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[[Image:Sketch-4race-transparent.png|thumb|400px|Comparing [[race]] and [[IQ]] can produce results that demonstrate overlapping distributions, but differences in average test scores. {{ref|reynolds87}} Critics argue that this kind of finding is an example of [[scientific racism]] |
[[Image:Sketch-4race-transparent.png|thumb|400px|Comparing [[race]] and [[IQ]] can produce results that demonstrate overlapping distributions, but differences in average test scores. {{ref|reynolds87}} Critics argue that this kind of finding is an example of [[scientific racism]].]] |
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'''Race and intelligence''' is an area of research studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of group differences in intelligence. This research relies on two contested assumptions: |
'''Race and intelligence''' is an area of research studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of group differences in intelligence. This research relies on two contested assumptions: |
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*useful information may be gained by studying "[[race|racial-ethnic group]]" differences |
*useful information may be gained by studying "[[race|racial-ethnic group]]" differences |
Revision as of 17:40, 15 July 2005
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Sketch-4race-transparent.png/400px-Sketch-4race-transparent.png)
Race and intelligence is an area of research studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of group differences in intelligence. This research relies on two contested assumptions:
- useful information may be gained by studying "racial-ethnic group" differences
- "intelligence" is measurable and is dominated by a unitary general cognitive ability.
Members of any racial-ethnic group may be found at any IQ level, but averages among groups often differ in where their members tend to cluster along an IQ scale. Similar clustering is seen amoung racial-ethnic groups in related variables, such as school achievement or reaction time. In the U.S., most variation in IQ occurs within individual familes, not between races. However, differences of average IQs among groups has been pronounced enough to merit a scientific investigation.
These differences may be caused by environmental factors, such as differences in education level, nutrition, richness of the early home environment, and other social, cultural or economic factors. The primary focus of the scientific debate is whether these differences also reflect a genetic component, such as genes linked to neuron proliferation, brain size, and brain metabolism, that vary with ancestral background.
The findings of this field have been very controversial, and public debates often contain misconceptions. Critics examine the fairness and validity of cognitive testing and racial categorization, as well as the reliability of the studies and the motives of the authors, on both sides. Critics often fear the misuse of the research, question its utility, or feel that comparing the intelligence of racial groups is itself unethical. For instance, the disparity in average IQ among racial groups is often mistaken for the false belief that all members of one race are more intelligent than all members of another.
Background information
Racial distinctions are most often made on the basis of skin color, facial features, ancestry, and national origin. Some scientists argue that common racial classifications are not meaningful, often on the basis of research indicating that more genetic variation exists within such races than between them. To define terms, racial labels most commonly used in the United States relate to genetic ancestry (Tang et al., 2005). People labeled blacks have most of their ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa, whites from Europe, and East Asians from countries on the western side of the Pacific Rim. Hispanics, more often called an ethnic group rather than a race, form a genetically diverse group that includes many recent U.S. immigrants with mixed ancestry. The political, social and cultural structure of the United States is still explicitly conscious of race; legal equality of whites and blacks did not fully materialize until the 20th century. The national and state governments of the United States employ racial categorization in the census, law enforcement, and innumerable other ways. Many races have political organizations to represent their interests. Racial discrimination is illegal in many areas of public and private life, including employment. See the articles Race and Race (U.S. Census) for further discussion.
Cognitive ability (i.e., intelligence) is most commonly measured using IQ tests. These tests are often geared to measure the psychometric variable g, and other tests that measure g, such as the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, also serve as measures of cognitive ability. All such tests are often called "intelligence tests," though the term "intelligence" is controversial; in this article, "IQ test" denotes any test of cognitive ability. Some critics question the validity of all IQ testing or claim that there are aspects of intelligence not reflected in IQ tests. See the articles Intelligence, IQ, and general intelligence factor for further discussion of the validity of these tests.
