Race and intelligence

Discussions of race and intelligence—specifically regarding claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines—have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups have been observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time.

Quotes

• It becoming ever more clear that the combination of racial gaps in IQ and the IQ taboo acts as a black hole that sucks all the intelligence out of an institution. Racial gaps in achievement are the overwhelmingly dominant fact driving school performance, for instance, but nobody is allowed to mention the IQ gap among the races, so misbegotten nonsense rushes in.
  • Steve Sailer, Why Do We Keep Writing About Intelligence? An IQ FAQ, VDARE, December 3, 2007

• If somebody invented a magic bullet tomorrow that would somehow eliminate racial IQ disparities among all babies born from now on, measurable (though diminishing) gaps in the total population would still exist until everybody alive today is dead in the 22nd century.
  • Steve Sailer, Crimethink and Thinking Ability, Taki's Magazine, January 30, 2012

• My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racial genetic in origin and thus not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in environment.
  • William Shockley, Interview with Black journal.

• I am overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to do my climb by moonlight and unroped. This is contrary to all my rock climbing teaching & does not mean poor training, but only a strong-headedness.
  • William Shockley, Memo to himself in 1947, regarding work on the transistor, as quoted in Broken Genius : The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age (2006) by Joel N. Shurkin, Ch. 7, p. 125.

• Nature has color-coded groups of individuals so that statistically reliable predictions of their adaptability to intellectual rewarding and effective lives can easily be made and profitably used by the pragmatic man-in-the street.
  • William Shockley, as quoted in "Shockley's Race View called 'Senile, Fascist'" in St. Petersburg Times (8 September 1971)

James D. Watson, "To question genetic intelligence is not racism" (2007)

To those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.

I have always fiercely defended the position that we should base our view of the world on the state of our knowledge, on fact, and not on what we would like it to be.

We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things.

"James Watson: To question genetic intelligence is not racism", in The Independent (19 October 2007)

• Science is no stranger to controversy. The pursuit of discovery, of knowledge, is often uncomfortable and disconcerting. I have never been one to shy away from stating what I believe to be the truth, however difficult it might prove to be. This has, at times, got me in hot water.
  Rarely more so than right now, where I find myself at the centre of a storm of criticism. I can understand much of this reaction. For if I said what I was quoted as saying, then I can only admit that I am bewildered by it. To those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.
  I have always fiercely defended the position that we should base our view of the world on the state of our knowledge, on fact, and not on what we would like it to be. This is why genetics is so important. For it will lead us to answers to many of the big and difficult questions that have troubled people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
  But those answers may not be easy, for, as I know all too well, genetics can be cruel. My own son may be one of its victims. Warm and perceptive at the age of 37, Rufus cannot lead an independent life because of schizophrenia, lacking the ability to engage in day-to-day activities.

• Since 1978, when a pail of water was dumped over my Harvard friend E. O. Wilson for saying that genes influence human behaviour, the assault against human behavioural genetics by wishful thinking has remained vigorous.
  But irrationality must soon recede. It will soon be possible to read individual genetic messages at costs which will not bankrupt our health systems. In so doing, I hope we see whether changes in DNA sequence, not environmental influences, result in behaviour differences. Finally, we should be able to establish the relative importance of nature as opposed to nurture.

• The thought that some people are innately wicked disturbs me. But science is not here to make us feel good. It is to answer questions in the service of knowledge and greater understanding.
  In finding out the extent to which genes influence moral behaviour, we shall also be able to understand how genes influence intellectual capacities.

• Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks.
  In some cases, how these genes function may help us to understand variations in IQ, or why some people excel at poetry but are terrible at mathematics. All too often people with high mathematical abilities have autistic traits. The same gene that gives some people such great mathematical abilities may also lead to autistic behaviour. This is why, in studying autism and schizophrenia, we believe that we shall come very close to a better understanding of intelligence and, therefore, of the differences in intelligence.

• We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things. The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity. It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science.
  To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers. It is very likely that at least some 10 to 15 years will pass before we get an adequate understanding for the relative importance of nature versus nurture in the achievement of important human objectives. Until then, we as scientists, wherever we wish to place ourselves in this great debate, should take care in claiming what are unarguable truths without the support of evidence.

See also

• Nathan Cofnas
• Eugenics
• Peter Frost
• Meng Hu
• Intelligence
• Karl Pearson
• Roger Pearson (anthropologist)
• Razib Khan
• Steven Pinker