nasza_maggie
29.03.06, 00:03
Allegedly

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www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2105519,00.html
Germans are brainiest (but at least we're smarter than the French)
BRITAIN and France have experienced long periods of conflict and rivalry but
now victory in one area can be claimed: Britons are more intelligent than the
French.
A new European league of IQ scores has ranked the British in eighth place,
well above the French, who were 19th. According to Richard Lynn of the
University of Ulster, Britons have an average IQ of 100. The French scored
94. But it is not all good news. Top of the table were the Germans, with an
IQ of 107. The British were also beaten by the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden,
Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
Professor Lynn, who caused controversy last year by claiming that men were
more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average, said that
populations in the colder, more challenging environments of Northern Europe
had developed larger brains than those in warmer climates further south. The
average brain size in Northern and Central Europe is 1,320cc and in southeast
Europe it is 1,312cc. “The early human beings in northerly areas had to
survive during cold winters when there were no plant foods and they were
forced to hunt big game,” he said. “The main environmental influence on IQ is
diet, and people in southeast Europe would have had less of the proteins,
minerals and vitamins provided by meat which are essential for brain
development.”
He added that differences in intelligence across Britain could be attributed
to bright people moving to London over hundreds of years. Adults in England
and Wales have an IQ of 100.5, higher than Ireland and Scotland, both with
97. People living in London and the South East average 102. “Once in the
capital they have settled and reared children, and these children have
inherited their high intelligence and transmitted it to further generations.”
The pattern is repeated in other countries, Professor Lynn claimed. In
France, IQ scores in Paris were much higher than those in rural areas.
Professor Lynn has spent three decades analysing thousands of test results to
scrutinise the role of evolution in IQ. He has published his findings in a
new book. Britons excel in another area of Professor Lynn’s research. He
found that university students had, at 109, the second-highest undergraduate
IQs in the world, beaten only by their US counterparts on 110.
Professor Lynn ascribes the differences between British and French
intelligence levels to the results of military conflict. He described it
as “a hitherto unrecognised law of history” that “the side with the higher IQ
normally wins, unless they are hugely outnumbered, as Germany was after
1942”.
A “normal” IQ ranges from 85 to 115 but exceptionally gifted people have
scores starting at 145.