[ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:48 AM, Stathis Papaioannou<stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:
>
>> ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise:
>>
>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html and other
>> pages there, especially
>>
>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html
>
> The cited papers claim a "moderate correlation". That is not
> equivalent to claiming that if people were smarter there would be less
> violent crime.

### Read again. "randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals
would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent (i.e., from
60 percent to 40 percent)—certainly a meaningful change."

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There are far, far greater differences in crime rates
> between different countries and different regions within a country,
> not accounted for by IQ variation. And even if it is accepted that IQ
> is a predictor of crime all else being equal, it is still possible
> that, for example, it is not IQ per se but IQ *inequality* that is the
> cause of the problem, so that if the average IQ were raised but the IQ
> spread remained the same the violent crime rate would remain
> unchanged.

### Read http://law.jrank.org/pages/1365/Intelligence-Crime-Explaining-IQ-crime-correlation.html

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Also, you still haven't addressed the possibility that the
> really terrible crimes that often go unpunished and don't show up in
> statistics - demagogues inciting war and other violence - are due to
> high IQ individuals. I'm all in favour of making people smarter, but I
> have little confidence that it will make them nicer.

### OK, are you going to withdraw your assertion that low IQ does not
predict increased criminality? You seem to be veering off into other
issues now.

Rafal