Director writes:
Do whites born in Africa magically erase points off their SAT’s or IQ tests?
Or does the JuJu only work one way?
Blacks gain by moving to the West. Other non-White groups do too. Whites do not fall by moving to the 3rd World. Environmental effects on intelligence in the modern era tend to be either neutral or eugenic.
How does migration benefit IQ? Let us look:
Group Native In the West* Africans 72? 86 (US) Caribbeans 72 86 (UK) South Indians 82 93? (US/UK) Moroccans 83 89 (the Netherlands) Filipinos 86 94 (US) *(post-migration)
Explanation: “Native” score is the score of the adults who emigrated to the West. “In the West” score is for the children of these first generation immigrants born in the West. Therefore, there is little to no boost in merely moving from the 3rd World to the West. Instead the boost comes from children of 3rd World immigrants being born and raised in the West. It is the act of being born and raised in the West that raises IQ, not migration per se.
Improved nutrition is probably not enough to explain these findings. No doubt many of these 1st generation immigrants were perfectly adequately nourished and it is dubious that their children are better nourished in any way that would effect IQ. Instead, the rises are probably due to improved schooling and preschooling in the West and to the vast complexity of modern Western society. Having to deal with this complexity especially when growing up shapes your brain in a certain way, or to put it in layman’s terms, the increased complexity of the West simply makes those who are born here smarter than they may otherwise have been. See the Flynn Effect for more.
