i thought before that i noticed a difference in average iqs between northern and southern spain: españa al norte frente al sur and northern vs. southern spanish iq, redux. apparently i’m not completely crazy:
“North-South Differences in Spain in IQ, Educational Attainment, per capita Income, Literacy, Life Expectancy and Employment”
– Richard Lynn
“IQs are presented for fifteen regions of Spain showing a north-south gradient with IQs highest in the north and lowest in the south. The regional differences in IQ are significantly correlated with educational attainment, per capita income, literacy, employment and life expectancy, and are associated with the percentages of Near Eastern and North African genes in the population.”
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some naturalists/environmentalists are starting to note (like they used to) that there are TOO MANY PEOPLE on the planet:
“David Attenborough – Humans are plague on Earth”
“Sir David, who is a patron of the Population Matters, has spoken out before about the ‘frightening explosion in human numbers’ and the need for investment in sex education and other voluntary means of limiting population in developing countries.
“‘We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.'”
and from down under:
“Hillary Clinton tries to silence Bindi Irwin on population growth”
“The mother-of-two [bindi’s mom, mrs. irwin] said population growth was an unpopular topic.
“‘It’s astounding that in just over 100 years we’ve gone from 1.5 billion people on the planet to 7 billion so you think “what do we do in the next 100 years?” We’re going to be warring over water and space and food,’ she said.
“‘I just think it’s fascinating that when Bindi does an interview and talks about population, more than 50 per cent of the time it’s edited out.
“‘It’s something we do need to talk about or the ship’s going to sink man.’
“Mrs Irwin said she had visited communities in Australia which were in desperate need of family planning support.
“‘Certainly when Bindi, Robert and I were in South Africa four years ago filming a movie we saw a lot of that in Africa as well. It’s a global problem but we recognise it in Africa and we forget it’s something that’s in our own back yard,’ she said.
“‘Everyone talks about recycle and manage your resources but how do you do that when we’ve got so many people?
“‘It’s not terribly popular but I’m not trying to insult anyone’s ability to decide how many kids they want … but I continue to meet children in foster care and people living on the poverty line who did not chose to have so many children and for who options weren’t made readily available.’“
good for them!
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a story in the daily mail about blood feuds in albania:
“The brothers are among an estimated 900 children who must hide indoors to avoid being slaughtered under the ancient Balkan code of practise known as Kanun – which gives a person the right to kill a rival or a rival’s relatives in retribution for an earlier killing.
“Killings under the Kanun are known as Gjakmarrja or blood-taking, and are similar to the Italian tradition of vendetta.
“The practise is said to date back to medieval times although some historians say they can trace its origins to the Bronze age.
“It applies to both Christian and Muslim Albanians and regulates all aspects of life including crime, family, marriage, transfer of property, damages as well as personal and social conduct.
“It was virtually stamped out under Communism but has since returned as Albania struggles to emerge as a modern and prosperous democracy, with many claiming to hold no faith in the current legal system.
“Although the blood feud killings are known to date back to the Middle Ages, many of the ‘rules’ have not been adapted to modern times, often they can continue until every male member of the families are dead….”
see also: the maniots
(note: comments do not require an email. albanian man, nineteenth century.)
hbd chick 
“northern and southern spain: españa al norte frente al sur and northern vs. southern spanish iq, redux. apparently i’m not completely crazy:”
Always good to know! ;) Excellent, I’d like to get my hands on that article.
I think i can guess which group mafia movies will be made about in ten years time.
@g.w. – “I think i can guess which group mafia movies will be made about in ten years time.”
well, we’ve already had taken (and taken ii << didn't see) — which was not all that bad … for a stupid hollywood movie. (~_^) (oh, wait — it was a french movie!)
@jayman – “Always good to know! ;)”
not completely…. (~_^)
@jayman – “Excellent, I’d like to get my hands on that article.”
me, too!
Just to say:
Someone could investigate relation of IQs in southern Europe to presence of Celtic and Germanic tribes in that region due to migration ways prior to and in Dark Ages. E.g.
Lombardy is named after Langobards (Celts had occupied parts of northern Italy even before). Visigoths subdued Spain, etc. And look at their mating customs and …
And of course, by presence I mean genetic presence.
PS: ignore my English
@krakonos – “Someone could investigate relation of IQs in southern Europe to presence of Celtic and Germanic tribes in that region due to migration ways prior to and in Dark Ages.”
yes. it does seem more than coincidental, doesn’t it? (^_^)
@krakonos – “And look at their mating customs….”
yup. well, i think — actually, i know — that southern europeans (southern spaniards and southern italians) married cousins up until quite recently — and cousin marriage (inbreeding) depresses iq.
