Some comments on Lynn's thesis by an anthropologist

Few should have any serious problem with Lynn's thesis that superior intelligence was a product of evolutionary selection. Likewise few would dispute the statement that man's hominid forebears evolved from hominoids in tropical or sub-tropical areas. Indeed, the distribution of primates was generally restricted to such areas until hominids began their successful attempt to populate more temperate latitudes.

It is also true that Pygmies in the equatorial forests of Africa can in a matter of hours secure sufficient food for several days, and that food collecting and hunting in tropical forests does not pose significant difficulties at any time of the year. So friendly is the forest toward the Pygmies that they often refer to it as "their father." By contrast, many areas in the more northerly latitudes, especially during the period of the Fourth Ice Age, posed challenges that would tend to select, on a group basis, in favor of higher intelligence. In the course of evolution, man generally collaborates on a group basis, and even though mutations occur in individuals it is the phylogenetic continuum, the breeding group and the gene pool that transmits these mutations to future generations. Furthermore, because early men lived in small groups, the breeding circle was closely circumscribed both geographically and socially, so that evolution could proceed with surprising rapidity in a challenging environment. Indeed, evolution often proceeded by radical jumps when less competitive groups were eliminated in toto by environmental changes which occurred too rapidly to allow for selective adaptation, or were faced by overly-strong competition from rival groups or subspecies.

However, some of Lynn's critics have taken issue with his attempt to approach his thesis in conceptual terms which only take account of the major geographical macro-races. To some extent they will justifiably recoil from attempts to divide all the diverse peoples of today's world into just a few major racial groups, such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, Negrito, Australoid. Such Weberian typologies are certainly helpful in assisting us to conceptually organize the mass of complex anthropological data, and have their basis in causal reality, but we must appreciate the fact that these categories do represent Weberian "ideal" types (i.e., conceptual labels identifying broad categories grouped by reference to extremes of variation in an otherwise confusing landscape). While it is easy to identify individuals who exhibit those characteristics which most clearly distinguish "Caucasoids" from "Mongoloids," "Negritoes" from "Negroes," and so on, the extreme variants (extreme because they were genetically isolated for long periods of time under widely different selective conditions) are usually linked by intervening genetic gradients. Some of these comprise intermediate populations which came into being due to environmental distinctions intermediate between the different geographical extremes. Others are the result of interbreeding between formerly disparate groups -- a retrogressive evolutionary trend as far as speciation is concerned. Such interbreeding may often take place between only slightly differentiated neighboring groups. But at other times hybridization may result from a genetic admixture between widely disparate populations brought into contact as a result of migration -- a process which is even now accelerating in our modern world due to greatly enhanced opportunities for migration and hybridization.

One of the basic forces behind evolution is the propensity for all living organisms to over-reproduce. In a natural environment, this tends to result in over-population and causes expanding groups to attempt to intrude into neighboring territories. The more competent groups are usually successful in depriving the occupants of their territories. However, in more complex societies it should also be remembered that culture plays a selective evolutionary role, sometimes over-riding biological factors. Thus among contemporary human populations, dysgenically-oriented cultural value-systems have deprived many genetically competent groups not only of their willingness to reproduce themselves, but also of their desire to prevent their breeding grounds from being invaded by more prolific and culturally survival-oriented subspecies, even though the latter may be inferior in intelligence.

Lynn's argument for an evolutionary basis for differences in intelligence is certainly in accord with what we know about evolution, adaptation and speciation in the higher forms of animal life and also in preurbanized human societies. The evolutionary process involves two distinct processes, which among hominids generally operated concurrently. One is the well known process of adaptation to a specific environmental niche, but the other comprises an enhancement of the organism's ability to vary its response to changes in the environment rather than to become passively adapted to such changes. This, from the evolutionary point of view, is the reason for the development of intelligence in the hominid species and subspecies. While pigmentation is purely a passive adaptation to environmental demands, intelligence has a more general utility which may aid survival in a wide diversity of environmental conditions, and even enable the organism to respond to rapid changes in the environment -- something that passive adaption may actually hamper rather than facilitate.

