Chan's Personal Blog

Firstborn sons have higher IQs than their younger brothers, and their social status within the family may explain why, researchers reported on Thursday.

A study that used military draft records for more than 240,000 Norwegian men found that firstborns had an edge of 2.3 IQ points on their next oldest brothers, who in turn beat brothers born third by 1.1 points on average.

Men who had been raised as the eldest, whether they were born first, second, or third, had IQs to match their first-born peers. The same was true for those raised or born second, Petter Kristensen and colleagues at the University of Oslo report in the journals Science and Intelligence.

"This study provides evidence that the relation between birth order and IQ score is dependent on the social rank in the family and not birth order as such," Kristensen's team wrote in Science.

Their studies confirmed what many scientists had suspected for more than a century -- that firstborns have an edge.

Hamas looked set to complete its conquest of the entire Gaza Strip. "Muhammad Swairki, 28, a cook for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, was thrown to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City on Sunday."

"Muhammad al-Ra'fati, a Hamas supporter and mosque preacher, was thrown from a Gaza City high-rise apartment building."

"Fatah gunmen began firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City."

"Hamas gunmen attacked the home of a Fatah security official with mortars and grenades, killing his 14-year-old son and three women inside, security officials said. Other Fatah gunmen stormed the house of a Hamas lawmaker and burned it down."

"Jamal Abu Jadian, a top Fatah commander, fled his home in the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday evening dressed as a woman to avoid dozens of Hamas militiamen who had attacked it. When he arrived at a hospital a few hundred meters away from his house, he was discovered by a group of Hamas gunmen, who took turns shooting him in the head with automatic rifles. They literally blew his head off with more than 40 bullets,' said a doctor at Kamal Udwan Hospital."

Hamas has now completed its conquest of Gaza. The last Fatah fighters were captured and then machine-gunned to death in front of their wives and children. The Fatah compound in Gaza City will be turned into a mosque; Gaza itself into an Islamic state.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has struck back against Hamas in the West Bank, where Hamas is weak and Mr. Abbas's Fatah is stronger.

On Wednesday, Mr. Abbas declared a state of emergency. His forces have raided Hamas offices in Ramallah and Nablus and arrested some 1,500 Hamas activists. Mr. Abbas is now appealing for more American and Western military and economic aid. And he has requested an international police force for Gaza.

Good luck with that last request. Gaza looks like an Arabic Somalia, a beachfront Fallujah. No Western government will volunteer to deploy forces into such an environment.

But if Mr. Abbas is refused troops, he will certainly now receive massive new infusions of money. The big idea sweeping Western capitals is that Fatah must learn to compete with Hamas as a provider of social services. Over the years, billions of dollars of aid have been donated to the Palestinian Authority. In 2006, the Palestinians collected more Western aid per capita than any other people on earth: US$300 per year, as compared to US$44 for sub-Saharan Africa.

Much of that money has been stolen or wasted.

Even worse, because UN relief agencies have allowed themselves to be penetrated and captured by Hamas, much of the Western aid has ended up reinforcing exactly the people we supposedly want to defeat.

It's not very realistic to imagine that Fatah can suddenly change its ways and learn to run aid programs honestly. Fatah is a criminal gang, and it inevitably acts like one.