What! Not All Rocket Scientists! By Brian Simpson

Human biodiversity researcher, Emil Kirkegaard, has made the startling observation that there are surprisingly low IQs of people from developing countries; actually the point was argued for in a paper by German researcher, Heiner Rindermann, and published in the journal Discover Education. But not for long. The claims were too politically incorrect for the established academic narrative and the article was retracted by the editor. The author did not get the opportunity to reply to this, or even defend the paper; it stirred up racial controversy, it was bad optics for the Third World repopulating the West, so it was out.

The retraction issue has been of concern to the academics who have been writing about this, but I think the more important issue is if Rindermann is right, the Great Replacement of Whites by the Third World may lead to situation where technical industrial society cannot be maintained and sustained. The elites in their walled homes will still need a basic infrastructure to survive, as is seen in South Africa, and there is no certainty this will continue with mass immigration. So, contrary to the EU elites, there are few rocket scientists.

https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/surprisingly-low-iqs-in-developing

"Back in May this year, German intelligence researcher Heiner Rindermann published this study:

• Rindermann, H. (2024). Surprisingly low results from studies on cognitive ability in developing countries: are the results credible?. Discover Education, 3(1), 55.

Developing countries achieve surprisingly weak results in international cognitive competence studies. The results are about one to two standard deviations below the average norm-values obtained in Western countries. The results are so low that they are sometimes difficult to believe. For example, in the World Bank collection, Nigeria scored 262 student assessment points (SASQ, about two and a half standard deviations below the norm 500, equivalent in the IQ-scale to 64 points); in the Lim et al. collection, Yemen scored 336 SASQ (equivalent to IQ 75). These results have triggered opposition, factual-scientific criticism, but also ethical debates and political-ideological objections. We crosscheck the values here by comparing different sources of information, statistical analysis, and on-site reports. Results of the different test paradigms seem to be similar for country groups. However, there are sometimes major differences for individual countries. The same is true for comparing different test collections: results of grouped countries are similar, but single countries differ. Using education, GDP per capita and politics to predict test scores shows somewhat higher results for the Global South (5 IQ points), especially for Latin America (rising from 78 to 86 points in an IQ metric). Finally, observational studies of schools and every day life in several countries of the Global South point to problems in the scope and quality of instruction as well as of thinking. To improve outcomes and competences, it is recommended to expand education (e.g., kindergarten, extension of schooling) and better train teachers. Where there are large discrepancies between predictions and test results, the potential seems to be large.

It's a somewhat odd paper in that it includes anecdotes to exemplify and support the empirical findings. This kind of writing style has long been out of fashion in academic articles, but can still be found in academic books. Rindermann made heavy use of it in his Cognitive Capitalism book from 2018. Anecdotes are not worthless because of the doubt surrounding the low scores in poor countries. Are these results valid? Suppose you read somewhere that country X was very wealthy, so you went there as a tourist, only to find that everybody is living in slums and there's no development to be seen. Your experience would be inconsistent with the data and worthwhile to publish. You might start getting suspicious about the government reported statistics. What about traveling to countries with low scores on IQ tests, do they seem lacking in intelligence by Western standards? I've been to southern Mexico (Cancun and Playa del Carmen, IQ ~87), and I'd say once you get out of the tourist area, buildings are in need of renovation, there is trash everywhere, people try to sell you drugs on the street, traffic laws seem optional and so on. I've also been to Naples, Italy (IQ ~92), and many places in Greece (IQ ~93), and it's the same kind of experience. It's not Mexico tier, but it is certainly not Denmark either. My experiences were in line with expectations based on the intelligence averages of these areas. Rindermann provides anecdotes like:

In Guayaquil, on a Sunday, I could not withdraw money from several ATMs (no money came out), but it was debited from my accounts. It took several hours of time (of me and bank employees in Germany, otherwise in Europe, Ecuador or the USA) to undo this. This never happened before in any other country.

In general, it is often too noisy: On the bus, the movies and music are too loud. Also, the movies shown on the bus for all passengers, including children, are often too violent (e.g., John Wick). (Both represent too much sensory stimulation or low sensitivity). Buses, trucks, cars and motorcycles are sometimes extremely noisy. There is a lot of honking and often you can hear car alarms. Commercials and election advertisements from trucks blasting the streets with loudspeakers are very loud. Metal blinds of the stores that go up or down early in the morning, in the evening, and at night are very noisy. People speak loudly. Houses do not have soundproof windows, even on roads, only single-pane windows. Engine noises and voices penetrate uninsulated into apartments. None of this seems to be a problem for them. However, research shows a negative impact of noise on cognition [64].

Finally, this was the first time in my life that I have witnessed a racist insult: In the La Marín bus station in Quito, a "half-black" man, about 25 years old, said to a darker black girl (also mixed race) about 5 years old, "Your mom is black and ugly, black as oil." How can an adult say such a thing to a child?

These are from Ecuador. Considering my experience from Naples where museums with 100s of reviews on websites didn't exist when you walked to their location, or were seemingly placed in dilapidated buildings with no clear entrance etc., this doesn't sound surprising.

The main point of Rindermann's article was not anecdotes. His point was to show that 1) various international assessment of cognitive ability are congruent with each other (high correlates despite different research teams, methods, data sources), 2) are congruent with the level of development according to international statistics (education, income, health etc.), and 3) are congruent with personal experiences if you visit the countries. As such, it is difficult to not believe the results, even if at first they seem incredibly (literally, unbelievable in Latin).

This article proved too much for the censors, however, who presumably lobbied behind the scenes to get it retracted. They have been somewhat successful with this for other national IQ studies (this one for religiousness and crime and this one for parasite stress). The people lobbying for censorship behind the scenes are the ones who wrote an 2024 article in June, shortly after this study was published, called "Journals that published Richard Lynn's racist 'research' articles should retract them". Meng Hu has already replied to this in detail, so I won't bother. Presumably, based on their publication of this article in a big magazine (StatNews) they were able to convince the editor-in-chief to retract it. The retraction notice reads (16 September 2024):

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. After publication, concerns were raised about the methodology and dataset used in this research. Independent post-publication peer review has confirmed fundamental flaws in the use of student assessment studies as a measure of IQ or cognitive ability, and in the prominence of individual examples taken from the author's life.

The author Heiner Rindermann disagrees with this retraction."