Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Apr 18
th, 2016 at 10:56am:
Well we know IQ tests already are flawed towards the literate. Maybe illiteracy might be the case?
IQ tests
measure the literate. The IQ test was designed in the early 20th century to test for intellectual disability. "Mor-ons, idiots, subnormals", etc.
The IQ test has subsequently been adapted to test the "normal". Psychologists now use WISC and Weschler to test cognitive/intellectual functioning.
You can't properly assess illiterate people using IQ tests. Theoretically, this doesn't mean the illiterate would have low IQs, but this is highly likely based on the focus of the test.
IQs change over time. As we've become more of a knowledge-based information society, IQ scores have risen accordingly. Our grandparents had far lower IQs. Agrarian cultures have lower IQs. This is because they don't use abstract reasoning as much as those in the cities.
The same applies to countries. Developing countries have no way of testing their citizens on mass, but depending on their economies, they would have lower IQs as a matter of course. Service economies have higher IQ levels because they perform more abstract reasoning. They have better schools, better internet coverage, better information systems.
When an economy develops, IQ develops accordingly, but the gulf states are an interesting enigma. Oman has the highest GDP per capita in the world, but it still has low national IQ estimates based on the data from Wikipedia.
The Gulf states have developed using foreign planning and foreign labour. The capital, however, is still in Arab hands. Saudi finance kept the rest of the world afloat through the 1970s and 80s. It's responsible for much of the development of South East Asia and Latin America.
This fact alone calls Templer's thesis to question. Templer's work - starting with African American poverty and IQ - can't be applied to the rich Gulf states. The wealth of the Gulf states alone blows out Templer's thesis that skin pigmentation is the biggest predictor of IQ levels.
I agree with you on all of this. Do you think preference towards reading one particular book plays a part in countries like Oman from being represented in the publishing of scientific papers or lodgement of patents?