Germans ‘cleverest in Europe’
Germans are the most intelligent people in Europe, well ahead of the British (in eighth place) and the French (15th), according to a study by the University of Ulster.
Germans scored an average intelligence quotient (IQ) of 107, a scintilla of brainpower above the Dutch who also scored 107, the Polish (106), the Swedish (104) and the Italians (102), the Times newspaper in Britain reported on Monday.
The British rated an even 100 IQ according to the study, ahead of the Spanish (98) and the French (94) who could comfort themselves only by checking the study results for Bulgarians, Romanians, the Turkish and Serbians who languished at the bottom of the table on 89.
Professor Richard Lynn, who headed the study, caused controversy last year by claiming that men were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average.
Lynn first came to general notice in 1977, when he published a paper saying that East Asians have higher average intelligence by five IQ points than Europeans and peoples of European origin in the United States and elsewhere.
In his recent book, Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis, he concludes that the East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) have the highest mean IQ at 105. These, he says, are followed by the Europeans (IQ 100).
He said of his latest findings that populations in the colder, more challenging environments of Northern Europe had developed larger brains than those in warmer climates further south.
He 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″, The Times reported.