Some researchers have argued that race and intelligence research is fundamentally flawed. Stephen Jay Gould expressed this view in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man. Tate & Audette (2001) argue that issues of "race" and "intelligence" are pseudo-questions because both concepts are arbitrary social constructions. Similarly, in a 2005 review paper Sternberg and colleagues question the basis of race and intelligence research[2]:
In this article, the authors argue that the overwhelming portion of the literature on intelligence, race, and genetics is based on folk taxonomies rather than scientific analysis. They suggest that because theorists working on intelligence disagree as to what it is, any consideration of its relationships to other constructs must be tentative at best. They further argue that race is a social construction with no scientific definition. Thus, studies of the relationship between race and other constructs may serve social ends but cannot serve scientific ends.
These views contrast with those expressed in "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns,"[3] a report from the American Psychological Association, and "Mainstream Science on Intelligence"[4], a statement signed by fifty-two professors, including researchers in the study of intelligence and related fields, meant to outline "conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence".
The debates described in the following sections assume that cognitive ability tests measure some interesting aspect of intelligence, and that some information may be gained by studying racial group differences.
The scholarly debate about race and intelligence involves both the relatively less controversial experimental results that indicate that average IQ test scores vary among racial groups, and the relatively more controversial interpretation of these IQ score differences. In general, modern interpretations of the "IQ gap" can be divided into two categories:
- "culture-only" or "environment-only" interpretations that posit environmental causes (e.g., socioeconomic inequality or minority culture membership) that differentially affect racial groups; and
- "partly genetic" interpretations that posit an IQ gap between racial groups caused by approximately the same matrix of genetic and environmental forces that cause IQ differences among individuals of the same race.
History
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Francis_Galton_1850s.jpg/200px-Francis_Galton_1850s.jpg)
The scientific debate on the contribution of nature versus nurture to individual and group differences in intelligence can be traced to at least the mid-19th century[5]. The writings of Sir Francis Galton, elaborating on the work of his cousin Charles Darwin, spurred interest in the study of mental abilities, particularly heredity and eugenics.
The fact that there are differences in the brain sizes and brain structures of different racial and ethnic groups was well known and widely studied during the 19th century and early 20th century[6].
Average ethnic and racial group differences in IQ were first found with the widespread use of standardized mental tests in World War I.
Beginning in the 1930s, hereditarianism — the belief that genetics contribute to differences in intelligence among humans — began to fall out of favor, in part due to the advocacy of Franz Boas, who in his 1938 edition of The Mind of Primitive Man wrote
...there is nothing at all that could be interpreted as suggesting any material difference in the mental capacity of the bulk of the Negro population as compared with the bulk of the white population (Boas, 1938).
The hereditarian position was greatly weakened by Boas' finding that cranial vault size had increased significantly in the U.S. from one generation to the next, because racial differences in such characteristics had been among the strongest arguments for a genetic role.
Eugenics was later adopted by the Nazi party as a justification for the systematic elimination of "parasitic" races such as Jews and Gypsies. (Note that the Ashkenazi Jewish population has significantly higher average IQ scores than other Whites.)
Due to the association of hereditarianism with Nazi Germany, after the conclusion of World War II until the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve, it became largely taboo to suggest that there were racial or ethnic differences in measures of intellectual or academic ability and even more taboo to suggest that they might involve a genetic component.[7]
In 1961, the psychologist Henry Garrett coined the term equalitarian dogma to describe the then politically fashionable view that there were no race differences in intelligence, or if there were, they were purely the result of environmental factors. Those who questioned these views often put their careers at risk.[8]
The contemporary scholarly debate on race and intelligence may be traced to Arthur Jensen's 1969 publication in the Harvard Educational Review of "How Much Can We Boost IQ and School Achievement?" In this paper Jensen concluded that:
(a) IQ tests measure socially relevant general ability; (b) individual differences in IQ have a high heritability, at least for the White populations of the United States and Europe; (c) compensatory educational programs have proved generally ineffective in raising the IQs or school achievement of individuals or groups; (d) because social mobility is linked to ability, social class differences in IQ probably have an appreciable genetic component; and tentatively, but most controversially, (e) the mean Black-White group difference in IQ probably has some genetic component (from Rushton & Jensen, 2005).