Lynn's critics have mostly chosen to ignore this aspect of his thesis and divert attention away from the importance of the subject by trying to argue that he is at fault in grouping all Mongoloids and all Caucasoids as though they were unitary groups sharing common qualities. This is a weak point in his exposition, forced upon him, no doubt, by the sparsity of information concerning the intelligence of the many different subgroups which are linked together under the broad Weberian concepts of "macroraces." His thesis would be better received if he had been in a position to present data which would show how IQ varied between the various local races and micro-races which he lumps together under the headings Caucasoid and Mongoloid. Many of these, such as the Vietnamese, represent intermediate populations partially mixed with non-Mongoloids. Obviously, Vietnamese are genetically and biologically different from North Chinese and Koreans. The Vietnamese (Annamese), Thai, Cambodians and Malays, although justifiably included in the broad concept of a Mongoloid "macro-race," are in fact all populations which contain elements of autochthonous non-Mongoloid genetic origin. The same can be said of the residents of the more mountainous regions of southern and southwestern China, where Australoid influences still survive among the "Chinese" populations which inhabit those areas today.

Chinese male from the mountainous province of Yunnan, where Australoid influences survive in the population.

To exhaustively test Lynn's hypothesis, further data needs to be collected which would enable us to compare the IQ scores of the local micro-races. Lynn's thesis that differences in IQ are related to racial history would be substantially reinforced if such data revealed that IQ corresponded to the evolutionary origins of the populations under study, as identified by such techniques as DNA analysis, blood group analysis, and traditional physiological characteristics. The technology for this is now available. All that is required is the massive funding that such extensive research would necessitate.

The so-called geographical "Mongoloid" race actually comprises many subraces, some of which clearly exhibit the inheritance of genes absorbed from earlier Australoid and Negrito populations. Cavelli-Sforza's survey of linguistic and genetic affinities provides a valuable racial schema against which IQ comparisons could be made along the lines proposed by Richard Lynn.

Filipino from Luzon showing strong Negrito genetic influence.

Malay from Perak, illustrating part Negrito ancestry, presumably acquired from earlier autochthonous peoples.

In short, further research is needed to enable comparisons to be made between the intelligence of the diverse subgroups that comprise the broad racial categories which Lynn cites. The average IQ of the classic Mongoloids of Mongolia should be compared with that of selected Southeast Asian populations -- such as the Khmer of Cambodia, who are believed to be Mongoloids with some Australoid admixture. These data could be compared with the average IQ scores of unmixed Australoids in Australia. If Lynn is right, as I suspect he is, we would expect to find Southeast Asians scoring somewhere between the Mongolians and the Australoids. Such research should satisfy the objections of those who have protested that one cannot meaningfully treat such varied populations as the Mongolians of Mongolia, the North Chinese, Manchus, Koreans end Japanese in a lump category with Burmese, Thai, Laotians,Annamese and Khmers, as though they were equal members of a homogeneous category called simply "Mongoloids." Similar research into the IQ of the various hybridized populations broadly classified as Caucasoid or Negroid should also be undertaken.

Thus we may concede the point made by those critics who argue that the racial history of Southeast Asia -- and of other intermediate geographical areas around the world -- is racially complex. Southeast Asia reflects not merely Mongoloid but also Australoid and Negrito components. This does not invalidate Lynn's thesis; it merely clarifies the need for much finer racial classification than he has used, and for a further investigation of IQ at the level of micro-races and genetically-mixed populations. A deeper investigation would eliminate otherwise puzzling contradictions and would establish his general thesis beyond reasonable doubt -- or disprove it. When researchers incorporate IQ data on populations which are not wholly Mongoloid as evidence of "Mongoloid" IQ, this confuses the data. Racial differences were undoubtedly much sharper in prehistory and still were at the beginning of the present century -- but they are rapidly becoming blurred as a result of increased human mobility, and in some areas the concept of race has already become meaningless other than in an historical context. Not that races are doomed to disappear from the world scene in the foreseeable future. Socio-economic, political, cultural and linguistic barriers still retard the rate of genetic admixture in many multi-ethnic communities -- India being the classic example, with its persistent caste system which strongly deters genetic admixture.

