) Different environments have different selective pressures which lead to different adaptations.
3) There are measurable physical differences between breeding groups that were isolated (skin color, bone density, altitude adaptations, calf circumference, etc.)
4) The brain is a physical organ which is subject to selective pressures. Different breeding groups (races) have brains that are physically different. Asian brains are more spherical than European brains which are more elongated (for example).
5) Differences in brains lead to differences in cognitive capacity; brains are the organs used for thinking. How could evolution produce different brains without producing different mental adaptations? Why would brains differ if there were no mental differences?
I'm curious exactly which item you start denying on 1-5.
Anyway, I look forward to your response which, judging by the your two previous posts, will be full of name-calling.
No. The point is that culture matters. Europeans and NE Asians have cultures that have prominately featured scholastic education, literature, and mathematics for milennia. It sould come as no surprise to anyone that they perform well on IQ exams that test the ability to perform in these areas.
Of course intelligence is largely genetic. I never claimed otherwise. What I said is that, along with genetics, IQ is also very strongly influenced by environment. IQ is strongly influenced by good health and sufficient nutrition. This environmental influence on IQ is very well established.
There is no peer-reviewed study anywhere that shows high national IQ causes increased wealth. There are numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies showing that the nutritional and health benefits wealth provides cause increased IQ.
I deny the first clause on 5. There is no scientifically proven racial difference in cognitive capacity. Anyone who claims otherwise is either incorrect or lying because we simply do not have tools proven to definitively quantify and compare intelligence across cultures without bias.
I called TG a jackass because he bahaved like a jackass. I don't retract it because IMO he deserved it for his boorish attitude toward our host. Other than that, I haven't called you or anyone else here names.
If the word "racist" is what you're referring to then I'd point out that I never used that word to describe you, TG, or anyone else in this thread. I used it as an adjective modifying the noun "snake oil" which referred to the theory TG, and you it seems, are promoting.
If that seems like an overly harsh description of TG's theory feel free to correct me. It seems to me a theory claiming other races are genetically inferior to whites and Asians is racist by definition so I don't see how it could be inaccurate or unfair to say so.
Sean H,
You might be more persuasive if you were less of a boor yourself. Get out of the gutter and give your argument a chance.
SeanH,
I'd be careful about using that word "racist" if I were you. The new definition of "racist" is "a person winning an argument with a liberal."
It seems to me a theory claiming other races are genetically inferior to whites and Asians is racist by definition
If the theory is true, is it still racist? I don't see how any scientific theory can be "racist by definition", unless you think that the truth can be racist.
Finally, I like your point about ports, but GDP might map more closely with population density or generally, or perhaps soil quality. Cities are the world's engines of wealth, and cities grow up where they're close to good farmland.
No, not really. I'm a soil scientist by training and earn my living as a farmer. Having grown up in New England I can assure you there's barely any even decent farmland anywhere in the Northeast. New York and Boston are where they are because of their ports. I'm farming in Kansas because of the soil.
San Francisco and Los Angeles are where they are because of their ports. Take away subsidised irrigation water and there would barely be a single significant farm in California and the big valleys would revert to their former status as a sandbox.
As for the rest of the commentary above:
a) all purported ethnic differences in IQ scores fall solidly within 1σ of the overall median. Big deal. Extremes of brilliance or stupidity -- 5σ and wider -- are vastly more dependent on gender (Y-chromosome) than ethnicity or any other factor.
b) it's very difficult to do much of anything for very long where it's hot & dry, cold & wet, cold & dry, or hot & wet. Areas of largely temperate moisture and warmth do best.
If they've got good access to water, even moreso. If their hinterland includes great soil -- bonus.
Overlay it with economic and political freedom and the results will be stupendous, particularly if conditions have selected for a long period of immigration by the most adventurous.
Sean,
Concepts of IQ and intelligence can be quite discomforting to ponder. The poster that raised your ire was a bit condescending perhaps, but you answered with personal rudeness, coarsening the discussion by an order of magnitude. I detect a wee bit of PC induced self righteousness.
