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An alt-right web site, "Red Ice" (apparently belonging to Henrik Palmgren), proposes that there's a nearly worldwide decrease in IQ due to immigration. The Red Ice piece apparently originated from unz.com so clearly this story was more widely circulated in the alt-right circles, circa 2016. (It was listed on the first page of results on my google search for IQ and immigration.) The author of the piece is Anatoly Karlin, whose science-related qualifications are unclear (to me), unlike his political views.

What the Karlin piece seems to be talking about is a decrease in PISA scores, or rather "IQ-equivalent PISA":

enter image description here

The author's interpretation is (for instance) that:

Western Europe is a complete disaster zone, getting a harder cognitive hit even though the immigrant share of their population is considerably smaller than the US, where they constitute almost a quarter of the PISA-taking population. The German national average takes an astounding 2.4 IQ point hit due to immigrants. [...]
The situation in the US is actually considerably better than in Europe – the low-IQ Central Americans, who are not sending their best, are counterbalanced by the millions of talented East Asians, Indians, and other intelligent and highly motivated people who still want to make America their home. Thanks to that the world’s biggest immigrant nation only loses 1.3 IQ points due to all the newcomers.

So is there any truth to (1) the raw PISA data has decreased; (2) does it really correspond to an "IQ" (let's say raw IQ score) decrease; and (3) does it really imply anything about the effects of immigration?

