Updating Differential Worth Race and IQ Be sure to review pages 77 81 in Graves to help understand heritability 18th and 19th Century anthropologists attempted to rank groups of people on the basis of skull size and shape, brain volume, and other measures Galton tried to quantify genius by racial groups In the 20th Century we have replaced these other measurements with intelligence testing Conclusions about racial rankings based on measurements such as IQ scores IQ Testing Alfred Binet commissioned to devise exams to identify children in primary school who needed some special education Binet explicitly denied that his test was measuring an innate biological property of general intelligence Henry Goddard translated Binet s scale in the U.S. Our thesis is that the chief determiner of human conduct is a unitary mental process which we call intelligence... this process is... Inborn... the degree of efficiency... and the consequent grade of intellectual or mental level for each individual is determined by the kind of chromosomes that come together... it is but little affected by any later influences IQ Takes Off Lewis Terman took the translated test and actively marketed it as a test of innate, inherited intelligence for ALL students in the U.S. Robert Yerkes, Colonel in the U.S. Army administered IQ tests to 1.75 million recruits for World War I Race and IQ Carl Brigham (1920s) later of the College Entrance Examination Board analyzed IQ tests given to WW I recruits He compared the IQ of different groups of immigrants to the U.S. Found that the longer a group had been in the U.S., the better they scored Irish, Germans, Swedes, British (early 19th century arrivals) scored higher than Eastern European Jews, Italians, Polish, Greek (1880-1920 arrivals in the U.S.) Argued from the association of length of stay to IQ that the differences were genetic with the Western and Northern Europeans having greater intellects than Southern and Eastern Europeans Race and IQ Brigham testified about his findings to congress along with several members of the Immigration Restriction League Helped pass the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 Restricted immigration of any group to 2% of their number in the 1890 census, the last one with minimal numbers of Jews, Eastern and Southern Europeans Aimed at keeping new arrivals from swamping the nativeborn Americans and lowering national intelligence. 1930 Brigham recanted along with other influential leaders in the IQ testing community Argued that the testing system was flawed and that the tests were measuring familiarity with American culture and language, not intelligence! Too late to impact migration policy 1
Race and IQ after WWII Arthur Jensen, Professor of Educational Psychology at U.C., Berkeley Originally subscribed to an environmental interpretation of racial differences 1967 maintained that lower achievement of Negroes and Mexicans was due to powerful racial barriers to upward social mobility Switched to a heavily race based perspective Postdoctoral research at the University of London with Eysenck, a student of Cyril Burt strongly influenced by his views on the hereditary nature of intelligence 1967 spent a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship at Stanford where he was converted to the racial view of intelligence through discussions with William Shockley Shockley, a physicist, won a Nobel prize in physics in 1956 for the invention of the transistor in 1947 Obviously he would know about race and intelligence! Arthur Jensen Jensen A. 1967. The Culturally disadvantaged: Psychological and education aspects. Educational Research, 10:4-20. [Lower tested achievement of Blacks and Hispanics] cannot be interpreted as evidence of poor genetic potential... [because of] powerful barriers to social mobility. Jensen A. 1969. How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement? Harvard Educational Review, 33:1-123. Biological determinist view of intelligence He argued against funding Head Start-type programs Intelligence is a unitary quantity, easily measured by the g or general intelligence derived from the IQ score Reviewed large body of work to support the contention that IQ was genetically determined Therefore, argued that environmental enrichment could not have much impact The genetic determination argument relied heavily upon the work of Sir Cyril Burt As recently as 1998, Jensen insists that h 2 (g) = 0.8 Sir Cyril Burt Social Class and Intelligence Intelligence tracks within British social classes Monozygotic (identical) twins reared apart Experiments allegedly show very high heritability for IQ scores (up to 80% of variability due to genes) Scientific fraud Can t tell what parts of his research are valid, but he greatly increased his sample size without changing any of his correlations--a statistical impossibility Problems with IQ: Cultural Bias Garn: If the Aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it Koko the gorilla Pick two things good to eat Apple, Flower, Pencil, Ice Cream Sundae Koko chose apple and flower Problems with IQ: Unitary Status Many psychologists have argued against using the statistically derived g or general score as a unitary measure of intelligence There is lay awareness of differences in verbal and quantitative ability, emphasized by different scores on these sections of SAT, GRE There is also a body of psychometric data, championed by researchers like Howard Gardner, that supports the notion of multiple intelligences People can have great ability in one or a few areas without being able to produce math and verbal scores that would rank them as highly intelligent according to g V Heritability p V 2 g h V p ; where V g V e V g e Cov ( g, e ) In order to estimate heritability within a population, we must be able to eliminate gene x environment interaction term and the covariance of gene and environment Not possible in human investigations Covariance term is what is most responsible for errors Unequal distribution of genotypes (African American vs. Euro- American) across environments (remember the wealth differential?) 2
The Fallacy of Heritability Heritability is a measure of the degree of genetic determination of a characteristic within a given population Heritability gives NO indication of the genetic basis of differences between populations E.g., Black versus White differences on IQ scores could be due entirely to environment, in spite of studies (like Burt s) indicating a high heritability of IQ scores within populations SEEDS A TAKE A BAG OF SEEDS WITH DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF CORN SPLIT IT INTO TWO BAGS SEEDS B THE TWO BAGS ARE GENETICALLY IDENTICAL, HAVING COME FROM THE SAME SEED BAG ORIGINALLY: GENETIC BASIS OF DIFFERENCES = 0% SEEDS A LOW WATER, NITROGEN, SUN IN THIS PLOT PLANT THE SEEDS IN CAREFULLY CONTROLLED PLOTS SEEDS B IDEAL WATER, NITROGEN, SUN IN THIS PLOT EACH PLANT GETS IDENTICAL GROWING CONDITIONS WITHIN EACH PLOT OF GROUND, SO THE ENVIRONMENTAL BASIS OF DIFFERNCES WITHIN EACH PLOT IS 0%, AND THE GENETIC BASIS OF DIFFERENCES WITHIN EACH PLOT = 100% PLANTS FROM SEEDS A GROWN IN BAD PLOT ARE SCRAWNY, LOW YIELD, HIGH INCIDENCE OF ILLNESS AND DEATH PLANTS FROM SEEDS B GROWN IN GOOD PLOT ARE TALL, HIGH YIELD, WITH A LOW INCIDENCE OF ILLNESS AND DEATH THERE ARE DRAMATIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CORN PLANTS GROWN IN THE TWO PLOTS. THE PLANTS ARE GENETICALLY IDENTICAL FROM ONE PLOT TO THE NEXT, HENCE THE ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABILITY BETWEEN PLOTS ACCOUNTS FOR 100% OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PLANTS GROWN IN THE TWO PLOTS. GENETIC BASIS OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PLOTS = 0% The Pioneer Fund Established in the 1937 with the financial backing of Wickliffe Draper Draper was a wealthy supporter of Nazi race policies and extreme eugenics Offered grant money to geneticists to prove Black inferiority Promote repatriation of Africa (Ship em back) Harry Laughlin (1 st pres) and Fredrick Osborn founded the PF Laughlin was Charles Davenport s #2 at ERO Osborn was an influential Nazi backer Additional financial backing from Madison Grant Pioneer Fund Purpose To improve the character of the American People [by encouraging the procreation of descendants of ] white people who settled in the original thirteen colonies prior to the adoption of the constitution and/or from related stocks... [and to provide aid in conducting research on] race betterment with special reference to the people of the United States 3