“Of course intelligence is largely genetic. I never claimed otherwise. What I said is that, along with genetics, IQ is also very strongly influenced by environment. IQ is strongly influenced by good health and sufficient nutrition. This environmental influence on IQ is very well established”
In the context above I believe that the word largely would mean that the greatest factor in intelligence would be genetic. That inherent genetic intelligence is modified by environment, health, nutrition, and culture. Is that a fair summation?
Would your hackles have been raised if the example of intelligence and Ashkenazi Jews had been mentioned? That is hardly a controversial statement and has been studied to death. Yet if true, what would the flip side of the concept that one genetically isolated group possesses superior intelligence be?
Now let us examine another of your statements and one I find most telling.
“It seems to me a theory claiming other races are genetically inferior to whites and Asians is racist by definition so I don't see how it could be inaccurate or unfair to say so.”
Now that is intellectual honesty, LOL. I’m going to make two snap assumptions. You think being judgmental is bad, you’re an academic.
Africa, in addition to having few natural ports, has very few navigable rivers. Most great cities in the world are either natural harbors or on navigable rivers--London and Paris,
I can't speak as to other cities, but here in Pittsburgh, our three rivers were *not* naturally navigable for heavy cargo ships. The rivers had to be dredged to make them thus navigable. To this day, they are still controlled by a series of locks and dams.
The dredging came before the great industrial explosion and, as I understand it, had everything to do with industry's success. Track the sites of all the old steel mills (and, before that, the glass mills) ... and you will find almost universally they sat on riverfront acreage. Coke, coal, iron ore -- all the necessary ingredients to run the mills -- got floated there in huge quantities. Rail transport supplemented but didn't displace river transport. The rivers were very busy with barge and other traffic well into the first quarter of the 20th century. We still get plenty of barges, but it's nothing like the old days. If you want a great sight, stand on the West End overlook at dawn or dusk and watch for a coal barge to come chugging along the Mon on its way to the Ohio.
Pittsburgh used to be THE largest inland port in the U.S. Due to both regional changes and changes in how they measure such things, I don't think we're "the" largest any longer, but we're up there. Curiously enough, I believe Allegheny County has the most boat owners of any landlocked county in the country. Point being, the rivers are still hugely important to the life of this region, and whether it's via commerce or recreation, just about everyone living here is connected in some way to the rivers.
Pittsburgh owes an incalculable debt to those early engineers, who figured out how the dredge the rivers, throw a bunch of bridges across 'em, and bore tunnels through our hills.
Naturally navigable rivers would probably be everyone's first choice for a water system if you can't have a coastline ... but not everyone has or had those. And with the engineering and other technological knowledge we have today, I would say that having natural ports and naturally navigable rivers is far less important now than it was a few hundred or a few thousand years ago. What we don't have, we can build.
That, of course, presupposes a country where it is desirable to build -- one with rule of law, private property and intellectual rights, contract enforcement and low levels of corruption. Tragically, these criteria are absent in most African countries, which is why we won't see a serious infrastructure or development boom in these places any time soon.
I've met many people like SeanH. They will argue vehemently that there is proof that IQ is related to intelligence. Eventually, though, I learned that they had their own version of IQ: studying in an elite school. Those who go to elite schools are smart, while those of us who didn't aren't. It's as simple as that.
I don't know if SeanH agrees with this, but to all who do, I say you are jackasses.
Is there any room in this debate for the concept of "work ethic"? I don't know if the concept is a valid one, but it has the feeling of being real when you go to an SAT test in Vancouver, in Canada, and Seattle and LA in the USA, and see the preponderance of asian faces that show up. I have done that BTW.
Of course immigrants may self select for work-orientation, ,especially in Canada where a substantial monetary payment is required as part of the immigration process.
It's quite an achievement to have gotten this far in a thread about global GDP distribution without mentioning oil or gas. And coal has only made an oblique appearance.
Is there any room in this debate for the concept of "work ethic"? I don't know if the concept is a valid one, but it has the feeling of being real when you go to an SAT test in Vancouver, in Canada, and Seattle and LA in the USA, and see the preponderance of asian faces that show up. I have done that BTW.
Of course immigrants may self select for work-orientation, ,especially in Canada where a substantial monetary payment is required as part of the immigration process.
