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0 pointsmapontosevenths3mo ago0 comments

I think you will find that fifty percent of people are of below average intelligence regardless of where you live.

The average does tend to vary from state to state. It actually is a bit lower in the southern and midwestern states, but only by a few points.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-...

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tptacek3mo ago

This is just an extrapolation of NAEP testing. It's more or less a chart of SES and how many students in each state need English language supports.

People tend to believe without questioning it that there are geographical/regional surveys of "IQ". But have you ever been compelled to take an IQ test as part of a survey like that? I've never heard of that happening. In fact: those kinds of surveys do not exist.

mapontoseventhsOP3mo ago

Yeah. The linked source is upfront about that, but its the closest thing we have to a real study sadly. As I said, the averages are close anyhow.

Scholars have from time to time thrown their careers away by trying to get better numbers, inevitably some group doesn't like the outcome and they become embroiled in endless debate while their career implodes. For example, the major sources cited in The Bell Curve have had their titles stripped and been hounded to the ends of the earth.

All these years later people are still specifically authoring papers to debunk their work.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

We will never see real numbers. This, or other things like it, are literally the best it will ever get unless someone sacrifices their career, and maybe their own safety, to gather better data.

tptacek3mo ago

There's a persistent myth that it's impossible to do science in this field and that people who try are cancelled. That's obviously false. You can just look this up. It's a fertile field and people are coming at it from multiple angles --- just watch arguments between behavioral and molecular geneticists on Twitter some time.

The people who actually are (/were) hounded are people like Richard Lynn, the godfather of "average IQ by country" data sets. That's because their data sets are fraudulent; not in a subtle way, but very directly: for instance, data for Sub-Saharan African countries are taken in many cases exclusively from mental health facilities, the only places IQ tests are done in any significant numbers in those places.

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tptacek3mo ago

This is just an extrapolation of NAEP testing. It's more or less a chart of SES and how many students in each state need English language supports.

mapontoseventhsOP3mo ago

Yeah. The linked source is upfront about that, but its the closest thing we have to a real study sadly. As I said, the averages are close anyhow.

All these years later people are still specifically authoring papers to debunk their work.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

We will never see real numbers. This, or other things like it, are literally the best it will ever get unless someone sacrifices their career, and maybe their own safety, to gather better data.

tptacek3mo ago

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