Iceland has a population of 318,000, of whom 292,000 are native Icelanders. The native population speaks Icelandic, a language with a complex grammar similar to Old Norse. It has evolved little since the twelfth century. Icelandic is spoken by no one other than Icelanders.I'm actually surprised that Caplan makes such a crude argument, since he seems well aware of and not averse to honestly discussing the nature-nurture debate, the importance of IQ, and its large heritability. Clark's reply encapsulates the most important counterpoint: the quality of people matters as much as or more than their quantity. According to NationMaster, Iceland also ranks number one in Nobel Prizes per capita - followed by the notably low population states of Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway. (Maybe we could amend Caplan's thesis to say that idea production is positively correlated to the Scandinavian population. The analogy would be to Milton Friedman's reply to the economist who said that there was no poverty in Scandinavia: "Interesting. There's no poverty among Scandinavians in America either.")
300,000 people is a very small number of people. Equivalent sized cities in the US are Anchorage, Alaska and Stockton, California.
We would on Caplan’s theory of population expect this isolated community to have about as much prospect as the Tasmanians of pre-industrial Australia.
Yet Iceland has maintained a vibrant local culture and is a notable presence on the international scene. Start with the film industry. The 300,000 people of Iceland produced 70 films (features, documentaries etc) between 2000 and 2010, in Icelandic! I recently saw one, Jar City, which was very well done.
Iceland also has maintained a substantial literary tradition. Halldór Kiljan Laxness won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. Arnaldur Indriðason is an internationally successful crime writer. In music also we have Björk..
The 300,000 people of Iceland are enough to sustain a respectable university. Iceland is host to an innovative project to map the DNA of hundreds of inhabitants from many different families (Decode Genetics). It is also the home of CCP Games, the company that developed the large and successful game EVE Online.
And of course, it was wildly innovative in its banking arrangements.
If population size is so crucial to innovation and economic activity, how come we hear so much about these obscure Icelanders? (And please don’t tell me it because of their good economic management!).
Cities are of course more likely to be the scene of idea production than rural areas, so urbanization seems a more likely candidate for a positive correlation with it than mere population. But does anyone think that the world doesn't have enough or large enough cities? Even so, Lagos or Dhaka don't seem to be hotbeds of new technologies.
There was a lot of poverty in 19th century Scandinavia, and none in America by those same standards. Why they came here.
ReplyDeleteThe debate is on Cato Unbound, which includes Clark's Iceland argument:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/05/19/gregory-clark/what-about-iceland/
The whole debate was kicked off by Bryan Caplan arguing that population growth, in and of itself, is a good thing and Clark disagreed.
I think the point that Caplan initially tries to discredit, that over population was a genuine problem that economic development cured and we can all call the problem done and move on to other things, is one I agree with completely. Unless Caplan plans to revive the old L-5 space colony movement, I think he is way off base in criticizing this position.
Caplan believes that fertility itself is a positive value like freedom, health, and prosperity. I do not believe this at all.
I wonder if there is something like K Anders Ericsson's idea of deliberate practice, applied to cultures. Normal practice isn't as good as deliberate practice, I guess, and I wonder if certain kinds of difficulty facing a population, like what Icelandic people or Jewish people have faced, are better than what other people have faced in stimulating cultural achievement.
ReplyDeleteCaplan’s empirical evidence on this is merely that since 1800 world population has increased 7 fold, to 6.7 billion, while incomes per person have also increased.
ReplyDeleteThis illustrates the abject stupidity of libertarians. Yeah, the world population has increased seven fold since 1800. And yes indeed, income per person world wide has increased also. But the population growth and income growth has not been uniform. If it is true that population growth leads to income growth, those places with the fastest growing populations should have the best economies.
The countries with the fastest growing populations are currently Maldives, UAE, Liberia, Uganda, and Kuwait.
The libertarians resemble the communists in their inflexible belief in their own ideology, most especially when the facts contradict it.
Iceland, however, does not exist in total isolation. It wouldn't get far without standing on the shoulders of European/American giants, drawn from a rather larger population. It seems obvious population size can be, under certain circumstances, a limiting factor on innovation and wealth; however, that is no argument for open borders and indiscriminate fertility. There may well be greater gains from eugenic and/or cultural processes, holding population constant.
ReplyDeleteIf population size is so crucial to innovation and economic activity, how come we hear so much about these obscure Icelanders?
