Mon Dieu! New IQ Study Says French are Dumb, Germans Smart

The French are dumber than their European counterparts, and the Germans and Dutch have the highest IQ's in Europe. Can this be true? In comparative terms, yes, according to a newly released study of national IQ's, by Professor Lynn, at the University of Ulster. The professor has issued controversial intelligence studies in the past, including his work correlating IQ's to race and sex. The London Times reported France came in 18th with an average IQ of 97, fully 10 points behind those clever Germans and Dutch at 107. And shelve all those dumb Polish jokes – they scored third at 106. Some critics of Professor Lynn charge him with bias, and flawed methodology. He also correlates brain size with intelligence, pointing out that in the average brains in Northern and Central Europe are 1,320cc in volume and in southeast Europe it is 1,312cc. Is all this nonsense? Probably not. Anthropologists and paleontologists have long correlated brain size with intelligence in human evolution. But as we learn more about brain morphology and development, size alone may be insufficient to explain all differences in intelligence. A 15 year long study just released by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to gain a detailed picture of how the brains of children change over time. It found that in kids who did better on standard IQ tests, the cortex grew thicker and faster and its growth peaked later than among their average peers. "The study shows that there are clear features in brain images that are different for smart children versus average children," says Paul Thompson, a brain-imaging expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the MIT sponsored Technology Review. Numerous studies have born out that genetics plays a strong role in intelligence among other factors. It gets uncomfortable for many when racial differences are explored, and given recent history, that is understandable. Professor Lynn, for example, postulates that in military conflicts, the side with a greater IQ will win, unless overwhelmed by greater numbers, as he states happened in World War II. It is hard to deny that Germany would likely have prevailed were it not for the sheer weight of numbers and productive capacity that the New World provided, both in World War I and World War II. German engineering and German scientists are part of the lexicon to this day for superior abilities. Albert Einstein was a German Jew, and our acquisition of Wernher von Braun and his colleagues were the basis of our space program. There were many jokes about how the American space effort resembled a reunion for Peenemünde rocket scientists. Professor Lynn's theories that people in northern latitudes developed greater intelligence in order to survive more severe climatic challenges stirs controversy by feeding into racist beliefs about the inferiority of blacks. He has been a critic of British immigration policy, saying that the lower scores of African and African-Caribbean immigrants cause higher unemployment,crime, and illegitimacy – compared to immigrants from India and Asia. In another study, he concluded in his meta-analysis that Asians have about a 5 point IQ advantage over Whites. He does not explain why the comparatively mild Italian climate would produce a higher average IQ than Norway, Denmark and Finland. Perhaps there is a link between garlic and intelligence, it seems to be good for just about everything else. American undergraduates must be doing something right, as his studies say that they have the highest IQ's compared to other countries, at 110. Who would have guessed that. He must have studied students remaining on campus during spring break. One hopeful conclusion on intelligence has been described as the Flynn effect. This indicates that globally, IQ scores are increasing slightly every year. Some attribute this to better nutrition, particularly in childhood. Whatever the cause, maybe we'll become intelligent enough to avoid the penchant humanity has for finding excuses to hate each other based on religion, race, ethnic traditions, and politics. That seems a long way off. Intelligence is, after all, not the same as wisdom. Tags: IQ intelligence Study research Lynn Europe French German France Germany.race racism sex brain NIMH child development immigration climate