Race and intelligence

File:Sketch-4race-transparent2.png

1981 normal distribution comparing races and ethnic groups with IQ among U.S. test subjects show differences in average test scores, as seen in this graph based on averages from Template:AYref (and others). The curves extend across the entire X-axis (from <55 to >145) for all groups and do not indicate a maximum or minimum IQ for any group. Whether the IQ gaps have narrowed since then and will continue to narrow or have remained consistent throughout the history of testing, and the causes and meaning of the different average scores for these groups are debated.

Race and intelligence is a controversial area of intelligence research studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of racial and ethnic group differences in intelligence test scores and other measures of cognitive ability.

This research is grounded in several controversial assumptions:

• the social categories of race and ethnicity are concordant with genetic categories, such as biogeographic ancestry.
• intelligence is measurable (see psychometrics) and is dominated by a unitary general cognitive ability.

Much of the evidence currently cited is based on IQ testing in the United States. While the distributions of IQ scores among different racial-ethnic groups overlap and often have a comparable range, groups differ in where their members cluster along the IQ scale. Similar clustering occurs with related variables, such as school achievement, reaction time, and brain size, and the gap shows up before age 3 on most standardized tests after matching for variables such as maternal education. Most variation in IQ in the U.S. occurs within individual families, not between races. However, even small differences in average IQ at the group level might theoretically have large effects on social outcomes. For example, a randomly selected group of Americans with an average IQ of 103 had a poverty rate 25% lower than a group with an average IQ of 100. Similar substantial correlations in high school drop-out rates, crime rates, and other outcomes have been measured.

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why average IQ varies among racial-ethnic groups even though the ranges of individual IQ scores are virtually identical. Certain environmental factors, such as nutrition, are thought to modulate IQ in children, and other influences have been hypothesized, including education level, richness of the early home environment, and other social, cultural, or economic factors. The primary focus of the scientific debate is whether group IQ differences also reflect a genetic component. Hereditarianism hypothesizes that a genetic contribution to intelligence could include genes linked to neuron structure or function, brain size or metabolism, or other physiological differences which could vary with biogeographic ancestry.

The findings of this field are often thought to conflict with fundamental social philosophies, and have thus engendered a large controversy. Some of the researchers who publicly argue for the partly genetic hypothesis have received grants from the Pioneer Fund, which has been accused of racism by some scientists and the SPLC. Other scientists, such as Steven Pinker, argue unnecessary fear of the implications of the science of human nature has led to large swaths of the intellectual landscape being reengineered to deny fundamental aspects of human nature. Media portrayal of the role of genetic and environmental factors in explaining individual and group differences in IQ was shown in a 1988 study to be misleading regarding mainstream expert opinion. Some 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. Some critics fear the misuse of the research, question its utility, and feel that comparing the intelligence of racial groups is itself unethical. For instance, the disparity in average IQ among racial groups is sometimes mistaken for the idea that all members of one race are more intelligent than all members of another, or that ranking group IQ averages from "high" to "low" implies a moral ranking of races from "good" to "bad" or an overall ranking of "superior" to "inferior". The conclusion that some racial groups have lower average IQ scores, and the hypothesis that a genetic component may be involved, have led to heated academic debates that have spilled over into the public sphere.

Background information

Race

Main article: Race

| See also: Race and multilocus allele clusters

Racial distinctions are generally made on the basis of skin color, facial features, inferred ancestry, national origin and self-identification. In an ongoing debate, some geneticists argue race is neither a meaningful concept nor a useful heuristic device, and even that genetic differences between groups are biologically meaningless, on the basis of that more genetic variation exists within such races than between them, and that racial traits overlap without discrete boundaries. Other geneticists, in contrast, argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful , that these categories correspond with clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data, and that this correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation between groups.

It is well known that many alleles vary in frequency across human populations. While most of this variation is selectively neutral and has no obvious phenotypic effect, a significant portion of human genes do show evidence of recent natural selection, leading to functional differences between populations. Recent studies have shown that some genes involved in brain development and other neuronal functions have variants that have spread to high frequencies under selective pressure and now occur in substantially different frequencies in different global populations. However, their effect, if any, on IQ is unknown. (Discussed below.)