Like Southeast Asia, the population of the Indian subcontinent reflects a highly complex pattern of diverse racial components which cannot be simply classified as "Caucasoid." It is totally erroneous to assume that Indians, Iranians, Egyptians, Germans and Scandinavians are identical just because they have some qualities in common that cause them to be grouped together in a conceptual "Caucasoid" macro-race. It is this kind of sloppy thinking that has brought the concept of race into disrepute. The concept of race, in the sense of micro-races, gene pools and distinctive breeding populations which persist through generations, is essential to any proper understanding of human evolution or even of present day world affairs. Thus, although historically Caucasoids made a major genetic contribution to the Indian subcontinent at the time of the Indo-Aryan invasion, circa 1500 B.C., evidence of which is still strong in the northwest of the subcontinent, the Dravidian speakers of the South retain a dramatically different identity. Mongoloid genes predominate in the Northeast, and Australoid influences are to be found in some of the more remote central and southern areas. There is also a slight Negrito influence in certain hill areas and even in the Bengal delta, particularly in Bangladesh. To illustrate the complexity of the Indian situation -- and the importance of race in human history -- the Caucasoid Indo-Aryans who subdued Bengal were seemingly few in number, but they successfully established themselves as a land-owning and priestly ruling class over the aboriginal stock of mixed Dravidian and (slight) Negrito ancestry -- the latter being most evident in the marshlands of the Bengal delta. Since the aboriginals became an "underprivileged" class under Indo-Aryan Hindu rule, many aboriginal Bengalis converted to Islam after the Moslem Moghul conquest, and after the partition of India opted to join the new Moslem state of Pakistan --subsequently winning total independence from West Pakistan, with which they had no racial connection, as Bangladesh. The land-owning Hindu class fled to India, and today there remains an identifiable difference in appearance between the Moslem Bengalis of Bangladesh and the Hindu Bengalis of India -- who still regard the former as inferior.

Relevance of the Matching Dendrograms Created by Cavelli-Sforza and His Colleagues

If the IQ of the diverse ethnic groups in a subcontinent such as India could be determined, the relationship between IQ and the racial origins of the various micro-races as indicated by genetic markers would throw useful light on Lynn's thesis. Indeed, one might well seek to determine the IQs of all the ethnic groups whose genetic and linguistic affiliations have been so strikingly demonstrated in recent years by Cavelli-Sforzaand his colleagues. Cavelli-Sforza has scientifically demonstrated the different degrees of genetic relationship that link living populations, and has reinforced this by showing how the evolution of languages tends to reflect the racial history of the living races of man. This was to be expected, since in prehistoric times language would have tended to correspond to and define human societal and breeding groups, even though this is no longer the case in all populations of the modern world. Cavelli-Sforza and his colleagues have effectively demonstrated the close historical correspondence of language and race, measuring race by genetic markers determined by the analysis of blood groups and DNA. Their conclusions, incidentally, closely correspond to those reached by earlier researchers such as Carleton Coon, who relied upon anthropometric measurements.

Lynn's thesis could be put to the test by a study which involve the collation of IQ data for all the ethnic groups identified by Cavelli-Sforza and his colleagues, and which would then chart this data against the patterns of ethnic relationship traced in the Cavelli-Sforza schema. In the absence of such a study, attempts to lump Southeast Asians together with Mongols from Mongolia, and then to compare these with an equally broad and diverse groups comprising Europeans, North Africans and South Asians all loosely classified as Caucasoids, is fraught with danger and will assuredly leave Lynn's thesis vulnerable to skepticism. There is another problem. In the existing studies of IQ, American respondents are generally allowed to volunteer their own self-assigned racial status, and many who are actually of mixed racial origin may choose to declare themselves as "white." This will blur the picture and tend to obscure the real racial differences that exist. It is impossible, for example, to take the population of a racially mixed community such as New Orleans and attempt to assign exclusive racial categories to all the respondents. One simply cannot divide the present-day population of major American cities arbitrarily into scientifically meaningful categories of "whites," "blacks" and Hispanics if one's aim is to explore prehistoric evolution. Almost all the blacks in such cities will have some white genes (some being predominantly white) while not a few of those who opt to classify themselves as "white" will have partial black ancestry. Consequently, any comparison between the IQ statistics relating the Japanese population and statistics which purport to reflect the IQ of "white" Americans are not going to be scientifically accurate, because the IQ scores recorded for "white Americans" will likely include many who are of partially Negroid or other racial ancestry -- and these may be expected to pull down the alleged "white" average. This will continue to be the case so long as those who undergo IQ tests are classified according to their own statements concerning racial affinity, and not by objective scientific analysis. The same thing can be said of the population of modern Britain, which has absorbed and interbred with Eurasians and other mixed blood immigrants from many parts of Britain's former empire.

