Europeans

Ch.3 excerpt Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis (2006).

The Europeans have been recognized by all the classical anthropologists as one of the major races. Linnaeus (1758) described them as Europaeus. They have frequently been designated Caucasians or Caucasoids because of the belief that they originated in the Caucasus. A number of anthropologists have categorized them together with the South Asians and North Africans in a single Caucasoid group. However, the Europeans are distinguishable from the South Asians and North Africans by their lighter skin color and, in the northern Europeans, blonde hair and blue eyes. The distinction between the Europeans and the South Asians and North Africans has been confirmed by Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza (1994) in their classification of the human races on the basis of a number of genetic markers. This has shown that Europeans represented by Italians, Danes, English and Basques comprise a homogeneous “cluster” differentiating them from other races. Coon, Garn and Birdsell (1950), Cole (1965) and a number of other anthropologists have sub-divided the Europeans into seven sub-races consisting of the Mediterranean peoples of Spain, Italy and south east Europe; the Alpine peoples of France and central and southern Germany; the Nordic peoples of England, the east of Ireland and Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Western Finland; the Celtic peoples of Wales, the west of Ireland, and the western highlands of Scotland; the Dinaric peoples of east-central Europe; the Slavic peoples of northern Poland, the Baltic states and Russia west of the Urals; and the Basques of northern Spain and south west France. The Nordic peoples have lighter skin color, blonde hair and blue eyes, while the central and south Europeans more typically have darker skins, darker or black hair and dark eyes.

1. Intelligence of Indigenous Europeans

Studies of the IQs of Europeans in Europe are summarized in Table 3.1. These IQs are calculated in relation to a British mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. Twenty-one of the studies were carried out by Buj (1981) on samples of adults from major cities. Most if the remainder are derived from one of the three versions of the Progressive Matrices (CPM, SPM and APM). Row 61 giving an IQ of 89 for Serbia is probably a shade too low because the sample is described as being from “predominantly lower or lower middle class families” in and around Belgrade (Moyles & Wolins, 1973, p.372). The range of IQs of the Europeans is from 87 for one of the studies in Ireland and 88 for one of the studies in Greece to 107 for one of the studies in Germany and the Netherlands. There are also some inconsistencies in the same countries, where the IQs typically differ by two or three IQ points and in the cases of Portugal and Poland by as much as 13 and 14 IQ points. These differences are partly caused by sampling errors and are partly genuine arising from differences in living standards and possibly from sub-racial differences in Europe. Sampling errors in studies of the intelligence of national populations arise in the same way as in opinion polls on voting intentions where normally several polls carried out at the same time give results that differ by a few percentage points. We should not search for the meaning of differences of a few IQ points between studies when in many cases these are simply sampling errors. The important thing is to look for general patterns.

The only significant general pattern of the IQs in Europe appears to be that IQs are a little lower in south east Europe than in the remainder. In the Balkans IQs are 94 for Romania, 92.5 (the average of the two studies) for Bulgaria, 90 for Croatia, 89 for Serbia, and 92.5 (the average of the four studies) for Greece. The probable explanation for this is that the Balkan peoples are a hybrid population or cline, comprising a genetic mix between the Europeans and South Asians in Turkey. Hybrid populations or clines arise in the borderlands between two races as a result of interbreeding. In the Balkans such a cline evolved because of the close geographical proximity between southeast Europe and Turkey, and the occupation of large territories in southeast Europe by Turkey for a number of centuries during the time of the Ottoman empire. This has brought about a mixing of Turkish and European genes with the result that contemporary Turks and Greeks are genetically quite similar. This has been shown by Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza (1994) in their genetic linkage tree, in which Greeks are shown to be more closely related to Iranians and other southwest Asian peoples than to Italians, Danes and English. This genetic similarity is also apparent for intelligence, for which the IQ of 90 in Turkey is closely similar to those in the range of 90 to 94 in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia in southeast Europe. Because the peoples of southeast Europe are a cline it is considered appropriate to exclude these in estimating the European IQ. The median IQ of the remaining countries is 99 and is considered the best estimate of the IQ of Europeans.
Apart from the lower IQs in the Balkans, there are three other countries with IQs somewhat lower than the European average. The first is Lithuania with an IQ of 90-92. These low figures may be sampling errors because they are rather lower than in neighboring Russia (97), Poland (99) and Estonia (99). The second is Ireland, for which the mean IQ of the four studies is 92. The most probable explanation for this is the long history of emigration in which there has been some tendency for the more intelligent to migrate, leaving the less intelligent behind. This has also occurred in Scotland, where the average IQ is 97, and in Corsica, where the average IQ is lower than in mainland France (Lynn, 1979, 1980). The third country with a slightly depressed IQ is Portugal for which the two results are IQs of 101 and 88, which can be averaged to 94.5. The depressed IQ in Portugal is consistent with its having the lowest per capita income in western Europe and its modest intellectual achievement. The Portugese have only won one Nobel prize for science out of the 346 awarded during the period 1901-2003. This was awarded in 1949 to the neurosurgeon Antonio Moniz for the innovation of the operation of prefrontal leucotomy as a treatment for mental illness, and is not now considered a desirable therapy. It may be that intelligence in Portugal has been depressed by the admixture of sub-Saharan Africans in the population. Portugal was the only European country to import black slaves from the late fifteenth century for agricultural and domestic work. According to Du Bois (1939, pp. 132-3) in the sixteenth century blacks outnumbered whites in Lisbon and in the plantations of the Algarve in the south of the country. This may be an exaggeration, and it may be that the proportion of blacks has declined in succeeding centuries. Nevertheless, if the present population of Portugal contains 20 per cent of African descent and the IQ of the Africans is 70, this would be expected to produce a population with an IQ of 94.
It may be surprising that there does not appear to be much difference between IQs in the twelve former communist countries of eastern Europe, among which the median IQ is 96, and the 14 countries of western Europe, among which the median is 98.5. The difference is small and not statistically significant, so it seems that although the former communist countries have had much lower living standards for some sixty years following the end of World War 2, this has not impaired the intelligence of the populations.

