Evidence for Environmental Effects on IQ

The hereditarians are flat out wrong on IQ. They always say that there is an environmental effect on IQ, but then whenever you show them any evidence of it, they immediately shoot it down. There are few hereditarian researchers on IQ who actually acknowledge evidence for an environmental effect on IQ.

Arthur Jensen, Philippe Rushton and the snide, upper class, snooty, antisocial atavists over at Gene Expression lead the pack. Since nearly the entire HBD/race realist sphere follows the line of Jensen and Rushton, nearly this entire sphere has rejected all evidence for a direct effect of the environment on IQ. Every time we show them they evidence, they shoot it down.

Nearly all White racists and especially White nationalists reject all evidence for an environmental effect on IQ and shoot down any evidence they throw up.

White nationalists have a lot at stake in this debate.

White nationalism is founded on the idea that European Whites are a genetically superior race, and most of the other races, including Blacks, Bushmen, Pygmies, Eskimos, Amerindians, mestizos, mulattos, Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, Southeast Asians, Papuans, Aborigines and Negritos are all quite genetically inferior in intelligence.

They also throw in all non-European Whites as genetically inferior in brains, including Arabs, North Africans, Iranians, Afghans, East Indians and the people of the Stans. Since most White nationalists are Nordicists, Southern Europeans and the people of the Caucasus are also thrown in as intellectually genetically inferior.

There isn’t much evidence for this, as Southern Europeans and the people of the Caucasus in general have IQ’s that are quite high. Furthermore, Eskimo and Maori IQ is high. The IQ’s of many groups in the US, including Mexicans, East Indians and Africans, are also quite high.

When we suggest that there are environmental effects on IQ, we shoot down their whole theory of genetic intellectual superiority and upset their whole theoretical worldview.

But there is quite a bit of evidence for environmental effects on IQ.

Wild IQ rises in the 20th century, mostly in the developed world, are impossible to explain by genetics.

The much higher IQ of US Blacks as opposed to other Blacks is hard to explain by genetics, though WN’s and the Gene Expression authors never tire of retarded explanations. The WN explanation for the 20 pt difference between US and African Black IQ is that it is explained by White blood in US Blacks. This explanation is retarded as it can only explain 4.5 points of the gap, leaving the other 15.5 points unexplained.

The Gene Expression folks say that African IQ is artificially lowered by malnutrition (they invoke environment only when it suits their hereditarian bias and reject it the rest of the time). Therefore, normative Black IQ is 80, and US Black IQ of 87 is also explained by White blood. But there is no evidence for their theory.

The White nationalists and their HBD buddies also pour cold water on the Flynn Effect showing massive IQ rises in the 20th Century. According to them, while IQ has actually increased, real intelligence has not gone up one single iota. The FE IQ’s are not on some BS called “g intelligence,” therefore they are nothing, meaningless ephemera. People are not getting smarter at all, not even

For instance there have been 22 different studies of IQ and breastfeeding, all the way up to age 50. All of these studies found cognitive benefits from breastfeeding. On the contrary, hereditarians recently championed one study that found no de novo effect for breastfeeding on IQ. Instead, the differences were tied up with mother’s IQ’s. That is, smarter mothers breastfed more and stupider ones did not. I will take 22 studies over one any day. (Sternberg and Grigorenko 1971, p. 128)

The effects of nutritional supplementation in pregnancy on IQ of offspring have been studied.

Nutritional supplementation in pregnancy and later supplementation of children has been shown to have effects at age 24 in Guatemala (1980) and age 18 in Mexico (1982). Mexican boys improved on IQ, and Guatemalans improved on a range of cognitive and achievement outcomes. (Sternberg and Grigorenko 1971, p. 124)

Lead levels in blood have a strong effect on IQ, leading to declines of up to 10-15 points. There is a clear cause effect relationship between blood levels and IQ. Blood lead levels are higher in Blacks than in Whites, because Blacks tend to liver in older dilapidated housing that has lead paint. Black children apparently ingest the paint chips somehow.