Worldwide, human populations are geographically bounded into five less than perfectly distinct continental areas: the Americas, Eurasia (including Europe, North Africa and West Asia), East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific Islands (including Australia). At least for subjects of biomedical research in the United States, self-identified racials labels correspond to geographic regions of genetic ancestry, with only a small number of individuals showing genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. People labeled Blacks have most of their ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa, Whites from Europe (and sometimes the Middle East and North Africa), and East Asians from the north-western Pacific Rim. Hispanics form a genetically diverse group that includes many recent U.S. immigrants of mixed ancestry, and are more often called an ethnic group.

The political, social and cultural structure of the United States is still weighted by race. It was only in the 1960s that racial discrimination became illegal in many areas of public and private life, including employment and housing, and some consider discrimination to remain prevalent. The national and state governments of the United States employ racial categorization in the census, law enforcement, and innumerable other ways. Many political organizations intend to represent the interests of specific racial groups. See the articles Race and Race (U.S. Census) for further discussion.

Intelligence testing

Main article: Intelligence quotient

Intelligence is most commonly measured using IQ tests. These tests are often geared to be good measures of the psychometric variable g, and other tests that measure g (for example, the Armed Forces Qualifying Test and the SAT) also serve as measures of cognitive ability.

All such tests are often called "intelligence tests," though the use of the term "intelligence" is itself controversial. It is clear, however, that performance in these tests correlates with performance in similar life tasks (school grades and to a lower degree college grades). The correlation with many real-world results is lower. For example, while the correlation of IQ with job performance is strong, income is modestly correlated and accumulated wealth is only weakly correlated. The genetic transmission of wealth via IQ is near zero. As commonly used, "IQ test" denotes any test of cognitive ability, and "IQ" is used as shorthand for scores on tests 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. Historically, criticisms of the validity of IQ testing focused primarily on questions of "test bias", which has many related meanings. Several conclusions about tests of cognitive ability are now largely accepted:

• IQ scores measure many, but not all of the qualities that people mean by intelligent or smart (for example, IQ does not measure creativity, wisdom, or personality)
• IQ scores are fairly stable over much of a person's life
• IQ tests are predictive of school and job performance, to a degree that does not significantly vary by socio-economic or racial-ethnic background
• For people living in the prevailing conditions of the developed world, cognitive ability is substantially heritable, and while the impact of family environment on the IQ of children is substantial, after adolescence this effect becomes difficult to detect.

See the articles Intelligence, IQ, and general intelligence factor for further discussion of the validity of these tests.

The contemporary debate: results and interpretations

The contemporary scholarly debate about race and intelligence involves both the relatively uncontroversial experimental results that indicate that average IQ test scores vary among racial groups, and the relatively more controversial interpretations of these IQ differences. In general, contemporary interpretations of the "IQ gap" can be divided into three broad categories:

1. "culture-only" or "environment-only" interpretations that posit overwhelmingly non-genetic causes (for example, socioeconomic inequality or minority group membership) that differentially affect racial groups;
2. "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;
3. "insufficient data": no meaningful interpretation can be made based on available evidence.

History

Sir Francis Galton wrote on eugenics and psychometrics in the 19th C.

1850s to World War II

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. Charles Darwin wrote in his Descent of Man (VII, On the races of Man): "[T]he various [human] races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other—as in the texture of hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body, the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even the convolutions of the brain. But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties."

Anthropologist Franz Boas was a prominent 20th C. critic of claims that intelligence differed among races.

The writings of Sir Francis Galton, elaborating on the work of his cousin Darwin, spurred interest in the study of mental abilities, particularly as they relate to 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. Average ethnic and racial group differences in IQ were first found due to the widespread use of standardized mental tests during World War I.

Beginning in the 1930s, race difference research and hereditarianism — the belief that genetics contribute to differences in intelligence among humans — began to fall out of favor in psychology and anthropology after large internal debates. In anthropology this occurred 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." 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.

Post WWII and modern times

Inspired by the American eugenics movement, Nazi Germany implemented the T-4 Euthanasia Program in which roughly 200,000 mentally and physically disabled Germans were killed, and about 400,000 sterilized. Due in part 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.

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Charles Murray (pictured) and Richard Herrnstein started the contemporary debate with The Bell Curve in 1994.

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.

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In The Mismeasure of Man, updated in 1996, Stephen Jay Gould criticized many aspects of IQ research.