Yinzer,
Stockton California now claims prime position as inland port.
This article is nicely complemented by this other article titled The culture of success. Culture determines wealth, as proven by dozens of examples.
"I'd be careful about using that word "racist" if I were you. The new definition of "racist" is "a person winning an argument with a liberal."
So true. I suspect we will be stating this definition often during the Obama Presidency.
Property rights is a very large factor here not being discussed. That explains much of the correlation to the British Empire. Nations tend not to develop much wealth when there are not legal supports for keeping one's wealth- if the ruling strongman or party can take anything you make, you most likely aren't generating a lot of wealth. An independent judiciary is the best guarantee of property rights, the kind developed in English common law. All in all, in retrospect, being colonized by the British Empire worked out better than being colonized by the Spanish Empire because of the strong support for property rights in the former, which is much friendlier to economic growth.
Property rights would also include the assurance of adequate personal safety, as in a reasonably uncorrupt and effective police force.
Recommended reading: "The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created" by William J. Bernstein.
Property rights is a very large factor here not being discussed. That explains much of the correlation to the British Empire. Nations tend not to develop much wealth when there are not legal supports for keeping one's wealth- if the ruling strongman or party can take anything you make, you most likely aren't generating a lot of wealth. An independent judiciary is the best guarantee of property rights, the kind developed in English common law. All in all, in retrospect, being colonized by the British Empire worked out better than being colonized by the Spanish Empire because of the strong support for property rights in the former, which is much friendlier to economic growth.
Property rights would also include the assurance of adequate personal safety, as in a reasonably uncorrupt and effective police force.
Recommended reading: "The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created" by William J. Bernstein.
Property rights is a very large factor here not being discussed. That explains much of the correlation to the British Empire. Nations tend not to develop much wealth when there are not legal supports for keeping one's wealth- if the ruling strongman or party can take anything you make, you most likely aren't generating a lot of wealth. An independent judiciary is the best guarantee of property rights, the kind developed in English common law. All in all, in retrospect, being colonized by the British Empire worked out better than being colonized by the Spanish Empire because of the strong support for property rights in the former, which is much friendlier to economic growth.
Property rights would also include the assurance of adequate personal safety, as in a reasonably uncorrupt and effective police force.
Recommended reading: "The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created" by William J. Bernstein.
"I deny the first clause on 5. There is no scientifically proven racial difference in cognitive capacity."
So there are differences in literal brains between racial groups but those differences lead to no measurable effects on behavior or in cognitive skills. Interesting position. Here's a question: why would evolution select for different brains and genes that effect brains and brain structure in different environments if there were no functional effects? Just random? That's not a very strong hypothesis compared to "different environments have different pressures hence, different attributes are selected for".
"No. The point is that culture matters. Europeans and NE Asians have cultures that have prominately featured scholastic education, literature, and mathematics for milennia. It sould come as no surprise to anyone that they perform well on IQ exams that test the ability to perform in these areas."
So, first you get a culture that values scholastic education, literature and mathematics (how?) then, you get IQ gains from culture. Leaving aside the question of "why did these racial groups develop these cultures and other racial groups did not?" (which is unanswerable for you), this hypothesis makes predictions. For example, you could erase the racial IQ gap by having members of one racial group adopted into an other group (any other group) or by imposing a different culture on members of one racial group. Interesting hypothesis. Look up the Minnesota trans-racial adoption study to see how that one works out (I don't want to give away the surprise ending).
"There is no peer-reviewed study anywhere that shows high national IQ causes increased wealth. There are numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies showing that the nutritional and health benefits wealth provides cause increased IQ."
So again, Botswana or Saudi Arabia should have the same average national IQ as, let's say, Finland. Is this the case? Let me know when 1/2 the world is carrying around a phone created by a Saudi Arabian or Botswanan mobile phone (or any high tech device).
"IQ is strongly influenced by good health and sufficient nutrition. This environmental influence on IQ is very well established."
