Home > Archive > Volume 48, No. 2 > This paper
Human Diversity Reflected in Levels of Purchasing Power Parity, Democratization and the Human Condition
Tatu Vanhanen
Published: 2007/12/01
Abstract
Samuel P. Huntington (1997: 20) argues that the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations. Therefore it is worthwhile to explore civilizational differences. This paper tests a hypothesis according to which the persistence of significant civilizational differences in human conditions can be traced to civilizational differences in the average intelligence of people. The hypothesis is tested by empirical evidence on civilizational IQs (explanatory variable) and on per capita income, the level of democratization, and the level of human development (dependent variables). Any assessment of the leval of cultural achievement is specifically omitted since this cannot be reduced to mathematical values. The results show that civilizational IQ, explains more of the civilizational differences in human conditions measured by the three dependent variables than probably any other factor, including significant cultural differences between civilizations, and that, therefore, we cannot expect the disappearance of great civilizational inequalities in human conditions.
Download PDF