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effects of a prolonged brain drain from England, citing historical ex- 

 amples to buttress his case.®^^ Dr. Lynn begins his argmnent with an 

 assertion that intelligence is principally determined by inheritance and 

 notes previous investigations to document his point. He correlates the 

 production of intelligent children with intelligent people, observing 

 that environmental advantages of intelligent parents reinforce the 

 genetic effects. This suggests to Lynn that "if intelligent people emi- 

 grate in large numbers there is likely to be a diminution in the num- 

 ber of intelligent children born into the next generation." 



Professor Lynn also states that intelligence is closely associated with 

 a person's occupation. People in professional and executive occupa- 

 tions generally have IQs between 120 and 160, and h6 asserts that "it 

 is doubtful whether it would be possible to do most professional or 

 executive jobs with an IQ of less than around 115." According to. 

 Lynn, 1^5 is about the level at which British children pass the 11-plus 

 examination, and about 20 percent of the population have IQs above 

 this figure. He cites examples of psychological studies made, correlat- 

 ing IQs and occupation, and concludes that this close correlation can 

 be used as a reasonably reliable index of intelligence. And this index 

 in turn allows some estimate of intelligence loss in brain drain. Lynn 

 cites emigration figures from Britain to show that there is a "fairly 

 substantial bias towards the more intelligent" — 24 percent, but he be- 

 lieves this to be on the low side. The significance of this loss can be 

 measured by the fact that the numbers of highly able people leaving 

 Britain is about 15-30 percent of the annual output from the uni- 

 versities. 



While it would be "hazardous" to estimate "too precisely" the effect 

 of this loss on the genetic quality of the population. Professor Lynn 

 nonetheless, contends that "there seems a high probability that it will 

 be substantial." He proceeds to explain the phenomenon of "regression 

 to the mean" and notes that Britain was losing substantial numbers 

 of both types of family from which highly intelligent children were 

 bom. "The implication seems to be," writes Lynn, "that the genetic 

 quality of the population is likely to deteriorate." 



Never had there been such a mass migration of talented people 

 across national frontiers as occurred in the postwar decades, Lynn con- 

 tinues. And he proceeds to cite historical cases in which emigration 

 of intellectual elites have had "severely damaging effects." He cites the 

 destruction of Constantinople in 1453 and the "ensuing exodus of 

 scholars to the West" which had "effectively ended 1,000 years of civil- 

 ization and brought corresponding benefits to western Europe." The 

 expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain at the end of the 15th 

 century, the "backbone of the trading community," had "severely 

 detrimental effects on the commercial strength of the country." And 

 he cites the recent case in which Germany's scientific achievements 

 had been impaired by the loss of a large number of able scientists who 

 fled during the Hitlerian period. Still it is doubtful, he says, whether 

 there is any historical parallel to the scale of the present brain drain. 



s» Richard Lynn, "Genetic Implications of the Brain Drain," New Scientist 41 (Mar. 20, 

 1969), pp. 622-625. 