Iron level in the blood also effects IQ. consistently shown that malnutrition leads to low IQ and antisocial behavior in childhood. Iron deficiency is quite high in US Blacks and Hispanics.

One controlled study found that children who were severely malnourished in childhood ended up with IQ’s of 84 when returned to the home, 82 when institutionalized and 97 when adopted away (Sternberg and Grigorenko 1971, p. 123).

A study in South Africa showed that intensive courses in college teaching Black college students the types of intelligence that are tested for on IQ tests quickly raised IQ’s from 83 to 97. Students were generally aged 18-22, above the age where environment is said to effect IQ. Even Philippe Rushton agreed that scores went up in this study, but he had some retarded reason why this had no effect on his hereditarian theories (Rushton and Jensen 2005).

It is a common canard among White nationalist and hereditarian circles that all early intervention programs designed to raise IQ have not been able to do so. It’s true that they often do not raise IQ, but they have other benefits. What matters is whether these programs are cost-effective or not.

Yet some very intensive programs have been successful. The Abecedarian and Perry Preschool projects (Sternberg and Grigorenko 1971, p. 108) showed long-term rises in achievement scores lasting all the way into adolescence. Abecedarian found rises of 4.5 IQ points all the way into adulthood. The problem is that Abecedarian was quite expensive. Whether 4 point IQ gains could occur in large populations given this treatment and whether this would be cost-effective is not known.

References

Rushton, J. Philippe and Arthur R., Jensen. 2005. Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Vol. 11, No. 2, 328–336.

Sternberg, Robert J. and Grigorenko, Elena. 1971. Environmental Effects on Cognitive Abilities. New York: Routledge Psychology Press.

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22 thoughts on “Evidence for Environmental Effects on IQ”

  1. People in the Stans are not Caucasoid. Kazakhs in particular are heavily Mongoloid and look like more robust versions of East Asians.

  2. Since most White nationalists are Nordicists, Southern Europeans and the people of the Caucasus are also thrown in as intellectually genetically inferior.

    To me, this is the height of insanity.

    WN’s complain about their declining numbers, yet they refuse to increase their flock by accepting all Caucasians.

    Incredible.

    As a white advocate, I will not be anywhere near as rigid.

  3. To Bay Area Guy:

    yet they refuse to increase their flock by accepting all Caucasians.

    As a white advocate, I will not be anywhere near as rigid.

    If you want to reproduce, at times.. you will have to be rigid.

    😉

    1. Lol!

      Good one!

      Though it could work in reverse. If you’re too rigid, you’ll never find the right person and reproduce.

  4. They also throw in all non-European Whites as genetically inferior in brains, including Arabs, North Africans, Iranians, Afghans, South Indians and the people of the Stans.

    South Indians are considered white?? Did you mean North Indians? I think those Nordicist guys are ridiculous too in excluding southern and eastern Europeans, but I’d have to agree with them in that I don’t see Arabs, Afghans and N. Africans as white. Maybe a few members of those groups could be, but they’d be a minority.

    1. South Indians means all the people of the Indian Subcontinent.

      Many Arabs and Berbers are White. At the very least, Pashtuns are generally White, as are Nuristanis.

      If you look like you could have come from Europe, you’re White. By that definition, many Arabs and Berbers and most Pashtuns are White.

      1. Most Arabs don’t look European. In fact, the most northern of the Arabs, such as Syrians and Lebanese, can pass maybe for the darkest and “woggiest “Europeans such as Sicilians. Most white people I’ve talked to do not consider anyone outside of Europe white and anyone can tell the difference between a Euro and a swarthy Middle Easterner.

        1. Hmm, well, the Whites I talk to are liberal Whites. They all say that all or most all Arabs are Whites.

          The only ones who disagree are somewhat either WN’s or Nordicists.

          There is a Yemeni working at my local store who looks just like a White guy. He says people often think he’s a European. They usually think he is Italian.

          Quite a few Berber Arabs look White too. They could easily pass for Med Whites.

          The Iraqi Christians look very White, and you would be surprised at how many Palestinians look White.

          Kurds live in the Arab World, and they look extremely White.