Fizz
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    I see there's a [more scholarly line of research](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932014000480) of [Rindermann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiner_Rindermann) and Thompson. So Karlin's stuff might be the low-grade knock-off from that. On the other hand, Thompson [posts on the Unz Review](http://www.unz.com/jthompson/rindermann-supplies-cognitive-capitalism-appendixes-free/) so that makes me suspicious. Their research would need a different question though, as they clearly don't pass the snap judgements of Karlin. – Fizz Jul 22 '18 at 05:42
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    But [Journal of Biosocial Science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Biosocial_Science) that published the [similarly-looking-map](https://i.imgur.com/TFTqJDL.png) of Rindermann and Thompson is rather obscure. I say only similarly looking because Rindermann and Thompson found e.g. Australia's immigrants were above the natives (and that doesn't mean aborigines). – Fizz Jul 22 '18 at 05:49
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    I'm confused about how this means anything. It doesn't seem surprising that the average scores go down if the test gets taken by a bunch of displaced people who don't speak the local language. It doesn't mean the smart people who were there already there aren't still smart, and it doesn't mean the children of the displaced people won't be just as smart as others in their area, given that they will get access to all the options of their new country; things their parents didn't have. – Erik Jul 22 '18 at 08:24
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    Seems like there'd be three levels of claims to separate: (1) Is the figure qualitatively correct? (2) Is the figure reasonably quantitatively correct? (3) Does the political argument follow from the data? (end) I suspect that (1) is probably "_yes_", (2) is harder to call without combing through their data and methodology, and (3) is probably a "_no_". For answers, it'd seem important to separate the different aspects of the claim since broadly denying or affirming a mixed bag of implicit claims wouldn't do justice to the claims incorrectly denied/affirmed. – Nat Jul 22 '18 at 08:27
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    For all the pretentious teens here claiming IQ cannot possibly change, **[it can, does, and is constantly improving](https://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents)**. The median *within* any given population at one time will be 100, but you *can* compare changes in the reasoning abilities and raw scores that produce those medians *between* populations. The fact that the median within various races can be set as 100 doesn't mean those races can't be compared with one another; the question is about race as a construct and, here, about actual causes... – lly Jul 22 '18 at 11:45
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    ...which will involve lower IQ scores as a result of childhood malnutrition, lack of stimulation, and lack or disruption of education, not racial inferiorities of the kind claimed by white supremacists (who in any case would have to accept white inferiority to other supposed races who outscore average caucasians). – lly Jul 22 '18 at 11:50
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    The other thing that makes no sense here is that, if it really were true countries "weren't sending their best", i.e. their thickos were leaving them for other nations, that would drag their own averages up. I don't see much green on that map. – J.G. Jul 22 '18 at 13:58
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    lots of gray though – dualed Jul 22 '18 at 14:13
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    @dualed PISA is an OECD project. While some countries which aren't in the OECD participate, others don't (in [2015](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#PISA_2015), only 72 countries participated). – tim Jul 22 '18 at 14:27
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    @tim what I meant is that the grey countries could very easily be J.G.'s `missing green`, I don't think there is a way to disprove that, and it's obvious the source article is aiming there – dualed Jul 22 '18 at 14:51
  • I'm under the impression that IQ is designed such that 100 is average and +/-15 is one standard deviation. Is 2 points significant? –  Jul 22 '18 at 20:52
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    Interestingly, the largest variation is the improvement in Qatar and the UAE, which have a larger percentage of immigration than Europe or the USA. Fake as it could be, that study seems to prove the opposite of what it's claiming. – Pere Jul 22 '18 at 22:27
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    I've been living in a "complete disaster zone" all this time? Gee, I never noticed a thing. I always thought we were relatively well off compared to other regions of the world. I'm glad somebody finally told me it was all a dream. – Mast Jul 23 '18 at 07:18
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    Well if we perform IQ tests in different countries, we see that there are *significant* differences: https://www.iqtestforfree.net/average-IQ-by-country.html. So if we assume that the "*average*" person immigrates, it is not unreasonable that when calculating the average of a country, immigrants can cause a drop in the average. But a few months ago there was a debate on the Dutch radio (NPO if I recall correctly) whether IQ is a good measure for intelligence anyway. The only thing I know for sure is that IQ tests can measure one thing perfectly: how good you are in solving IQ tests. –  Jul 23 '18 at 08:11
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    The article assumes that IQ is a useful, culture-independent and accurate measure of intelligence, which it isn't. – dont_shog_me_bro Jul 23 '18 at 09:03
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    Funny thing is that Switzerland is rated the lowest on this map, although most of immigration is coming from other European countries (mainly neighbors Germany and Italy). If those immigrants would really be responsible for the drop in IQ, they would need an IQ of roughly 0. – Thern Jul 23 '18 at 11:19
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    @dont_shog_me_bro It also assumes that the decline in measurable intelligence is due to immigration and not, for example, due to underfunded public education... – Shadur Jul 26 '18 at 07:53
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    @JG It's incredibly unlikely, but it could happen that migration would lower both averages. Consider the case where the absolute best (for whatever you are measuring) in group A is below-average in group B. If that group-A-best moves to group B, then each group's average will fall. Of coure, that would mean that the countries are "sending their best", but I doubt that would stop someone just saying "so that must mean that they're *all* really thick". – Richard Ward Jul 27 '18 at 10:31
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    @RichardWard Well, people like this often do think just that, sometimes claiming that some African nations average 70 or lower, which is when you know your yardstick is either broken or misused. Somehow I don't think they'd enjoy the old joke that when an atheist becomes Christian, the average IQ of each group goes up. – J.G. Jul 28 '18 at 06:37
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    I find this kind of odd, given all the complaints about 40 years back that Oriental immigrants were too smart and were pushing smart "native" kids out of US universities and capturing all the high-end jobs. – Daniel R Hicks Mar 25 '19 at 12:04

1 Answers1

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The PISA results are available online.

The OECD also published a summary paper which described what PISA is:

[T]he OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA, [is] the world’s premier yardstick for evaluating the quality, equity and efficiency of school systems.

It does not measure IQ and does not claim to be comparable to IQ.

The summary also provides a table with data about the "Difference in science performance between immigrant and non-immigrant students, after accounting for ESCS and language" (page 8 of the PDF). It is true that immigrant children performed worse in science in many countries (some exceptions are Australia, Hungary, New Zealand, the US, or Israel).

The difference is generally reduced in second-generation immigrants (see eg this report by the EU commission, page 21; or this PDF from the OECD, page 2f).