For this another simple example illustrates the absurdity of the claim. Look at the demographic makeup of the NFL and the NBA. The players are all elite athletes; presumably the same lack of nutrition and lack of good health that would stunt neurological development would stunt height and physical ability (in fact, a large part of being an elite athlete is specifically neurological (faster reaction time, more robust resistance to brain injury, etc.)). By your hypothesis, that it is lack of nutrition and health that causes racial differences in IQ between racial groups, lower IQ racial groups should be significantly underrepresented in the NFL and NBA, in the same way that they are underrepresented in Nobel prize and Fields medals winners. This is clearly not the case. Just enough malnutrition to cause lower IQ but not enough to effect physical development or other non-cognitive neurological development? Odd.
"we simply do not have tools proven to definitively quantify and compare intelligence across cultures without bias."
As far as I can tell, this claim has no content. What is meant by "bias"? The tests are predictive (on an individual level) of academic success and achievement, job performance, (inversely predictive) of bad life outcomes such as bankruptcy, criminal behavior, etc. If you're implying that some cultures prefer to criminals and others scientists who create the knowledge to advance society well, ok but that doesn't make the tests that measure this biased. If you're saying that someone might be a perfectly capable physicist if they were raised in some other culture and the tests do not measure this capacity, that's another claim and gets into the issues of how people raised in other cultures do not turn out to have the average mental capacity of the culture but of their original group.
Look, you're trapped. You can't deny any of my items 1-5 without doubting the modern evolutionary synthesis. Once you're there, you're on the same grounds as creationists. You're going to be stuck making up case by case explanations for data that fits the opposing theory while your theory has to get more and more baroque to explain it all. Think about this, what evidence would you have to see to accept racial cognitive differences? If there is no evidence that would convince you of this then you're not holding a scientific opinion but a religious one.
I love maps. I have one that shows California as an island - another of the carribean with notations for "pirate" activity and spanish galleon traffic.
Education begins at home - get out the maps when they are young and you can hook your kids into being adventurous persons.
Although I'm not sure I embrace the IQ theory, I would like to point out that if it were correct, and genes had such a significant effect on IQ, you have no reason to write off Botswana. Since Africans are the oldest humans, there is more genetic difference between two African neighbors of different tribes than between an Asian and a European. In Southern Africa alone, you can find tribes who still have traces of the oldest humans in the world (the San) and tribes who are descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel (the Lemba). Who knows what genes or level of intelligence they have in Botswana? ;)
http://www.thebody.com/content/world/art2770.html
You also shouldn't discount the possible connection between IQ -- and other, possibly more important features of the personality, such as risk-taking -- with access to water. Just as coastlines and rivers allow for trade of goods, they also allow for trade of people, and one can imagine that over the centuries, the most adventuresome types have gravitated to those areas, while their more unimaginative fellows have stayed behind in the hinterlands.
The US has certainly benefited from this, magnetically attracting the most adventuresome and perhaps intelligent people from around the world. A small advantage thus becomes a big advantage, as more adventuresome, intelligent people are attracted to where that small advantage can be found.
Just speculation.
Thanks, MS. So the answer presumably is "diamonds".
The percentages used in depicting growth are kind of deceptive to me. If the US grows 1%, it's still a heck of a lot more created value than Venezuela's state-generated 8% growth.
There are IQ tests that are independent of color. i.e. look for a pattern of blinking lights and push a button.
They correlate well with more standard IQ tests.
So cultural bias is pretty much ruled out as a reason to distrust IQ tests.
And then there are the Jews. Ashenazim in particular.
Those who go to elite schools are smart, while those of us who didn't aren't. It's as simple as that.
I don't know if SeanH agrees with this, but to all who do, I say you are jackasses.
Posted by: JFP
So where is your Nobel prize in the hard sciences? The Jews steal it from you? Maybe the Chinese?
Tell me about your inventions. Or how about a unique software algorithm?
How about the fusion reactor you designed? A unique manufacturing process?
What are the odds of doing that if you went to a top school?
===
Let me add that I am a self taught aerospace engineer. One step below rocket scientist.
Yet if I had to judge people for a job based on IQ test alone I would pick the high IQ guys.
Or how about airplane pilot assuming equal training would you want to fly with the high IQ pilot (>130) or the low IQ pilot (
I think that if you accept evolution as accurate, it is certainly plausable to accept that certain groups have variations in overall intelligence. The earlier comment about 1 sigma of deviation in intelligence also seems accurate.
