European IQ Gains and Industrialization

Economic historian Gregory Clark proposes this theory:

An actual genetic change in British peoples’ cognitive traits occurred which led to British people leaping ahead economically

This genetic change was common around northern Europe

The change in the status-fertility correlation in the 19th/early 20th century caused underperformance of British economic outcomes

There are other theories for British success.

The above article claims that the genetic data does not explain large enough IQ increases to explain the huge British advances.

This does not settle the matter. I have posted other theories. Maybe there are other IQ genes. Maybe the IQ of the elites went up more than the overall average. Maybe IQ was one of several contributing factors.

My suspicion is that genes for civilized behavior were crucial. Possibly also genes made Europeans more amenable to Christianity.

For current info on IQ, see this book review:

The Science of Human Intelligence (hereinafter SHI) is the most comprehensive and up-to-date textbook on human intelligence now available. It is lavishly and usefully illustrated, and includes hundreds of full references to the original research on all key concepts. It is a serious book for serious students, but has been carefully edited to be fully accessible to non-specialists.

The lead author, Richard J. Haier, is one of the world’s top experts on the neuroscience of intelligence, and asks all the right questions: Is IQ real? Can it be increased? Are there different kinds of intelligence? How does the brain work? Which is more important: nature or nurture? Are all groups equal? Perhaps inevitably, the section on race is incomplete, sometimes timid, and includes a shocking error, but it clearly recognizes that race differences in IQ could have genetic causes.