Week 11- English Language Foreign Paper Article-I'm Glad They Didn't Rate the US....

This interesting tidbit turned up on Aljazeera, of all places. I print the entire article in case my readers might think I was making this one up.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/62D9421D-265B-4CBC-89DB-769EA89F7D2B.htm

Germans 'Cleverest in Europe'


Germans are the most intelligent people in Europe, well ahead of the British (in eighth place) and the French (15th), according to a study by the University of Ulster.
Germans scored an average intelligence quotient (IQ) of 107, a scintilla of brainpower above the Dutch who also scored 107, the Polish (106), the Swedish (104) and the Italians (102), the Times newspaper in Britain reported on Monday.

The British rated an even 100 IQ according to the study, ahead of the Spanish (98) and the French (94) who could comfort themselves only by checking the study results for Bulgarians, Romanians, the Turkish and Serbians who languished at the bottom of the table on 89.

Professor Richard Lynn, who headed the study, caused controversy last year by claiming that men were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average.

Lynn first came to general notice in 1977, when he published a paper saying that East Asians have higher average intelligence by five IQ points than Europeans and peoples of European origin in the United States and elsewhere.
In his recent book, Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis, he concludes that the East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) have the highest mean IQ at 105. These, he says, are followed by the Europeans (IQ 100).
He said of his latest findings that populations in the colder, more challenging environments of Northern Europe had developed larger brains than those in warmer climates further south.
He ascribes the differences between British and French intelligence levels to the results of military conflict.

He described it as "a hitherto unrecognised law of history" that "the side with the higher IQ normally wins, unless they are hugely outnumbered, as Germany was after 1942", The Times reported.


Although at first read this certainly has a racist flavor combined with a dash of "mad scientist", upon reflection I wondered "why not?". Had the article said the Germans scored best for height, the Spanish for looks, the Italians for musical ability, the French for style etc, we all would have probably nodded and more or less agreed. Why is it that as soon as the comparison moves to intelligence that we all get our righteous dander up? It can't be just because intelligence is not viewed as a physical entity like height, because musical ability and style aren't physical characteristics either but we probably wouldn't get squeamish talking about those qualitites. So why can't we talk about intelligence in the same way? It has some degree of genetic inheritance too. My guess is it is politically incorrect to do so, much as although one could say that blacks are generally better at sports than whites, and everyone would nod in agreement, if someone said that Orientals were more intelligent ( as could be argued by their success on standardized tests for college admissions, some schools at one time had a quota of maximum number of Orientals admitted so as to maintain admissions slots for blacks and whites) than blacks, a virtual riot would ensue.

I think we should examine this study, perhaps conduct more studies, but if intelligence of nationalities can be ranked this way, then we should just accept it as "one of those things" and move on.

And I am very glad they didn't rate the US, LOL.