There seems to be some nations, whose self-image requires that they are said to be the smartest race in the world, but Finns are not one of them. Finns are not so race oriented. The writers Johan Ludvig Runeberg and Alexix Kivi, who created the literary stereotype of a Finn, put an emphasis on quite other characteristics than intelligence. Notably, the positive mental trait Finns are supposed to have is SISU, stamina, not giving up even in a hopeless situation. The other traits were remarkable stupidity, honesty and being most of the time drunk burning their saunas while fighting. Naturally, these writers were both from the Swedish minority, Kivi just changed the surname.
IQ researchers claimed for a long time that the average IQ was a few points lower in Finland than in Western Europe, but it did not bother Finns since they did not put any weight to such studies. They felt they had the same intelligence as other Europeans, and it seems to be so. Finns were quite happy with that, since equality is one of their values, all are equal.
Quite recently, Finnish children surprised everybody, not least Finns, by doing very well in PISA in several surveys. Finnish children do not do so well in TIMMS and the success in the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) is not remarkable at all. University teachers, at least in mathematics, were not so convinced that the Finnish school was that good.
IQ-tests were created to predict school achievements, so they correlate, and naturally must correlate, with tests of school achievements, such as PISA. PISA is seen as being closer to IQ-tests than TIMMS, which largely measures how much material the school curriculum covers, or IMO, which much depends on training of the team and whether there are special schools for the mathematically talented. In Finland almost all pupils go to the local school, which typically is not tailored for the talented. There is just no culture for elite schools.
Some IQ researchers, usually non-Finns, have attributed Finnish success in PISA to their higher IQ, and this implies that Finns should be a bit more intelligent than other Europeans. This is an easy way to explain why other nations do worse in PISA: there is no need to blame the own education system. But that is not all. The same researchers are also claiming that Finns are getting dumber since 1997.
This is all quite puzzling and not very convincing as science. But of course, I have a twisted view, since I already have along the years become very skeptical of all non-mathematical and non-technical fields, notably history, psychology, and I am also skeptical of mathematics, theoretical physics and even techniques. Say, a science realist, not a race realist. Let us look at what can be deduced from these results, starting from the announcement that Finns are getting dumber.
James Flynn, best known for the Flynn effect, very recently published an article showing that IQ-levels in three Northern countries, Norway, Denmark and Finland, have been decreasing since 1995 by in average 0.23 IQ-points per year. The study by James Flynn and Michael Shayer is from 2017 and it is scheduled to be published 2018:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289617302787
For Finland the meta-study was apparently based on Edward Dutton’s and Richard Lynn’s analysis of IQ-tests of Finnish conscripts: the measured average IQ of conscripts has declined between 1997 and 2007 by 4 points. This study, from 2013, is here:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.397.3271&rep=rep1&type=pdf
But there are contraindications, from the same researchers.
In the book “IQ and Global Inequality”, published in 2002, Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen give the Finnish average IQ as 97. It was raised to 99 in the 2006 book “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” by the same authors. The 2002 figure was the average of two rather old adult IQ-tests while the 2006 figure takes also into account e.g. the good success of Finnish children in PISA tests. In 2012 Lynn and Vanhanen raised Finnish IQ to 101 based on more accurate tests, which is the current figure. As Eka Roivanen confirms in his Ph.d. thesis
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/isbn9789526209432.pdf
the standardization of the Finnish WAIS III was probably incorrect and the more recent figures for the Finnish IQ are more reliable. There are national differences in IQ profiles, probably partially caused by linguistic, educational and generic differences.
Edward Dutton, Jan te Nijenhuis and Eka Roivanen claim in a 2014 article
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614000920
that Finns have a slightly higher IQ than other European countries. The figure 101 for the Finnish IQ is accepted by Davide Piffer, whose genome-wide association studies point out to Finns having more IQ-raising genes than Europeans in average. His 2015 article is here:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a8c7/38fba59ae485218620d2d8ea498fd1d0cd2c.pdf
The results of the most recent standardization cohort of adult WAIS IV matrices test were analyzed by Edward Dutton and Emil O. W. Kirkegard in the 2014 article:
https://openpsych.net/paper/31.