ReplyDeleteHe could also ask, why don't we hear more about the economic miracle which is Bangladesh?
I was curious about the foreign element in Iceland's population. Turns out, virtually all foreigners are from closely related peoples from northern Europe.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland#Demographics
Regarding Scandinavian Immigrants to America: it wasn't just poverty that drove them across the Atlantic. There was also class/political conflict and an idealization of the Midwestern lifestyle. Entire Swedish communities were known to dissolve in Sweden and reform in Minnesota or Wisconsin. There were almost universally industrious, courteous and quick to Americanize. There were received with almost nothing of the prejudice that hounded Irish immigrants, and even got some admiration for polite and hardworking ways. (which is much more than can be said for some of our recent acquisitions)
"They are not peddlers, nor organ grinders, nor beggars; they do not sell ready-made clothing nor keep pawn shops," wrote the Congregational missionary M. W. Montgomery in 1885; "they do not seek the shelter of the American flag merely to introduce and foster among us … socialism, nihilism, communism … they are more like Americans than are any other foreign peoples." -said of Swedish Immigrants to the U.S.
I am from Minnesota, if you couldn't guess. Recently, I read an editorial in our local Newspaper in which the author stated that if American standards were applied to ethnic Swedes in both America in Sweden, the poverty rates are exactly the same down to a tenth of a percent (it was 4.6% for both if I remember correctly). He spent the rest of article making damn sure no one, God forbid, would suspect a genetic reason behind it. In my opinion, the reason behind such a fact should be blatantly obvious.
But the population growth and income growth has not been uniform. If it is true that population growth leads to income growth, those places with the fastest growing populations should have the best economies.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but the Earth is sphere of finite surface area. Even though the limits to growth are further out than what the Club of Rome predicted in 1972, they do exist, none the less, and population has to stabilize at some point. What does Caplan think the global population should be? 15 billion? 25 billion?
That increased education and economic options has brought about the stabilization of population without the coercive tactics that the Club of Rome and Paul Erlich advocated in the early 70's ought to be viewed as a good thing.
We could hail economic growth and modernization for slaying the genuine dragon of overpopulation, and move on.
ReplyDeleteSounds reasonable to me.
Iceland, however, does not exist in total isolation. It wouldn't get far without standing on the shoulders of European/American giants, drawn from a rather larger population.
ReplyDeleteRight, even some of the examples Clark cites, such as Jar City and Iceland's banking arrangements during the last decade, attest to this. Jar City was undoubtedly influenced by Hollywood to a degree, and Iceland's banking was influenced by American and UK finance, which is why they got burned so badly.
What this shows is that especially these days with modern communications technology, open borders isn't necessary at all to generate, spread, build upon, etc. ideas.
Actually, Finland might be an even better example than Iceland. I don't know that I've ever seen an Icelandic movie and I only vaguely know Bjork's name from reading the newspapers, but over the last couple of decades Finland has become one of the world's greatest centers of important software and technology innovation, despite having a population of just a few million and being pretty rural, poor, and backward until relatively recently. Really pretty amazing...
ReplyDeleteRKU said...
ReplyDeleteActually, Finland might be an even better example than Iceland. I don't know that I've ever seen an Icelandic movie and I only vaguely know Bjork's name from reading the newspapers, but over the last couple of decades Finland has become one of the world's greatest centers of important software and technology innovation, despite having a population of just a few million and being pretty rural, poor, and backward until relatively recently. Really pretty amazing...
Yeah, I mean they invented the internet and they founded all those enormously successful startups, and are, like, the technology center of the Universe.
Canada is another example of a country with an incredibly high standard of living which is slowly being eroded due to overpopulation by people of lesser quality than the original British and Continental European inhabitants.
ReplyDelete(Sarcasm) Yeah, I mean they invented the internet and they founded all those enormously successful startups, and are, like, the technology center of the Universe.
ReplyDeleteWell, perhaps my phrasing was a bit too emphatic.
But little Finland did produce Linux, which is the operating system of the vast majority of the world's computer servers, which do run the Internet, and also Nokia, which until recently was the world's largest cellphone company, and also a number of other important tech companies.
Add in bits of neighboring Scandinavia, and we get the world's top peer-to-peer networking applications and Skype, the top free-calling company, MySQL, the world's top open-source database used by all Internet companies, and PHP, the world's top website scripting language.
