On a dubious theory of cross-country differences in intelligence

Kevin Denny

No 200918, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: Kanazawa (2007) offers an explanation for the variation across countries of average intelligence. It is based on the idea human intelligence is a domain specific adaptation and that both temperature and the distance from some putative point of origin are proxies for the degree of novelty that humans in a country have experienced. However the argument ignores many other considerations and is a priori weak and the data used questionable. A particular problem is that in calculating distances between countries it implicitly assumes that the earth is flat. This makes all the estimates biased and unreliable.

Keywords: Intelligence; Measurement error; International comparisons; Intelligence levels; Intellect; Errors, Scientific (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-neu
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http://hdl.handle.net/10197/2616 First version, 2009 (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: On a dubious theory of cross-country differences in intelligence (2009)
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