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, he wrote on some of the major issues that characterize the partly genetic hypothesis of racial IQ differences, and on compensatory educational programs. 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, which included two chapters on the subject of racial difference in intelligence and related life outcomes. In response to The Bell Curve, Stephen Jay Gould updated The Mismeasure of Man in 1996. Among other things, he criticized the IQ test as a measure of intelligence, citing what he perceived as inherent racial and social biases as well as systematic flaws in the testing process.

The introduction of biomedicine tailored to the genetics and disease patterns of specific racial groups is currently one of the factors adding to the complexity and controversy of debates on race and science. In 2006, 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".

Public controversy

Main article: Race and intelligence (Public controversy)

Media portrayal

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Template:AYref surveyed science journalists, editors, and academics in intelligence-related topics, including race and intelligence research. The opinions of journalists and editors differed substantially from those of IQ experts.

Main article: Race and intelligence (Media portrayal)

Media portrayal of intelligence-related topics, including race and intelligence research, was found in a 1988 study to be misrepresentative of opinion among scholars in relevant fields, including subfields of psychology, sociology, cognitive science, education, and genetics. Among these scholars, 53% thought that the Black-White gap was partially genetic and 17% thought it was entirely environmental, but media reports were found to misrepresent the majority view and portray scholars in the minority as representative of mainstream opinion in their fields. (See below: Expert opinion.)

A 2004 study found widespread and systematic research misinterpretation regarding one of the more popular explanations for the IQ gap. Introducing stereotype threat to a test-taking environment has been shown to increase the existing gap between Blacks or Whites in relation to Whites or Asians respectively, and has thus been offered as a potential contributor to the gap. However, 88% of accounts in the popular media, 91% in scientific journals, and 67% in psychology textbooks misinterpreted the findings as that eliminating the introduced stereotype threat eliminated the Black-White gap, when in fact the students had already been matched according to prior scores. The authors suggest the appeal of the misinterpreted findings may have been a factor, and that such research results in general may in this way be systemically more readily accepted.

Utility of research and racism

Main article: Race and intelligence (Utility of research)

One criticism of race and intelligence research, regardless of whether racial differences are genetic or not, questions its utility. It's been argued that society might actually be better off "with an untruth: that there is no good reason for this [racial] inequality, and therefore society is at fault and we must try harder."

The Southern Poverty Law Center has stated: "Race science has potentially frightening consequences, as is evident not only from the horrors of Nazi Germany, but also from the troubled racial history of the United States. If white supremacist groups had their way, the United States would return to its dark days. In publication after publication, hate groups are using this 'science' to legitimize racial hatred."

Some scientists, including W. D. Hamilton, considered by some to be one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century,, argue that suppressing race and intelligence research is actually more harmful than dealing with it honestly. Pioneer fund grantee Linda Gottfredson argues:

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.

Steven Pinker argues that opposition to racism is based on moral, not scientific assumptions, and is not vulnerable to being disproved by bioscientific advances. "The case against bigotry is not a factual claim that humans are biologically indistinguishable. It is a moral stance that condemns judging an individual according to the average traits of certain groups...". Pinker suggests that intellectual life may not at present be prepared to deal with this area of inquiry.

Coming advances in genetics and genomics are expected to soon provide the ability to test hypotheses about group differences rigorously, whether between races, sexes, or other groups, in cognitive traits or temperament, musical or athletic talent, or in responses to biomedical treatments. Some scientists predict this will be the source of one of the biggest social and intellectual issues of the coming decades.

Accusations of bias

Main article: Race and intelligence (Accusations of bias)

The largest source of funding for proponents of the partly genetic interpretation, the Pioneer Fund, has been criticized by some critics as having a eugenic and racist political agenda, and has been characterized by the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group," using the definition "attack[ing] or malign[ing] an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics". Other critics regard the fund as having had an ultimately positive effect. Some critics have found it significant that some of the prominent researchers advancing genetic explanations have also opposed affirmative action and school integration.

Steven Pinker argues a fear of the implications of the science of human nature ("mind, brain, genes, and evolution") has led to the perception that these are dangerous ideas. Pinker argues this has resulted in a denial of human nature in which "large swaths of the intellectual landscape have been reengineered to try to rule [...] hypotheses out a priori (race does not exist, intelligence does not exist, the mind is a blank slate inscribed by parents)." Scientists working in these areas have in the past been targets of censorship, violence, and comparisons to Nazis.

