Technically, saying that someone has high or low IQ is not a “mysterious answer”. You could measure it.
But you cannot measure the IQ of individuals or populations who died centuries ago.
Or, hypothetically… an archaeological research could find out that e.g. textbooks for 6 years old children in Carthage contained problems that 8 years old solved in Rome, plus some more evidence of this type, from which we might conclude that Carthagians were smarter as a whole, which would explain why Hannibal Barca was smarter than his opponents.
But without this extra information, the intelligence hypothesis reduces to a circular argument: “He won because he was smarter.” “What is your evidence he was smarter?” “He won, duh.”
Technically, saying that someone has high or low IQ is not a “mysterious answer”. You could measure it.
But you cannot measure the IQ of individuals or populations who died centuries ago.
Or, hypothetically… an archaeological research could find out that e.g. textbooks for 6 years old children in Carthage contained problems that 8 years old solved in Rome, plus some more evidence of this type, from which we might conclude that Carthagians were smarter as a whole, which would explain why Hannibal Barca was smarter than his opponents.
But without this extra information, the intelligence hypothesis reduces to a circular argument: “He won because he was smarter.” “What is your evidence he was smarter?” “He won, duh.”
Yes. Another example would be the Habsburg Jaw.