So admittedly Finland didn't actually *invent* the Internet, but today's Internet is very heavily dependent upon the technologies produced by Finland and its small regional neighbors.
Pretty impressive I say for such a tiny population...
Iceland, however, does not exist in total isolation. It wouldn't get far without standing on the shoulders of European/American giants, drawn from a rather larger population.
ReplyDeleteSo, what have Europe and America done for Iceland that they have not done for, say, Malta or Cape Verde or Bahamas (other islands with Iceland-sized populations)?
RKU Is not having a good day:
ReplyDeleteBut little Finland did produce Linux, which is the operating system of the vast majority of the world's computer servers, which do run the Internet, and also Nokia, which until recently was the world's largest cellphone company, and also a number of other important tech companies.
Add in bits of neighboring Scandinavia, and we get the world's top peer-to-peer networking applications and Skype, the top free-calling company, MySQL, the world's top open-source database used by all Internet companies, and PHP, the world's top website scripting language.
Are we cherry picking there a little?
As far as Linux is concerned, Torvalds had lots of help from all over the world with Linux from very early on, including places like Australia and the US ...
And with respect to Rasmus Lerdorf, yes, he was born in Greenland and a Danish citizen but he seems to have become a Canadian citizen around his high school years. More importantly, since PHP was written initially by Lerdorf while at the University of Waterloo I fail to see how it can be attributed to Scandinavia.
I will grant you that there are/were some seriously smart folks from there but they also have some whacky ideas about how much freedom they want you to have, as well.
So, what have Europe and America done for Iceland that they have not done for, say, Malta or Cape Verde or Bahamas (other islands with Iceland-sized populations)?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that anyone denies that the Icelandic people are more capable and possess more potential than the Maltese, Cape Verdeans, Bahamians. The point is that there's more than one variable. Hollywood thrillers, Wall St./City of London 'innovative' finance, MMORPGs, existed before the Icelandic examples. It's hard to imagine they were unaware of or completely not influenced by them.
Failed states and excess population.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha ...
(Anonymous) :And with respect to Rasmus Lerdorf, yes, he was born in Greenland and a Danish citizen but he seems to have become a Canadian citizen around his high school years. More importantly, since PHP was written initially by Lerdorf while at the University of Waterloo I fail to see how it can be attributed to Scandinavia.
ReplyDeleteHmm, didn't remember that about the PHP guy. So I guess that just leaves them with the credit for the software that runs almost all the world's Internet servers, the database program used by almost all the world's websites, the world's leading free calling/video-conferencing software, the top peer-to-peer networking software, and the world's biggest cellphone company. Plus lots of other tech companies if I bothered actually trying to make a list. Such a paltry list of trivial achievements...
I guess this blogsite even attracts fanatic anti-Nordicist bigot-type commenters, providing a refreshing diversity of opinion---ha, ha, ha...
'Therefore, the argument goes, if we want more technological change and a better world we should promote, or at least not be worried about, a larger world population. Clark figuratively replies in one word: Iceland."
ReplyDeleteGoing to the other end, I could also reply in one word, Nigeria: Population: 155,000,000.
It is also interesting to note that Iceland has won more World's Strongest Man competitions than any other country with a total of 8. That is remarkable considering there are only about 150,000 males in Iceland. On a per-capita basis they are off the charts.
Amongst men, Icelandic men have the world's longest life expectancy.
Lemniscate: the argument works even if you ignore the modern period. Look at early Iceland, with an even tinier population; it can boast the Eddas and dozens of top-notch Sagas, which are a treasure of world literature and basically the only sources for Norse mythology (still vital, a century or two after Wagner, as _Thor_ shows); and in politics, Iceland's early political system is unparalleled and one of the main historical motivating examples for anarcho-capitalism.
ReplyDeleteNow, it's not quite Athens, but compared to basically any other island of similar size & population, early Iceland delivered a hell of a lot.
I don't think that anyone denies that the Icelandic people are more capable and possess more potential than the Maltese, Cape Verdeans, Bahamians. The point is that there's more than one variable. Hollywood thrillers, Wall St./City of London 'innovative' finance, MMORPGs, existed before the Icelandic examples.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet the Maltese, Cape Verdeans, and Bahamians did not profit from these examples - which were available to everyone - but the Icelanders did.
And yet the Maltese, Cape Verdeans, and Bahamians did not profit from these examples - which were available to everyone - but the Icelanders did.