Prehistoric Evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens

It was these advanced Caucasoids of Western Eurasia and Mongoloids of Eastern Eurasia who in the last 20,000 years sent colonizing bands into the subtropical and tropical regions where older stocks still survived. In these environments the colonizing Caucasoids and Mongoloids undoubtedly mixed with the local populations, thereby raising the intelligence of the older stocks, but also allowing useful local adaptations such as pigmentation and spiral hair to persist, as well as tell-tale characteristics like greater prognathism.

In a process of racial expansion the genetic possibilities were as follows: The more advanced intruders might (a) drive the aboriginal residents into less favorable environments, where they would perhaps become extinct during bad years, (b) exterminate them (more commonly, perhaps, during periods when cannibalism was common), (c) kill the males but retain and breed from some of the females, or (d) totally absorb the aboriginals by hybridization. In either of the last two instances the aboriginals would contribute their genes in either greater or smaller quantities to the resultant population.

Genetic admixture of this kind would explain how local qualities might persist while the level of older hominid populations was, over time, raised to sapiens levels -- but by no means to equal levels of sapiens accomplishment. Those groups of more highly evolved Caucasoids and Mongoloids which remained in their earlier homelands, far removed from the tropical and semi-tropical areas, would have retained their distinctive qualities and identities, free from admixture until very recent times. But those of their kind that moved back into the subtropical and tropical areas, inhabited by populations that had not undergone severe selection during the Fourth Ice Age, became genetically hybridized with the older stocks, and would have themselves been "levelled down," while "levelling up" the autochthonous stocks by admixture. Their diverse hybrid descendants became locally homogenized into a variety of new subraces, which would have persisted until such time as they were again modified by fresh incursions of more the advanced stocks, equipped with yet more advanced technologies.

General Overview

Wherever they originated, and it may have been in the East African highlands,Homo sapiens may reasonably be assumed to have evolved under the challenge of a non-tropical, temperate climate. While this was taking place, the equatorial forests would still have been inhabited by welladapted but still pre-sapiens populations. Negroids can hardly be determined in the archaeological record prior to around 9,000 years ago, and are almost assuredly the product of repeated infusions of genes from intellectually more evolved and technologically better-equipped Homo sapiens stocks which intruded into their homeland, absorbed the older autochthonous stocks, and raised them to sapiens levels. Whenever hybridization between widely disparate stocks took place, the level of intelligence of the older stock would be raised by admixture with the more advanced population, but some characteristics of the older population, such as greater prognathism, would tend to survive in the new hybrid population. Locally advantageous selective qualities, such as heavy pigmentation and spiral hair form -- which have positive local selective value in tropical environments -- might persist and become predominant among the hybrid descendants. Similarly, it has been argued that the modern Bantu came into being as a result of an admixture between a very small number of incoming Caucasoids with Palaeo-Negroid populations (which had already become sapiens) of the forest areas, the "birthplace" of the Bantu having been tentatively located in the Sudanese savannah adjacent to the equatorial forests. The Bantu then successfully expanded over wide areas of the East Africa, virtually eliminating but also partially absorbing the Bushmen and Khoisan hunting and gathering populations that had previously occupied those territories.

The Australoid peoples may also be deemed to represent a blend of pre-sapiens stock with expanding H. sapiens stock, which admixture would have taken place in South, Southeast and East Asia prior to their migration into Australasia. Subsequent migrations of Caucasoid and Mongoloid Homo sapiens sapiens into South, Southeast and East Asia all but eliminated the mainland Australoids and Negritoes in those areas, although some Australoid and Negrito genes may still be detected in Southeast Asia and India, and some Negrito populations survive intact in Malaysia. However, even in Australia, the remaining Australoids are now acquiring Caucasoid genes from liasons between aboriginal women and immigrant Caucasoid settlers. Their more primitive Tasmanian relatives no longer survive in pure form, but did contribute their genes to a few segments of the present-day "white" population of Tasmania.

