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| Europe |
| Germans 'most intelligent Europeans' |
| 2006-03-27 |
| GERMANS are the most intelligent people in Europe, well ahead of the British and the French, according to a study. Northern Ireland's University of Ulster found Germans have an average intelligence quotient of 107, a scintilla of brainpower above the Dutch who also scored 107, The Times reported today. Poles were on 106, Swedes on 104 and Italians on 102. The British rated eighth with an average IQ of 100. The Spanish scored 98, Ireland 97, Russia 96 and the French 94. Serbians languished at the bottom of the table on 89. The head of the study, Professor Richard Lynn, caused controversy last year by claiming that men were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average. 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. The average brain size in Northern and Central Europe is 1,320cc and in south-east Europe it is 1,312cc, according to his studies. 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. There were also differences in IQ levels within countries – with higher scores found on average in big cities. He said intelligence across Britain could be attributed to bright people moving to London over hundreds of years. Adults in England and Wales have an IQ of 100, higher than Scotland with 97. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #18 Lets all watch PEPE LE PEU wear a Foreign Legion uniform like Beu Geste, and then take out a cigarrette to smoke wid attitude like a true soldat le'Francais. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-03-27 22:58 |
| #17 They couldn't include Jews, it would have been embarassing, with an average of 117. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-03-27 22:01 |
| #16 What, no Jews ? Arabs came in below Hamsters. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-03-27 21:21 |
| #15 Trust a woman (TW) to put things straight! |
| Posted by: Swiss Tex 2006-03-27 18:57 |
| #14 What fun! Unless the tests were done in the original full format (which tests several different kinds of intelligence, and takes all day) at best the results will be within a range of +-20 points of actual. Children's results do tend to be less skewed by environment and experience than do those of adults... for adults, as with most standard achievement tests, experience taking similar tests can increase an individual's test score 10-20 points. All of which places all the results quoted in the article within the variability of the test. Which makes the results meaningless, and demonstrates those who take such things seriously to be pseudointellectuals at best. (Sorry -- Mama spent the better part of my youth studying and applying this kind of stuff to the mentally retarded, multiply handicapped children and adults for whom she developed occupational therapy, work and education programs, which is why I've never been able to take my own test results quite seriously (but at least it seems sure that my own lacks are due to other causes).) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-03-27 18:04 |
| #13 Many a statistician has drowned while crossing a very wide river with an average depth of two feet. Aas a former statistician I can tell this is BS: we are required to be able to swim at least half a mile in order to graduate. Did the mean of the statisticians class make it across the average depth? |
| Posted by: 8 2006-03-27 17:02 |
| #12 Many a statistician has drowned while crossing a very wide river with an average depth of two feet. Aas a former statistician I can tell this is BS: we are required to be able to swim at least half a mile in order to graduate. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-03-27 16:11 |
| #11 Actually, I thought the most intelligent were those like my ancestors who were smart enough to get the hell out of the place before the locals set fire to it in 1914. |
| Posted by: Omeager Chinesh4824 2006-03-27 15:04 |
| #10 Did they test adults, or young children? Testing adults usually is colored by their education and life experiences; testing young children is more likely to get an actualy IQ. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-03-27 14:44 |
| #9 Um, guys?... Key word here: average. Many a statistician has drowned while crossing a very wide river with an average depth of two feet. |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-03-27 14:06 |
| #8 Obviously, there are gross errors in this study. How could Frogs be lowest on the totem pole ? Mebbe this explains why they let Muzzies pour in and take over ? |
| Posted by: SOP35/Rat 2006-03-27 13:50 |
| #7 I think problem is that IQ tests measure just one aspect of intelligence - the ability to do well on IQ tests. Most people aren't so much interested in how well you test as how much money you make. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-03-27 12:54 |
| #6 ..that men were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average. |
| Posted by: Noseeum 2006-03-27 11:54 |
| #5 Behold, my child, the Nordic man, And be as like him, as you can; His legs are long, his mind is slow, His hair is lank and made of tow. And here we have the Alpine Race: Oh! What a broad and foolish face! His skin is of a dirty yellow. He is a most unpleasant fellow. The most degraded of them all Mediterranean we call. His hair is crisp, and even curls, And he is saucy with the girls. Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953) |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-03-27 11:47 |
| #4 DB: I think they were mentioning a fraction of a percentage point or something. Why am I reminded of all the people who calculate their physics lab homework using more digits than the lab instruments were accurate with? |
| Posted by: Phil 2006-03-27 11:22 |
| #3 Okee, but...how are the Germans smarter than the Dutch if they both got 107? |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2006-03-27 09:50 |
| #2 Adults in England and Wales have an IQ of 100, higher than Scotland with 97. Which is why Scotland has the highest number of Nobel laureates per capita of any nation. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-03-27 09:48 |
| #1 http://www.koko.org/world/ Koko the gorilla has an IQ as high as 95 which puts her just above the French. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2006-03-27 09:41 |