See The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. Chapter 13 "Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability" is probably your best source. They explicitly refer to Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. However, one can interpret that Indians also belong in this number. This is a source that you should really research first hand. If you start quoting these types of statistics without at least having picked up the book you might find yourself in a very uncomfortable debate. In order to defend these types of statistics, I highly encourage checking out the book. Thanks for you comment. By the way, what should I be trading? I am always up for some good advice.

I wonder how they separate genetic intelligence from enhancement by social conditions. It is very apparent that Indian, Arab, and Asian culture is such that academic effort is highly enforced. There is a unique discipline in most Asian friends that I had in graduate school, which brought about over their lifetime a fine tuned intelligence. I am somewhat skeptical of the ability to concretely attribute part of ones genius to inheritance. It is common to have two parents that are extremely intelligent and their offspring follow suit. However, this could be a matter of “dinner table� schooling, meaning the kids grow up with role models that carry on abstract, complex, and ingenious observations and conversations. These kids have the avenues to develop in a very different way than others. I guess I need to pick up this book to find out on what they base their hypothesis. I have read that learning disabilities are believed to be passed down through generations.
My reason for maintaining a high level of skepticism also comes from my concern that this theory will foster complacency and justification for mediocrity.

One way they deal with this concern is through studying identical twins which were seperated from birth. The correlation between intelligence between identical twins was 80% genetic. Higher than the 20% to 60% range that I quoted. If identical twins that are seperated at birth and have very different enviromental circumstances correlate in IQ this much then it is hard to explain intelligence without considering their genetic propensities. Furthermore, they have researched step siblings that grew up from birth in the same enviroment. The siblings enviroment, as identical as it was, still bears out substantial differences in intelligence that could only be explained by genetic factors. Your concern is quite understandable. I think it foolish to overlook your concern. I feel the same way. Though my doubts of the validity of the book have mostly been put to rest. To get the debate click the link in the article. It will really give you some other good questions that you should ask about the book's merit. It has been heavily attacked. Notwithstanding, 100 of the experts in Psychoeuginics around the world have signed an endorsement stating the validity of the published research. Like the authors these experts face great risk by endorsing the research. Makes you wonder why they would endorse it even though it puts their prestige at risk.

Even though the concern is valid, we have to remember that truth in the hands of someone irresponsible, puts alot of people at risk. If this content is true, in the wrong irresponsible hands, this like alot of other facts can be misused and harmful to the well being of society. One of the things that has to be asked is what was the authors' intention? Were they malicious? I guess you have to read the book to draw those conclusions.

When considering this topic I think that we must take several things in to account first of which is the fact that we are that first off we have the ability to develop 40-80 percent of are IQ. This to me represents a substantial proportion of are IQ. But in addition to that number that I would argue that some of that portion (the 20-60% that is inherited ) is in fact contributed to social circumstances, the Study habits that are developed as a child, the dinner time conversations , the environment that the come from( i.e. was there enough to eat, and what was there to eat studies have show that what I child eats not only if there is enough to eat effects there Intelligence). So I would theorize that the developable part of the IQ is some where in the 60-90% range.
But the real questions is how importation it IQ, I for one believe that IQ is a very pore way of measuring Intelligence. I do like the point that Seth brought out about using are strengths to over come the rising level of technical intelligence that is now coming out of Asia. I for one believe that the intelligence that will be needed to succeed in this rapidly changing world is street smarts. By this I mean the ability to adapt to the ever change market place and have the guts and wisdom to grab an opportunity when it comes around. I Just caution people not to take IQ to seriously, for the some reason that grades to not always reflect some ones understanding of a subject, I believe that bolt are feeble yard sticks of ones ability to succeed in life.

You make a good point about diet and IQ. The Bell Curve does consider nutrition's role in IQ. Though, there have been findings that contradict each other on whether diet is only circumstantial evidence. Two of the most critical studies are Stein et al 1972 and Benton and Roberts 1988. To quote another article about this here is the following explanation of those two studies: There has been only one major study of the effects of prenatal malnutrition (i.e. malnutrition of the mother during pregnancy) on long-term intellectual development. Stein et al (1975) analyzed the test scores of Dutch 19-year-old males in relation to a wartime famine that had occurred in the winter of 1944-45, just before their birth. In this very large sample (made possible by a universal military induction requirement), exposure to the famine had no effect on adult intelligence. Note, however, that the famine itself lasted only a few months; the subjects were exposed to it prenatally but not after birth.

In contrast, prolonged malnutrition during childhood does have long-term intellectual effects. These have not been easy to establish, in part because many other unfavorable socioeconomic conditions are often associated with chronic malnutrition (Ricciuti, 1993; but cf. Sigman, 1995). In one intervention study, however, pre-schoolers in two Guatemalan villages (where undernourishment is common) were given ad lib access to a protein dietary supplement for several years. A decade later, many of these children (namely, those from the poorest socio-economic levels) scored significantly higher on school related achievement tests than comparable controls (Pollitt et al, 1993). It is worth noting that the effects of poor nutrition on intelligence may well be indirect. Malnourished children are typically less responsive to adults, less motivated to learn, and less active in exploration than their more adequately nourished counterparts.

Although the degree of malnutrition prevalent in these villages rarely occurs in the United States, there may still be nutritional influences on intelligence. In studies of so-called "micro-nutrients," experimental groups of children have been given vitamin/mineral supplements while controls got placebos. in many of these studies (e.g., Schoenthaler et al, 1991), the experimental children showed test-score gains that significantly exceeded the controls. In a somewhat different design, Rush, Stein, Susser, & Brody (1980) gave dietary supplements of liquid protein to pregnant women who were thought to be at risk for delivering low birth-weight babies. At one year of age, the babies born to these mothers showed faster habituation to visual patterns than did control infants. (Other research has shown that infant habituation rates are positively correlated with later psychometric test scores: Colombo, 1993.) Although these results are encouraging, there has been no long-term follow-up of such gains. (End Quote)

What role nutrition has on intelligence, however, is strictly considered as enviromental. The inherited portion of intelligence is not affected by the nutrition debate.

I appreciate your argument about the real significance of IQ in success. IQ shows one's ability to manipulate information. It doesn't show adaptability. You should check out a book about everyone's potential genius. It is called "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto. He believes that testing intelligence has very little merit.

Great comment.