        2. Plus, even if they are genetically close to European whites, “white” is as much a sociological definition as it is a racial one, at least in America, and Arabs are seen as “outsiders” or a foreign element. They will never be seen as part of the “in group” and that’s sort of what defines “whiteness” in America, being part of that in group that defines the social norm for society. Even Christian Arabs are still going to be seen as outsiders in a way that a German or Swedish immigrant never well.

        3. Technically speaking, Egyptians are North Africans or Berbers. And the only real Arabs are east of the Red Sea in Arabia, the Levant and Mesopotamia. Even other Arabs know that Egypt is part of Africa. Egypt is a mixed bag. I could show you pictures of Egyptians who look as White as I do. But a lot of Egyptians are also mixed with Black, especially as you head South.

          North Africans are only called Arabs because they speak Arabic. It’s basically pan-Arabist crap. Truth is that they are Berbers and Africans. Qaddafi is right. Libyans are Africans. Qaddafi says he’s not an Arab; he’s an African. This is correct.

          Be that as it may, most sane White people, even including White nationalists like Gladys Whitney, describe North Africans as “mostly Caucasian.” That’s exactly what they are, a mostly White group.

        4. I dunno, that may change in the future. As America gets less and less White, the definition of Whiteness should widen. That’s how it has worked historically in other societies. As a Pan-Aryanist, I think that is cool! More tribes of brothers and sisters for me and my fellow Europeans to love!

    1. Well, the ones around here do not look like Blacks at all. They just look like…Arabs. One guy looks like an Italian. Anot guy looks like a…Chechen is the best I could come up with. Their father looks like a…Greek I would say. They all just look like Caucasians, but not exactly like Europeans precisely. They told me that they see themselves as White, so I respect that. I even said, “You guys are White like me!” and gave the two thumbs up, and they were like, “Yeah! White! Cool!” They’re into being White. There are Blacks in Yemen, but they don’t treat them all that well, and intermarriage with Blacks tends to be avoided. Blacks live on the coast in Black communities and in sort of ghettos in cities. But even those Blacks do not look very Black. They look like Horners.

      If Yemenis have Black in them, it’s that Ethiopian “Black” which is hardly even Black if you ask me. It’s like another race altogether.

      They do have frizzy hair though, I will grant that. The frizzy hair is the only Black thing you can see.

      Generally takes a lot of Black genes before Black traits start showing up.

  5. What’s interesting is that, in terms of y-chromosme haplogroups, Europeans are more closely related to East Asians and Native Americans than they are to Arabs.

    1. Well, looking at those huge hap groups is not a very good way of doing genetics. On autosomal DNA, Euros and Arabs are quite close. The link between the Euros and the Arabs are the Greeks.

      Euros -> Greeks -> Arabs

      Groups connected by a -> are close, those not connected, not so close.

      Bedouins are rather distant, it is true, but even they are much closer than Amerindians or NE Asians.

      The truly distant Caucasian group is the Berbers. On some charts they are out of Caucasian altogether and into Black.

      You are right in a way, though. On one chart, Chukchi (Eskimo? Siberian?) is all the way over into Caucasian, though they are clearly Asiatics.

  6. Why are hap groups not a good way of doing genetics? They seem to match up pretty closely to
    anthropological data before DNA testing was avaiable. Chukchis have haplogroup C3 and N, which are totally Mongoloid. Didn’t you once post that Amerindians were closest to Europeans out of all groups? In terms of Y-DNA, that’s certainly correct. haplogroups R and Q

    1. Indeed, of all major races, Amerindians are the closest to Caucasians. Those “Stan” types, Altai, etc, are also very close, but they are like 50% Caucasian, so that does not count. Amerindians are 0% Caucasian. Amerindians were together with proto-NE Asians and early Caucasians in the Siberian/Mongolian genetic hothouse there for a while, so that is their genesis.

      Sometimes I look at Amerindians, and it’s like I’m looking in the mirror. But it’s not how we are now, it’s how we used to be. Like ancient Whites.

      Europeans from 30,000 YBP have skulls that look more like Amerindians than any other existing race.