One must not forget, however, that geographical, climatic and even biological (disease) barriers traditionally worked to preserve genetic differentiation, thereby reducing the rapidity of genetic admixture where different populations meet. The importance of geographic barriers to intermixture is illustrated by recent studies of AIDS in Africa. These show that the AIDS virus moves along trade routes, and that villages isolated by dense forest barriers, just a short distance from a well-travelled route, may be completely free of it. Contrariwise, villages on the other side of the forest barrier, if situated on a trade route, often have an extremely high incidence of HIV.

The Mongoloid/Caucasoid IQ Controversy

In the first place, Central and Eastern Eurasia did not share the same glacial conditions experienced in Europe, partially because temperatures in Siberia vary widely between seasons, and the summers are much hotter. Secondly, the relatively uniform geographical character of large areas of Siberia is such that in cold periods the belts of flora move south and in warmer periods they move north again. In our ignorance of East Eurasian population history during the last glacial period, it is difficult to speculate on the selective forces to which Mongoloids were exposed, or to compare these with the better known circumstances under which Caucasoids evolved. In Siberia we may assume that the fauna, including we would suppose early man, customarily moved with the flora. This does not disprove Lynn's hypothesis, but suggests that we do need to know more about the location of "proto-Mongoloids" and about the climatic conditions under which they lived while Western Eurasia was experiencing the Fourth Ice Age.

Secondly, we do know that there have been vast movements of populations (i.e. of genes) backwards and forward along the steppelands that separate Western and Eastern Eurasia in late prehistoric and certainly in historic times. The "frozen tombs" of Pazyryk in the Altai mountains revealed the ice-preserved remains of a Mongoloid prince with his blondhaired Caucasoid wife. The Upper Palaeolithic, that triumph of inventive creation produced by the first modern Europeans (Cro-Magnon Caucasoids), originated in Western Eurasia and spread eastward along the Eurasian steppes to North China, Korea and Japan. It is highly probable that many genes moved in the same direction, since pure "diffusion" is unimaginable in Palaeolithic times. This culture would most likely carried by migrant peoples who eventually became absorbed into the population of the new area.

In short, it is likely that the evolution of Homo sapiens Sapiens took place in Western Eurasia, and Neanderthaloid remains have been found in Central Asia dating from a period long after Cro-Magnons controlled Europe and Western Asia. The Upper Palaeolithic culture can also be demonstrated to have spread from Western Eurasia into what is now Northern China, Manchuria and Japan, and may have been accompanied by a genetic migration. Ignoring for the moment the views of Allan Wilson, who has contested the mitochondrial DNA theory, the characteristic shovel-shaped incisors and other "Mongoloid" features (the "eskimo's nose" of one commentator in this volume) could have been acquired by admixture of earlier migrating Homo sapiens sapiens with older hominid populations already inhabiting parts of Eastern Siberia. It is notable that many extreme Mongoloid characteristics, such as the epicanthic fold, which are deemed to be a product of severe wintry conditions, are by no means pronounced in North China or in Japan -- both areas which seem to have had cultural and probably genetic contact with Western Eurasia just prior to the dawn of history. Yet it is these areas which record some of the highest Mongoloid IQ scores, and which were historically the centers of Oriental cultural innovation. Right down into historical times, what is known as Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang was inhabited by an Indo-European-speaking Caucasoid people. What is more, the Japanese upper classes, who invaded the present day Japanese islands from the Asian mainland, were horse-riding Bronze Age warriors who possessed a cultural, technological and religious heritage not too dissimilar from that of the Indo-European Caucasoids of the West Asian steppes. Their language is related to surviving languages in Central Asia, from whence they are deemed to have come, and recent anthropological research has shown that the warrior samurai classes of medieval Japan -- the direct descendants of these Bronze Age immigrants -- were not only distinct from the aboriginal population of the Japanese islands in pre-conquest times, but their skeletons suggest strong Caucasoid affinities. C. Loring Brace has attempted to argue that this implies that the samurai had part Ainu ancestry, but that argument is not maintainable, and there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest Caucasoid influences dating from the time when the ancestors of the Japanese lived on the Asian steppes adjacent to the Caucasoid Indo-Europeans. Members of the ruling classes in Japan still often reflect a Caucasoid cast of features, sharply contrasting with the more Filipino-like features of the lower classes.

