Thursday, June 26, 2008

Convergence Between Inductive & Deductive Directions Re: The Indispensability Of the Middle

On October 6, 2007's post I said: The Average Conceptual Ability of a Nation is Determinative
According to Linda Gottfredson, on p.8 of the online version of "Accidents and Intelligence":
"No culture can sustain new practices, however, that impose cognitive demands on the general populace that are beyond the capacity of its large cognitive middle."
This is why quality of population is everything or nearly so, and institutions mirror, but do not themselves create to any large proportion, this quality which is indicated by where the broad middle falls. This is the deductive approach leading towards a conclusion, which is most unwelcome, to those who would command us to value openness to diversity, such that quality of population is randomized towards that of the world.
CHAPTER 20 View as HTML Linda S. Gottfredson. The evidence now indicates that we cannot make up for a low median of IQ, by having a small number of innovators lead the way, as it is the spread of new technologies, out into the general population, which raise productivity, which increase per capita income. India might have more brilliant engineers, above a certain level, than France, but they cannot move the great inert mass, because of low median IQ.
From the inductive direction, there arise the very high correlations between national IQ's and per capita income. This is found also as between American state IQ's and incomes and other indicators of well-being. From Audacious Epigone,
Better state IQ estimates ... more references... related to
Prediction of national wealth
Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, IQ and global inequality...
(Added 6-28-08) SFT I-The Smart Fraction Theory of IQ and the Wealth of Nations:
The first result says IQ 108 is the important parameter, then SFT II says "...per capita GDP is directly proportional to the population fraction with verbal IQ equal to or greater than 106."
For countries with means around 100, this means that the upper half of the distribution, approximately, but down almost to the midpoint, is determinative. Without that upper half of the middle of the IQ distribution, productivity doesn't develop from inventions, but those responsible for them move out, to a country with a robust middle range of conceptual abilities.

3 comments:

Audacious Epigone said...

"The evidence now indicates that we cannot make up for a low median of IQ, by having a small number of innovators lead the way, as it is the spread of new technologies, out into the general population, which raise productivity, which increase per capita income."

That is a crucial point that open borders supporters miss/ignore. They assume that more people equals more smart people, and tautologically that's true. But it's the smart fraction that is important. To look only at absolute numbers of smarties without regard to the number of dullards is about as legitimate as measuring a nation's material standard of living by its GDP rather than its purchasing power parity (GDP per capita).

John S. Bolton said...

Thanks for reminding me of it, I need to add a link to smart fraction theory.

John S. Bolton said...

History also shows discouraging examples of bimodal societies, like Zimbabwe, where the monopolization of power by the elite, suddenly fails, but no middle exists to fill in that gap.