Our Dumb World: IQ And The Wealth Of Nations (Cont.)

By John Derbyshire

07/11/2016

For a really good chew-over of this ever-interesting topic, Greg Cochran and his commenters deliver the goods.
As far as average IQ scores go, this is what the world looks like. But there are two relevant tests: the Stanford-Binet, and life itself. If a country scored low on IQ but at the same time led the world in Cavorite production, or cured cancer, or built spindizzies, we would say “screw Stanford-Binet,” and we would be right to do so.

Does that happen? Are there countries with low average scores that tear up the technological track? Mostly not — generally, fairly high average IQ seems to be a prerequisite for creativity in science and mathematics. Necessary, although not sufficient: bad choices (Communism), having the world kick you in the crotch (Mongols), or toxic intellectual fads can all make smart peoples unproductive. [Our Dumb World by Greg Cochran; West Hunter blog, July 9th 2016.]

The subtopic of East Asian creativity — i.e. the stereotype absence thereof — pops up a couple of times in the comment thread.

That caught my attention because I had just gotten through reading the current issue of The Economist, which includes a review of two books about technological innovation in China.

From that review:

Fleet-footed and frugal Chinese firms are coming up with business-model innovations too. WeChat, a social-media and payments platform with 700m monthly active users, is more useful and fun than Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp put together. [Out of the Master’s Shadow; The Economist, July 9th 2016.]
Mrs Derb is a WeChat addict subscriber. Judging by the amount of time she spends on the app — even when her handsome, witty, and attentive husband is in the same room! — The Economist’s anonymous reviewer may very well be right.

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