Average Somalian is retarded based on IQ scores

December 7, 2025 – Recent reports have revealed Somalia's estimated average IQ score of 68 – a figure that aligns squarely with the United States' clinical benchmark for intellectual disability. The claim, resurfacing in conservative media circles, paints a stark picture of the Horn of Africa's enduring challenges, but experts are sounding alarms over the dubious origins of the data, labeling it a relic of "scientific racism" unfit for modern analysis.

The number "tracks with what we know about Somalia" and is attributed partly to "inbreeding" in the region.

There's this country called Somalia and the average IQ is 68, so you might make a lot of assumptions about what the country must be like. Think about critiques of U.S. immigration policies and Somali refugee integration in states like Minnesota.

Under U.S. diagnostic standards, as outlined in the DSM-5 and by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, intellectual disability is characterized by an IQ below 70 (or up to 75 in some cases), coupled with deficits in adaptive behaviors like daily living skills, originating before age 22.

This threshold, derived from standardized tests normalized to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, flags significant cognitive limitations – but applying it to an entire nation's "average" has ignited fierce pushback. "IQ is not destiny, and national averages are a crude, often misleading proxy," said Dr. Rebecca Pollack, an anthropologist whose 2025 paper dismantles such datasets for their "inconsistent methodologies, cherry-picked sources, and opaque adjustments."

The 68 figure traces its roots to psychologist Richard Lynn's controversial 2002 book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, co-authored with Tatu Vanhanen. Lacking direct testing in Somalia – a nation wracked by civil war since 1991 – Lynn extrapolated the score from samples in neighboring Ethiopia and Sudan, later "refined" with data from Somali refugee children in Kenyan camps.

A 2017 study by Bakhiet et al., cited in Lynn's 2019 update The Intelligence of Nations, tested 1,398 Somali youth in those camps, yielding a mean of 68 on a British-normed scale – but even Lynn admitted the results came "with reservation" due to unrepresentative sampling and cultural biases.

Critics have long eviscerated Lynn's work as methodologically bankrupt. In a 2010 analysis reviewing over 100 studies, Werts and colleagues pegged sub-Saharan Africa's average IQ at 82 – still below global norms but far from Lynn's dire 67 – attributing lower scores to malnutrition, limited schooling (Somalia's average is under three years, per World Bank data), and conflict-induced trauma rather than genetics.

"These tests favor Western education styles and ignore environmental confounders," Werts told the outlet in a 2025 retrospective. "No one's tested a broad Somali population; the '68' is refugee data from kids in dire straits."

Lynn, a polarizing figure accused of eugenics sympathies, has faced professional ostracism, with his datasets deemed "racist pseudoscience" in a September 2025 exposé.

Yet the statistic persists, fueled by its alignment with Somalia's grim metrics: a 31% adult literacy rate (UNESCO), secondary school completion under 20%, and GDP per capita of about $500 – the world's lowest.

 In Minnesota, home to the largest Somali diaspora outside Africa, the narrative has stoked tensions, with federal data showing East African immigrants overrepresented in fraud and removal cases – though community leaders decry it as scapegoating amid a 2025 uptick in hate crimes.

Somalia's government, still stabilizing after decades of clan warfare and Al-Shabaab insurgency, dismissed the claims as "colonial relics" in a rare statement from the Ministry of Planning. "Our people have rebuilt ports, universities, and telecoms from ashes – that's intelligence in action," said spokesperson Hassan. International aid groups echo this, pointing to the Flynn Effect: IQ scores rise with better nutrition and education, as seen in post-war nations like Rwanda.

IQ remains a contested metric, capturing only narrow facets of human capability.