The fertile crescent, Ancient Egypt, Rome, Incas, Aztecs were all closer to the equator than to the poles.

I actually have a buddy that thinks much of the world’s success and failure can be attributed to climate. How many successful civilizations exist near the equator vs. towards the poles?

Still, that doesn’t mean that we can’t look at the picture and come to some conclusions.

One of the thing that is correlated to learning is reading for pleasure. One of the things that is correlated to reading for pleasure is the number of books in the house. One of the things that is inversely correlated to this is poverty. So, we’d expect high poverty to be correlated with low IQ. I’m making no assertion about how strong we might expect this correlation to be, and I’ve not even mentioned that starting the day hungry is likely to make learning difficult.

Another thing that is correlated with learning is the value placed on education by the parents. This in turn is highly correlated with the parents having had solid educations themselves. It is true that there are MANY parents who did not receive good educations and who nonetheless understand the value of a solid education for their children. However, these parents are likely to be more poorly equipped to help their children succeed in school then those parents who are better educated. So, we’d expect the level of parental education to be correlated with high IQ. (There is a wealth component to this as well … well educated parents will tend to earn more .. and will thus be able to provide for their children in many ways - not just in the ways in which they make clear the value of education.)

Yet another thing that is correlated with learning is student attitude. Good teachers can do a lot to bring about positive attitudes toward learning, but peers have an even greater impact. Friends in school, neighbors, and so on all set the tone for students’ attitudes toward their education. When a culture does not value education, it is more difficult (but far from impossible) for the students from within that culture to succeed.

Finally, I think that Todd is right. There’s less to do in the long dark Northern winters. Perhaps this leads to more reading. One thing for certain. There is a different work ethic up there — not just among students.

Assuming that the research took representative samples, Virginia could be explained because of the abundance of college-educated Federal government employees that live there.

Easy. They’re less liberal and hence their standards for education are slipping slower than in California where they embraced multiculturalism full-force.

So explain Texas?

The question is, what’s the cause in the east? What changed? What diverged? Why the clear line? Is it Civil War related? If so, how so?

What are the people in North Dakota doing that the people in Georgia are not? And when did that start?