      1. I don’t know if you know this or not, but based on Y-DNA hap groups, Scandinavians are more closely related to Arabs than other Europeans!
        How fucking crazy is that! Most Europeans are either R1A, R1b, which entered Europe from Central Asia in the east. Scandinavians, however, have hap I, which is the closest to hap J, which is what Arabs, Jews, etc. have.

        1. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Hapgroups are wack.

          Autosomal DNA is the way to go. I will tell you one thing though. On a lot of charts, Persians are right next to Danes, Norwegians, British, etc. Really weird. And there is anthropological evidence connecting Scandinavians with that region too, especially Azerbaijan. It’s all very strange, but the typical blond and blue Scandinavian look only shows up en masse about 4,000 YBP anyway.

          Those Scandinavians went all over the place back in the old days. Seafarers.

  7. Sure there’s environmentality. That doesn’t exclude heritability. There is evidence that there are differences among races (asians usually highest, then white, then blacks). Current estimates are .5 up to .8 heritabilities.

  8. Isn’t it sick that communism is founded on the idea that people should be turned into Borg? And why do environmentalists keep denying that humans have DNA?

    “The hereditarians are flat out wrong on IQ. They always say that there is an environmental effect on IQ, but then whenever you show them any evidence of it, they immediately shoot it down. There are few hereditarian researchers on IQ who actually acknowledge evidence for an environmental effect on IQ.

    Arthur Jensen, Philippe Rushton and the snide, upper class, snooty, antisocial atavists over at Gene Expression lead the pack.”

    Can you at least be a little intellectually honest and drop the commie rhetoric? As you know, 100 percent of hereditarian researchers acknowledge evidence for an environmental effect on IQ. Name one that doesn’t?

    The straw men really get tiresome.

    “The hereditarians are flat out wrong on IQ. They always say that there is an environmental effect on IQ, but then whenever you show them any evidence of it, they immediately shoot it down.”

    Cute rhetoric aside, hereditarians are only “flat out wrong” is there is no genetic basis for differences in intelligence, not if they disagree with a particular environmentalist explanation.

    As you know — you cite the paper — the Hereditarian Hypothesis is either a 50/50 Hypothesis (refer to Gottfredson, 2005. What if the Hereditarian Hypothesis is True?) or it is a non-0 genetic Hypothesis (refer to Levin, 1994. “Comment on the Minnesota transracial adoption study.”)

    So obviously they actually do believe there is some enviro effect. Instead of assuming they are being inconsistent, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to assume that they are shooting down explanations because either 1) those explanations are implausible or 2) they’re lacking?

    “Arthur Jensen, Philippe Rushton”

    While Lynn and Rushton are questionable, Jensen is not. I’d refer you to Detterman’s ‘A king among men.’ He’s rather well respected across the field.

    “and the snide, upper class, snooty, antisocial atavists over at Gene Expression lead the pack. ”

    By ‘Snide, antisocial, atavist,’ of course, you mean: ‘informed, intellectually honest, and non-socialist’

    “White nationalism is founded on the idea that European Whites are a genetically superior race, and most of the other races…”

    As opposed to, say, being founded on white nationalism, that is, European self-determination?
    How about quoting me a few sources for that contention? If what you say is really the case, why don’t you explain to them what their standard distribution arguments mean in terms of the spread of intelligence? And why in Gods name do they argue that East Asians and Jews are Intellectually superior?

    “When we suggest that there are environmental effects on IQ, we shoot down their whole theory of genetic intellectual superiority and upset their whole theoretical worldview.”

    First, only in your warped communist mind is nationalism associated with intellectual elitism. If you’re an intellectual elitists, you’re obviously not an ethnonationalistic, since you would prefer the right end of other ethnic groups to the left end of yours. Second, to the extent the hereditarian hypothesis is argued by WNs, it’s a defensive argument. It’s arguing that the under-performance of NAMs is not due to some ethereal racial oppressionism. Third, you could more effectively undermine the supposed ‘theoretical wordview’ by pointing out that large % of other groups are “genetically superior” to large % of their group. You don’t because the supposed world view is your concoction.

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