In others words IMHO it is unfair to link slight genetic differances in intelligence to a cultures overall lack of wealth development. I think the best predictor of a country's wealth is access to resources, and a open society that values individual rights. This gives a reason and the ability for people to accumulate wealth. The link between wealthy people and wealthy off spring is well documented so wealth percolates wealth much as brewing a cup of tea.
It seems the genetic argument is meant to imply that africans are dumb and therfore cannot build wealthy countries. Even if you accept the slight genetic difference of intelligence hypothesis I do not believe it explains the difference in wealth generation of these countries.
For those of you arguing about IQ, you may want to reference the Flynn effect - that IQs are rising about 0.3 percent per year world wide. Such a rise across races would seem to indicate that culture has a major influence on IQ measurements.
SeanH, I agree with you - I've never heard of any conclusive, reputable study that demonstrated proof of a correlation between IQ and ethnic or racial background.
However! I agree that you're presenting your argument in a problematic fashion: the most important lesson to be learned here is that causality is an extremely tricky thing to grasp. Whatever factors may be correlated to a higher IQ, they do not in any way definitively -cause- high IQ.
For instance, in "Freakonomics", the authors mention a study that shows a correlation between winning elections in the U.S. and raising more money than one's opponent(s). Not spending; not spending out of one's own pocket, either; simply raising more money during the campaign correlates to victory. Does this mean, in any way, that this is the only factor going on? No. The implications of successful fund raising probably matter more: overall popularity, for example, is certainly important. But then again, if one has a small number of large donors that outperforms another candidate's army of five-dollar donations, that could, for instance, reflect a greater pull with influential community members (big business and the like).
Causality is a very difficult thing to determine, and it's part of why the scientific method puts so much emphasis on testing and retesting information. Even something so well-supported as to be called a theory is, still, only "a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind," (wikipedia.org, accessed Aug. 2, '08). Not to say that theories lack validity, but the important thing is that they can always be invalidated by new evidence.
Another question: is it racist if it's true? Well, no, by definition, but a problem of eugenics and other race-related scientific inquiry is that it tends to fall flat assigning scientific value to social categories. Even if white people are, categorically, gifted and hindered in different ways than Latino people, I say, "Good luck testing that." There are all kinds of white people, and only by gathering meaningful data from large samples of every country with white people in it, and comparing them to large samples of Latino people -in the same countries- could one begin to methodically compare and contrast their physiological traits. The issue is this: if race the factor we wish to study, we MUST eliminate other factors before we can proceed.
I sincerely wish racial-science enthusiasts the best of luck in finding such sample groups, and obtaining the funding for them.
SeanH, I agree with you - I've never heard of any conclusive, reputable study that demonstrated proof of a correlation between IQ and ethnic or racial background.
However! I agree that you're presenting your argument in a problematic fashion: the most important lesson to be learned here is that causality is an extremely tricky thing to grasp. Whatever factors may be correlated to a higher IQ, they do not in any way definitively -cause- high IQ.
For instance, in "Freakonomics", the authors mention a study that shows a correlation between winning elections in the U.S. and raising more money than one's opponent(s). Not spending; not spending out of one's own pocket, either; simply raising more money during the campaign correlates to victory. Does this mean, in any way, that this is the only factor going on? No. The implications of successful fund raising probably matter more: overall popularity, for example, is certainly important. But then again, if one has a small number of large donors that outperforms another candidate's army of five-dollar donations, that could, for instance, reflect a greater pull with influential community members (big business and the like).
Causality is a very difficult thing to determine, and it's part of why the scientific method puts so much emphasis on testing and retesting information. Even something so well-supported as to be called a theory is, still, only "a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind," (wikipedia.org, accessed Aug. 2, '08). Not to say that theories lack validity, but the important thing is that they can always be invalidated by new evidence.
Another question: is it racist if it's true? Well, no, by definition, but a problem of eugenics and other race-related scientific inquiry is that it tends to fall flat assigning scientific value to social categories. Even if white people are, categorically, gifted and hindered in different ways than Latino people, I say, "Good luck testing that." There are all kinds of white people, and only by gathering meaningful data from large samples of every country with white people in it, and comparing them to large samples of Latino people -in the same countries- could one begin to methodically compare and contrast their physiological traits. The issue is this: if race the factor we wish to study, we MUST eliminate other factors before we can proceed.
