This just isnt true about "statistical chance". The IQ distributions are very different and a huge amount of the top talent emigrates anyway. 130 iq is order 1/100 in america and more than 1/1000 in india. Population difference doesnt make up the gap.
Immigrants do not just bring their intellect. The imaginative capacity, courage, and tenacity required to move across countries and often continents are very helpful for developing new ventures and technologies.
The 5 million number is vastly exaggerated if you go for a real meaning of the word 'genius'. For example, Einstein's IQ is reportedly 160 and assuming normal distribution that is about 1 in 32,000. Even if everyone in India receives the same opportunities as Einstein did from their childhood, the number would be 1.34 billion/32,000 = 42,000.
Not to mention that IQ alone is far from adequate. Imagination, persistence, and courage are required for intellectual distinction. That's why there are so few accomplished geniuses in the world.
You can look it up yourself. I don't believe it either at one point and I did some digging and all the evidence points to a low IQ Indian population. There is of course very smart Indians but the distribution of the population as a whole is center around 82.
Your argument using IQ is silly, and not because of political correctness, but because IQ is not the best metric to use if trying to measure success at physics.
When trying to compare IQs between countries, there are systematic differences and systematic measurement errors.
When we start to talk about extremely skilled people with high IQs, it gets even harder to make sweeping generalisations.
The vacuity of your argument shines when you think that by decreasing the IQ cutoff by 4 to 126 will more than quadruple the number of applicants that pass, yet a population IQ difference of 4 is hardly likely to lead to much differentiation in output (because other factors like persistence are wayyyy more important - and limited immigration filters for people - people that tend to be high persistence achievers that tend to succeed in other areas of their lives, like physics!).
Just stick to the population numbers - which is all your argument washes down to.
Also generally beware of IQ arguments, because at an individual level, the standard error of measurement for IQ is 7: “Therefore, if a person had an IQ of 130, his or her score would be between 123 and 137 points 68% of the time (i.e., there is 68% confidence that the person’s IQ is somewhere between 123 and 137) and between 116 and 144 points 95% of the time.” as per https://www.questarai.com/resources-docs/briefs/Assessment-B...
Even accepting that argument on its own terms doesn't explain the observed difference. The population above 130 IQ is roughly 2:1 male. Even if programming aptitude is entirely correlated with having an IQ above 130 (and let's face it, most programmers aren't two standard deviations above the median), that doesn't explain the 5:1 to 10:1 ratios you see in the field.
The population of India has an average IQ of 81. Compare that with China, which has an average IQ of 100. I guess this is why China instituted the (very smart) one-child-per-family policy whereas India has done nothing.
Some countries have higher IQ populations than others. Eg South Korea was poorer than many African countries in the 60s, now they make smartphones.
This would have been hard to predict given a blank slate talent is everywhere thesis, but not if you know they have one of the highest IQs in the world. Same with Singapore.
Of course a really bad government (North Korea) can screw you up.
The US could even have a higher skill level on average(1), and still have way fewer skilled developers. As Jesse Eisenberg asks in The Social Network, "Did you know there are more people with genius IQ’s living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?"(2)
(1) Your guess is as good as mine.
(2) Any relationship between IQ and developer skill is left as an exercise for the reader.
Bah! "The intelligence is there, in a billion people there are a few million outliers"
That statement is suggestive of an Indian race that's generally not intelligent. Just curious on your country of origin and race, and source of this bias!
There's a bell-curve isn't there? It's pretty hard to ignore the differences between people 4 standard deviations apart in IQ (70 vs 130). There are plenty of people in both categories. 1/100 is not that many.
To put numbers in perspective, IQ is generally defined as a normal distribution (also called a gaussian curve, bell curve, etc.--it's a "normal" distribution because it's extremely common in nature) with a global average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 points. What this means in practice is that, roughly, about 2/3 of the population has an IQ in the range 85-115.
So, assuming each country also has the same shape of distribution but different averages, a difference of 15 points means that an average person in the "smart" country is smarter than 83% of the people in the other country. An average IQ difference of 30 points would be more like 98%.
Which, to me, seems like a pretty extreme difference. Without knowing more about their methodology I don't know if I trust these numbers much. On the other hand, looking at the countries at the lower end, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the difference was due to environmental factors such as poor nutrition.
Unfortunately, IQ is a field of study that's far too politically charged for there to be much in the way of reputable research.
The population ratio were already the same. Assuming the average human IQ is the same, that would mean for the topmost 10 000 brilliant American geniuses, you would have about 50 000 Chinese geniuses of the same caliber. Or that there are as many people in China that are in the top IQ percentile as there are people in the US that are in the 5th percentile.
I have no idea if this is true or if it has a sensible impact.
I am saying that considering the average IQ of a country in deciding how difficult it should be for an individual (from that country) to get a visa would be stupid even if IQ was a good determinant of the value an individual brings to the country of his residence.
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