Average gaps among races

Main article: Race and intelligence (Average gaps among races)

File:IQ-4races-rotate-highres.png

Cumulative IQ gaps by race or ethnicity based on 1981 U.S. distributions. According to these findings, WAIS IQs for Whites (mean = 101.4, SD = 14.7) were higher than those for Blacks (mean = 86.9, SD = 13.0); distributions for Hispanics (mean = 91), East Asians (mean = 106), and Ashkenazi Jews (mean = 112-115) are less precise because of overlap and small sample size. These curves only show scores from the 1st to the 99th percentile (covering 98% of the population). The modern debate focuses on what causes these disparities in average IQ, and whether the gaps are shrinking. Based on Template:AYref, p. 330. Note that the data is 25 years old. Some researchers find much smaller gaps today (Template:AYref).

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. Most attempted compilations of average IQ by race place Ashkenazi Jews at the top, followed by East Asians, whites, Hispanics and Native Americans, African Americans, Sub-Saharan Africans, and Indigenous Australians. Whether these gaps are narrowing or not is debated.

Some other psychological traits have also been found to vary significantly in distribution, but variance in cognitive ability is seen as a more pressing phenomenon.

World-wide scores

The largest review of the global cognitive ability data is Richard Lynn's 2006 Race Differences in Intelligence, which organizes the data by the nine global genetic clusters identified in previous genetic cluster analysis. In general, Lynn lists East Asians and Europeans as demonstrating the highest average scores, indigenous Americans and other Eurasians with intermediate average IQ, and Africans and Australian Aborigines with the lowest average IQ. Lynn's 2006 survey totals 620 published IQ studies from around the world, surveying a total of 813,778 tested individuals, and is an expansion by four times of the data collected in his 2002 IQ and the Wealth of Nations with Tatu Vanhanen. IQatWoN received strong criticism for both error and alleged bias, but has also been used as a source of IQ data and hypotheses used in several peer-reviewed studies.

IQ scores vary greatly among different nations for related groups. Black Africans score much lower than blacks in the US, although Black Americans average about 7-20% European admixture. Some reports indicate that the black–white gap is smaller in the UK than in the U.S. Many studies also show differences in IQ between different groups of whites. In Israel, large gaps in test scores and achievement separate Ashkenazi Jews from other groups such as the Sephardi.

Brain size, employment tests, and school achievement

IQ has a moderate correlation with various measures of brain size and performance on elementary tests of response time. For example, a 2005 meta-analysis found that brain size correlates with IQ by a factor of approximately .40 among adults. Reaction times correlate with IQ by about .30 to .50. Studies have shown racial differences in both brain size and tests of response time. 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.

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. 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. However, the achievement gap in the U.S. has shrunk since the 1970s.

Cultural or genetic explanation?

File:TBC-BW-IQ-SES-withDiff.png

Within individual countries, family social-economic variables are positively correlated with IQ scores. However, the black-white score gap persists at all socio-economic levels. These kinds of findings suggest that simple differences in socio-economic status cannot explain all of the IQ gap (reviewed in Template:AYref). Data from the NLSY reported in Template:AYref.

Main article: Race and intelligence (Culture-only or partially-genetic explanation)

Introduction

The most widely accepted view among intelligence researchers is that IQ differences among individuals of the same race reflect real, functionally/socially significant, and substantially genetic differences in the general intelligence factor, g. It is likewise widely believed that average IQ differences among races reflect real and significant differences in the same g factor. While these conclusions are largely beyond technical dispute, the nature of g is still an active area of research.

However, it is a matter of debate whether the causes of IQ differences among races are entirely environmental or partly genetic. Several published consensus statements agree that the large difference between the average IQ scores of Blacks and Whites in the U.S. cannot be attributed to biases in test construction, nor can the whole gap be explained completely 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 (see above for worldwide data). That research cannot directly be generalized to the world as a whole. Blacks in the US do not constitute a random sample of the original African population, 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 (for example, HIV, anemia or chronic parasites) that may affect IQ test scores.