I sincerely wish racial-science enthusiasts the best of luck in finding such sample groups, and obtaining the funding for them.
True, Flynn is a good reminder that the clear differences (one sigma is hardly slight!) in IQ among genetic groups is dynamic, not static.
Culture effects not only the environment of the individual, with debatable utility in terms of pure IQ, but also over time the genetic makeup, or even continued existence, of the group itself via mating choices. I should think the potential impact here on IQ would be uncontroversial, given a sufficient time horizon.
Perhaps non-permanent genetic differences would be a less terrifying proposition to contemplate.
Interesting that the idea of genetic differences themselves became verboten around the time the White Man found the implications of such differences too burdensome. Or perhaps it was German too-fervid insistence on lending a hand in carrying them...
SeanH, I agree with you - I've never heard of any conclusive, reputable study that demonstrated proof of a correlation between IQ and ethnic or racial background.
However! I agree that you're presenting your argument in a problematic fashion: the most important lesson to be learned here is that causality is an extremely tricky thing to grasp. Whatever factors may be correlated to a higher IQ, they do not in any way definitively -cause- high IQ.
For instance, in "Freakonomics", the authors mention a study that shows a correlation between winning elections in the U.S. and raising more money than one's opponent(s). Not spending; not spending out of one's own pocket, either; simply raising more money during the campaign correlates to victory. Does this mean, in any way, that this is the only factor going on? No. The implications of successful fund raising probably matter more: overall popularity, for example, is certainly important. But then again, if one has a small number of large donors that outperforms another candidate's army of five-dollar donations, that could, for instance, reflect a greater pull with influential community members (big business and the like).
Causality is a very difficult thing to determine, and it's part of why the scientific method puts so much emphasis on testing and retesting information. Even something so well-supported as to be called a theory is, still, only "a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind," (wikipedia.org, accessed Aug. 2, '08). Not to say that theories lack validity, but the important thing is that they can always be invalidated by new evidence.
Another question: is it racist if it's true? Well, no, by definition, but a problem of eugenics and other race-related scientific inquiry is that it tends to fall flat assigning scientific value to social categories. Even if white people are, categorically, gifted and hindered in different ways than Latino people, I say, "Good luck testing that." There are all kinds of white people, and only by gathering meaningful data from large samples of every country with white people in it, and comparing them to large samples of Latino people -in the same countries- could one begin to methodically compare and contrast their physiological traits. The issue is this: if race the factor we wish to study, we MUST eliminate other factors before we can proceed.
I sincerely wish racial-science enthusiasts the best of luck in finding such sample groups, and obtaining the funding for them.
Oh, this whole thing may be because those countries that were colonialized were picked specifically because they had natural resources to exploit with ports one could use to export those resources, etc.
Isn't this argument sort of like arguing that young fashion models grew up to be beauties because they slept with their agents.
Interesting article. But, I notice from many of the comments in response to it.
Something that's been forgotten,or not referenced in the original thesis ; before, during and right after the largest British colonial expansion. Other Countries: Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Germany. And even later The U.S. Russia, and Japan where taking over foreign territory. Creating colonies by force like the British. To set up trade routes for securing precious metals and goods.
Not only did the british commonwealth take up arms against many of their rivals throughout the world in the colonial areas. But they also set up trading pacts as well.
And the lack of the writer pointing that out, is one of the main reasons for most of the contrary arguments. As to why certain countries seem to have been able to take a share in the economic race without being actually conquered by the British Common wealth during colonial times.
"we simply do not have tools proven to definitively quantify and compare intelligence across cultures without bias"
Ah yes. Geometry is biased against blacks, and calculus is rigged against Hispanics. Algebra must be rigged against Arabs, except that al-gebra is actually an Arabic word.
"we simply do not have tools proven to definitively quantify and compare intelligence across cultures without bias"
Ah yes. Geometry is biased against blacks, and calculus is rigged against Hispanics. Algebra must be rigged against Arabs, except that al-gebra is actually an Arabic word.