Recent studies of Japanese samurai skeletal remains suggest Caucasoid affinities.

A third question comes to mind concerning the origin of the postulated differences in IQ between the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids. This is the possibility of a recent dysgenic trend among Caucasoids in Europe, which was not replicated among the Mongoloids of China, Korea or Japan. One cannot make much progress by arguing the origins and relative achievements of early West Eurasian and East Eurasian civilizations, although the West seems to have predated the East in the all-important Upper Palaeolithic revolution. The metal ages similarly seem to have originated in the Western part of the Eurasian continent, and spread eastward to Northern China and related areas. The same may be said for the use of wheeled vehicles, and even the tripods used in early Chinese religious rituals are akin to those used in ancient Greek and Roman ritual. But passing over the dispute as to the relative achievements of the two areas of ancient civilization, it is entirely possible that the early Caucasoids may have possessed an intellectual ability superior to that of their present-day representatives. This high intelligence was apparent in

European classical civilization, witness the achievements of early pre-Christian scholars such as Archimedes and Pythagoras, but one might speculate that the population of Europe has suffered a severe dysgenic decline over the past two thousand years. Many authors have commented on the dysgenic influence of the Catholic Christian church, which selected its clergy and monks from among the more talented youths, and then condemned them to celibacy, thereby eliminating their genes from the gene pool. The Chinese, by contrast, respected their intellectuals, exempted them from warfare, and rewarded them with an economic status whereby they could afford to keep concubines as well as wives, and consequently produce much larger families than the peasantry - the less successful of whom could not afford even one wife.

More recently, too, since the beginning of this century, most West European and North American Caucasoid societies have increasingly "liberated" their womenfolk from the task of childbearing, especially among the more educated and professional classes. This has resulted in a tendency for the brighter women to have fewer children. During most of this time, the womenfolk of the more successful Japanese and Chinese families were discouraged from abandoning their role in the home and continued to produce large families. That situation has since been changed in China and Japan, but only very recently. And dysgenic trends can take effect within a very short span of time.

One last comment on this topic: the content of the West European portion of the Caucasoid gene pool has changed considerably over the past century (as graveyards in London show). This is especially due to an increasing admixture with non-Caucasoid elements, a process which is repeating the experience of earlier Caucasoid populations which once inhabited in North Africa and Western Asia. Even in the United States, increasing numbers who are classified as Caucasoids are actually part Negroid, due to the phenomenon of "passing over." This means that few contemporary IQ surveys of white American or British "Caucasoids" are accurate indicators of original unadulterated Caucasoid IQ. It is further to be noted that Japan, China and Korea have resisted the influx of tropical populations, and that Oriental test scores tend to reveal a narrower spread than is found in the test scores recorded for contemporary "American whites" or "British whites." Such a broader range of scores is to be expected among Caucasoid test scores if a substantial percentage of the "Caucasoid" respondents are not of unmixed Caucasoid ancestry.

I would like to make one more comment. This concerns the possible correlation between head size and intelligence. While this correlation generally holds true in the overall course of hominid evolution, the subject is both complex and obscure, and since I do not regard myself as adequately qualified I prefer to remain agnostic on this subject.

(n1) Of course, the term Homo sapiens is itself merely a "Weberian" label, the application of which depends somewhat arbitrarily upon the views of the speaker. What we have is an ongoing chain of evolution with many threads, some of which break and others of which become entangled and merge. Trying to put labels on the fossil remains which provide evidence for the evolution of Hominoids to Hominids, such as Australopithecus, Homo erectus and thence to Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens sapiens, is like trying to put labels on a thermometer -- where know where freezing point is, and where boiling point is, but where does cold become warm, and warm become hot?

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By Roger Pearson, Institute for the Study of Man