Reports on Jensen's article appeared in Time, Newsweek, Life, U.S. News & World Report, and The New York Times Magazine. Press attention returned to the issue of race and intelligence in 1994 with the publication of The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994), which included two chapters on the subject of racial difference in intelligence and related life outcomes. In response to The Bell Curve, Stephen Gould updated The Mismeasure of Man, criticizing many aspects of IQ research.
In 2005, the scholarly debate continues on the question of "whether the cause of group differences in average IQ is purely social, economic, and cultural or whether genetic factors are also involved" (Rushton & Jensen, 2005).
The Pioneer Fund and accusations of systematic misrepresentations
Many of the IQ researchers supporting genetic differences in intelligence between races have received large monetary grants from the Pioneer Fund, something often criticized.[9] In the year 2000 alone, tax records indicate that the IQ researcher J. Philippe Rushton received US$473,825. The Pioneer Fund is a foundation that was formed in 1937 to support eugenics and has been headed by Rushton since 2002. It has paid for publication and large-scale distribution of materials like the Nazi propaganda film "Hereditary Defective" to high schools, colleges, and churches across the US. The film was produced by the Racial Political Office of the Nazi Party and authorized by Adolf Hitler.[10] The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Pioneer Fund as a hate group.
The Pioneer Fund has stated it rejects racism, and has claimed it is the victim of smear campaigns waged by those who consider a discussion of race to be taboo. Common standards of evaluating scientific research require that the grantees supported by the Pioneer Fund should be judged only by the scientific merits of their research.
Researchers on both sides of the debate have been accused by other researchers variously of bias or of systematically misrepresenting the available data, especially when trying to associate the results with various other claimed differences in personality and physical characteristics. As an example of criticism of the hereditarian side, when some of Rushton's claimed supporting references were examined, they were found to include a nonscientific semipornographic book and an article in the Penthouse Forum.[11] Some recent claims by the same researchers have also been criticized; see Brain size. As an example of criticism of the non-hereditarian side, Stephen Jay Gould, one of the leading critics of race and intelligence research, has been accused of "scholarly malfeasance,"[12] tainting his research with a Marxist bias[13], and presenting misleading statistics.[14]
Moral criticism
A political motivation is frequently ascribed to researchers who work on questions of race and intelligence. Many have been described as racists. For example, psychologist Jerry Hirsch has claimed that Arthur Jensen has "avowed goals" that were "as heinously barbaric as were Hitler's and the anti-abolitionists" (Hunt, 1999). In turn, some researchers have questioned the political motivations of their critics, some of whom have been forced to apologize.
More often the ad hominem criticisms are allowed (Gottfredson, 2005a) or explained away as wishful thinking:
The ideal, implicit in many popular critiques of intelligence research, is that all people are born equally able and that social inequality results only from the exercise of unjust privilege. The reality is that Mother Nature is no egalitarian. People are in fact unequal in intellectual potential—and they are born that way.[15]
Another common criticism of race and intelligence research is that society would be better off not knowing if races differ in IQ, regardless of whether the cause were genetic or not. For example, Glazer (1994, p. 16) asked of race and intelligence research in The Bell Curve, "what good will come of it?" He adds:
Our society, our polity, our elites, according to Herrnstein and Murray, live with an untruth: that there is no good reason for this [racial] inequality, and therefore society is at fault and we must try harder. I ask myself whether the untruth is not better for American society than the truth.
More recently, Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg asked whether race and intelligence researchers Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton show "good taste" in their choice of research topics. Further, he asked, "What good is research of the kind done by Rushton and Jensen supposed to achieve?" (Sternberg, 2005).
The position that what is good bears on inquiries into what is has been criticized by Harvard University microbiologist Bernard Davis (1978) as the "moralistic fallacy" (an implied converse of the naturalistic fallacy). Some researchers in the field of race and intelligence argue that suppressing race and intelligence research is actually more harmful. For example, Gottfredson (2005b) argues against the suggestion of a benevolent untruth:
Lying about race differences in achievement is harmful because it foments mutual recrimination. Because the untruth insists that differences cannot be natural, they must be artificial, manmade, manufactured. Someone must be at fault. Someone must be refusing to do the right thing. It therefore sustains unwarranted, divisive, and ever-escalating mutual accusations of moral culpability, such as Whites are racist and Blacks are lazy.