Table 3.1. IQs of Indigenous Europeans

	Location	Age	N	Test	IQ	Reference
1	Austria	14	67	SPM	98	Moyles & Wolins, 1973
2	Austria	Adults	187	CF	101	Buj, 1981
3	Belgium	7/13	944	CPM	99	Goosens, 1952a
4	Belgium	10-16	920	CF	103	Goosens, 1952b
5	Belgium	Adults	247	CF	99	Buj, 1981
6	Britain	Adults	1,405	CF	100	Buj, 1981
7	Britain	6-15	3,250	SPM	100	Raven et al., 1998
8	Bulgaria	Adults	215	CF	94	Buj, 1981
9	Bulgaria	11-17	1,456	CF	91	Lynn et al., 1998
10	Croatia	13-16	299	SPM	90	Sorokin, 1954
11	Czech Rep	Adults	363	CF	98	Buj, 1981
12	Czech Rep.	5-11	832	CPM	96	Raven et al, 1995
13	Czech Rep.	11	64	SPM	100	Persaud, 1972
14	Denmark	5-11	628	SPM	97	Vejleskov, 1968
15	Denmark	Adults	122	CF	99	Buj, 1981
16	Estonia	12/18	2,689	SPM	100	Lynn et al., 2002
17	Estonia	7/11	1,835	SPM	98	Lynn et al., 2003
18	Finland	7	755	CPM	98	Kyostio, 1972
19	Finland	Adults	122	CF	99	Buj, 1981
20	France	6-9	618	CPM	97	Bourdier, 1964
21	France	6-11	328	CMM	102	Dague et al., 1964
22	France	Adults	1,320	CF	94	Buj, 1981
23	France	6-16	1,120	WISC-3	98	Georgas et al., 2003
24	Germany	7-11	454	SPM	90	Kurth, 1969
25	Germany	5-7	563	CPM	99	Winkelman, 1972
26	Germany	11-15	2,068	SPM	105	Raven, 1981
27	Germany	11-15	1,000	SPM	99	Raven, 1981
28	Germany	Adults	1,320	CF	107	Buj, 1981
29	Germany	7	200	CPM	97	Guthke & Al-Zoubi, 1987
30	Germany	6-10	3,607	CPM	101	Raven et al., 1995
31	Gerrnany	5-10	980	CPM	97	Raven et al., 1995
32	Gerrnany	6-16	990	WISC-3	99	Georgas et al., 2003
33	Greece	9-14	400	WISC	88	Fatouros, 1972
34	Greece	6-12	227	DAM	97	Georgas & Georgas, 1972
35	Greece	Adults	220	CF	95	Buj, 1981
36	Greece	6-17	731	MAT	89	Petrogiannis et al., 1999
37	Greece	6-16	990	WISC-3	92	Georgas et al., 2003
38	Hungary	Adults	260	CF	98	Buj, 1981
39	Iceland	6-16	665	SPM	101	Pind et al., 2003
40	Ireland	6-13	3,088	SPM	87	Gill & Byrt, 1973
41	Ireland	Adults	75	CF	97	Buj, 1981
42	Ireland	6/12	1,361	SPM	93	Carr, 1993
43	Ireland	9/12	2,029	SPM	91	Carr, 1993
44	Italy	11-16	2,432	SPM	103	Tesi & Young, 1962
45	Italy	Adults	1,380	CF	102	Buj, 1981
46	Lithuania	8-12	259	CPM	90	Lynn & Kazlauskaite, 2002
47	Lithuania	6-16	381	WISC-3	92	Georgas et al., 2003
48	Malta	5	134	CPM	97	Martinelli & Lynn, 2005
49	Netherlands	Adults	333	CF	107	Buj, 1981
50	Netherlands	5-10	1,920	CPM	99	Raven et al., 1995
51	Netherlands	6-12	4,032	SPM	101	Raven et al., 1996
52	Netherlands	6-16	1,100	WISC-3	99	Georgas et al., 2003
53	Norway	Adults	333	CF	100	Buj, 1981
54	Poland	Adults	835	CF	106	Buj, 1981
55	Poland	6-15	4,006	SPM	92	Jaworowska & Szustrowa, 1991
56	Portugal	Adults	242	CF	101	Buj, 1981
57	Portugal	6-12	807	CPM	88	Simoes, 1989
58	Romania	6-10	300	CPM	94	Zahirnic et al., 1974
59	Russia	14-15	432	SPM	97	Lynn, 2001