The extent to which the IQ gap is caused by genetic or environmental factors is logically independent of the ability for intervention to reduce the gap. A genetic cause is not necessarily irremediable (e.g. diabetes, myopia, and phenylketonuria) and an environmental cause may not be remediable (e.g. accidents and some diseases). Based in part on this distinction, Template:A(Y)ref argue that determining the extent to which genes or environment cause the IQ gap is unimportant.

Cultural explanations

Although IQ is regarded as being highly heritable, this does not mean that IQ differences between racial groups are necessarily genetic in origin, because estimates of heritability are dependent on a given environment. For example, in schizophrenia, also regarded as being highly heritable, increased rates in second and third generation immigrants to Western European countries do not seem to be the result of increased genetic susceptibility, but another, as yet unidentified, environmental factor.

Regarding the IQ gaps in the U.S., it has also been suggested that African-American culture disfavors academic achievement and fosters an environment that is damaging to IQ. Likewise, it is argued that the persistence of negative racial stereotypes reinforces this effect. John Ogbu has developed a hypothesis that the condition of being a "caste-like minority" affects motivation and achievement, depressing IQ. Similarly, it's suggested reduced performance from "stereotype threat" could be a contributing factor.

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James R. Flynn discovered the Flynn effect, that average IQ scores are increasing worldwide.

Many anthropologists have argued that intelligence is a cultural category; some cultures emphasize speed and competition more than others, for example. Speculations about innate differences in intelligence between ethnic groups have occurred throughout history. Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. and Cicero in the 1rst. century B.C. disparaged the intelligence of the northern Europeans of the time, as did the Moors in Iberia in the 11th century.

Even proponents of the view that the IQ gap is caused partly by genetic differences recognize that non-genetic factors are likely to be involved.

In the developing world many factors can greatly decrease IQ scores. Examples include nutrition deficiencies in iodine and iron; certain diseases like malaria; unregulated toxic industrial substances like lead and mercury; and poor health care for pregnant women and infants. Also in the developed world there are many non-genetic biological factors that can affect IQ. 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. Indeed, one author has compiled a list of over one hundred possible causes of the Black-White IQ gap.[10]

The secular, international increase in test scores, commonly called the Flynn effect, is seen by Flynn and others as reason to expect the eventual convergence of average Black and White IQ scores. As demonstrated by Flynn, the average IQ scores in several countries have increased about 3 points per decade during the 20th century, which he and others attribute predominately to environmental causes. This means, given the same test, the mean Black American performance today could be higher than the mean White American performance in 1920, though the gains causing this appear to have occurred predominantly in the lower half of the IQ distribution. If changes in environment can cause such large changes in IQ over time, they argue, then contemporary differences between groups could also be due to an unknown environmental factor. On the supposition that the effect started earlier for Whites, because their social and economical conditions began to improve earlier than did those of Blacks, they anticipate that the IQ gap among races might change in the future or is even now changing. An added complication to this hypothesis is the question of whether the secular IQ gains can be predomiantely a change in real intelligence. Flynn's face-value answer to this question is "No", and other researchers have found reason to concur. Responding to such concerns, Template:AYref have proposed a solution which rests on genotype-environment correlation, hypothesizing that small initial differences in environment cause feedback effects which magnify into large IQ differences. Such differences would need to develop before age 3, when the Black-White IQ gap can be first detected.

Many studies that attempt to test for heritability find results that do not support the genetic hypothesis. They include studies on IQ and skin color, self-reported European ancestry, children in post WWII Germany born to Black and White American soldiers, blood groups, and mixed-race children born to either a Black or a White mother. Many intervention and adoption studies also find results that do not support the genetic hypothesis. Non-hereditarians have argued that these are direct tests of the genetic hypothesis and of more value than indirect variables, such as skull size and reaction time.. Hereditarians argue that these studies are flawed, or that they do support the partly-genetic hypothesis

A recent theory hypothesizes that fluid cognition (gF') may be separable from general intelligence, and that gF' may be very susceptible to environmental factors, in particular early childhood stress. Some IQ tests, especially those used with children, are poor measures of gF', which means that the effect of the environment on intelligence regarding racial differences, the Flynn effect, early childhood intervention, and life outcomes may have been underestimated in many studies. The article has recived numerous peer commentaries for and against.[11]

Genetic explanations

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The contemporary debate can be traced to psychologist Arthur Jensen in 1969.

