Comment by hagbard_c
3 days ago
Yes there are no matter whether you consider IQ a valid concept or not. In the context of the grandparent's remark about Ashkenazi Jews being 'smarter' it is relevant to compare specific group averages (e.g. Ashkenazi Jews) with national averages, especially in the case of Israel where there is a marked difference between the national average IQ and that for the group 'Ashkenazi Jews' (about 24% of the total Israeli population calculated from the numbers presented in [1]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Jews
No, there aren't. Countries generally don't do latitudinal IQ surveys. Very few people reading HN have ever been asked to take an IQ test, let alone compelled to do so. Numbers attributing "IQ" to countries are generally fraudulent (i.e., Richard Lynn's "IQ And The Wealth Of Nations" numbers).
I'm not making any other claim than that specific one: there is no such thing as "national IQ averages". If you claim there's some other kind of "IQ average" that isn't "national", you're addressing a point I didn't make.
Countries don't have to do tests, that is done by people who take tests organised by institutions, The results are grouped by whatever factors the test developers consider interesting and the results are published. We can quibble about the value of these results, about the value of IQ as a concept, about the sample size of IQ-test-taking groups in different countries and much more but that is all irrelevant when considering the question whether there is something like an average IQ score grouped by country. Those scores exist and the results from several independent studies are largely the same.
Your original link makes fairly clear how disingenuous it is to call the figures a national average:
> Data from International IQ Test (IIT) are based on data from 1,352,763 participants worldwide who took the same IQ test on the website.
> Becker’s estimates are categorized by source. T = value is based upon actual test results from said country. E = value is a best-guess estimate based upon measured values of nearby countries.
Opening up the actual paper from Becker they're citing is basically a wandering tour where they try to find whatever numbers do exist and then math their way out of the fact that the sample sizes are small and the tests are different everywhere.
Various entities have performed IQ tests on people in many nations. But taking that and trying to flip it to say we've derived average national IQ is junk science.
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