Average intelligence gaps among races
The modern controversy surrounding intelligence and race focuses on the results of IQ studies conducted during the second half of the 20th century, mainly in the United States and some other industrialized nations. In almost every testing situation where tests were administered and evaluated correctly, a difference of approximately one standard deviation was observed in the US between the mean IQ score of Blacks and Whites. Attempted world-wide compilations of average IQ by race generally place Ashkenazi Jews at the top, followed by East Asians, Whites, other Asians, Arabs, Blacks and Australian Aborigines. See IQ and the Wealth of Nations for an attempted compilation of average IQ for different nations and a discussion of associated measurement problems. The IQ scores vary greatly among different nations for the same group. Blacks in Africa score much lower than Blacks in the US. Some reports indicate that the Black–White gap is smaller in the UK than in the U.S.[16] Many studies also show large differences in IQ between different groups of Whites. For example, in Northern Ireland the IQ gap between Protestants and Catholics is as large as that between Blacks and Whites in the US. In Israel, large gaps in test scores and achievement separate Ashkenazi Jews from other groups such as the Sephardi.[17]
IQ has a low to moderate correlation with various measures of brain size and performance on elementary tests of response time. There are similar racial differences for these variables. The American Psychological Association's Task Force Report on Intelligence reports that with respect to "racial differences in the mean measured sizes of skulls and brains (with East Asians having the largest, followed by Whites and then Blacks)...there is indeed a small overall trend".[18] Cranial vault size and shape have changed greatly during the last 150 years in the US. These changes must occur by early childhood because of the early development of the vault. The explanation for these changes may be related to the Flynn effect.[19]
Gaps are seen in other tests of cognitive ability or aptitude, including university admission exams such as the SAT and GRE as well as employment tests for corporate settings and the military (Roth et al. 2001). Measures of school achievement correlate fairly well with IQ, especially in younger children. In the United States, achievement tests find that by 12th grade Black students are performing on average only as well as White and Asian students in 8th grade; Hispanic students do only slightly better than Blacks. Whether the gaps are narrowing or not is debated.
Culture-only or partially genetic explanation?
The consensus among intelligence researchers is that IQ differences between individuals of the same race reflect (1) real, (2) functionally/socially significant, and (3) substantially genetic differences in the general intelligence factor. A consensus also exists for the view that average IQ differences between races reflect (1) real and (2) significant differences in the same g factor.[20] However, it is a matter of debate whether IQ differences between races in the U.S. are (3a) entirely environmental or (3b) partly genetic. Several published consensus statements agree that the large differences between the average IQ scores of Blacks and Whites in the U.S. cannot be attributed to biases in test construction, nor can they be explained just by simple differences in socio-economic status. It should be noted that most research has been done in the US and a few other developed nations. That research cannot directly be generalized to the world as a whole. Blacks in the US do not constitute a random sample from Africa, and environmental conditions differ among nations. IQ tests done in developing countries are likely to have been affected by conditions associated with poverty that are common in the developing world, such as nutritional deficiencies and the impact of diseases (e.g., HIV, anemia or chronic parasites that may affect IQ test scores).
Regarding the IQ gaps in the U.S., it has also been suggested that Black culture disfavors academic achievement and fosters an environment that is damaging to IQ (Boykin, 1994). Likewise, it is argued that a persistence of racism reinforces this negative effect. John Ogbu (1978, 1994) has developed a hypothesis that the condition of being a "caste-like minority" affects motivation and achievement, depressing IQ. Many anthropologists have argued that intelligence is a cultural category; some cultures emphasize speed and competition more than others, for example. Even proponents of the view that the IQ gap is caused partly by genetic differences recognize that non-genetic factors are likely involved. Non-genetic biological factors that affect IQ have been proposed. Increased rates of low birth weight babies and lower rates of breastfeeding in Blacks as compared to Whites are some factors of many that have been proposed to affect the IQ gap. The Flynn effect is often cited as evidence that average IQ scores have changed greatly and rapidly, for reasons poorly understood, noting that average IQ in the US may have been below 75 before the start of this effect, and thus some argue that the IQ gap between races could change in the future or is changing, especially if the effect started earlier for Whites.