Arthur Jensen and others have concluded that the US IQ gap is substantially genetic. Rushton and Jensen 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. Under their interpretation of Lakatos's technical concept of research programs, Jensen and Rushton argue that the culture-only hypothesis is not "progressive" but "degenerating".

To support these claims, they most often cite four main lines of converging data:

1. • Worldwide Black–White–East Asian differences in IQ, reaction time, and brain size
   • Black-White IQ differences are observable in the U.S. at every age above 3 years, within every occupation or socioeconomic level, in every region of the country, and at every time since the invention of ability tests.
2. Where examined, race differences are most pronounced on tests that are the strongest measures of g (see Spearman's hypothesis), which also show the highest heritability, show the highest inbreeding depression scores, and on tests which are the least culturally loaded
3. • The rising heritability of IQ with age (within all races; on average in the developed world heritability starts at 20% in infants, rises to 40% in middle childhood, and peaks at 80% in adulthood)
   • The disappearance (~0.0) by adulthood of shared environmental effects on IQ (for example, family income, education, and home environment), making adopted siblings no more similar in IQ than strangers
4. US comparisons of both parents to children and siblings to each other finds regression to differing means for different races (85 for Blacks and 100 for Whites) across the entire range of IQs, despite the fact that siblings are matched for shared environment and genetic heritage, with regression unaffected by family socioeconomic status and generation examined

For fuller listings of evidence for the partly-genetic position, see Comparison of interpretations, Template:A(Y)ref, or this press release.

Template:A(Y)ref believe that the best explanation is that 50%-80% of the group differences in average US IQ is genetic. Other evidence, such as transracial adoption, differing SAT scores even when matched for socioeconomic status and parental education, certain racial admixture studies, "life-history" traits, and evolutionary explanations have also been proposed to indicate a genetic contribution to the IQ gaps and explain how these arose. Critics of this view, such as Robert Sternberg, argue that these studies are either flawed and thus inconclusive, or else that they support the culture-only hypothesis. Template:AYref reanalyzed the data from several earlier studies and concluded that Spearman's hypothesis is not an "empirically established fact" (i.e., that Black-White IQ differences may be due to differences in common factors other than g) due to insufficient power in the data to choose between alternative models. "This leaves the validity of Spearman's hypothesis, considered a central justification for the genetic explanation, an unresolved question." However, they did confirm that the Black-White IQ gap is not due to measurement artifacts, and is instead due to some measured factor that varies both within and between groups.

Several recent studies have found some neuronal genes have variants that have spread to high frequencies under selective pressure and now occur in different frequencies in different global populations. Some of this selection occurred quite recently. For example, a new variant of the ASPM gene is estimated to have swept to high frequency 500-14,100 years ago, with researchers favouring 5,800 as most likely. The cause of the selective sweep and the effects of these variants are generally not yet known, although some suspect that they could be related to intelligence. Although neurogenic diversity theoretically increases the chances of functional diversity, ultimately, very little is known about the actual impact of these variants - the researchers caution that they may not have anything to do with cognition or intelligence at all.

Expert opinion

In a 1987 survey of scholars in specialties related to IQ in Education, Psychology, Sociology, and Cognitive Science, given four choices, 52.9% of respondents supported the "partly genetic" position, 1.2% of respondents supported the "entirely genetic" position, 17.7% supported the "entirely environmental" position, and 28.2% responded that there was insufficient data "to support any reasonable opinion". Respondents on average called themselves slightly left of center politically, but political and social opinions accounted for less than 10% of the variation in responses.

According to the American Psychological Association's 1995 task force report on intelligence research, in contrast:

It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis.

The APA journal that published the statement subsequently published eleven critical responses in 1997, most arguing that the report failed to examine adequately the evidence for partly-genetic explanations. Charles Murray, for instance, responded:

Actually, there is no direct evidence at all, just a wide variety of indirect evidence, almost all of which the task force chose to ignore.

The report did agree with many of the statements on intelligence made in the Bell Curve and concludes with a call for more reflection in debates on intelligence and for a "shared and sustained effort" in more research to answer the many unanswered questions that remain. Coming advances in genetics and genomics are expected to soon provide the ability to test hypotheses about group differences more rigorously than has as yet been possible.

