Cold Winters Theory
The Cold Winters Theory (CWT) posits that average IQs vary geographically due to the difficulty of surviving harsh colder climates selecting for higher IQ. The hypothesis explains how racial IQ differences could emerge and remain stable.
Origins
In the 1990s, Richard Lynn and J. Philippe Rushton generated hypotheses regarding human intelligence and the environment.
Evidence
Criticism
There are number of outlier populations that CWT does not directly explain, such as high IQ southeast Asian populations living in warm environments, or the lower average IQs of the indigenous arctic/subarctic populations. The former may be explained by recent migrations from cold to warmer populations. [1]
References
- ↑ Lynn, R. (2015). Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. Second Revised edition. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Publishers