Arthur Jensen and others have concluded that the IQ gap is partly genetic. They argue that while plausible environmental explanation for the lower mean IQ in Blacks in the U.S. can be offered in many cases, these explanations are less capable of explaining the higher average IQ of East Asians than Whites, and that overall the culture-only hypothesis is not "progressive" but "degenerating" (see Lakatos; Rushton & Jensen, 2005). To support these claims, they most often cite: (1) worldwide Black-White-East Asian differences in IQ, reaction time, and brain size; (2) correlation between the extent to which IQ subtests measure g, the magnitude of Black-White-East Asian average IQ differences on those subtests (called Spearman's hypothesis), and measures of those subtests' heritability; and (3) the rising heritability of IQ with age (within races) and the disappearance by adulthood of shared environmental effects on IQ (e.g., family income, education, and home environment). Other evidence, such as transracial adoption, racial admixture studies, "life-history" traits, and evolutionary explanations are also debated. The critics have counter arguments to all of this and a definite answer may not be possible until intelligence is directly linked to specific genes.
Significance of group IQ differences
- See also: Practical importance of IQ
There is substantial overlap in the distribution of IQ scores among individuals of each race. Jensen (1998, p. 357) estimates that in a random sample of equal numbers of US Blacks and Whites, most of variance in IQ would be unrelated to race or social class. The average IQ difference between two randomly paired people from the U.S. population, one Black and one White, is approximately 20 points. However, by the same method of calculation, the average difference between two random people is approximately 17 points, and the average difference between two siblings is 12 points.
The appearance of a large practical importance for intelligence makes some scholars claim that the source and meaning of the IQ gap is a pressing social concern. The IQ gap is reflected by gaps in the academic, economic, and social factors correlated with IQ (Gordon 1997; Gottfredson 1997). However, some dispute the general importance of the role of IQ for real-world outcomes, especially for differences in accumulated wealth and general economic inequality in a nation. See the "Practical importance of IQ" link above.
Two statistical effects interact to exacerbate group IQ differences. First, there seem to be minimum statistical thresholds of IQ for many socially valued outcomes (e.g., high school graduation and college admission). Second, because of the shape of the normal distribution, only about 16% of the population is at least one standard deviation above the mean. Thus, although the IQ distributions for Blacks and Whites are largely overlapping, different IQ thresholds can have a significant impact on the proportion of Blacks and Whites above and below a particular cut-off.
IQ range | Whites | Blacks | Black:White ratio | Training prospects | High school dropout | Lives in poverty | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
<75 | 3.6% | 18.0% | ~5:1 | simple, supervised work; eligible for government assistance | 55% | 30% | |
<90 | 21.9% | 59.4% | ~2:1 | very explicit hands on training; IQ >80 for military training; no government assistance | 35% | 16% | |
>100 | 53.8% | 15.7% | ~1:3 | written material plus experience | 6% | 6% | |
>110 | 27.9% | 3.8% | ~1:7 | college format | 0.4% | 3% | |
>125 | 5.4% | 0.2% | ~1:32 | independent, self-teaching | 0% | 2% | |
Based on Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IQs for Whites (mean = 101.4, SD = 14.7) and for Blacks (mean = 86.9, SD = 13.0) from (Reynolds, Chastain, Kaufman, & McLean, 1987, p. 330). Significance data is from Herrnstein & Murray (1994). Note that correlation is not causation. For example poverty can be both a cause and consequence of low IQ. |
Small differences in IQ, while relatively unimportant at the level of an individual, would theoretically have large effects at a population level. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) calculate that a 3-point drop in average IQ would have little effect on factors like marriage, divorce, or unemployment. However, the drop from IQ 100 to 97 would increase poverty rates by 11 percent and the proportion of children living in poverty by 13 percent. All else being equal, similar rises would occur in rates of children born to single mothers, men in jail, high school drop-out, and men prevented from working due to health-related problems. In contrast, if average IQ were to increase 3-points to 103, poverty rates would fall 25 percent, children living in poverty would fall 20 percent, and high school drop-out rates would fall 28 percent.