"....and all those brown Asians."
SeanH reveals his own racism and superiority complex.
Which group dominated the recent spelling bee? Brown Asians, that's who.
Which ethnic group is the RICHEST in America? Jews? No. WASPS? No. Indian-Americans, that's who.
So Sean ignores the highly visible evidence that disproves his theory, throwing a successful and numerous brown-skinned group under the bus.
That, sir, is racism.
"....and all those brown Asians."
SeanH reveals his own racism and superiority complex.
Which group dominated the recent spelling bee? Brown Asians, that's who.
Which ethnic group is the RICHEST in America? Jews? No. WASPS? No. Indian-Americans, that's who.
So Sean ignores the highly visible evidence that disproves his theory, throwing a successful and numerous brown-skinned group under the bus.
That, sir, is racism.
M Simon..."Or how about airplane pilot assuming equal training would you want to fly with the high IQ pilot (>130) or the low IQ pilot"....if the only known factors were IQ and training, I'd pick the high IQ pilot. But there are other factors that I'd weight very highly if I had access to them: the pilot's character and judgment, his interest in his profession (as measured by reading, spending extra time in the simulator, etc), and (for an airplane requiring more than 1 pilot) his relationships with fellow crewmembers.
I'd pick a 120 IQ pilot who excelled in these factors over a 140 IQ pilot who did not.
"I'd pick a 120 IQ pilot who excelled in these factors over a 140 IQ pilot who did not."
I'll take it further.
If I was hiring a highly trained bodyguard, I'll take the 95 IQ guy who is incorruptible and loyal, vs. the 150 IQ guy who can be bribed by my enemies.
"Which ethnic group is the RICHEST in America? Jews? No. WASPS? No. Indian-Americans, that's who."
Citation?
Here is one citation :
http://www.usinpac.com/indian_americans2007.asp
Here is another, quoting a Merrill Lynch study :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_American#Economics
Why are you doubting this? It is really quite visible to anyone who puts aside the stereotype that brown people must be poor.
Interesting how the awesome GDP of the United States (cf first map, GDP by country) is determined by the politically-blue parts of the country (cf second map, GDP density). Subtract those parts from the country, and you're left with the red states -- which, GDP-wise, are as red as India on that map.
In other words, the red states are our own, built-in 3rd world country, and we've been dragging them along into the 21st century, kicking and screaming.
They always claimed to know better than us about pretty much everything. Well, time to let them show it. They should be allowed to secede, or forcibly cast off. We'll just have to fly high enough over them to be out of range of their catapults.
You cannot use a group of voluntary immigrants as a representative sample of any source group. This is accentuated if there is difficulty in emigrating to a particular country. I.e. having to obtain the necessary medical, educational and financial resources needed to obtain an immigrant visa requires much more perseverance, motivation and intelligence than is usual in the general population as it also does compared to just walking across the border. These are generally also qualities that given the right political environment (freedom, property rights, justice, security) will result in significant financial reward.
I am an immigrant, and so were my parents to the country of my birth, and so were my grandparents to my parents country of birth. I have lived and worked in many countries around the world. It is culture and politics (both elements of our own creation) that are the most significant factors in prosperity.
I fundamentally believe in the heritability of IQ, it's validity as an indicator of general intellegence, and that there are intrinsic differences (IN THE AGGREGATE) amongst racial groups. With that stated, I doubt (somewhat) that IQ is the prevailing factor in the development and wealth of nations. The US's average IQ is not in the top five, and China, although blessed with the highest aggregate IQ, is hardly one of the wealthiest nations (especially using GDP per capita). I believe it was Hernando de Soto who postulated that it was land ownership and all that entails(the sanctity of contracts, the basic rule of law, etc.) that was the major factor in the development and modernization of nations. I do believe that IQ plays a role in wealth (with all things being equal), but it is a much smaller factor rather than the primary catalyst. If IQ were the primary factor, Chile shouldn't have a higher GDP per capita than China, and yet it does. In fact, even taking freedom and economic liberty into account, Chile shouldn't have a much higher GDP per capita as say India, a nation never encumbered with Communism or autocracy. Again, I'm not saying that IQ is not important, but I am saying that there are many other factors that influence wealth a lot more than just IQ.
