Map shows where the smartest (and opposite) people in the world live

Some of you... OK, a lot of you... aren't going to like this. Walt presents a map, based on IQ and Global Inequality, a research project carried out from 2002 to 2006 by Richard Lynn, a British Professor of Psychology, and Tatu Vanhanen, a Finnish Professor of Political Science. They conducted IQ studies in more than 80 countries, and found that the smartest people are in Asia, and the least smart people -- Ed. won't let me use the word that springs to mind -- are in Africa.

Most of Walt's readers come from English-speaking countries: the Excited States of America and the Disunited Kingdom and the "Old Dominions" (Canada, and occasionally Australia and New Zealand). Here's how these countries rank.
UK - tied for 7th place, with an average score of 100
Canada - one point behind, at 99, tied for 8th
USA and Australia - tied (with others) for 9th place, 98 points on the IQ test.

As Lou Costello used to ask, who's on first? Hong Kong and Singapore (which has a large population of Chinese) scored an average of 108. South Korea is alone in second place, scoring 106. Japan and China are tied for third at 105, with Taiwan alone in fourth place, 104.

When you get down to average scores of 70 and below, it's all black (or brown) all the way. Here's the list, in order: Benin, Botswana, Rwanda, Togo, Burundi, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Somalia, Swaziland -- all in Africa so far -- Dominica (C), Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haïti (C), Lesotho, Liberia, Saint Kitts and Nevis (C), São Tomé and Príncipe, The Gambia, Cameroon, Gabon, Moçambique, Saint Lucia (C), and, bringing up the rear, Equatorial Guinea. Of that last bunch, all are in Africa except those I've marked with (C) which are in the Caribbean.

Professors Richard and Tatu argue that differences in national income are correlated with differences in the average national intelligence quotient (IQ). They say that differences in average national IQs constitute one important factor (but not the only one) contributing to differences in national wealth and rates of economic growth. If you want to know why Africa was, is, and will always be a basket case, there's your answer.

Further reading: "See what African 'refugees' are running away from", WWW 15/7/17.
Recommended viewing: "VIDEO: 'Latest Research on Race', Prof. Philippe Rushton", WWW 12/1/17.

See what African "refugees" are running away from

These lovely pix were taken in Oworonshoki, a district of Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria. They were published by CBC News in an attempt to drum up sympathy [or white guilt? Ed.] for the boatloads of African "refugees" and asylum-seekers who wash up, with other trash, on the shores of Europe every day, hoping to make their way eventually to the USA and Canada, where they believe a warm and generous welcome awaits them.

The sad tale told in voiceovers was that of a Lagos taxi driver who decided to try his luck in crossing the Mediterranean "in search of a better life." His journey did not end well. He was captured by Arab thugs and held hostage, before finding his way back home. The CBC's intrepid (and pale-faced) reporter picks up the story:

The ground is thick with mud and sewage. Wooden planks and tires scatter the slum, making a precarious pathway. "We have to walk," says Oluwaseun Femi Ijitola, a 34-year-old taxi driver known as Seun. "No vehicle can pass through."

There is a look of shame in his eyes as he surveys this forgotten corner of Lagos. On the water's edge of Nigeria's largest city, in the neighbourhood of Oworonshoki, people live in dire poverty with no sanitation, electricity or any other facilities, in ramshackle shanties covered with dirty tarpaulin and cardboard that barely keeps out the seasonal rains. Chickens, goats and dog scavenge on mounds of garbage. Empty plastic bottles float on the tide of the Lagos Lagoon.

This is what Ijitola risked his life to escape when he became one of the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants attempting to cross the Sahara desert to get to Europe and the hope of a better life. "I have a dream of schooling abroad, and that is why I went to Libya," he says. Ijitola says the area is "very, very rough and tough" and unlocks a tiny padlock to his wooden shack. His wife and five-year-old daughter aren't here.
"I sent them to be with the mother-in-law," he says. "I cannot feed them."

Local "area boys" — as the criminal gangs that extort money and mete out casual violence are known — loiter outside, smoking marijuana and drinking beer.

Sad, isn't it? But who is to blame for the poverty and squalor in which Mr Ijitola and his sometime family live? Colonialists? Europeans? North Americans? Hardly! Nigeria has been independent since 1 October 1960. The Nigerians have had nearly 57 years to improve and build upon the functioning infrastructure that was bequeathed to them by the despised British. But have they done so? Nooooo! In fact, things have gotten worse, much worse.

Why do you suppose that things have gotten worse since Nigeria, along with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, became responsible for it's own destiny. The fact is that the average IQ on the Dark Continent varies between 60 and 80. People with such sub-normal intelligence are utterly incapable of creating or maintaining a white, Western-style society. If you don't believe me, go to Lagos. Or Harare, or Nairobi, or Johannesburg or Kampala or [That's enough festering African slums. Ed.] See for yourself.

Further reading (and viewing): "'Latest Research on Race', Prof. Philippe Rushton", WWW 12/1/17. Includes a 57-minute video which you should watch only if you can handle the truth. And don't get me started on IQ testing being Eurocentric and thus not fair to Africans. I spent years in Africa, in the "ed biz", and never met one (1) black African who could devise a "made in Africa" test which would be fairer. The best they could do, it seemed to me, was devise 78 ways of cheating on the white man's tests!