The OECD explains some of these differences in the chapter Immigrant background, student performance and students' attitudes towards science of the 2015 PISA results; None of their explanations are related to the IQ of immigrants:

PISA results show that the performance of immigrant students is also strongly related to the characteristics of education systems in host countries [...]

the findings suggest that these differences are also related to the capacity of school systems in host countries to nurture the talents of students with different cultural backgrounds

According to the report, other explanations may include the language spoken at home, concentration of immigrant students in schools, or differences in access to educational resources.

Regarding the claim of dropping PISA scores:

In the majority of countries with comparable data, students’ performance in science remained essentially unchanged since 2006.

Community
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tim
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    So you intend to disprove the assumption that IQ is affected by immigration by ignoring performance in subjects (`When ignoring the three core subjects - science, reading, and math`) that are supposed to correlate with IQ scores? I think the argument would be a lot better when only focusing on Pisa being not an assessment of the pupils, but the schools – dualed Jul 22 '18 at 14:12
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    @dualed I didn't really want to get into the IQ/immigrant issue too much as it's imho too broad here and not very useful in general (unless you measure a persons - or at least a non-white persons - worth by IQ). I could have stopped after "PISA doesn't measure IQ" because it's enough to contradict the image in OP, but the rest of the answer provides some more information that is somewhat relevant. I updated the answer though to remove that paragraph as it seems less relevant, and added more information on the OECDs reasoning for the differences. – tim Jul 22 '18 at 15:04
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    A persons measured IQ depends on their genes, their education/training, and influences like trauma, self confidence etc. I would expect someone escaping from Syria to do less well on an IQ test than someone having a good, stable upbringing in a first world country. But the next generation, the difference is gone. – gnasher729 Jul 22 '18 at 20:29
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    If nothing else, working in a language you are not quite fluent in will make understanding the questions harder, and impact results in the core subjects. Unless the PISA tests are set up to eliminate that bias (either by offering the tests in native language - which is not exactly possible for "reading" - or by segregating results from fluent/non-fluent pupils - which is probably illegal) then you would *obviously* get a drop in average score as the number of pupils who have been learning the language for less than a year goes up... – Chronocidal Jul 23 '18 at 06:27
  • @dualed IQ is the ability for the brain to process information - not what it knows. Of course some assumptions must be made - which is why each country has their own as the set of assumptions that can be made differ from place to place. As such, the "3 core subjects" and the ability in them is influenced by IQ, but the link in the other direction can not be made. Ie someone who does poorly at maths could have an IQ of 200... but just not be interested in maths. – UKMonkey Jul 23 '18 at 13:55
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    @UKMonkey in theory yes, in practice, practicing doing a bunch of IQ tests beforehand will substantially raise/inflate your score, so there's clearly some learning going on. – mbrig Jul 23 '18 at 14:15
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    @mbrig yes... but note how you said "doing IQ tests before" ... not "doing maths tests before". The ability to learn is one of the marked traits of humans (so we like to think anyway....) - and there are only so many IQ questions that exist. – UKMonkey Jul 23 '18 at 14:45
  • @UKMonkey: IQ is not an ability, it's a value, a test result. IQ tests are at least *meant* to predict academic success, so whatever their actual performance, that is one of their aims and hence it is *meant* to correlate. Also correlation is not necessarily causal, this is statistics, not logic. – dualed Jul 23 '18 at 16:28
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    @dualed yes ... IQ is a measure of the ability to problem solve and learn in the same way that a maths test is a measure. Not surprisingly, people who have the ability to problem solve and learn often do well academically ... but like I said, someone might just not be interested in a subject and do poorly because they didn't apply themselves. What was your point? – UKMonkey Jul 23 '18 at 16:38
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    That IQ test scores are meant to correlate to academic success, but as soon as you say "someone" you are not viewing at a problem statistically anymore, but everything discussed here is about statistics - from IQ scoring to Pisa results – dualed Jul 23 '18 at 17:06