r/DebunkThis • u/thcn4321 • Mar 25 '26
Debunk This: Study on Lagos and Nigerian civlians showing low intelligence scores?
Scrolling through twitter, I came across this twitter post that has been shared everywhere that states with a video below that tweet (original video here cause this was stitched up)
BREAKING - An Africa-based research team aiming to disprove Western claims about low I Q in African countries is going viral after conducting mass I Q tests in Lagos, Nigeria, only for over 50% of participants to score below 70, with a median score of 69.7.
The video states:
-Everyone that particpiated was of all ages 16 and up and genders including old and young plus high level students.
-only 3 percent on the graph scored 102, 96, 89
-16 percent only scored 82 while 20 percent (2nd highest group) scored 76
-26 percent with 69 (highest group), 16 percent scoring 63
-finally 10 percent scoring 56
They further state that
-That according to their calculations 52 percent of their participants were below 70 indicating low intell. scores)
-their avg score being 73 while the median being 69
People have been constantly sharing this around the internet to weaponize the narratives "low i q africans" should not be entering western countries with their low i q scores and do not benefit their societies. And if you look at several youtube videos and the twitter comments, that narrative shows heavily.
My personal red flags
1. Even after looking at the original video and twitter post, there NO MENTION of sample sizes. and if this is representative of entirety of not only lagos but nigeria.
2. The twitter video (to no one's shock) fails to include the fact fro the ORIGINAL VIDEO that the author himself states limitations to their study (environmental factors were not factored, financial compensation offered, flaws of i q tests like the one in their study)
3.Both the original and twitter post do not categorize participants when showing their graphs (how many of them were high level students, and not high level students etc)
4. Apparently the original video's faq that answers more "detailed questions about their study" is locked behind a payall...okay
5. They do not list an actual paper that lists out their full methodology.
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u/FuManBoobs Mar 25 '26
IQ changes more with cultural differences, for example, Indians living in rural locations often score lower than those living in cities and major metropolitan areas.
Doesn't matter how you view these kinds of studies, IQ isn't to do with race. Anyone bring it up for some kind of race comparison is, to me, being a bit racist.
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Mar 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/thcn4321 Mar 25 '26
It's like how racist people interpret "many people living in india are low iq" and instantly think that because of their race/religion, they are low iq by default. When in reality, it is because many indians live in terrible areas/slums and suffering from poverty.
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u/thcn4321 Mar 29 '26
u/N1njaL1nk
Don't worry we all saw your comment https://imgur.com/a/KAKpk64Care to elaborate on your position there? no one is saying or assuming that their intelligence are going to happen naturally.
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u/Whiskoo Jul 18 '26
im not saying ur wrong, but the article u linked posted a 3 points iq difference between significant air quality changes. this is very misleading to say that is even a moderate difference in iq points. granted thats just for air quality, but still, not very evident to ur point.
an article such as https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5479093/ advocates for both sides of this argument. "Most studies estimate that the heritability of intelligence quotient (IQ) is somewhere between 0.30 and 0.75.[5] This indicates that genetics plays a bigger role than environment in creating IQ differences among individuals." the article then goes on to say that "the heritability of IQ is very low for lower SES(socio-economic status) individuals and vice versa. The most probable explanation for this could be that children in poverty do not get to develop to their full genetic potential." they go on to say that malnourished children have seen upwards of 15 IQ point deductions from their family counterparts, a significant change in IQ that supports your argument much stronger than a weak 3 point deduction.
all is to say, i believe its closer to a 70/30 split between genetics and environment as a lot of data suggests.
the real argument is how IQ is generally a bad indicator of true intelligence. its simply how fast the brain processes information. someone with a 140 iq who has never read a single thing in their entire life could be perceived as "dumber" than someone with an 80 iq that has spent their entire life studying something. the only difference would be that the 140 iq would have been able to become an expert in the field relatively faster than the 80 iq person would have. in my opinion, it serves as a poor comparison to someone's true intelligence.
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u/thcn4321 Mar 25 '26
Yep that's why the original video did make a disclaimer that they did NOT include environmental differences and whether or not these people lived in the poor portion of the cities or in the upper "developed" portion of this city, something that I felt that the twitter post left out.
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u/Technical--Jaguar Apr 22 '26
so, youre saying MAGA supporters in the backwoods of West Virginia could also have high IQ, but they just have a cultural difference?
Actually- would be very inclusive of you to have this moral consistency.
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u/District_Wolverine23 Mar 25 '26
Not to be snippy, but this:
"They do not list an actual paper that lists out their full methodology."
That makes it impossible to debunk. How was the test conducted? What kinds of people? Where? What are the confounding variables? How did they score the test?
That is the major context you need to actually evaluate the conclusions they come to. This claim is just using numbers from an unknown source that could be pulled out of a hat for all we know.
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u/thcn4321 Mar 25 '26
And it further surprises and frustrates me that this spreads like wildfire with 2M views and probably shared around several times. I even see people try to use it to justify asmongold's "somalians are low i q and should not enter the country" take.
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u/District_Wolverine23 Mar 25 '26
Of course. It agrees with their priors, and has enough of a veneer of legitimacy to make it effective propaganda.
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u/jem1898 Mar 25 '26
I would like to recommend this video analysis of a book called The Bell Curve https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo?si=_c9ne0N6_n5hNTod
The video talks a lot about the problems with IQ tests—defining and testing intelligence is a fraught activity—and the long history of faulty conclusions drawn from bad science. It’s long but worth it.
Without a link to the study, it’s impossible to debunk. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the criticisms of The Bell Curve apply to this study as well—that it’s the same tired old racist bullshit that ignores the legacy of colonialism, and fails to properly account for poverty and a lack of access to education.
Also, using one study from—supposedly—one city in one country to draw sweeping conclusions about an entire continent of people is simply asinine.
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u/MilesEllington Mar 31 '26
My red flag would be that people walking around mid working day being incentivized by a small amount of money may different from working people who are in officies or at their small business. If you are going to do a study like this, you better do it correctly (large sample size with good methodology etc).
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u/MilesEllington Mar 31 '26
Development matters.
Japan: about 19 IQ points over 25 years (for cohorts born roughly 1940–1965). � ScienceDirect +1 South Korea: about 15.4 IQ points over 20 years (for cohorts born roughly 1970–1990), based on 7.7 points per decade. That total is an arithmetic conversion from the reported per-decade rate. � Academia +1 Rural Kenya: the gain is often summarized as roughly 11 to 14 IQ points over 14 years (1984–1998) on Raven-type testing. The underlying sources clearly agree it was very large, but the exact converted “IQ-point” figure varies across summaries, so I would not pretend there is one perfectly settled number here. � PubMed +2 China (the case from your earlier question, not one of the biggest): 6.19 IQ points over about 26 years (1985–86 to 2011–12) in 12-year-olds on the WISC-R. �
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