ReplyDeleteI never said they did. I said "there's more than one variable". Those groups generally don't have the ability or potential, while they have the influence of external ideas. The Icelanders have both.
I don't follow tech that much nowadays but in the pre-2000s internet/geek circles, Finland seemed to enjoy quite a bit of mindshare.
ReplyDeleteFinland was associated in my mind with linux, nokia, the IRC protocol, the anon.penet.fi anonymous remailer, the demo scene and with computer wizardry in general, especially in very low level assembler type programming stuff.
To be fair to Caplan, from what i've read, he favours population growth without limits because more people means more of those talented, high IQ folks who make our lives better ( in general). He thinks that it's always better to have more high IQ people ( in absolute numbers) around so we should just make them.
ReplyDeleteIf you read Greg Clark's AFTA you may have noticed that the change from the malthusian economy to the modern technical/innovation based/knowledge economy actually allowed a country like England to grow and grow and grow without suffering the dire consequences of that growth. Because the economy had changed in a fundamental way.
The demographic transition eventually happened but it was after the industrial revolution. It might have not happened. Our modern economy would have allowed Europeans and other tehnologically advanced people to grow and grow and grow, had they chosen to follow that path.
If technologically advanced people choose population growth, they can basically forge ahead because modern economies make sustained pop. growth while maintaining standards of living a possibility.
I'm personally in favour of fertility and growth but not for everybody :)
It'd be a bright future if the population stabilized but that as time went by, the better people were progressively replacing the worse people.
RKU said:
ReplyDeleteHmm, didn't remember that about the PHP guy. So I guess that just leaves them with the credit for the software that runs almost all the world's Internet servers, the database program used by almost all the world's websites, the world's leading free calling/video-conferencing software, the top peer-to-peer networking software, and the world's biggest cellphone company. Plus lots of other tech companies if I bothered actually trying to make a list. Such a paltry list of trivial achievements...
I never said they were trivial, but neither are they what you make them out to be. I rather suspect that Apple is closer to the world's largest cell-phone company these days. Nokia has been knocked off its pedestal.
I prefer the truth not hagiography ...
I guess this blogsite even attracts fanatic anti-Nordicist bigot-type commenters, providing a refreshing diversity of opinion---ha, ha, ha...
As I am a race realist I don't believe I can be accused of bigotry against Nordic types. I have noted the penchant by Hollywood to use Nordic types as villains, possibly here in this blog.
I have met Rasmus and quite a number of open-source software contributors and am one myself, although I have not met Linus.
It is the individuals themselves who make the difference, although one can ask why it is that such a large number of such capable people arise in those populations (including places outside Europe with a large Northern-European derived population, like South Africa, Australia and New Zealand).
The answer does no lie mainly with culture, although a dysfunctional culture can screw countries up, like a number of Northern-European countries today.
I suppose you saw recent Caplan-Murray video. The contrast cannot be starker. Caplan is natural a hustler. He wrote a book. He doesn't really care if most of the claims there are true. As long as the book sells and publicity is generated. Similar things here. First and foremost he believes in open borders. He'll say anything to defend them. Even if it sounds utterly ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI know it sounds a lot like ad hominem. And it's true that something about Caplan feel vaguely disgusting. But my problem here is what he says: He is most certainly not so stupid as to not be aware of Iceland or truly believe the moronic thing he puts forward (to paraphrase: most great technological breakthroughs happened during most populous periods - ergo, large population is what makes great innovations to come about). No, he knows it is bullshit. He just thinks a lot of this bullshit is helping his cause in the long term.
OT, but possibly of general interest
ReplyDeletehttp://gardenserf.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/i-cant-take-the-scary-out-of-life-for-you/
Central and eastern North America, and Western Europe, are the two places in the world with the best combination of habitable land, and drinkable water. This is going to play a big role as things develop. Particularly in light of some of those UN population projections.
I was in Iceland last month. Great, amazing place. Ate horse. But it's a total welfare state. Unsustainable economy (they're smart enough to realize this - hence the big push for tourism). Met several natives who complained that the government was "fascist" (not literally, I assume, but I get the gist). So, hooray for their he-men and homogenous culture, but they have crap government.
ReplyDelete"Caplan’s empirical evidence on this is merely that since 1800 world population has increased 7 fold, to 6.7 billion, while incomes per person have also increased."
ReplyDeleteUp until 1950 or so the average IQ of the planet was going up. Since then it's been going down.