60	Russia	27-55	745	CF	96	Grigorenko & Sternberg, 2001
61	Serbia	15	76	SPM	89	Moyles & Wolins, 1971
62	Slovakia	5-11	823	CPM	96	Raven et al., 1995
63	Slovenia	8-18	1,556	SPM	96	Raven et al., 2000
64	Slovenia	6-16	1,080	WISC-3	95	Georgas et al., 2003
65	Spain	Adults	848	CF	98	Buj, 1981
66	Spain	6-9	854	CPM	97	Raven et al., 1995
67	Spain	11-18	3,271	APM	102	Albade Paz & Monoz, 1993
68	Sweden	6-14	1,106	WISC	97	Skandinaviska Test., 1970
69	Sweden	Adults	205	CF	104	Buj, 1981
70	Sweden	6-16	2,231	WISC-3	99	Georgas et al., 2003
71	Switzerland	Adults	163	CF	101	Buj, 1981
72	Switzerland	6-10	200	CPM	101	Raven et al., 1995
73	Switzerland	9-15	246	SPM	104	Spicher, 1993

2. Europeans Outside Europe

Europeans have migrated to many parts of the world. Studies of the intelligence of these populations are summarized in Table 3.2. Rows 1 and 2 give IQs of 93 and 98 for Argentina. Row 3 gives an IQ of 97 for Australia based on a standardization of the American Otis test. Row 4 gives an IQ of 100 for Australia derived from the administration of the SPM to National Servicemen (the IQ of this sample was 102, but because men obtain higher mean IQs than women by approximately 5 IQ points on this test (Lynn and Irwing, 2004), the figure has been reduced to 100). Row 5 gives an IQ 98 for a sample of young Australian children. Row 6 gives an IQ of 95 for European children in Brazil from Sao Paulo. Row 7 gives an IQ of 97 for Canada obtained from a sample of 7 to 12 year olds. Row 8 gives an IQ of 100 for Canada obtained from the standardization of the WISC-111 on a representative sample of 2,200 6-16 year olds.

Row 9 gives an IQ of 99 for Chile based on a study finding that European students at the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso had the same IQ as Austrian students (n = 320). Row 10 gives an IQ of 95 for European children in Columbia. Row 11 gives an IQ of 98 for European children in Baja California in Mexico. Row 12 gives an IQ of 99 for New Zealand obtained from a standardization of the Otis test in the 1930s. Rows 13 gives an IQ of 101 derived from the standardization of the Progressive Matrices. Row 14 gives an IQ of 102 obtained from the Christchurch Child Development Study. Row 15 gives an IQ of 94 for European 16 year olds in Natal in South Africa. Rows 16 through 21 give six IQs in the range between 99 and 103 for Europeans in the United States compared with those in Britain. The IQ of 100 given in row 20 is derived from the standardization of the WAIS-3 in Britain. Row 22 gives an IQ of 96 from a standardization of the Progressive Matrices in Uruguay. . Row 23 gives an IQ of 100 for European 7 year olds in Zimbabwe.

