I wanted to reference my review of this book, only to find that I had never gotten around to writing one. Since it is more authoritative appearing on Amazon than simply on some random Substack, that's what I'm doing.
By Richard Lynn
The research continues to become more compelling, although performing intelligence tests is a laborious undertaking. The researcher needs to gather a representative sample within a population. This can be hard to do in less well-developed countries. It can be hard to do when the people in charge do not want to deal with the consequences of knowing average intelligence.
There is no consistent, generous source of funding for intelligence research. Since the dominant paradigm on American and Western European campuses is the Standard Social Science Model, which takes as axiomatic the unprovable proposition that all people and peoples are intellectually identical, the science of psychometric testing does not have a comfortable home in academia.
Richard Lynn has been at the forefront of such testing for generations. Traditional testing requires the active participation of the subjects – taking tests. The newer approach is to passively apply physical measurements, such as suggested by Richard Haier in The Neuroscience of Intelligence. There has also recently been research into the genetics of the inheritance of intelligence. See Robert Plomin's Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.
A reliable source for worldwide comparisons is David Becker's viewonIQ.org.
All told, this is a five-star work.
Ah, the artifices of artificial intelligence. It read dissipation for participation, which I noted and changed a few hours ago. Reminds me of my employment experience graduating from Cal. The job I really wanted (and which was offered, but said offer got lost in the Berkeley mail) was with HP. My National Guard buddies showed up with some good weed the night before, and... But I got the job offer anyhow, and needed it.
I'm not convinced there can be any 'test' that can evaluate general intelligence. There are likely multiple areas of intelligence. I can accept we might be able to rank a group of individuals and assert one might be better than another at some task but discover the one at the bottom of that might score much better at a different task. And I have no idea how to place idiot savants in the rankings. I do know I prefer friends who can carry on a conversation and be open to debate. Where that puts the woke crowd remains unclear.