Researchers who believe that there is no significant genetic contribution to race differences in intelligence include Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, and Template:AYref. Some scientists who emphasize cultural explanations do not necessarily exclude a small genetic influence. Template:A(Y)ref suggests up to 20% genetic influence be included in the cultural explanation. Researchers who believe that there are significant genetic contributions to race differences in intelligence include Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, Template:AYref, and Template:AYref.

Significance of group IQ differences

See also: Practical importance of IQ

Within societies

There is substantial overlap in the distribution of IQ scores among individuals of each race. Template:A(Y)ref (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.

In essays accompanying the publication of The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray argue that whether the cause of the IQ gap is partly genetic or entirely environmental does not really matter because that knowledge alone would not help to eliminate the gap and that knowledge should not impact the way that individuals treat one another. They argue that group differences in intelligence ought not to be treated as more important or threatening than individual differences, but suggest that one legacy of Black slavery has been to exacerbate race relations such that Blacks and Whites cannot be comfortable with group differences in IQ or any other traits.

Moreover, although it may appear paradoxical, a goal of social egalitarianism is to raise the genetic contribution to intelligence to as high as possible, by minimizing environmental inequalities and any negatively IQ-impacting cultural differences (The Blank Slate, 106-107). If such conditions were achieved, any remaining group (but not individual) IQ differences would then be 100% hereditary: the only remaining factor that could potentially contribute to race-based outcome differences.

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. 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 "Practical importance of IQ".

The effects of differences in mean IQ between groups could be amplified by two statistical characteristics of IQ. First, there seem to be minimum statistical thresholds of IQ for many socially valued outcomes (for example, 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.

Approximate IQ Distributions & Significance in the United States

IQ range	Whites	Blacks	Black:White ratio	Training prospects	High school dropout	Lives in poverty	"Middle-Class Values" index
<75	3.6%	18.0%	~5:1	simple, supervised work; eligible for government assistance	55%	30%	16%
75-90	18.3%	41.4%	~2:1	very explicit hands on training; IQ >80 for military training; no government assistance	35%	16%	30%
90-100	24.3%	24.9%	~1:1	mastery learning, hands on	6%	6%	50%
100-110	25.9%	11.9%	~1:2	written material plus experience
110-125	22.5%	3.6%	~1:6	college format	0.4%	3%	67%
>125	5.4%	0.2%	~1:32	independent, self-teaching	0%	2%	74%
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). Training prospects from Wonderlic (1992). Significance data is from Herrnstein & Murray (1994), and is based on Whites only. Results from the total population are nearly indistinguishable. Results for Blacks only are similar but not identical (see the table below for comparisons between groups). Note that these are merely correlations. For example, poverty could be both a cause and consequence of low IQ.

Small differences in IQ, while relatively unimportant at the level of an individual, could theoretically have large effects at a population level. Extrapolating from IQ correlations, Template:A(Y)ref calculate that a 3-point drop in average IQ would have little effect on factors like marriage, divorce, or unemployment. However, a drop in IQ from 100 to 97-points 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.

Percentages of Blacks, Whites, and Latinos (Statistically Matched for IQ) in Educational and Social Outcomes

Condition (matching IQ)	Blacks	Whites	Latinos
High school graduation (103)	93	89	91
College graduation (114)	68	50	49
High-level occupation (117)	26	10	16
Living in poverty (100)	11	6	9
Unemployed for 1 month or more (100)	15	11	11
Married by age 30 (100)	58	79	75
Unwed mother with children (100)	51	10	17
Has ever been on welfare (100)	30	12	15
Mothers in poverty receiving welfare (100)	74	56	54
Having a low birth-weight baby (100)	6	3	5
Average annual wage (100)	$25,001	$25,546	$25,159
Men ever incarcerated (100)	5	2	3
"Middle-Class Values" index (100)	32	48	45
from Herrnstein & Murray (1994), Chapter 14.

Because IQ correlates with a number of social and economic outcomes that have been found to differ between the black and white populations overall, it is possible that some of the disparities in outcomes are due to group differences in IQ. Studies from The Bell Curve and elsewhere find that, when IQ is statistically controlled for, 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. Conversely, controlling for IQ in the above studies also reduces the apparent effect of wealth, race and schooling due to this same correlation.

White populations are not homogeneous groups regarding real-world outcomes. For example, in the U.S. 33.6% of persons with self-reported Scottish ancestry completed college, while only 16.7% of persons with self-reported French-Canadian ancestry have done so.