"To be fair to Caplan, from what i've read, he favours population growth without limits because more people means more of those talented, high IQ folks who make our lives better ( in general). "
ReplyDeletePerhaps Caplan expects that only higher-IQ people will read his books, listen to his speeches, etc., and therefore, if he does persuade anyone, it will be high-IQ people, resulting in more high-IQ kids. Caplan seems to (I've mostly read his arguments second-hand) be trying to convince smarter, wealthier people that they can, indeed, handle having 3 or 4 kids, not just two. I can't really imagine some ghetto chick (of any race) hearing Caplan get interviewed on NPR and deciding she's going to get knocked up one more time because some white guy who uses big words thinks people should have more kids.
Ideas aren't fungible, they're not good in and of themselves, and they don't foster the same general kind of "technological change".
ReplyDeleteIdeas are subject to evolutionary dynamics just as everything else is. Large population size and high density is one kind of environment, one which is especially conducive to the horizontal transmission of ideas hence virulent ideas. This is amplified by open borders. Large population/high density means there's lots of human "food" or energy around so there's pressures for "ideas" that exploit this energy. It's probably no accident that highly sophisticated "technologies" such as universalist religion, hypocrisy, mass manipulation and control, etc. arise out of these kinds of environments. The evolutionary pressures in these kinds of environments is towards ideas and technologies that are quite different from the technologies that they we generally associate with greater per capita wealth, technologies that increase higher self-sufficiency or higher per capita energy usage.
I suppose you saw recent Caplan-Murray video. The contrast cannot be starker. Caplan is natural a hustler. He wrote a book. He doesn't really care if most of the claims there are true. As long as the book sells and publicity is generated. Similar things here. First and foremost he believes in open borders. He'll say anything to defend them. Even if it sounds utterly ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, your average Jewish bullshit artist.
PS - Someone had to say it.
PPS - It's true.
PPPS - Half this blog's readership is no better; would sell out their people in a heartbeat if they thought they could make a buck.
I was in Iceland last month. Great, amazing place. Ate horse. But it's a total welfare state. Unsustainable economy (they're smart enough to realize this - hence the big push for tourism). Met several natives who complained that the government was "fascist" (not literally, I assume, but I get the gist). So, hooray for their he-men and homogenous culture, but they have crap government.
ReplyDeleteLooking after your own people ("welfare state") isn't crap government; it's good government.
At what point did the economy start being "unsustainable" according to you? Is this anything besides a swipe at the welfare state, which American economic illiterates are in the habit of calling "unsustainable"?
Funny because I have thrown out Iceland as a comparison to Haiti.
ReplyDeleteIceland is basically a more or less barren, more or less inhospitable rock in the middle of the North Atlantic, with a climate about as you'd expect. On the other hand, Haiti is lush, and sits in the middle of the warm Caribbean.
Haiti could have become e.g. a safe, well-run vacation spot, attracting tourists from all over the world, especially from North America during the cold winters there. Instead...well, Haiti is what it is, no need to belabor that.
In contrast, Iceland is orderly and fairly prosperous, with a well educated population.
Gee, what could account for the differences?
gwern, I'm not trying to deny the special brilliance of the Icelanders. It does, though, seem obvious to me that more Icelanders would achieve more than the current amount, as long as the population growth did not worsen the quality of the people. Population can limit a civilization. Consider the extremes: 100 million Icelanders versus 100 Icelanders, which would achieve more? It's one factor, which I agree has been overemphasised by Caplan, at the expense of genetic/cultural quality, but it's a factor nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteGoing to the other end, I could also reply in one word, Nigeria: Population: 155,000,000.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say the same thing. Their main national export seems to be confidence men.
Iceland has produced many world class mathematicians and chess players.
ReplyDeleteOne of my math professors at MIT was the Icelander, Sigurdur Helgason
To be fair to Caplan, from what i've read, he favours population growth without limits because more people means more of those talented, high IQ folks who make our lives better ( in general).
ReplyDeleteTalented, high IQ folks like Caplan? The extent to which talented high IQ folks make our lives better is debatable. There's also the awkward fact that talent and high IQ are not distributed equally. The modern world is the creation of a small number of white Europeans.
ReplyDeleteIceland has produced many world class mathematicians and chess players.
One of my math professors at MIT was the Icelander, Sigurdur Helgason
And Kenya has produced many American presidents.
