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Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own
by
Garett Jones
Over the last few decades, economists and psychologists have quietly documented the many ways in which a person's IQ matters. But, research suggests that a nation's IQ matters so much more.
As Garett Jones argues in Hive Mind, modest differences in national IQ can explain most cross-country inequalities. Whereas IQ scores do a moderately good job of predicting individual wa ...more
As Garett Jones argues in Hive Mind, modest differences in national IQ can explain most cross-country inequalities. Whereas IQ scores do a moderately good job of predicting individual wa ...more
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30)
Pop sci, which reads more like overgrown blog posts. Very weak overview of IQ's connection to income: poor overview of what IQ is, all its correlates, the evidence establishing its causal role like the iodization historical studies (which I think are extremely important yet there's not even allusions to their results), and surprisingly brief coverage of the cross-national correlational and longitudinal regressions (which you would think would be discussed at length). Jones pretty much doesn't di
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Politically correctly ignores genetics, but nevertheless an informative, and helpful (to nations and economists) book.
This is a refreshing popular press entry for an economist. He focuses on evidence overlooked by many, yet he does not throw the profession under the bus to raise his own status (as seems to be the norm among pop press economist writings lately). Jones quietly builds an interdisciplinary case without bragging about being interdisciplinary. He is candid about the quality of the evidence he surveys, and he does not oversell the argument. He outlines the limits of knowledge. He does it all in a very
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This is how an academic book should be written. Concise, clear and persuasive.
I can't emphasize how much I appreciate the book being so short and digestible.
I view a lot of this book as intuitive, but I might be alone in that regard seeing as how nobody has published it before, so kudos to Garrett Jones.
My only complaint is that the chapter on low skilled immigration I think misses the importance of social capital and government expenditures. Jones cites Robert Frank earlier in the book, but fa ...more
I can't emphasize how much I appreciate the book being so short and digestible.
I view a lot of this book as intuitive, but I might be alone in that regard seeing as how nobody has published it before, so kudos to Garrett Jones.
My only complaint is that the chapter on low skilled immigration I think misses the importance of social capital and government expenditures. Jones cites Robert Frank earlier in the book, but fa ...more
Title: IQ matters. A lot. Both to you and your nation.
Let's just say it up front and get it out of the way: IQ matters. A lot. Both to you and your nation.
There's much to like about this book. Jones does a great job of stating the case for the validity and importance of measuring IQ (the intelligence quotient) and making correlations with a wide range of educational, occupational, economic, and behavioral variables. He does this in a clinical and dispassionate way, which is very helpful and refr ...more
Let's just say it up front and get it out of the way: IQ matters. A lot. Both to you and your nation.
There's much to like about this book. Jones does a great job of stating the case for the validity and importance of measuring IQ (the intelligence quotient) and making correlations with a wide range of educational, occupational, economic, and behavioral variables. He does this in a clinical and dispassionate way, which is very helpful and refr ...more
a short intro to the importance of IQ on the personal and national scale-- hampered by it's relatively shallow or absent treatment of some of the important findings of IQ research: criminality and IQ (which seem clearly important for a book on national IQ and it's consequences), the importance of very high IQ in science and innovation (for more on this see: Roe's work on eminent scientists, the work on the SMPY cohort, etc.) and probably more stuff I'm not familiar with.
The O-ring 'channel' was ...more
The O-ring 'channel' was ...more
Oct 11, 2016
Benjamin
added it
Adam Feuerstein said it best:
"Would anyone be surprised if we find out there’s a freezer in some Chinese lab filled with CRISPR-made human-mutant corpses?"
"Would anyone be surprised if we find out there’s a freezer in some Chinese lab filled with CRISPR-made human-mutant corpses?"
