From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Oct 01 2002 - 00:39:29 MDT
At 11:01 PM 9/30/02 -0700, Spike wrote:
>I have been pondering
>the low IQ seen in isolated
>white communities. After having seen that firsthand,
>I am convinced it isn't just my imagination or some
>stereotype. It is very real.
>
>My question then is "what is the mechanism
>that could cause low IQ in these isolated communties?"
>I suggested one: those with brains or ambition leave
>town, and the breeding is left to the stay-at-homes.
Not so fast. Clearly these towns are not `isolated' if smart children can
leave. What they are, presumably, is small and unattractive, with no local
prospects for smart people. So suppose it's true that by and large everyone
of IQ greater than 115 and certainly 140 shoots thru quick smart and heads
for the Big Smoke. Is the implication of `the breeding is left to the
stay-at-homes' that those having children in town must produce kids with
genomes ever more conducive to stupidity? Maybe not, since with each
generation the same social and economic effects will draw away the smarter
kids. Maybe it's like the lottery: everyone in town has a chance of
winning, and once you win you leave the god-forsaken hole and head for the
beach. This doesn't make it harder for succeeding generations to win the
lottery.
Damien Broderick
[glossing over cosmic amounts of multifactorial to-ing&fro-ing, but still]
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