The authors note in the beginning that the Scandinavian (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) score in WAIS IV is two points higher than in the recent Finnish WAIS IV standardization, but by a meta-analyze they nevertheless conclude that Scandinavian score actually is 99.1 (in US norms) while the Finnish is 102.3 or 102.4 (in US norms). As US norms are two points lower than UK norms, we find that the Finnish average IQ is 100, the same as in the UK. The magic of turning two points disadvantage to 3.2 point advantage amazes me, but these are the fields called science.
So, is the Finnish IQ raising or declining, or are these results simply unreliable?
Flynn’s observation, that Nordic IQ-tests show declines, is important on its own right. It shows undeniably that the Flynn effect is not universal: it is not true that the average measured IQ-level increases everywhere and always. This conclusion does not say anything of the reasons for the IQ decline, like the Flynn effect, measured average of IQ increasing over time, does not say anything of the reasons.
There is, for instance, one possible environmental reason why the measured IQ-levels of Finnish conscripts started declining just after 1997: in 1998 the length of the conscript service was revised in such a way that ordinary soldiers serve 6 months, while conscript officers and non-commissioned officers serve 12 months. There is also a third group of conscripts: they are trained for special tasks and serve for 9 months, but they are usually better motivated. Before 1998 the service times of these groups were 8, 9.5 and 11 months and still earlier, before 1989, there were only two groups: 8 and 11 months. An important factor for choosing conscripts for the longer service time is how well they do in the IQ-tests, thus a conscript, who wants to complete his military service as fast as possible, for instance for studies or work, may want to have worse test results than what he could accomplish. Lengthening the difference in service times from 11-8=3 months to 12-6=6 months may very well show as a decline in the average of the IQ-tests. Of course there can be other reasons: The strongest decline was in Words-subtest. It may indicate that the young men do not read as much as they used to, that is, change of hobbies rather than a genetic decline in cognitive capabilities.
It is for sure true that young people today have different hobbies than youth 20 years ago. You can go anywhere and see these kids doing something with their smart phones. Reading less reduces verbal intelligence, but they just live in the environment we have created.
The hereditarians often suggest, also in the case of the declining IQ of Finnish conscripts, that the reasons can be found from dysgenic processes. Cleaver people have fewer children, or they move to other countries for better jobs. Consequently the average IQ drops. Let us see if this can be the reason for the decline of conscripts’ intelligence in Finland. It is true that there has been some brain drain from the country. It may also be true that cleaver people have fewer children: at least career oriented women postpone getting children. But are these effects sufficient to explain the IQ drop?
IQ is usually normally distributed. If there is dysgenic effects of fewer children and immigration abroad for more intelligent, the distribution gets non-symmetric. In order to make the calculations easy, let us divide the normal distribution to two parts around IQ 100 and multiply the part above 100 by a constant c between 0 and 1, and the part below zero we multiply by 2-c. The total probability is (2-c)/2+c/2=1, so the distribution is normalized.
The average of the upper part is c*11.97 assuming that the standard deviation is 15. The average of the lower part is –(2-c)*11.97. Adding these two we get the average of the total distribution as a=-2(1-c)*11.97. If c=1 we get the average of the distribution as zero and the average IQ as 100.
The variance of the distribution can be calculated by noticing that if the average in the calculation of the variance of the above zero and below zero parts is assigned to zero, then the above part has variance c2/2*15 while the below zero part has variance (2-c)2/2*15. Then we can assign the correct average a to the equation of variance and the above zero part gives c2/2*(15+a2), while the below zero part yields (2-c)2/2*(15+a2). The sum of these is the variance of the distribution: (c2+(2-c)2)/2*(15+a2). Simplifying it is (1-c2+c4)(15+a2).
Let us now assign a=-4 to account for the drop of the measured IQ of Finnish conscripts during 1997-2007. Then c=1-2/11.97=0.833. That means 16.7% reduction in above zero distribution and 16.7% increase in below zero distribution. In order to explain the drop in IQ by selective immigration, 33% of Finns, who have above average IQ, should have moved abroad. This is not true. While there are some 300.000 Finnish citizens living permanently abroad and the number of Finnish origin people living abroad is about 1 million, which is not so far from 33% of the population, the immigrants are mostly workers. Only about one fourth of them have higher education, which is about the same as for those still living in Finland. Selective immigration must be a fairly insignificant factor in this 4 point IQ decline in a decade.
