Stefan MolyneuxVerified account

However, I would agree that the high level of Korean IQ has been what has allowed N.Korea to maintain the world's last Stalinist dictatorship, 30 years after the others failed.

1/ Tremendous contributions have been made by populations that are, by modern standards, quite small, and which seem to cluster about in time; Classical Greek philosophy, Renaissance Italian art, Anglo-Dutch capitalism, British industrialism and science...

2/ these advances and contributions were almost certainly made by people we would consider to be part of the high IQ fraction of the population, of course, but the sheer concentration supports that there is more to it than just that. A necessary, but not sufficient condition.

3/ By sheer dint of numbers there must be more geniuses in Nigeria today than ever lived in Holland during the Dutch golden age or in Florence during the Renaissance; and that’s not even getting into places like China which combine high IQ and large populations.

4/ But the contributions don’t match up. Even among similar populations, e.g. Victorian Britain and whites in Canada today - the numbers are relatively similar but the achievements aren’t.

5/ So I expect that there is a bit more - I don’t know what - than only high IQ, which is of course important but may not capture the whole picture. This observation is not earth shattering of course; the stated correlations say as much, and confirm that is a useful measure.