Testosterone, Race and IQ: Avenues for Research

Posted on the 17 August 2014 by Calvinthedog

Third Eye writes:

I think exploring the testosterone factor might be fertile for getting at the roots of IQ differences between different groups.

Blacks are the high testosterone group, Asians are the low testosterone group, and Caucasians are somewhere in between the two. There is also disparity between the IQ scores of black males and black females.

It would be overly simplistic to draw too much of a negative correlation between testosterone and IQ, as we don’t have evidence that there is a gender disparity in IQ performance for Asians or Caucasians as there is for blacks. Maybe there’s a threshold level where testosterone becomes a significant impediment to developing cognitive ability. Maybe testosterone is one factor that is synergistic with others in interfering with the self control required to develop the cognitive intellect in the formative years.

It would also be interesting to compare the premium on intelligence as an adaptive characteristic between tribal and civil societies. Maybe high testosterone levels are adaptive in tribal societies while lower testosterone levels are adaptive in civil societies.

This is great stuff from Third Eye. I would love to explore this sort of thing in depth. I already have some theories about it.