The alternative, that the les intelligent part of the society had 33% higher fertility during this particular decade, is also improbable, since we should expect that a similar difference should have been visible in earlier decades, but instead the measured IQ of the conscripts was growing. Most probably the observed decline in the IQ of conscripts is due to other, and probably environmental, reasons.
As for the positive Flynn-effect, James Flynn has earlier not attributed it to genetic factors. Partially it can be a result of nutritional improvements either, but the most likely causes of the effect are education, urbanization and technical and economic development of the country. The hereditarian explanation is likely to be correct concerning the IQ differences of the main human races, and also as an explanation why members of very old hunter-gatherer societies have different mental abilities than those of modern societies, and consequently their special skills have little usage in modern societies. Especially the higher IQ of East-Asians is difficult to explain in other ways, but IQ differences between European countries are most probably mainly caused by environment. (There may be a weak South-North gradient justified by slight genetic differences.)
In human evolution growth of brain size is taken as an indication of increasing intelligence, as is surely it. In the last 10.000 or maybe 20.000 years human brains have been shrinking, the largest decrease being after 10.000 years. As agriculture started 8000 years ago, and the first steps were made 10.000 ybp (years before present) it is natural to assume that the shrinking of the brain is connected with shifting from hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture. However, there still are hunter-gatherers, like the aboriginal Australians, Pygmies and San-people. Their brain sizes and IQ-levels are the smallest in all human societies, not quite fitting to the idea that the decrease in brain was only caused by agriculture. It is not known why the brain got smaller. There are a few alternative theories, such as it is a result of taming, or of warming, or of worsening of food, of less capable being able to survive and so on.
There is a small positive correlation with IQ and the brain size.
Based on
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2668913/
we can estimate that a drop of about 100 g of brain size from the age of 26 to 80 corresponds to a drop of two standard deviations in IQ. Thus, one gram equals 0.3 IQ points in aging, but older people retain most of their crystallized intelligence and therefore the figure is very much of an underestimate.
Rushton et al in
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028960200137X
report the following brain sizes: Whites 1345 g, East Asians 1364 and Blacks 1267 g. The 78 g brain size and 15 point IQ difference between Whites and Blacks gives 5.2 g/IQ point, while the European and East Asian difference of 19 g and 5 points yields 3.8 g/IQ point. Aboriginal Australian have the brain weight in this study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1261675/
is 1199 g versus the Caucasian brain size 1386 g. The difference is 187 g. The IQs are 61 and 100 respectively. The difference is 39 IQ points. This yields the ratio 4.8 g/IQ point. Blacks in Rushton’s study and aboriginal Australians most probably would gain from a better environment, thus let us take the brain size IQ point correspondence as 4 g/IQ point.
According to Deniker Finnish sample had 32 g bigger brain size than Europeans in average. The average European IQ is 98 (or 99) and Finnish 101, giving the ratio 10.7 g/IQ point. This differs so much from 4 g/IQ point that we may assume that Deniker´s sample of 64 skulls of Finns was not representative. If we assume that the average genetic IQ of Finns is three points above the European average of 98, while the measured IQ can take some value depending on the measurement, then the brain size difference is 12 g and the cranial capacity of Finns averages 1579 cc.
The article by Dieneken Pontikos analyses Buj’s 1981 study of the IQs of European nations. What is apparent from this article is that Europeans differ very little in IQ and the reasons for it are mostly environmental. The Finnish IQ is given as 98.8, not significantly different from 100. The most interesting observation in this article is that North European (not Finnish) standard deviation was smaller than in the USA or South Europe. That may have genetic roots.
http://dienekes.awardspace.com/articles/greekiq/iq.pdf
Another observation in Dieneken’s paper is that the IQ difference between Greek countryside and Athens was 12 points in 1979 and later was reduced to 4 point. The difference was purely environmental. The effect has been observed everywhere, and countryside-city difference in IQ is now smaller, though metropolis such as London, still have higher average IQ than other parts of the country. As Athens of 1979 was no London of 2017 and Greek countryside was no Africa, we can expect that environment can explain an IQ difference even bigger than 12 point, probably up to a standard deviation. Lynn for instance, estimates that Sub-Saharan Africans have genotypic IQ of 80 while their measured IQ is 67, the difference is 13 points.