Condition (matching IQ) | Blacks | Whites |
---|---|---|
High school graduation (103) | 91 | 89 |
College graduation (114) | 68 | 50 |
High-level occupation (117) | 26 | 10 |
Living in poverty (100) | 14 | 6 |
Unemployed for 1 month or more (100) | 15 | 11 |
Married by age 30 (100) | 58 | 79 |
Unwed mother with children (100) | 51 | 10 |
Has ever been on welfare (100) | 30 | 12 |
Mothers in poverty receiving welfare (100) | 74 | 56 |
Having a low birth-weight baby (100) | 6 | 3 |
Average annual wage (100) | $25,001 | $25,546 |
from Herrnstein & Murray (1994), Chapter 14. |
Studies from The Bell Curve and elsewhere indicate that controlling for IQ narrows, eliminates, or even reverses the Black-White gap in social and economic factors associated with IQ. After controlling for IQ, the probability of having a college degree or working in a high-IQ occupation is higher for Blacks than Whites. Controlling for IQ shrinks the income gap from thousands to a few hundred dollars. Controlling for IQ cuts differential poverty by about three-quarters and unemployment differences by half. However, controlling for IQ has little effect on differential marriage rates. For many other factors, controlling for IQ eliminates the differences between Whites and Hispanics, but the Black-White gap remains (albeit smaller).
Another study found that wealth, race and schooling are important to the inheritance of economic status, but IQ is not a major contributor and the genetic transmission of IQ is even less important.[21]
Whites are not a homogeneous group regarding real-world outcomes. For example, in the U.S. 33.6% of persons with self-reported Scottish ancestry has completed college, while only 16.7% of persons with self-reported French-Canadian ancestry have done so.[22]
Differences in intelligence have been used to explain differences in economic growth between nations. One example is IQ and the Wealth of Nations. The book, which has not been peer-reviewed, is sharply criticized in the peer-reviewed paper The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth.[23] It has been argued that East Asian nations underachieve compared to IQ scores. One suggested explanation is that verbal IQ is more important than spatial IQ.[24] The book Guns, Germs and Steel instead argues that historical differences in economic and technological development for different areas can be explained by differences in geography, which affects factors like population density and spread of new technology, noting for instance that current IQ scores cannot explain why the world's first civilizations appeared along the river plains in the Middle East.
The book World on Fire notes the existence in many nations of successful minorities that have created and control a disproportionate share of the economy. Examples include Chinese in Southeast Asia; Whites, Indians, Lebanese and Ibo in Africa; Whites in Latin America; and Jews in Russia. These minorities are often resented and sometimes persecuted by the less successful majority.
In the United States, Jews, Japanese, and Chinese earn incomes 1.72, 1.32, and 1.12 times the American average, respectively (Sowell, 1981, p. 5). Jews and East Asians have higher rates of college attendance, greater educational attainment, and are many times overrepresented in the Ivy League and many of the United States' most prestigious schools (Sowell, pp. 7, 93)[25], even though affirmative action discriminates against East Asians in the admissions process. In various Southeast Asian nations, Chinese control a majority of the wealth despite being a minority of the population and are resented by the majority, and in some cases are the target of violence (Sowell, pp. 133-134; Purdey, 2002).
Achievement in science, a high-complexity occupation in which practitioners tend to have IQs well above average, also appears consistent with some group IQ disparity. Only 0.25% of the world population is Jewish, but Jews make up 20–30% of all Nobel prize winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine.[26] A significant decline in the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Europeans, and a corresponding increase in the number of prizes awarded to US citizens, occurred at the same time as Nazi persecutions of Jews during the 1930s and the Holocaust during the 1940s.[27]
Policy implications
- See also: Intelligence and public policy
The public policy implications of IQ and race research are possibly the greatest source of controversy surrounding this issue. For example, the conservative policy recommendations of Herrnstein and Murray in The Bell Curve were denounced by many. Indeed, even proponents of a partly genetic interpretation of the IQ gap such as Rushton and Jensen (2005) and Gottfredson (2005b) argue that their interpretation does not in itself demand any particular policy response. They argue instead that the primary determinant of policy conclusions from race and intelligence research will be political philosophy itself.