Table 3.2. IQs of Europeans outside Europe

	Location	Age	N	Test	IQ	Reference
1	Argentina	9/15	1,680	SPM	93	Rimoldi, 1948
2	Argentina	5/11	420	CPM	98	Raven et al., 1998
3	Australia	9/13	35,000	Otis	97	McIntyre, 1938
4	Australia	18	6,700	SPM	100	Craig, 1974
5	Australia	5/10	700	CPM	98	Raven et al, 1995
6	Brazil	9/10	735	SPM	95	Fernandez, 2001
7	Canada	7/12	313	SPM	97	Raven et al., 1996
8	Canada	6/16	2,200	WISC-3	100	Prifitera et al., 1998
9	Chile	21	178	3DW	99	Broer, 1996
10	Columbia	13/16	50	WISC-R	95	Ardila et al., 2000
11	Mexico	7/10	155	SPM	98	Lynn et al.,2004
12	N. Zealand	9/15	26,000	OTIS	99	Redmond & Davies, 1940
13	N. Zealand	9/17	3,108	SPM	101	Reid & Gilmore, 1989
14	N. Zealand	8/9	1,692	WISC-R	102	Fergusson & Horwood, 1997
15	S.Africa	15	1,056	SPM	94	Owen, 1992
16	USA	11	1,000	SB	100	Scottish Council,1932
17	USA	11	1,215	TM	99	Scottish Council, 1949
18	USA	14/18	10,000	DAT	101	Lynn et al., 1987b
19	USA	18/70	625	SPM	100	Raven et al., 1996
20	USA	16/80	332	WAIS-3	101	Wycherly & Benjamin, 1998
21	USA	4/14	2,097	PPVT	103	Michael, 2003
22	Uruguay	12/25	1,634	SPM	96	Risso, 1961
23	Zimbabwe	7	256	SB	100	Weyl, 1967a & b

The median of these IQs is 99, the same as that of Europeans in Europe. The results show that even in the quite poor countries of Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and Uruguay) which have per capita incomes about one third of those in North America and Western Europe, the IQs of Europeans are only fractionally below those in affluent nations. This confirms the results in Europe where the much poorer former communist countries have about the same IQs as the affluent western countries.

3. European University Students

Studies of the intelligence of European university students are summarized in Table 3.3.

All the samples have IQs of 100 or above, as would be expected, and the median IQ is 105. The principal interest of the results is for comparison with university students in Africa and South Asia, where IQs are typically about 10 to 20 points lower.

Table 3.3. Intelligence of European University Students

	Location	University	N	Test	IQ	Reference
1	Australia	-	745	APM	106	Yates & Forbes, 1967
2	Britain	-	-	APM	109	Raven et al., 1994
3	New Zealand	-	381	APM	106	Yates & Forbes, 1967
4	Poland	-	2072	APM	103	Raven et al., 1994
5	Romania	-	1316	APM	101	Raven et al., 1994
6	Netherlands	Tilberg	30	SPM	105	Sonke,2001
7	South Africa	-	40	APM	103	Poortinga,1971
8	South Africa	-	50	Blox	100	Poortinga & Foden,1975
9	South Africa	-	197	Blox	100	Taylor & Radford,1986
10	South Africa	Witwatersrand	136	SPM	103	Rushton & Skuy,2000
11	South Africa	Witwatersrand	86	SPM	106	Rushton et al.,2002
12	South Africa	Witwatersrand	67	APM	113	Rushton et al.,2003
13	USA	Wyoming	-	Stanford	106	Maity, 1926
14	USA	Stanford	-	Stanford	113	Maity, 1926
15	USA	Berkeley	300	APM	108	Paul, 1985
16	USA	Wisconsin	40	-	103	Osmon and Jackson, 2002

4. Brain Size

We noted in Section 1 that IQs are lower in South East Europe and in the Iberian Peninsula than in the remainder of Europe. We would expect that these differences would also present in brain size because of the correlation between brain size and intelligence of 0.40 (Vernon, Wickett, Bazana and Stelmack, 2000). We look now at differences within subpopulations of Europeans to see whether this is the case. The data on brain sizes of a large number of populations collected by Jurgens, Aune and Pieper (1990) are shown in Table 3.4 together with IQs. Row 1 shows that Europeans in North America have the largest brain size and IQ. Row 2 shows that these are followed by Europeans in North, Central and Eastern Europe. Row 3 shows slightly smaller brain size and IQ in Spain and Portugal. Row 4 shows a continuation of the downward trend with smaller brain size and IQ in South East Europe. Row 5 shows the a further continuation of the downward trend with smaller brain size and IQ in the Near East obtained from samples of South Asians from Turkey and Iraq. Row 6 shows the lowest brain size and IQ in South Asians in India. Details of the IQs of the South Asians in Turkey, Iraq and India are given in Chapter 6.