@HBD Chick @krakonos:
“’Someone could investigate relation of IQs in southern Europe to presence of Celtic and Germanic tribes in that region due to migration ways prior to and in Dark Ages.”
yes. it does seem more than coincidental, doesn’t it? (^_^)”
The determining variable could have been the Germanic willingness to go along with the Church (because of some pre-existing feature of German psychology). It does seem more than coincidental that the traditional outbreeders are all areas who were dominated by Germanics.
I’m going to vote that WordPress needs a comment preview feature! ;)
@jayman – “I’m going to vote that WordPress needs a comment preview feature! ;)”
got carried away with those italics, huh? (~_^) yeah — why doesn’t wordpress have a comment preview feature? hmmm.
@jayman – “The determining variable could have been the Germanic willingness to go along with the Church (because of some pre-existing feature of German psychology).”
i’ve got a post floating around in the back of my head about the germanics that will get written one of these days when i have some extra time. one of the things that seems to have been “special” about them was that they reckoned their kin bilaterally. i think that this must’ve meant that they practiced some form of maternal cousin marriage (who knows to what degree, of course) and, so, had fairly broad networks of clans — as opposed to my favorite arabs who have these narrow networks of paternal clans.
i think this may have predisposed the germans to … being more open to the cousin marriage bans at all, ’cause they already had comparatively loose kin networks.
there may also have been something psychological, like you say. germanic peoples today certainly strike me as very conforming. how far back that trait stretches, who knows? (i lean towards thinking that that was something selected for during the medieval period, but then i’m partial to thinking that all sorts of things were selected for in the medieval period! (~_^) )
“i think this may have predisposed the germans to … being more open to the cousin marriage bans at all, ’cause they already had comparatively loose kin networks.”
Indeed.
“there may also have been something psychological, like you say. germanic peoples today certainly strike me as very conforming. how far back that trait stretches, who knows? (i lean towards thinking that that was something selected for during the medieval period, but then i’m partial to thinking that all sorts of things were selected for in the medieval period! (~_^)”
Likely it was selected during the medieval period. But even if it was, selection kinda “ghetto-rigs” things; it does what it does with what it has to work with. If you place two different population under similar selective pressures, you will get convergent evolution, but each population often solves the “problem” in their own unique ways. It is possible that something about German psychology lent itself to being selected for conformity, etc, perhaps including what you mentioned.
@jayman – “But even if it was, selection kinda ‘ghetto-rigs’ things; it does what it does with what it has to work with.”
yes, absolutely. evolutionary pathways. you (or your population, rather) goes down a certain evolutionary path, and it’s difficult — if not impossible — to turn around and go back in the other direction.
@jayman – “If you place two different population under similar selective pressures, you will get convergent evolution, but each population often solves the ‘problem’ in their own unique ways.”
well put!
Hmm…I wonder if these differences in Spanish IQ affected in any way the resultant average IQs of the Caribbean peoples (i.e. the resultant mestizo/mulatto groups) after contact…
@nelson – “Hmm…I wonder if these differences in Spanish IQ affected in any way the resultant average IQs of the Caribbean peoples (i.e. the resultant mestizo/mulatto groups) after contact…”
i think that could make sense. i’ve suggested that about my “genes for clannish behaviors” (whatever they might be) — a lot of the spanish settlers to mexico, for instance, came from andalusia and extremadura which are both in the south of spain, a region where, i think, the population is more clannish thanks to the influence of the muslims there (iow, greater inbreeding in southern spain).
you’d want to know what parts of spain settlers to the caribbean came from.
otoh, perhaps there was a brain drain out of southern spain and the higher iq folks were the ones to emigrate to the new world. -?- i hadn’t thought of that before. dunno if the effect would’ve been strong enough, though — i.e. did enough high iq people leave southern spain so that the average iqs there would drop for a couple hundred of years. or permanently. seems unlikely.
Many of the later Spanish settlers to America were minor officials sent by the King, from the north of Spain. My maternal family is apparently mostly Galician, and until my grandfather married a Mexican woman, there was no Indian admixture. (Even then, not so much – my grandmother was apparently 1/4 Indian).
Tying into the dopplegangers post, I once saw a Mexican laborer on a construction site who bore a striking resemblance to my Mexican great-uncle, except that the laborer (who was in his 50s or 60s) was noticeably darker-skinned. I still regret not asking him if he might have been related.