For example, while a conservative/libertarian commentator like Charles Murray may call for reductions in affirmative action, a liberal commentator may use the same evidence to argue from a Rawlsian point of view (that genetic advantages are undeserved and unjust) for substantial and permanent affirmative action (Gottfredson, 2005b). This point of view was summarized in the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" statement published in the Wall Street Journal in 1994:
The research findings neither dictate nor preclude any particular social policy, because they can never determine our goals. They can, however, help us estimate the likely success and side-effects of pursuing those goals via different means.[28]
While not specifically race-related, policies focused on geographical regions or nations may have disproportionate influences on certain racial groups and on cognitive development. Differences in healthcare, nutrition, regulation of environmental toxins, and geographic distribution of diseases and control strategies between the developing world and developed nations have all been subjects of policies or policy recommendations (see health and nutrition policies relating to intelligence).
Finally, genetic engineering may one day be able to directly change any genetic determinants found to influence intelligence, racial traits (like skin color) or both. This change may make the genetic component of intelligence and/or racial characteristics a matter of voluntary parental (or enforced governmental) decision. In principle, such advancements would make the current concept and discussion of race and intelligence obsolete.
Notes
- ^ Reynolds, C. R., Chastain, R. L., Kaufman, A. S., & McLean, J. E. (1987). Demographic characteristics and IQ among adults: Analysis of the WAIS-R standardization sample as a function of the stratification variables. Journal of School Psychology, 25, 323-324.
- ^ Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko, and Kenneth K. Kidd, "Intelligence, Race, and Genetics," American Psychologist 60, no. 1 (January 2005): 46–51.
- ^ Ulrich Neisser et al., "Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns," American Psychologist 51, no. 2 (February 1996): 77–101.
- ^ "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," Wall Street Journal, December 13, 1994.
- ^ Carl N. Degler, In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1992); John C. Loehlin, Gardner Lindzey, and J. N. Spuhler, Race Differences in Intelligence (New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1975).
- ^ P. Broca, "Sur les crânes de la caverne de l’Homme Mort (Loere)," Revue d’Anthropologie 2 (1873): 1–53.
- ^ Henry E. Garrett, "The equalitarian dogma," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 4 (1961): 480–84; Richard Lynn, The Science of Human Diversity: A History of the Pioneer Fund (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001), 45–54.
- ^ Lynn, Science of Human Diversity, 67–69.
- ^ William H. Tucker, The Funding of Scientific Racism (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002); Paul Lombardo, " 'The American Breed': Nazi eugenics and the origins of the Pioneer Fund," Albany Law Revue 65, no. 3 (2002): 743–830; Michael G. Kenny, "Toward a racial abyss: eugenics, Wickliffe Draper, and the origins of The Pioneer Fund," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 38, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 259–83.
- ^ "Racial Scientist Rushton Takes Over Pioneer Fund," Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies, January 2003.
- ^ Joseph L Graves, "What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory," Anthropological Theory 2, no. 2 (2002): 131–54; Leonard Lieberman, "How 'Caucasoids' got such big crania and why they shrank. From Morton to Rushton.," Current Anthropology 42, no. 1 (February 2001): 69–95; Zack Cernovsky, "On the similarities of American blacks and whites: A reply to J.P. Rushton," Journal of Black Studies 25 (1995): 672.
- ^ J. Philippe Rushton, "Race, Intelligence and the Brain: The Errors and Omissions of the 'Revised' Edition of S.J. Gould's The Measure of Man," Journal of Individual Differences 23, no. 1 (1997): 169–80.
- ^ Phil Gasper, "A scientist of the people," SocialistWorker.org, June 7, 2002.
- ^ Goosed-Up Graphics: A generalization of the Lie Factor, graphs from Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, by Stephen Jay Gould (Three Rivers, MI: Three Rivers Press, 1997): 109, fig. 16.