Jan 29, 2016
Arbraxan
rated it
really liked it
Recommends it for:
anybody interested in the link between intelligence and macroeconomic outcomes
Recommended to Arbraxan by:
Pseudo-Erasmus
Shelves:
economics,
psychology
In his book Garett Jones sets out to explain what he calls "the paradox of IQ": differences in IQ test scores (and similar cognitive metrics) are a weak predictor of differences in individual performance, whereas the relationship between differences in countries' average test scores (relative to other countries) and cross-country economic inequalities is very strong. For this purpose, he begins with a comprehensive overview of the content and import of IQ scores and argues that they offer valid
...more
It is rather ironic that the book’s content is undermining its cover – contrary to the subtitle Jones demonstrates pretty convincingly that individual IQ does matter (excellent predictor of many life outcomes, highly heritable, stable, no longer culturally biased) and then he tries to build a case for why your country’s IQ matters even more. As an introduction to the field it is pretty pretty good (many myths shattered, a few seminal studies described and open questions/unknown areas acknowledge
...more
IQ matters hugely for economic development. There are five main channels for this. First, people with high IQs save more. East Asians, for example have high average IQs and are more patient and future oriented, and thus save a lot. Second, high IQs cooperate more, a key process for sound economics and politics. Third, high IQs support market oriented policies. Fourth, high IQs better work in teams. And fifth, high IQs like to conform. This leads to other attributes. High IQs are more likely to c
...more
This book opens, rather than closes, the public discussion on national IQ. While Jones has some of the answers, he asks many more of the reader and his fellow researchers. How important is IQ to the economy? If so, the IQ of which portions of the population? How can IQ be increased? If so, what interventions are most effective?
A major take-away from the research is that IQ is mutable, at least on the generational level. Childhood nutrition and education can significantly increase standardized te ...more
A major take-away from the research is that IQ is mutable, at least on the generational level. Childhood nutrition and education can significantly increase standardized te ...more
It's a great book for people interested in IQ research and economics. Even for the IQ dissenters, I would still recommend this book to them because it lays out a solid argument for why IQ tests and standardized tests such as the SATs are a good measure of important cognitive skills. In addition, it also touches on the inflammatory issue of racial IQ differences in a way that's palpable to both sides. The author is open-minded about the issue, but he doesn't leap to unnecessary conclusions due to
...more
More a question mark in prose form than anything else; but an intriguing question mark at that. The idea that "smart" societies achieve more seems straight-forward enough, but the general intelligence of a nation's population as well as its economy is a direct product of that nation's history. Raising average IQ in struggling nations (or our own) shouldn't require a monograph worth of convincing in order for us to adopt it as a valuable objective. But, as the author repeatedly points out, achiev
...more
An Uncontroversial IQ book
"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Charles Darwin
IQ is a topic that always seems to make people kick off. This book is short well argued and I will boil it down to
Children growing up in a country which is bad for nutrition, disease, pollution and education won't flourish. and being surrounded by people whose lives are difficult for these reasons will make you life more difficult on average. These a ...more
"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Charles Darwin
IQ is a topic that always seems to make people kick off. This book is short well argued and I will boil it down to
Children growing up in a country which is bad for nutrition, disease, pollution and education won't flourish. and being surrounded by people whose lives are difficult for these reasons will make you life more difficult on average. These a ...more
Speaking of cognitive dissonance... He speaks quite clearly of the benefits of a higher-IQ population, even if only a few IQ points, and how important it therefore is to raise a nation's IQ. Then he proudly signs a letter encouraging large-scale immigration of lower-IQ emigrants. Then he worries about how these new immigrants, with low IQs and histories of voting for statist, low-IQ kleptocracies, might now vote. So the doctor says, "Stop hitting yourself in the head with the hammer."
Extremely clearly argued. Stuart Ritchie's review in Intelligence gives the critique I would give as well. Still it seems like there are some interventions that probably do raise IQ and are likely to have a large amount of "knock on" good effects in deficient nations. (Prenatal Iodine supplementation in particular seems very promising in large parts of the world)
Straightforward, neither too academic nor too mainstream. The author supports with plenty of evidence the idea of the importance of the collectivity over/for the individual. Even though the perspective may seem a little too broad, the book succeeds in presenting clearly its thesis and its impact for our present and future society.
He strays. Good review of IQ lit, detractors, and more. short chapters and sections are nice too. OK footnotes.
Interesting but gets repetitive after a while
Would make a great blog post. Follows the "formula" for business books. Shallow + should not be a book.
Compelling arguments that your surrounding society is a big determiner of your success. Not unique, but ties together a number of interesting threads.
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“Irrational political beliefs are free, consequenceless, and economic theory predicts that people will buy a lot of stuff that’s free.”
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“prosperity. On average, nations with test scores in the bottom 10 percent worldwide are only about one-eighth as rich and productive as nations with scores in the top 10 percent.”
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