Nathan’s Nigerian nightmare

The Multi-Generational Regression Paradox: Why the Success of British and American West Africans Disproves Hereditarian Theory

A core pillar of the hereditarian (or “race realist”) framework, popularized by figures like Nathan Cofnas, relies on the concept of positive selection. To explain why West African immigrant cohorts in the UK and US significantly outperform native White populations in academic systems, Cofnas and others argue that Western immigration filters pull exclusively from the extreme right-hand tail (the highest-IQ outliers) of the African distribution.

However, by tracking this assumption through the strict mathematical mechanics of Filial Regression to the Mean, discovered by the founder of modern statistics, Sir Francis Galton, and the constraints of a Standard Gaussian Distribution, this theory collapses into an empirical and statistical impossibility.

The Multi-Generational Genetic Decay

In a bid to maintain support for ill-intended statistics that portray black Africans as less than average in IQ scores, race realists like Nathan Cofnas have declared that black and African migrant populations who routinely outperform local white populations on average are simply genetic outliers with unusually high IQ and do not represent the true genetic reality of their respective African populations on the continent

The hereditarian model frequently anchors its calculations to a highly controversial regional genetic IQ baseline for sub-Saharan Africa, often cited in their literature as 75. If we accept this premise for the sake of mathematical critique, any group of elite African immigrants selected with an average IQ of 130 constitutes a radical outlier population.

According to quantitative genetics and Sir Francis Galton’s laws of inheritance, intelligence is a polygenic trait subject to genetic recombination. When these outliers reproduce, their rare, highly favorable genetic combinations break apart. The offspring do not retain the parents’ exact score; instead, they experience a powerful statistical pull back toward their population’s true genetic anchor.

Using the standard narrow-sense heritability coefficient (h^2 = 0.42), we can model the multi-generational trajectory of these selected immigrant lineages using Galton’s regression model:

Generation 1 (The Selected Immigrant Parents): Mean IQ = 130
Generation 2 (The First Native-Born Generation): The children regress roughly 58% of the way back to the assumed genetic floor of 75:
75 + 0.42 (130 – 75) = 75 + 23.1 = 98.1
Generation 3 (The Grandchildren): Assuming assortative mating within the same group profile, the children of the next generation regress again toward the genetic baseline:
75 + 0.42 (98.1 – 75) = 75 + 9.7 = 84.7

The Mathematical Contradiction:

If the hereditarian model were correct, Galton’s law of regression dictates that the second generation would display an immediate, sharp drop to a mean of 98.1 (already below the Western White average of 100). By the third generation, the average would plummet into the mid-84s.

High-performing Black migrant populations sustain and improve their performance across generations, challenging genetic hereditarianism and reinforcing the role of nurture.

In reality, empirical data from the UK and US school systems shows that second- and third-generation West African descendants consistently maintain highly elevated academic and cognitive performance, outperforming native White populations. Because they systematically bypass this predicted genetic crash, an IQ model based on genetics cannot be statistically true.

The Fallacy of the Anomalous Country Baseline (The Sierra Leone Case)

To bypass this contradiction, Cofnas attempts to isolate high-performing African sub-populations; such as historical data points showing an IQ output around 92 in regions like Freetown, Sierra Leone, treating them as mere anomalies of standard deviation where some countries just happen to score higher while the overall regional average stays low.

This argument fundamentally reveals that Cofnas fails to understand that a standard deviation is entirely different from an average.

In a normal distribution where the standard deviation sigma is 15 points, a score of 92 sits +1.13 standard deviations above a baseline of 75.


By definition, high-IQ individuals within a population are distributed unequally, randomly, and unpredictably. They cannot spontaneously cluster geographically to form an entire unselected city or country with a native baseline of 92 while the underlying genetic pool remains at 75. High IQ cannot be "located" to create a 92-average country out of a 75-average gene pool without severe external selection.

ASSUMED AFRICAN BELL CURVE (Genetic Mean = 75)

By definition, high-IQ individuals within a population are distributed unequally, randomly, and unpredictably. They cannot spontaneously cluster geographically to form an entire unselected city or country with a native baseline of 92 while the underlying genetic pool remains at 75. High IQ cannot be “located” to create a 92-average country out of a 75-average gene pool without severe external selection.

Furthermore, if we attempt to argue that Sierra Leone was a historically “selected” population, Galton’s regression model must be applied over generations. A massive, everyday population slice containing hundreds of thousands of unselected citizens cannot naturally sustain a +1.13 SD genetic variance against its own biological “gravitational pull.” Over a century, recombination would have dragged a genetic 92 back down to the low 80s:

75 + 0.42 (92 – 75) =82.1

Conclusion: The Environmental Inevitability

Because a stable population mean of 92 cannot mathematically exist as a random quirk within a genetic distribution anchored at 75, the “race realist” framework faces an ironclad logical trap:

If a population mean can stably shift from 75 to 92 (Sierra Leone), or if second- and third-generation immigrant cohorts can permanently bypass a genetic regression to 75 and outperform native Whites (UK/US diasporas), the baseline of 75 cannot possibly be genetic.

Standard deviation measures phenotypes (expressed outcomes), which are heavily suppressed in environments featuring high pathogen loads, malnutrition, and lack of formalized Western schooling.

When those environmental suppressors are removed, either via urbanization and education within Africa (Freetown) or migration to the West, the entire population mean shifts permanently upward. The standard deviation allows us to analyze the data cleanly, and the data proves that these cognitive differences are a product of sustainable, trans-generational environmental and cultural capital, completely invalidating the hereditarian model.