- ^ Linda S. Gottfredson, "The General Intelligence Factor," Scientific American.
- ^ "IQ comments". Gene Expression. September 23.
{{cite web}}
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mismatch (help) - ^ JD Willms and M. Chen, "The effects of ability grouping on the ethnic achievement gap in Israeli elementary schools," American Journal of Education 97, no. 3 (1989): 237–57.
- ^ Ulrich Neisser et al., "Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns," American Psychologist 51, no. 2 (February 1996): 77–101.
- ^ Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, "Heredity, Environment, and Cranial Form: A Reanalysis of Boas’s Immigrant Data," American Anthropologist 105, no. 1 (2003); Gravlee, Bernard, and Leonard, "Boas’s Changes in Bodily Form: The Immigrant Study, Cranial Plasticity, and Boas’s Physical Anthropology," American Anthropologist 105, no. 2 (June 2003); R.L. Jantz and Lee Meadows Jantz, "Secular change in craniofacial morphology," American Journal of Human Biology 12, no. 3 (April 1999): 327–38; R.L. Jantz, "Cranial change in Americans: 1850–1975," Journal of Forensic Sciences 46, no. 4 (July 2001): 784–87.
- ^ Gottfredson (2005b); Snyderman, M., & Rothman, S. (1987). "Survey of expert opinion on intelligence and aptitude testing". American Psychologist, 42, 137–144.; Ulrich Neisser et al., "Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns," American Psychologist 51, no. 2 (February 1996): 77–101.; "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," Wall Street Journal, December 13, 1994.
- ^ Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, "The Inheritance of Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives 16, no. 3 (Summer 2002). Note that race, schooling and IQ are all correlated, so considering them as separate factors lessens the apparent effect of IQ.
- ^ Myth: Some ethnic groups have genetically inferior IQ's, U.S. Census data reported by Andrew Hacker; "Caste, Crime and Precocity," in The Bell Curve Wars, by Steven Fraser ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 105.
- ^ Thomas Volken, "The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth."
- ^ "Smart Fraction Theory II: Why Asians Lag," La Griffe du Lion 6, no. 2 (May 2004).
- ^ Gerhard Falk, "American Jews"
- ^ Jewish Nobel Prize Winners, JINFO.ORG.
- Old World vs. New World: Evolution of Nobel Prize Shares," University of Maryland (December 2004). Wolfgang Jank, Bruce L. Golden, and Paul F. Zantek, "
- ^ See note 3 above.
See also
- Brain to body mass ratio
- Craniometry
- Neuroscience and intelligence
- Race and crime
- Sex and intelligence
- Scientific racism
References
External links
Consensus Statements
- The Wall Street Journal: Mainstream Science on IntelligencePDF
- APA Task Force Examines the Knowns and Unknowns of Intelligence
Review Papers
- June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2.
- Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability J. Philippe Rushton & Arthur R. Jensen
- There Are No Public-Policy Implications Robert J. Sternberg
- What if the Heriditarian Hypothesis is True? Linda S. Gottfredson
- Heredity, Environment, and Race Differences in IQ Richard E. Nisbett
- The Cultural Malleability of Intelligence and Its Impact on the Racial/Ethnic Hierarchy Lisa Suzuki & Joshua Aronson
- Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy J. Philippe Rushton & Arthur R. Jensen
- Race, Genetics and IQ Richard E. Nisbett (PDF)
Others
- The Skeptic's Dictionary entry on IQ and race
- Poverty and Brain Development in Early Childhood 1999 report
- The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age, American Educator, Spring 2003
- The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998) online (page-image) version of ISBN 0815746091
- Miscellaneous articles by Richard Lynn et al.
- Crippled by Their Culture - Race doesn't hold back America's black rednecks. Nor does racism by Thomas Sowell
- Cultural Bias in Intelligence Testing
- Cultural Bias in IQ Testing
- Are IQ Tests Biased?
- Psychological Testing (Powerpoint)
- Culturally Inane
- Scholars Provide an Overview of Explanations for Black-White Test Score Gap