For additional discussion of the effects of controlling for group differences on a variety of outcomes and groups, see Template:AYref, and Template:AYref.

Between nations

Some people have attributed differential economic growth between nations to differences in the intelligence of their populations. One example is Richard Lynn's IQ and the Wealth of Nations. The book, is sharply criticized in the peer-reviewed paper The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth. Another peer-reviewed paper, Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: An Extreme-Bounds Analysis, finds a strong connection between intelligence and economic growth. It has been argued that East Asian nations underachieve compared to IQ scores. One suggested explanation is that verbal IQ is more important than visuospatial IQ.

Jared Diamond's 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) and differences in available crops and domesticatable animals. However, these environmental differences may operate in part by selecting for higher levels of IQ

For high-achieving minorities

The book World on Fire notes the existence in many nations of minorities that have created and control a disproportionate share of the economy, a market-dominant minority. Examples include Chinese in Southeast Asia; Whites, Indians, Lebanese and Igbo people of Western Africa; Whites in Latin America; and Jews in pre-World War II Europe, modern America, and modern 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, even though affirmative action discriminates against Asians in the admissions process (relative to Whites as well as to other minorities). At Harvard, for example, Asian American and Jewish students together make up 51% of the student body, though only constituting roughly 6% of the US population. 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, in some cases being the target of violence.

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 an estimated 28% of Nobel prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics. In the U.S., these numbers are 2% of the population and 40% of winners.

Some studies have shown significant variation in IQ subtest profiles between groups. In one analysis of IQ studies on Ashkenazi Jews, for example, high verbal and mathematical scores, but average or below average visuospatial scores were found. In a separate study, East Asians demonstrated high visuospatial scores, but average or slightly below average verbal scores. The professions in which these populations tend to be over-represented differ, and some believe the difference is directly related to IQ subtest score patterns asserted to exist. The high visiuospatial/average to below average verbal pattern of subtest scores has also been asserted to exist in fully assimilated third-generation Asian Americans, as well as in the Inuit and Native Americans (both of Asian origin).

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 Template:A(Y)ref and Template:A(Y)ref, argue that their interpretation does not in itself demand any particular policy response: while a conservative/libertarian commentator may feel the results justify reductions in affirmative action, a liberal commentator may argue from a Rawlsian point of view (that genetic advantages are undeserved and unjust) for substantial affirmative action. According to the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence"; statement published in Intelligence in 1997:

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.

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, germinal choice technology may one day be able to select or change directly alleles found to influence intelligence or racially identifying traits (such as skin color; see gene SLC24A5), making them susceptible to biotechnological intervention.

End material

See also

• Brain to body mass ratio
• Craniometry
• Hominid intelligence
• Neuroscience and intelligence
• Race and crime
• Sex and intelligence
• Scientific racism

References

Main article: Race and intelligence (References)

External links

Collective Statements

• The Wall Street Journal: Mainstream Science on IntelligencePDF
• APA Task Force Examines the Knowns and Unknowns of Intelligence
• Statement on "Race" and Intelligence. American Anthropological Association. Adopted December 1994.

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 Hereditarian 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)
• The Inequality Taboo Charles Murray
• The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998) online (page-image) version of ISBN 0815746091

Others

• Resurrecting Racism: The modern attack on black people using phony science. Historical and Investigative Research Francisco Gil-White 2005.
• Crippled by Their Culture - Race doesn't hold back America's black rednecks. Nor does racism by Thomas Sowell
• Race and IQ: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 by Thomas Sowell
• The Skeptic's Dictionary entry on IQ and race
• Criticism on source material of Bell Curve book
• Poverty and Brain Development in Early Childhood 1999 report
• Miscellaneous articles by Richard Lynn et al.
• Are IQ Tests Biased?
• Scholars Provide an Overview of Explanations for Black-White Test Score Gap
• School Readiness: Closing Racial and Ethnic Gaps
• La Griffe du Lion - pseudonymously released statistical analyses on this and related subjects. (Review)
• A review of the field (Jan. 2006) Kohn, Marek, "This racist undercurrent in the tide of genetic research: As taboos fall away, there's a danger that denial of racial difference will be replaced with uncritical acceptance," The Guardian.
• "The Lessons of the Ashkenazim: Groups and Genes," Steven Pinker, June 2006, The New Republic.