Gladness Radiator,
On the contrary, GOP voters consistently earn higher incomes than Democrat voters. This is well-known.
Your own gross misunderstanding of what the GDP density chart is proves this. You fail to grasp that it is a function of both per-capita GDP AND population density. According to your misunderstanding of the map, Australia and Canada are the dumbest, poorest, places in the world. Much dumber than the red states, according to you.
Never in human history has a greater gap existed between one's opinion of one's own intelligence, and the actual intelligence demonstrated, as with leftists.
Do they have maps to show how much they were exploited by Anglos or how much of their population died off first? How about how much of their natural resources and precious metals were lost to the Anglosphere?
Do they have maps to show how much they were exploited by Anglos or how much of their population died off first? How about how much of their natural resources and precious metals were lost to the Anglosphere?
GK -
Where in my last post did I say anything about individuals? Misunderstanding that was pretty great feat of intelligence on your part.
I said that *geographical* GDP density lines up pretty well with the political map, regardless of population density in any one area or another. NYC is a tiny little patch of very blue land that generates a LOT of GDP, no matter how much you think its inhabitants are dumb. It generates a lot more than Idaho.
Trouble is, all those low-watt red states do balance out the blue states in the electoral college, even though they don't pull equal weight financially:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1397.html
So maybe you're right. Blue states are dumb for providing red states with an undeserved fancy Western lifestyle.
Who wants farm subsidies? Have yourself a heapin' helpin'! I got hundreds of billions right here, and the legislative power to get more where that came from!
http://farm.ewg.org/sites/farmbill2007/
Funny thing: Arizona got 69 times more farm subsidy money than Massachusetts, and it's a goddamned desert.
Gladness Radiator,
You totally avoided the inconvenient facts I showed you in the link, that GOP voters earn higher incomes than Democrat voters. In fact, Democrats can't gain 50% of the vote of any group earning more than $30K a year. Even the middle class of $50-$75K voted 56% for Bush in 2004.
Facts are a bitch, eh? Don't get too aroused by the word 'bitch' though.
And what about the red counties of blue states? Why not exclude those too? Most of California's land is covered by red counties. Exclude the Bay Area, and the whole state is red.
You also clumsily avoided the fact that your twisted logic would measure Australia and Canada as the poorest countries in the world. Your US-centric worldview is appalling, and you need to learn more about the outside world (something leftists invariably fail to do).
Josh,
What you said makes sense to me. What use is a land full of high IQ geniuses, if the legal structure doesn't enable them to take advantage of things like owning property, protecting copyright and trademarks, selling their inventions?
Even worse, many nations send their geniuses to gulags. Slzhenitsyn and other prisoners worked at buildings, including the "Palace of Science" -- but as a slave laborer, which one can't help but feel was probably not the best use of his talents.
Hmmm. The anglosphere spreads the rule of law by sea power once more?
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/whats-the-coast.html
"What you said makes sense to me. What use is a land full of high IQ geniuses, if the legal structure doesn't enable them to take advantage of things like owning property, protecting copyright and trademarks, selling their inventions?"
It's not like space aliens create governments for nations.
High IQ people are less short term oriented. People with longer time horizons for agreements have more need for and more ability to administer the legal framework for property rights.
Look at South Africa or Zimbabwe. Formerly ruled by a high IQ elite, now ruled by a low IQ elite. The low IQ elite does exactly what would be predicted. They kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; seize land and businesses for the short term benefits rather than milking them for taxes in perpetuity. Short term, they do better; big Swiss bank accounts. Long term, not so well.
"What you said makes sense to me. What use is a land full of high IQ geniuses, if the legal structure doesn't enable them to take advantage of things like owning property, protecting copyright and trademarks, selling their inventions?"
One more point. We do know that communism will destroy the economy of a country no matter what.
To state simply:
Necessary:
(high IQ population
AND free economy)
or
(natural resources (oil, diamonds, beaches, etc.)
AND not too destructive government
AND small population (with small being imprecisely defined))
Any one of the factors is necessary for one of the two paths, but not sufficient.