This is a superb comment that I just received. I crap talk Indians a lot on here, but one thing is clear and that is that there are many very, very smart Indians. This is of course inevitable given the size of their population, but if Brahmins are 5% of the population and are an inbred and preserved high-IQ group (which I think they are), then there may be even more bright Indians than I thought. Even if only 1% of Indians have IQ’s of 120-125+, that still leaves us with 13 million high IQ Indians. That’s the size of a number of well-known European countries!
In addition, there are ~65 million Brahmins, and it might be interesting to see what their average IQ is. At any rate, very smart Indians are not rare at all, and I have run into quite a few of them.
I also think that the genetic potential IQ of the Indian population is a lot higher than its phenotypical result which is driven down by disease, poverty, extreme malnutrition, atrocious schooling, contempt for education, widespread popularization of anti-scientific belief systems, etc.
An Indian population brought up in the West may be able to reach an IQ of ~90. I say this because British Pakistanis have 90 IQ’s, and they are from one of the most backwards groups of Pakistanis. Pakistanis have an IQ of 82 in Pakistan, so British Pakistanis got an 8 point Flynn gain merely by being brought up in the West.
This Indian man is proposing a couple of theories regarding latitude as progenitor and conveyor of culture and intelligence levels and types by comparing Northeast Asians and Europeans in one group with South Asians and Middle Easterners in another. He includes factors such as weather, agricultural development, levels of immigration, and monocultural versus multicultural societies. He even imagines to toss in Putnam’s low-trust theory of multicultural societies.
Nice work!
And I actually think he is onto something here.
I am Indian, & I have lived in England for 8 years before returning, and I always felt we Indians were much more cunning and better at manipulation than the native English, but the English seemed much more logical in their thought patterns. My personal theory has been that Northern Europeans (and maybe North East Asians) historically lived in a place which was cold with variable climate that in addition was more or less homogeneous with similar peoples in Northern Eurasia.
Thus they had the following conditions in the ancient past with the following results in the present times:
- They had to compete primarily with nature instead of against other humans. Population density was lower in the ancient past, as they lived in a harsh environment that had a cold climate region with variable weather. Thus their brains were geared for planning, abstract thinking and the creation of better tools.
- They had to cooperate with strangers to survive at critical moments, and since genetically people were very similar with similar average natures, they cooperated with and trusted strangers a lot more. In places like Middle East and Indian subcontinent, since agriculture developed faster here due to favorable conditions of climate, populations grew faster, and this resulted in densely populated cities, a feature which reached Northern Europe much later, maybe just during Roman/Greek times. Besides, peoples from various races intermingled, as the location of this region is central in location. African-type peoples intermingled with Caucasians and even East Asians. India had Black Australoids, invading Caucasoids from West central Asia and Mongoloids from the East, for example.
Thus
- Humans in the South had to compete primarily with other human beings. Thus human cognition had to develop more towards cunning, swindling, cheating, arguing, survivalism, clannishness, etc. rather than developing those cognitive skills dealing with making better tools to survive against the hardships of nature.
- Having experienced multiculturalism and multiracialism earlier, we were enriched with low-trust natures. Supporting our clan/caste at all times while ignoring universal morality at the expense of the other was of utmost importance.
I believe the huge gains made in Ancient India in the knowledge of the Mind (meditation, complicated concepts common in the sermons of Hindu gurus) were a side effect of our cognitive abilities being channeled more towards reading other human beings and finding ways to manipulate them.
Chanakya, a cunning philosopher in ancient India, was considered a hero in Ancient Hindu India, which would never have been possible in a Protestant European country.
This is exactly why I find it strange that Whites are considered the most racist people. I think they were novices. We are far more racist, but our methods are more subtle, and we have more experience with of it than the crude attempts made by White people. But on the other hand, we were bad at inventing better tools. We did not even invent the wheelbarrow or a mere candle.
However, I have always found Europeans like the Greeks more akin to us Asians (Asians as in Middle East/ Indian subcontinent, not East Asia) than Europeans from the North, just like I feel Somalis are more like us Asians than Africans from the South.