Brain size differences between ethnic groups do not predict IQ very well. We can see this by comparing the Finns and the Sami. Craniometry was banned after the Second World War, thus there are no new data, but fortunately some old studies are accessible through the Internet. From the book by Joseph Deniker: Races of Man: an outline of Anthropology and Etnography, 1913, we find the following brain weights and cranial capacities:
The average brain weight of European men is given as 1361 g, based on an impressive sample of 11.000 skulls. The cranial capacity was 1565 cubic centimeter (cc). In Deniker’s study Finns had the largest cranial capacities in Europe, averaging 1601 cubic centimeters (cc). According to Deniker the weights of the brain can be obtained by multiplying the capacity by 0.87, thus the Finnish sample of 64 skulls had the average brain weight of 1393 g.
The Sami men are given the cranial capacity of 1399 cc according to a paper from 2014, Lynn being one of the authors:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614000427
It is told that the Sami cranial capacity is smaller than the European average and exceptionally small for an arctic people. This article gives the IQ of the Sami is 100.8, practically the same as that of the Finns, 101.
The average height of Sami men is about 162 cm, while for Finns it is about 178 cm. As Sami men cranial capacity is 1399 cc and if the height and cranial capacity had the same ratio for the Finns and the Sami, the Finnish cranial capacity would be 1537 cc, but it indeed is higher than the European average 1565 cc, which is confirmed by the Finnish babies having larger heads than other Europeans: Finland has to use a different baby head growth chart for this reason. Whether the Finnish cranial capacity is as large as Deniker wrote, is uncertain. The sample was small and made long time ago. Thus, the Sami have a bit smaller cranium with respect to their height than Finns, but the IQ is very much the same. The study found a difference in the IQ profile: the Sami were weaker than the Finns on verbal and better on visual-spatial IQ, but also this difference can be environmental.
While this comparison between the Sami and the Finns points out to an environmental explanation, the hereditarians prefer a genetic one. The current genetic explanation for IQ is not simply that the size of the brain determines IQ. The present assumption is that IQ differences are 60-80% heritable and the heritable differences are caused by a large number of IQ-raising alleles in many genes. If so, then the IQ differences between races can be partially explained by mutations. There very possibly is much truth in this assumption, but here we also arrive into problems explaining why the Sami and the Finns should have practically equal IQ.
Mutations are more common in larger populations, though in order for positive mutations to spread, there is needed mixing of genes. In earlier times the largest societies were the agricultural societies in the Middle East, Mediterranean countries and in other centers of culture. As there were more people, there were more mutations. Consequently these societies were once leading in innovations and probably had higher IQs. But there is also a dysgenic mechanism: harmful and IQ-lowering genes also spread easier and consanguineous marriages result into IQ depression. In these ways one may try to explain why the earlier innovative cultures of the Middle East now have lower IQs than Europeans. Such a theory can work on paper, but why the Sami should have the same IQ as the Finns? The Sami have mixed with Scandinavians and Finns, but not to a large extent. Their numbers have always been small. They should not have many IQ-raising mutations. Why the IQs of the Sami and the Finns should be practically identical, if it is not because the environment is practically identical?
According to Richard Lynn’s theory, Europeans and East Asians become more intelligent because of the cold weather. Cold weather is known to increase the body size and consequently it also increases the brain size. Indeed, the Arctic people, like Eskimos, have bigger brains. In the book of Deniker the average cranial capacity of Eskimos was given as 1588 cc. It is slightly smaller than the figure 1601 cc given there for Finns, but as Finns are counted as Europeans, the Eskimo were the ethnic group with the largest brains. According to Lynn, the IQ of the Eskimo is 91 and he explains it by the lack of IQ-raising mutations since the Eskimo population has always been small. The Sami are an exception also here: they are an Arctic people with physical cold adaptations, but their brain is not especially large. The explanation for this observation may be that the Sami are not genetically very closely related to Siberian Arctic people and they have Western genes, probably from the Ice Age refugia in Spain.
