It is very true that IQ is only a measure of how well a person does IQ tests.

There are many assumptions about the experience and environment in which a person grew up at work within IQ tests, and of course the subject does have to take the test willingly to get a proper result.

I am somewhat skeptical about the statement that people in 1917 would have an average IQ of 73 in a modern test - as only by getting them to take such a test could that be proven - that is what the tests are for, as you can't guess IQ.

I have read that the IQ of immigrants when given IQ tests designed for local people, is often significantly lower than the local average - but it should be - if intelligence is the ability to deal with the environment in which one lives.

I am not sure that Hitler was evil.

Some of the people carrying out his plans, they could easily be described as evil, but others working under the same regime acted in ways which resulted in far less brutality, and at the same time achieved the required result faster and more effectively - I was watching a program on how Poland was ruled under the Nazis earlier today, under different regional goveners.

Also on TV at the moment is a series about the seting up of the Bow Street Runners, and the state of London before that time. The lack of any way to impose the rule of law democratically before that first police force was set up is quite astonishing now.

Older sets of laws have very different penalties - poor people who commited murder would hang, not for their crime but for their inability to pay the fee for the dead person - if you know the song 'The prickalie bush' aka 'Hangman stay thy hand', the about to be hanged person is hoping for someone to turn up and pay the fee before it is too late.

The fee was not a fine for committing murder, but the price of the dead person's life, and it varied according to the quality and age, and the sex of the victim.

In the Cadvael mysteries by Ellis Peters there are plots which revolve around the differences between Welsh and English law at the time.

Anne the Pleater