The Germanic peoples dominate scientific and technological achievement to the degree that this fact is suppressed in public discourse, which is to stay, overwhelmingly. As a result, all of the core-Germanic nations pulse with economic activity, which attracts everyone else, skilled (northeast Asians) and not-so-skilled (“Latin” Americans, African and middle eastern types). This is hotly denied by all right-thinking folks and can only be hinted at by occasionally pointing out a decent, prosperous, and most important of all, non-threatening place like, say, Iceland.
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone accuses me of eurocentrism as opposed to Nordicism, I would add that the primarily Hispanic (in the original sense of the term) nations of Europe and the New World also lack heft on the scales of science, mathematics and technology, a topic that John Derbyshire has addressed once or twice in his TakiMag columns and elsewhere.
To be fair to Caplan, from what i've read, he favours population growth without limits because more people means more of those talented, high IQ folks who make our lives better....
ReplyDeleteEven if we set aside the issue of population quality, that's still wrong. It reflects an irrational temporal bias. Why do the next five billion smart people need to live NOW? They can have great ideas 100 or 1000 years down the line, and the ideas will be equally beneficial.
What if technological change is a reflection of racial personality and ambition? Sheer numbers of people is surely a less important factor than character. Spengler described civilizations as having unique personalities. Maybe it wasn’t the civilization so much as the dominant racial group within the civilization that drove progress. If you look at this picture of the signing of the Japanese surrender you will notice that all the officers in the background appear to be Celtic/Germanic. The US Navy was almost entirely white. Not many people know that while over 300,000 white Americans were killed in combat only 700 African-Americans suffered the same fate. After the war the GI Bill was slanted in favour of returning combat GIs who were, of course, almost all white providing them with welfare, housing and education benefits that helped create those golden “Happy Days” times of the fifties. Post war American society had a hefty amount of race based welfare and privilege. American culture, right up until its peak in the late sixties, when it still expressed the Spenglerian personality of, “a spiritual reaching out into boundless space”, was dominated and driven by Celtic/Germanic ambition. Perhaps the very peak is epitomized in this picture of an aristocratic Prussian standing next to his spaceship.
ReplyDeleteThe multi-cultural society, no matter how many people there are in it, may express the personality of the dominant group but in a society where all are equal and no one is dominant there is less likelihood of advancement. The focus will be on consumerism and decadence.
If population density alone is a plus, then why does the average Indian, Chinese, or Brazilian live in claustrophobic squalor compared to the average European, American, or Japanese?
ReplyDeletePopulation density correlates with poverty. Being European, Japanese, or Korean correlates with a high standard of living.
Not many people know that while over 300,000 white Americans were killed in combat only 700 African-Americans suffered the same fate. After the war the GI Bill was slanted in favour of returning combat GIs who were, of course, almost all white providing them with welfare, housing and education benefits that helped create those golden “Happy Days” times of the fifties.
ReplyDeleteYup, and these were the exact same "Greatest Generation" idiots who opened the floodgates to NAM immigration and raised the toxically narcissistic Baby Boomers then let them run riot on college campuses.
All of our problems today can be traced to poor "Celtic/Germanic" decisions in the past.
All of our problems today can be traced to poor "Celtic/Germanic" decisions in the past.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Trusting and tolerating Ashkenazis was a huge mistake on the part of "Celtics/Germanics."
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete""Iceland has produced many world class mathematicians and chess players. One of my math professors at MIT was the Icelander, Sigurdur Helgason""
And Kenya has produced many American presidents."
Every country has it's bad apples. I won't hold that against Kenya.
Martin B said:
ReplyDelete"And Kenya has produced many American presidents."
Every country has it's bad apples. I won't hold that against Kenya.
Indeed. But that was not the point. Besides being a cute reply, the point was that "the plural of anecdote is not data."
"According to NationMaster, Iceland also ranks number one in Nobel Prizes per capita."
ReplyDeleteThis is based entirely on the fact that the 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature went to an Icelander. With only one data point, the error bars are huge.
"This is based entirely on the fact that the 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature went to an Icelander. With only one data point, the error bars are huge."
ReplyDeletelol
and some other problems(or depending on your POV, progress ) with the icelandic nation:
http://lndavout.blogspot.com/2009/02/explaining-iceland-anomaly.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/halla_tomasdottir.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3hanna_Sigur%C3%B0ard%C3%B3ttir