@anthony – “Many of the later Spanish settlers to America were minor officials sent by the King, from the north of Spain.”
quite so.
i think that there was a good deal of cousin marriage/close matings in galicia historically, but i haven’t (yet) sat down and read about the region specifically. here are a couple of articles for ya, tho!:
– Inbreeding Pattern and Reproductive Success in a Rural Community from Galicia (Spain)
– Consanguinity in the Bishopric of Ourense (Galicia, Spain) from 1900 to 1979
@anthony – “I still regret not asking him if he might have been related.”
d*rn! yes, that would’ve been fun to hear/know. (^_^)
@hbd* chick: Indeed, finding out which Spaniards predominantly emigrated to the Caribbean and Central America seems worthwhile; I’ll see if I find anything of note when I continue my research. I share your sentiment that the effect on overall IQ might be small – mayhap a few points at best…
Regarding Lynn and Spain:
Judging from the results of both Dienekes and Davidski’s projects NE and NA isn’t significantly different from one region to another (except the Canary Islands), except for the Basques and that area has a great deal of migrants from other regions. I assume most of those migrants would be from near by areas.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-assessment-of-1000-genomes.html
@the dude – “Regarding Lynn and Spain: Judging from the results of both Dienekes and Davidski’s projects NE and NA isn’t significantly different from one region to another (except the Canary Islands), except for the Basques….”
well, then — perhaps the lower iqs in southern spain (and southern italy) are connected to (what i think is) the likely longer history of greater inbreeding in the south.
High rates of inbreeding + intelligent individuals leaving for greener pastures in their nation’s bigger cities and those of other nations, me thinks.
Since you mentioned S. Italy, Italians on the east coast of the US are for the most part S. Italians and states such as NY, NJ, and Mass. (and God awful Philly), aren’t areas of the US with down in the dumps IQs. Obviously these have large cities that attract people from other areas of the nation but you also have large number of minority groups. In addition the only IQ study I’ve seen referenced on Italian-Americans, which I believe came out in the 1980s had the average IQ of that sample as around 103, which is in stark contrast to S. Italy’s results (assuming Lynn is correct; I haven’t looked at the rebuttal that was published).
Although this may not be the place for it. I noticed your post mentioning the Lynn-Unz smack down. You should take note that although it may be true that many descendants of Ulster Scots refer to themselves as Irish, these same people live in areas of the nation that aren’t exactly known for breeding the sharpest tools in the shed (West Virginia, western Tenn., northern part of North Carolina, etc.), while Irish Catholics are found heavily in Mass. and other north eastern US states.
@The Dude Abides:
“Since you mentioned S. Italy, Italians on the east coast of the US are for the most part S. Italians and states such as NY, NJ, and Mass. (and God awful Philly), aren’t areas of the US with down in the dumps IQs. Obviously these have large cities that attract people from other areas of the nation but you also have large number of minority groups. In addition the only IQ study I’ve seen referenced on Italian-Americans, which I believe came out in the 1980s had the average IQ of that sample as around 103, which is in stark contrast to S. Italy’s results (assuming Lynn is correct; I haven’t looked at the rebuttal that was published).”
Two things:
How Italian are those Italians?
Apparently, a significant percentage of Italian immigrants (mostly those couldn’t hack it in America) returned home. As well, immigration typically selects for those who are somewhat above bottom, since they need to be able to afford the trip, plan for it, etc…
@the dude – “Italians on the east coast of the US are for the most part S. Italians and states such as NY, NJ, and Mass. (and God awful Philly), aren’t areas of the US with down in the dumps IQs.”
no, but jersey shore — and that whole stereotype — does come to mind when i think of east coast italians. that and the sopranos, of course. (~_^)
@the dude – “You should take note that although it may be true that many descendants of Ulster Scots refer to themselves as Irish, these same people live in areas of the nation that aren’t exactly known for breeding the sharpest tools in the shed (West Virginia, western Tenn., northern part of North Carolina, etc.), while Irish Catholics are found heavily in Mass. and other north eastern US states.”
yes. i kinda got at that here … just in brief, tho.
The Dude
“Regarding Lynn and Spain:
Judging from the results of both Dienekes and Davidski’s projects NE and NA isn’t significantly different from one region to another”
Based on nothing but my gut and a relief map of Spain
i would say that big river valley in the north might be the culprit that could distort both north-south and regional averages if the regions didn’t exactly map to the river valley.
@g.w. – “Based on nothing but my gut and a relief map of Spain….”
those are great maps! (you always have the best maps! (^_^) )
i clicked around to look at other maps — and it just struck me (again?) — and maybe you’ve already said this and i haven’t paid attention: isn’t it interesting that many (all?) the great ancient civilizations arose on the flat?!
i mean, everyone’s always explained that by the presence of the rivers and good agricultural conditions (tigris/euphrates, indus, china) — and, yes, that’s probably right — but also … the mating patterns! the flatlanders! what a great way to build a great civilization by not being (so) clannish! (you probably said this already and i wasn’t paying attention…. (*^_^*) )
JayMan said:
Always good to know! ;) Excellent, I’d like to get my hands on that article.
I’m a bit late to the party, but here it is.
B.B., Thanks!