During the past several years many studies have shown that childhood IQ is highly correlated with adult health and longevity, e.g. see story about recent article in the journal Pediatrics:
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In California and elsewhere in the USA (and in international comparisons between countries), racial groups tend to differ in IQ, socioeconomic position (social class), and health. with Asians (especially Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) tending to show higher IQ, socioeconomic position, and health than whites. Conversely blacks tend to show lower IQ, socioeconomic position,and health compared with whites.

With Hispanics (especially those with full or partial Native American ancestry from Mexico and South America), the pattern is different with Hispanics showing lower IQ and socioeconomic position compared with whites, but yet these Hispanics still tend to show lower mortality than whites. This is known as the Hispanic Paradox. For more info just google hispanic paradox, or check this recent article: <link>

Recently a pathologist from Univ of Pittsburgh has proposed a "CHRM2 vagal vigor" theory to explain how differences in the CHRM2 gene may contribute to racial differences in cognitive ability and health. A pdf copy of his hypothesis (Cognitive epidemiology of ethnic health and the CHRM2 vagal vigour hypothesis) is available at the Nature Precedings website at this link:
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There are no "cognitive differences" between races which cannot be more than satisfactorily explained by local culture.

International comparisons do not show what you seem to think they show. The people who wrote "The Bell Curve" concluded that Askenazi Jews were far more intelligent than whites. Yet the average IQ in Israel is 94.

Conversely, Kenya has an average IQ of 72. This would actually make Kenyans mentally handicapped were it true. Having been to Kenya, I can assure you that it isn't true.

This whole racial IQ nonsense is almost entirely confined the United States, a weird bubble in which races are viewed almost as separate species, rather than as different shades of humanity. I'm intrigued as to whether Spanish people are viewed as "Hispanics" in North America, because here in Europe, we don't treat them as being any dumber than anyone else...

"There are no "cognitive differences" between races which cannot be more than satisfactorily explained by local culture. "

This is the standard Boasian assertion, we Galtonians tend to doubt this assertion since there is abundant empirical evidence against it.

" Yet the average IQ in Israel is 94."

I agree that this value is probably too low. Here you are refering to the 2002 data of Lynn and Vanhanen. Subsequently Lynn has published papers that estimate the average IQ of American and European Jews at about 110. Some (e.g. Berkeley's Yuri Slezkine The Jewish Century c2004 Princeton Univ Press) accounts indicate that the European Jews that migrated to Israel (rather than say the USA or South Africa) tended to be less intellectual and less prosperous, so it is possible that European Jews in Israel have an average IQ of about 105 rather than 110. Also Israel is only about 40% European (mostly Ashkenazi) Jews, the other 60% is comprised of Jews from Africa, Middle East and Asia and Muslims and Christians.

"Conversely, Kenya has an average IQ of 72."

I agree that this value (again 2002 data of Lynn and Vanhanen) is probably too low. A recent paper analyzing SubSaharan African IQs (Wicherts, J. M., et al., A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans, Intelligence 2009) indicates that the average IQ in Kenya is about 80.4 and that the SubSaharan African average is about 82.

"This whole racial IQ nonsense is almost entirely confined the United States"

No, in fact racial IQ differences are found consistently all over the world; another fact that bolsters the Galtonian genetic hypothesis.

"I'm intrigued as to whether Spanish people are viewed as "Hispanics" in North America"

No. People from Spain are supposed to refrain from claiming Hispanic/Latino status. The lower IQs of Hispanics/Latinos appears to be associated with their degree of African and/or Native American ancestry. The elite class (academic, professionals, business, and most top government office holders) in the Carribean and Latin America are usually of pure European (or Middle Eastern or Asian) ancestry; the lower classes are more often of full or partial African or Native American ancestry.

A few points:

a) IQ tests don't really measure intelligence. They measure how many such tests a subject has done before (many of the questions are highly coachable). They sometimes measure the in-use vocabulary of the subject and his family. They measure the social pressure a candidate experiences to do well in standardised tests, which varies immensely from culture to culture. They must even, to some extent, measure hand-writing and reading speed (smart people are sometimes slow readers).

In the (impossible) event of all these things being equal, an IQ test might measure the "speed limit" on a candidate's brain. But I doubt we'll ever know.

b) If the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africa is 82, there would be only a smal handful of Africans capable of functioning as doctors, lawyers, surgeons, researchers, and engineers to the standards expected in the US or Western Europe. (Unless, of course, you choose to make the argument that these professions do not require above-average intelligence).

