Friday, September 30, 2011

Infectious Disease Responsible For Regional IQ Differences

From Scientific American, "Why Is Average IQ Higher in Some Places? A surprising theory about global variations in intelligence" by Christopher Eppig:
So far, the evidence suggests that infectious disease is a primary cause of the global variation in human intelligence. Since this is a developmental cause, rather than a genetic one, it’s good news for anyone who is interested in reducing global inequality associated with IQ. If the primary factors were genetic, as some have suggested, IQ would be very difficult to change.
Read the complete article here.

The research paper, "Parasite prevalence and the worldwide distribution of cognitive ability" by Christopher Eppig*, Corey L. Fincher and Randy Thornhill is available here.

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