Talk:Race and intelligence/new intro feb 07



Race and intelligence are broad and variously defined terms used to classify and measure human beings. The relationship between race and intelligence has been a topic of study and speculation for western science, sociology, and philosophy since the 19th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries research on race and intelligence was often used to assert that one race was superior to another, justifying poor outcomes and treatment for the supposedly inferior race. Early notions about the differences among races grew out of stereotypes about non-whites developed during the period of colonialism and slavery.

As the study of intelligence grew into a more systematic and rigorous science, researchers developed tools such as IQ tests. Using these tests, many studies measuring the average intelligence of adults of different populations in the US were performed over the years. Some researchers strove to separate the science from racial politics. Evidence became available about significant gaps between the test scores of people identified as Blacks and people identified as Whites. Later, concurrent with the rise of Japan's economic power in the 1980s, Lieberman, a psychologist, noted that the gap thought to exist between Whites and Asians was reversed in academic circles, putting Asians at the top. The causes of these gaps in mean IQ test scores has been the major source of the modern controversy. There is significant disagreement about which environmental factors may be involved, whether or not genetics may play a role, and the relative magnitudes of genetic or environmental contributions.

Some researchers deny that race is a meaningful scientific category for the study of intelligence. Likewise, the idea of a 'measurable intelligence' is also controversial since many people question whether or not IQ tests measure innate qualities of individuals, or whether culture and environment play the primary role.

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Although the exact magnitude of the genetic and environmental components of the Black-White gap in IQ are debated, some direct research has been done adjusting for specific variables. A graph illustrates what the Black-White gap looks like when certain socioeconomic variables are controlled for. It is possible that as other non-genetic variables are controlled for, not only will the measured gap be eliminated, but even reversed, establishing a genetic deficit for Whites.

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Reanne Frank states, "The use of racial categories as a starting point for understanding genetic variation represents shoddy and imprecise research, leading to the misspecification of models and the misinterpretation of findings...It gives credence to the discredited findings of disreputable researchers: those who argue explicitly that there are many measurable genetic differences between racial groups, and implicitly that these racial differences connote hierarchical differences in worth."