Europeans and East Asians have Neanderthal mixture, East Asians slightly more. Finns apparently have slightly more than other Europeans, possibly connected to it, Finns, like Sami, Basque and even aboriginal Australians, often have a prominent occipital bun, which is believed to be a Neanderthal trait. The Neanderthal man had a bigger brain than modern humans and mixture with the Neanderthal man can be one reason why Europeans and East Asians have bigger brains. It is true that small brained aboriginal Australians also have mixed with the Neanderthal man, but they have mixed with the Denisovan man and we do not know how large brains Denisovans had. While genes determining the human brain have only little Neanderthal contribution, there are some behavior traits and illnesses that may derive from the mixture, so it is possible this mixture affected the brain size.
Shrinking of the brain size in the last 10.000 years, which may have affected aboriginal Australians also, may be largely because of warmer weather after the Ice Age, but
the brain size has shrunken faster than the body size. This may indicate that humans either lost some capabilities which were no longer needed, as in taming animals, or that new mutations made it possible for smaller brains to do the same job more effectively.
But now I need to do some thinking.
One should always make a new contribution, even small. What is the new contribution here? So far nothing, opinions only, but let’s do it from Cro-Magnons.
What do Cro-Magnons have to do with Finns? Many Finns know that Markku Niskanen made craniometrical measurements and found that Finns are closest to Cro-Magnons:
http://www.mankindquarterly.org/samples/niskanenbalticcorrected.pdf
Foreigners have rejected this article as an apology for the Western European origins of Finns against the claims of Mongolian heritage, and ridiculed the journal where the article is published, as if a journal would determining the scientific quality of an article printed in it. You can publish a valuable scientific contribution anywhere and the peer-review does not guarantee that any article published in so called top journals are correct – there are too many counterexamples and the media, including scientific journals, is in hands of a small group. Niskanen’s calculations seem correct and though Finns are not closely related to Cro-Magnons, no modern population is, and Cro-Magnons had long skulls unlike Finns, there probable are craniometrical traits Finns inherited from Western European Hunter-Gathers (WHG, Cro-Magnons) since genetically Finns and other Baltic peoples are closest to WHGs with very little genes from Anatolian farmers. So, after debunking the theory that the Finnish, or any other Northern European, genetic IQ would significantly differ or in genotype would be decreasing or increasing recently, we can make a small new result of the early ancestors of Finns and other European peoples, the Cro-Magnons.
First, is it true that the European brain size has declined significantly since Cro-Magnon’s time?
Cro-Magnon cranial capacity was 1600 cc. Multiplying this figure by 0.87 gives the Cro-Magnon brain weight as 1392 g. The European average brain weight given by Deniker is 1361 g but in recent measurement Australian Caucasians have the average of 1386 g. According to Deniker, Eskimo cranial capacity is 1588 cc, practically the same as for Cro-Magnon. The sample of 64 Finnish skulls in Deniker with the average cranial capacity of 1601 cc was probably not representative. Let us accept the lower cranial capacity of 1579 cc for Finns, corresponding to 1375 g brain size. After all, Finns are not as much Arctic people as Eskimos and Finns have 85-90% European genes. From these figures we see that the media exaggerates the decline of the brain weight in Europe. Since Cro-Magnon time there were new migrations to Europe from the Middle East, the Neolithic people, who had smaller, but possibly more effective, brains.
Secondly, what was the IQ of Cro-Magnon?
