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Countries Ranked by Population to "Intellectual" Nobel Prize Ratio

This investigates whether there was a correlation between number of intellectual Nobel Prizes won by a country and the average IQ score of that country. For a proper comparison, the population of each country was divided by the number of Nobel Prizes it had gotten. The only Nobel Prizes excluded from the count were the Peace Prizes. Strictly speaking, the correlation was calculated on the ranks of the countries on the IQ and Nobel Prize lists. The Spearman Rank Order Correlation (r) came out to be 0.258046 with a p of 0.2462680. The correlation is not significant (at p<0.05). And if it were, it would only explain 6.7% (r squared) of the Nobel Prize winning rank. See below for a chart of the nobel prizes per country and a graph showing the lack of correlation with IQ rank.

  • Most of the population data (in thousands) are from the World Almanac and Book of Facts 2000 (for 1999) Mahwah, New Jersey: PRIMEDIA Reference, 1999.
  • The Nobel Prize data was tallied from the World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999 and from http://www.nobel.se/index.html.
  • There was sometimes more than one country listed for a Nobel Prize Winner—each country got credit.
  • The population data for the USSR is from 1980.

Nobel Laureates search at Amazon.com

The results of the poll on the correlation of national IQs with Nobel Prizes

Poll Results

Scatterplot of national IQ rank and Nobel Prize rank

Rank


Country

Physics

Chemistry

Physiology or Medicine

Literature

Economic Science

Total

1999 Population x1000

Ratio Population/ Nobels

1

Iceland

0

0

0

1

0

1

273

273

2

Sweden

4

4

6

7

2

23

8911

387

3

Luxembourg

0

0

1

0

0

1

429

429

4

Switzerland

2

5

6

2

0

15

7275

485

5

Denmark

3

1

4

3

0

11

5357

487

6

Britain

21

26

24

8

6

85

59113

695

7

Ireland

1

0

0

4

0

5

3633

727

8

Norway

0

1

0

3

2

6

4439

740

9

Netherlands

8

3

2

0

2

15

15808

1054

10

Germany

21

27

16

8

1

73

82087

1124

11

U.S.A.

73

45

85

11

28

242

272640

1127

12

Austria

2

1

3

0

1

7

8139

1163

13

France

12

7

9

12

2

42

58978

1404

Rank


Country

Physics

Chemistry

Physiology or Medicine

Literature

Economic Science

Total

1999 Population x1000

Ratio Population/ Nobels

14

Belgium

0

1

3

1

0

5

10182

2036

15

Finland

0

1

0

1

0

2

5158

2579

16

Canada

2

5

2

0

3

12

31006

2584

17

Australia

0

1

3

1

0

5

18784

3757

18

Italy

3

1

4

6

1

15

56735

3782

19

Portugal

0

0

1

1

0

2

9918

4959

20

Hungary

0

1

1

0

0

2

10186

5093

21

Greece

0

0

0

2

0

2

10707

5354

22

Poland

2

1

0

4

0

7

38609

5516

23

Yugoslavia

0

1

0

1

0

2

11206

5603

24

Israel

0

0

0

1

0

1

5750

5750

25

Spain

0

0

1

5

0

6

39168

6528

26

Chile

0

0

0

2

0

2

14974

7487

Rank


Country

Physics

Chemistry

Physiology or Medicine

Literature

Economic Science

Total

1999 Population x1000

Ratio Population/ Nobels

27

Czechoslovakia

0

1

0

1

0

2

15677

7839

28

Bulgaria

0

0

0

1

0

1

8195

8195

29

Argentina

0

1

2

0

0

3

36738

12246

30

Guatemala

0

0

0

1

0

1

12336

12336

31

USSR

7

1

1

5

1

15

266000

17733

32

Japan

3

1

1

2

0

7

126182

18026

33

South Africa

0

1

0

1

0

2

43,426

21713

34

Romania

0

0

1

0

0

1

22334

22334

35

Egypt

0

1

0

1

0

2

67274

33637

36

Colombia

0

0

0

1

0

1

39309

39309

37

Mexico

0

1

0

1

0

2

100294

50147

38

Nigeria

0

0

0

1

0

1

113829

113829

39

Pakistan

1

0

0

0

0

1

138123

138123

40

India

1

0

0

1

1

3

1000849

333616

Written by Rodrigo de la Jara

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