Yet Europe is heavily reliant on African professionals to staff our universities, hospitals, and engineering firms. There is far stronger evidence for the "clever Africans move to Europe" theory than there is for your "clever Ashkenazi move to the US".

c) Racial IQ differences are found all over the world, this is true. For instance, in Japan the Korean minority performs poorly on standardised tests. Yet racial theorists in the US cannot fit this into their elaborate racial hierarchy - a hierarchy that, my point being, is not a feature of academic (or other) debate in Eurasia.

d) Perhaps you need to revise your view of the Spanish as not Hispanic (!) There has been extensive migration from Africa into Spain and Portugal since (at least) Roman times, much like the rest of southern Europe. If IQ is racially heritable, one would expect Spanish and Italian people to have lower IQs (courtesy of African inbreeding) than the unsullied Aryan populations of Finland. Yet this is not the case...

a) IQ tests don't really measure intelligence.

Those who score higher than average show different brain characteristics in terms of cortical thickness, myelination integrity (affects processing speed - for instance Einstein had an unusually large ratio of glial cells which produce myelin). This is significantly heretable.

"The UCLA researchers took the study a step further by comparing the white matter architecture of identical twins, who share almost all their DNA, and fraternal twins, who share only half. Results showed that the quality of the white matter is highly genetically determined, although the influence of genetics varies by brain area. According to the findings, about 85 percent of the variation in white matter in the parietal lobe, which is involved in mathematics, logic, and visual-spatial skills, can be attributed to genetics. But only about 45 percent of the variation in the temporal lobe, which plays a central role in learning and memory, appears to be inherited."

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In healthy adults, greater intelligence is associated with larger intracranial gray matter and to a lesser extent with white matter. Variations in prefrontal and posterior temporal cortical thickness are particularly linked with intellectual ability.

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b) If the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africa is 82, there would be only a smal handful of Africans capable of functioning as doctors, lawyers, surgeons, researchers, and engineers to the standards expected in the US or Western Europe. (Unless, of course, you choose to make the argument that these professions do not require above-average intelligence). Yet Europe is heavily reliant on African professionals to staff our universities, hospitals, and engineering firms.

Do you have any evidence that Europe is heavily reliant on african doctors, lawyers, surgeons, or engineers? You've cited a link showing a number of locally trained doctors leave for better opportunities overseas. If the average is 82, then you're still going to get a 'smart fraction' at the upper end of the bell curve capable of working in professional roles. However, the proportion per population will be significantly lower.

As an example, apparently Ashkenazi Jews average about 2/3 of a standard deviation above other whites. That leads to a huge difference in the proportion of people in higher education/professional roles. When a group's average IQ is 100, the percentage of people above 140 is 0.4%; when the average is 110, the rate is 2.3%.

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c) Racial IQ differences are found all over the world,

And the pattern of East Asians, Ashkenazi Jews scoring above average is consistent. Note that even in Brazil it is the Japanese who outscore whites on IQ tests despite being brought in as indentured labourers over 100 years ago. They are 1% of the population but over 17% of the students at University of San Paulo. Similarly, the Chinese migrants in Cuba, and the Carribean countries. In Canada too, there is an IQ hierarchy: Jews (109), East Asians (101), Whites (100), Amerindians(89), and Blacks (84). In the UK the Afro-caribbean average is 86, similar to the african american average. Ashkenazi Jews in the UK average 110.

"Do you have any evidence that Europe is heavily reliant on african doctors, lawyers, surgeons, or engineers?"

Well, I live here. The dental surgeon who took out my wisdom teeeth was Ghanaian. And the statistical evidence is overwhelming - see here, here, and a million other links:

Nearly half of newly registered physicians and nurses in the UK were recruited from outside the European Union in 2002; most were from the English-speaking countries of sub-Saharan Africa (Lancet 2005;365:1893-900).

Or:

About 12,500 doctors currently registered to work in Britain are from African nations that face serious staff shortages themselves, said the BBC's Mike Thompson.

Which, given that we Brits have a higher life expectancy than you Americans, is pretty devastating for your theory, no?

Settled Nigerian families in the UK are one of the wealthiest immigrant groups - they earn more on average than settled Canadian families. Are these Africans representative of their population as a whole? No, probably not - any more than the "high IQ" immigrant groups you describe. You are wrong to say that Japanese Brazilians were "indentured" - they emigrated to the plantations of their own free will, a fact that immediately creates a bias in the population sample (people who discover emigration opportunites and act upon them are quite likely to be more intelligent than people who do not).

"Ashkenazi Jews scoring above average is consistent." Er, accept in Israel, where most of them live. Again, highly problematic for your argument.

As for your physiological explanations of brain activity, the functions of the brain are not at all well understood. In any case, the UCLA results do not seem to prove what you think they prove.