jm8 writes:
(I would think, if I understand) a genotypic iq of 70 implies a limit of 70 (or thereabout). A group with this genotypic IQ would not be able to raise its iq significantly above it (to 85, 93, or 100).
No. It’s not a limit as in a ceiling. It’s just a basement of floor. If you do not build on that low floor, that is not a good scenario and we can look around the Black world to see the effects of that. But if you build on it, you may be able to push it up pretty high because it started out so low.
No way would an 80 IQ group be so consistently scoring ~70. Look at how many times Blacks all over the place score ~70.
Pure US Blacks in the Deep South regularly score ~70. Scores of ~71-73 are regularly reported in the Caribbean. Many tests in Africa to this very day come back with scores 70 or even lower. A stunning number of tests come back in the 60’s. A group with an IQ profile like that must have a low genotypic IQ – there is no other explanation for all of those low scores. Nothing else makes sense. Look at groups ~80 IQ in Nepal, Qatar, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Afghanistan. Do you see them continuously returning scores ~70 or, God forbid, lower? Of course not.
That must be some sort of a genetic set.
I am starting to think that maybe the environment can push IQ or at least an IQ proxy up to a huge degree. It may also be that the lower you start out, the higher you can go. Maybe a 70 IQ group could gain 7-24 IQ points because they had so much “room to grow” so to speak. I am thinking that it might be hard to get a group that is already heavily maxed out like Whites at 100 to go much higher. How much higher do Whites go than 100? 105? Most of the brain may well be used up and there’s just not a whole lot of room for expansion so to speak.
How much higher can Asians go? Their genetic IQ seems to be ~105, but Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are now at ~111. So they can push it up ~6 points under extreme optimal circumstances. However, Zhejiang Province in China returns IQ scores of 117! Whether there are some fancy genes or a special environment there is not known, but that province has long had stories about harboring the smartest people in China.
So the Oriental IQ can fairly regularly but not commonly be pushed up ~6 points and in rare cases all the way to 12 points. Maybe they tend to limit out at a 6 point raise because they are so high already that there is not a whole lot or room to expand so to speak. Maybe they are already ceilinged out. I think there definitely seems to be a ceiling effect for a lot of groups in terms of IQ. The genotypic IQ is just the basement. You can build on that. It’s a floor. If you want to go higher than that, you probably need to fancy up the environment. But the lower groups may actually have more room to grow than the higher groups who already seem to be more or less reaching the limits of what typical human IQ genes can do.
Think of students coming in to an introductory class about some subject. Blacks have a low basement. So that would mean that Blacks no nothing whatsoever about the subject. This is a problem, but think how much they can learn in the class, especially if they keep on studying that subject. They literally have a world to gain in terms of sheer learning.
Think of Whites and Asians as people coming into the class who have already read the book beforehand, had a tutor the summer before and have been studying the subject on their own for some time (self-taught). How much more can they learn? Obviously the Blacks will have a potential to learn so much more than the Whites and Asians who already know so much about the field that there is not a whole lot left to learn.
Further, keep in mind that the US Black IQ gained 7.5 points since 1920. That gives us a US Black IQ of 77.5 in 1920. I am not sure of the details, but I thought I heard that the White genes had been going into US Blacks at a pretty steady pace as long as they were here. So by 1920, US Blacks may already have been at 12-15+% White. If we figure that White genes add 1 IQ point for each 3-4 points of White admixture, then Blacks of 1920, with IQ’s of 77.5, have already added ~4-5 points due to White admixture of 13.5%.
Which brings us back to a base US Black IQ in 1920 of ~73, which is close to the 70 scores that are regularly returned form relatively pure Blacks in the Deep South and not coincidentally in the Caribbean and Africa.
There is no way to explain a US Black IQ of 77.5 in 1920 in any way other than a pretty low base.