Table 3.4. Brain size and Intelligence in Europeans and South Asians

	Location	N.Studies	Brain Size	IQ
1	North America	34	1,322	100
2	N. C. & E. Europe	104	1,320	99
3	Spain & Portugal	6	1,315	97
4	South East Europe	40	1,312	92
5	Near East	5	1,249	89
6	India	26	1,185	82

5. The Heritability of Intelligence in Europeans

The heritability of intelligence is the extent to which differences in intelligence are determined by genetic factors. We are interested here in the question of the heritability of race differences in intelligence, but before discussing this we need to consider the heritability of individual differences in intelligence within countries. There are three sources of evidence on this problem. These consist of studies of identical twins reared apart, a comparison of identical and non-identical twins reared in the same families, and a comparison of unrelated adopted children reared in the same families. All three kinds of evidence show that the heritability of intelligence for adults is approximately .80 or 80 per cent. This means that if all individuals were reared in identical environments, the differences between individuals would be reduced to 80 per cent of the actual differences.

Studies on the heritability of intelligence for adults and children have been summarized by Bouchard (1993, p.58). For adults, the evidence from identical twins reared apart is based on five studies for which the average correlation weighted by sample size is .75. This figure needs to be corrected for test reliability (correction for attenuation) for which a reasonable figure is about .9 (Bouchard, 1993, p. 49; Mackintosh, 1998). This correction increases the correlation to .83. This is a measure of the heritability. The evidence from a comparison of the degree of similarity between identical twins and same-sex, non-identical twins brought up in the same families is that there is a correlation of .88 for identical twins and .51 for same-sex non-identicals. Correction of the correlations for the reliability of the tests and adopting a reliability coefficient of .9, the corrected correlations become .98 for identicals and .56 for same-sex non-identicals. The heritability can be calculated by Falconer’s (1960) formula consisting of doubling the difference between the correlations of identical and same-sex non-identicals. The difference between the two correlations is .42 and doubling this difference gives a heritability of .84.

A third method for estimating the heritability of intelligence is to examine the correlation between the IQs of unrelated children adopted and reared in the same families. The magnitude of the adopted family environmental effect (the “between family effect”) is expressed by the correlation between the twin pairs. The summary of the research literature by Bouchard (1998) concludes that among adults the correlation is 0.04, indicating a heritability of .96. However, this method underestimates the environmental effect because it does not take into account effects operating on one child but not on the other such as prenatal and peri-natal effects. The two twin methods yielding heritabilities of intelligence of .83 and .84 are more accurate. These figures are very close to the estimate of approximately .85 given by Jensen (1998, p. 179).

The heritability of intelligence among children is considerably lower at approximately .42 among 4-6 year olds and .55 for the age group 6 to 20 (Bouchard, 1993, p.58; Jensen, 1998, p. 179). The reason for this is probably that parents exert environmental effects on children that progressively wear off during adolescence. It is by including the lower heritability figures derived from children with the higher figures for adults that some scholars put the heritability of intelligence at between around .40 to .80. For instance, in a statement drawn up by Gottfredson (1997, p. 14) and endorsed by 52 experts it is stated that "Heritability estimates range from .4 to .8, most indicating that genetics plays a bigger role than environment in creating IQ differences among individuals". Most of the studies from which these high heritability figures are obtained come from Europeans in affluent western nations. However, a study of 144 identical and non-identical twin pairs in Russia yielded a heritability of .78, which corrected for test unreliability is increased to .87 (Lipovechaja, Kantonistowa and Chamaganova, 1978).

The conclusion that intelligence has a high heritability implies that there are genes that determine intelligence. The first of these in normal populations was discovered in the late 1990s by Chorley et al. (1998). It lies on chromosome 6 and possession of one of the alleles of this gene contributes about 4 IQ points to an individual's intelligence.



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