Griffe's Smart Fraction Theory again, with less speed.
I did and concluded that SFT is appealing male bovine manure.
If not, tell me why the SFT for the US is lower than that of many developed countries, yet per capita GDP is higher?
Two reasons, perhaps. One, it is not the fraction which matters but the actual number of smart folks which is important. Many of the high IQ countries have on the whole more smart folks per 1,000 of population than the US but because we are so vast, there are numerically many more smarter folks in the US than in the brain-rich Nordic countries. This excess of smart folks is energizing in a way that having a numerically tiny number of them may not be despite the fact that the smart fraction for Denmark is higher than for the US.
Two, perhaps we have more super-smart folks than others. We attract the best of the best here. Take a look at Q's employment rolls, there is hardly a red-blooded American in the bunch but are you prepared to say Q is not American? Perhaps it is the quality of our smart fractions which gives us higher GDP figures than countries with 'higher' smart fractions than us.
While I have some difficulty with the math, like many lawyers, I can follow the whys and the wherefores and the reasoning closely, and continue to contend that SFT is high-falutin' bunk. The man reached a conclusion while brushing his teeth and cooked up an unsupportable theory to 'explain' it. I am surprised you don't see the problems with it.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely think there is a correlation between general intelligence and GDP but I also think that SFT doesn't explain it quite as accurately as you may think it does. The factors are multitudinous, complex, and probably cannot be explained as elegantly as Lion explains them. He does not, for example, take culture into the mix. I would contend that a culture of entrepreneurship and capitalism, such as found in the US but not in semi-socialist countries like the Nordic states, might very well offset SFT significantly. |
