The following letter to the editor of The American Conservative appeared in the May 5, 2008 issue.

In the April 7th, 2008 issue of The American Conservative, Wayne Merry writes: "A person born in Belgium or Botswana is just as likely to be gifted as one born in America or China...." This is just not the case. We have had almost a hundred years of worldwide intelligence testing now, much of it available in Richard Lynn's monumental 2006 classic, Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. While the Average IQ in the United States among whites is about 100, tests show it may even be a little higher in Belgium and much higher in China (about 106). Unfortunately for Botswana, sub-Saharan African blacks score about 70. Certainly opportunities differ, but so does the raw material.

Louis Andrews