Aboriginal Australian men have the average brain weight 1199 g and IQ of 61. Their brain weights 193 g less than that of Cro-Magnon. We must assume Cro-Magnons had much higher IQ than 61. Eskimos have almost the cranial capacity than Cro-Magnons. The difference is only 12 cc, which corresponds to 0.87*12=10 grams of brain. Using the estimate 4 g/IQ point gives the Cro-Magnon IQ as 96. That means a 35 IQ point difference between aboriginal Australians and Cro-Magnons. As the brain weights differ by 193 g, this yields the ratio 5.5 g/IQ point. We cannot expect that the brain weight to IQ ratio is always exactly the same, thus this figure fits sufficiently well. Cro-Magnon lived in Ice Age environment, probably not so much different than where Arctic hunter-gatherers, such as Eskimos, live today. It is reasonable to assume that the IQs are similar. Thus, we conclude that Cro-Magnon may have had IQ of 96.
Does the estimated IQ of Cro-Magnon fit to the explanation of IQ by many IQ-genes?
This gives the new result. Heritable IQ must be determined by genes, this is clear. Researchers have not found a single IQ-gene, or a small number of IQ-genes having large impact on IQ, but they have found many genes having small impacts. Therefore the present theory is that IQ is a largely heritable polygenic trait. This much can be agreed. Further than this is uncertain, for instance, it is not certain that the IQ-raising genes have been obtained from random mutations where the mutation rate depends on the population size. There may be mechanisms which increase or decrease the mutation rate. What I mean is the following.
In [1] is derived an estimation of the European population for the last 50.000 years in a more or less reasonable way. The population estimate for 8000 ybp (years before present) is 3 million. The Cro-Magnon samples with 1600 cc cranial capacities are from around 37.000 ybp. In [1] it is estimated that from there have lived 11 billion Europeans since 50.000 ybp. From 50.000 ybp to 37.000 ybp have lived about 520 generations of 0.5 million Europeans, Cro-Magnons. That is only 0.26 billion. Thus, since Cro-Magnon there have lived some 10.7 billion Europeans. Since 50.000 ybp there have been many IQ-related mutations assuming that IQ is highly inheritable polygenic trait. Before 50.000 ybp aboriginal Australians were part of the same population as Europeans and East Asians. Thus 50.000 ybp Europeans had an IQ about 60. The mutations raised it to 100, European IQ increased some 40 points in 50.000 years. The problem is that if the mutation rate is constant assuming the population does not increase and if it depends linearly on the population size, then practically all IQ-raising mutations must have happened after the Cro-Magnon time. This means that the IQ of Cro-Magnon must be close to 60, but this is in contradiction with the argument that Cro-Magnons had IQ of about 96.
What can be changed to remove this contradiction? Not much. Cro-Magnons had a large cranium capacity, they would not have had an IQ close to 60. IQ apparently is highly heritable polygenic trait. European population has grown more or less as was calculated. Thus the only thing that can be changed is the assumption of how mutations arise. They must have been obtained in the 520 generations from 50.000 to 37.000 ybp when the population was small. There must have been a very strong evolutionary pressure, either natural or man made selection, or possibly something else. Later this evolutionary pressure disappeared and almost nothing has happened to our IQ since the population started growing.
Unfortunately, there is a problem also in this solution attempt. We should logically assume that IQ was increasing not only from 50.000 ybp to 37.000 ybp, but also from 37.000 ybp to 15.000 ybp. That is, another 880 generations. If in 520 generations IQ raised from 61 to 96, 35 points, then in 880 generations it raised 59 points. That would be incredible: Early European Hunter-Gatherer (EEHG) would have reached the IQ of 154 when the Ice Age ended, and ever since been declining. Race realists, always warning of dysgenic processes, would possibly be happy with this explanation, but it does not sound correct. In [1] there are arguments that the average IQ of human populations probably cannot be raised so much, since we do not see anywhere so cleaver populations.
So, I am forced to discard the present view of IQ as a genetic trait created by evolution. It is genetic, even polygenic, this I accept, but not the evolution. It does not match. Let us go back to the creation myth: for some curious reason there was a short time when the Eurasian human IQ increased fast, and then this mechanism stopped, long before the end of the last Ice Age. Such a reason might for instance be the extinction of the Neanderthal man, if and as you most probably do not like the Genesis story of the creation of man.
References:
(Following Einstein, I do not care to mention references, but I do not claim having invented anything important, most everything is taken from somewhere)
[1] J. Jormakka: About IQ-genes, GWAS, and a mathematical model for intelligence. On this blog.