Iodine Deficiency: Imbeciles Rule

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When it comes to inventions, innovations, and creativity, Russians lag behind. Yes, there are plenty of Russian scientists, composers, and writers (after all, Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky are well-known around the world). However, the era of world-famous Russians is long gone. Nobody wants to buy a Russian smartphone, no matter how cheap it is, or to own a Russian-made car. Most world-famous Russian physicist and mathematicians moved to greener pastures in the West. And the problem is not only the lack of funding. After all, Russia is saturated with oil. If they had fifty billion to spare on the Winter Olympic games, they most certainly would have the money to advance arts and sciences.

The real problem is the lack of talent due to negative selection and somewhat low intelligence as a result. If we look at the IQ data, Russia lags behind Singapore,  South Korea, Norway and even Italy. Coupled with inefficient and corrupted state system, Russia does not look like the hub of intellectual thought in perceivable future. 

So what is the reason why average Russians are not as smart as the most leading countries?

More after the jump...

One of the reasons can be iodine deficiency. As we know, iodine is an essential nutrient and there is a strong correlation between lack of iodine and lower intelligence. Here

Unfortunately, the great majority of Russians live in the European part which does not have a long coastline that is accessible year-round for fishing. All the coastlines above the Arctic circle are frozen during the lengthy winter season, thus limiting the supply of fish and seafood that provide essential micronutrients including those badly needed for proper brain development.

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Another reason could be Stalin's purges. When communists came to power, the cream of the crop fled the war-torn country. Most of the educated and intelligent people that stayed behind were killed during the 1930s.   

Intelligence, however, is a tricky subject that not too many scientists have the courage to research. First of all, without proper explanation, data can be misinterpreted and used as a bias for discrimination. Secondly, there are no tests in the world that can access how talented or creative the person actually is. Also, a not-so-bright person is most likely to possess genes that make him or her much more evolutionary fit to reproduce than some weak genius.

Nevertheless, a high level of intelligence is required for every government official so the country will prosper. Here is our hypothesis: if you provide adequate nutrition to people in the poorest countries in the world for at least twenty years and let the most intelligent people with high moral values run the government, the country will flourish. Any Burundi has a chance to become as rich and secure as Singapore. 

The readers of this blog might object: what about all those famous mathematicians and physicists that work in Russia? Well, they are obviously not the average Russians. If you measure the I.Q. of all those people that work for the Russian Academy of Sciences, your results will be skewed.  Average Russians, or at least 35% of them, still think that the Sun rotates around the earth. Source Only 1 in 4 Americans thinks that. Source

So, what is wrong with Russians? Their diet is void of essential nutrients and the results of negative selection make Russians less competitive in the world.

Is it possible to change this disturbing trend? Definitely yes. Every pregnant mother must consume iodine-rich foods on a daily basis.