{"id":2537,"date":"2011-09-20T09:38:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T13:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2011-09-20T09:46:41","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T13:46:41","slug":"why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/2011\/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is average IQ higher in Massachusetts than Louisiana?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Post
\nPosted by: Suzy Khimm
\nSeptember 16, 2011
\nhttp:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/ezra-klein\/post\/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana\/2011\/09\/16\/gIQA7P3UXK_blog.html<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Education, economic growth and nutrition aren\u2019t the only explanations for differences in global intelligence. Two new studies have suggested that the prevalence of infectious disease is also one of the best predictors of a country\u2019s IQ.<\/p>\n

Christopher Hassall<\/a> and Thomas Sherratt<\/a>, biologists from Ottawa\u2019s Carleton University, found<\/a> a strong link between the level of parasitic infections and average national IQ, as noted<\/a> this month in Scientific American. They also posited that people living in warmer climates tend to have lower average IQ precisely because there are more parasitic infections in places with higher temperatures.<\/p>\n

Their findings confirm a similar 2010 study<\/a> by University of New Mexico researchers. \u201cControlling for the effects of education, national wealth, temperature, and distance from sub-Saharan Africa, infectious disease emerged as the best predictor of the bunch,\u201d writes<\/a> Christopher Eppig, one of the study\u2019s authors. (Some researchers have suggested<\/a> that average IQ is higher, the farther one travels from the evolutionary origin of humans in Africa, positing that migrating humans needed higher intelligence to survive.)<\/p>\n

Why does there seem to be such a strong link? Eppig explains:<\/p>\n

One study found that newborn humans spend close to 90 percent of their calories on building and running their brains…If, during childhood, when the brain is being built, some unexpected energy cost comes along, the brain will suffer. Infectious disease is a factor that may rob large amounts of energy away from a developing brain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eppig and his team replicated their analysis<\/a> in the United States, finding that infectious disease rates were very good at predicting a state\u2019s average IQ. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont \u2014 states with high average<\/a> IQ \u2014 had low infectious disease rates, while California, Louisiana and Mississippi had low average IQ and high infectious disease rates. That being said, there seems to be some glaring weaknesses in the state-level study, at least: Eppig assumed that education was controlled for across the country because there\u2019s standardized mandatory education in the United States, when there\u2019s arguably considerable variation in the quality<\/a> of education across different states, the proportion of new immigrant students, and so forth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post Posted by: Suzy Khimm September 16, 2011 http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/ezra-klein\/post\/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana\/2011\/09\/16\/gIQA7P3UXK_blog.html Education, economic growth and nutrition aren\u2019t the only explanations for differences in global intelligence. Two new studies have suggested that the prevalence of infectious disease is also one of the best predictors of a country\u2019s IQ. Christopher Hassall and Thomas Sherratt, biologists from Ottawa\u2019s Carleton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy is average IQ higher in Massachusetts than Louisiana? - Department of Biology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Washington Post Posted by: Suzy Khimm September 16, 2011\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/2011\/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"michelleofarrell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/2011\/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/2011\/why-is-average-iq-higher-in-massachusetts-than-louisiana\/\",\"name\":\"Why is average IQ higher in Massachusetts than Louisiana? 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