Pioneer Fund Agenda? Henry Garrett, former president of the American Psychological Association Became president of the Pioneer Fund Witness for the segregationist side in Brown v. Board of Education 1962 piece in Science: No matter how low [in a socioeconomic sense] an American white may be, his ancestors built the civilizations of Europe; and no matter how high a Negro may be, his ancestors savages in an African Jungle. Free and general race mixture of Negro-white groups in this country would inevitably be not only dysgenic by socially disastrous Who has benefited from the PF? 1. Thomas Bouchard, U Minn Psych prof Twin studies attempting to prove genetic component in IQ (~ $1¾ million) 2. J. Phillipe Rushton (more later) Current president of Pioneer Fund Has received over $1 million to support his research 3. Arthur Jensen Grants of more than $1 million funneled through a private foundation to circumvent limits U.C. places on research funds Most of the research reviewed in The Bell Curve was supported by PF grants The Bell Curve 1994 The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray Revived biological determinism and racial ideology to explain IQ score differences Not since the eugenics craze of the 1920s has this line of thought occupied a serious place on the national agenda Fraser, S (ed.) 1995 The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America. Basic Books: New York; p. 3. Bell Curve Assumptions 1. Human cognitive ability is a single general entity (g) in which there are individual and group differences 2. IQ tests measure this entity accurately 3. IQ tests measure how intelligent people are whatever that word means 4. IQ scores are fixed throughout most of the life span 5. IQ tests are NOT biased in regard to race, ethnic group, or social or economic status 6. Cognitive ability has a heritability of 40 80 percent Part 1 - The Cognitive Elite Describes the intelligence stratification of American society and the resulting emergence of a Cognitive Elite Higher IQ Americans are selected for college, and end up in fewer professions More intelligent employees are more proficient employees, so that even among high-iq professions like law, the highest IQ persons end up at the top American society is becoming cognitively stratified, with the Cognitive Elite crossing paths rarely with those of lower cognitive abilities Part 2 - IQ and Social Problems Poverty - Low IQ is a strong precursor of poverty, even more so than the socioeconomic conditions in which people grow up Schooling - Low IQ raises the likelihood of dropping out of school before completing high school, and decreases the likelihood of attaining a college degree Unemployment, Idleness and Injury - Low IQ is associated with persons who are unemployed, injured often, or idle (removed themselves from the workforce) 4
Part 2 - IQ and Social Problems Family Matters - Low IQ correlates with high rates of divorce, lower rates of marriage, and higher rates of illegitimate births Welfare Dependency - Low IQ increases the chances of chronic welfare dependency Parenting - Low IQ of mothers correlates with low birth weight babies, a child's poor motor skill and social development, and children's behavioral problems from age 4 and up Crime - Low IQ increases the risk of criminal behavior Civility and Citizenship - Low IQ people vote least and care least about political issues Part 3 - IQ and Race Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability Asians score higher on IQ tests Whites, especially in the verbal intelligence areas Blacks average 1 s.d. below those of Whites on IQ tests The B/W IQ difference remains at all levels of SES, and is more pronounced at higher levels of SES The Demography of Intelligence Birth rates among highly educated women are falling faster than those of low IQ women The IQ immigrants is 95, lower than the national average The new immigrants are less brave, less hard working, less imaginative, and less self-startingstarting than immigrant groups of the past IQ Distribution in the U.S. Part 3 - IQ and Race Social Behavior and the Prevalence of Low Cognitive Ability Most of the worst social problems are manifested in the cognitive underclass Solutions of these problems must focus on the cognitive underclass Part 4 - IQ and Social Policy We must all live together in this country of diverse cognitive ability, just as we must all live together in this nation of diverse racial and ethnic background All major domestic issues that we address must include a component that takes into account the predominant cognitive levels of the target population For example, if we want to implement a training program for unemployed men, we should realize that fully half of the target group will have measured IQ below 80 This should have a significant impact on the resulting social program or policy we establish Bell Curve prescription for change Education: Measures of success are geared to average to below-average students, gifted students don t develop their potential Solution: Reallocate funds--less to the disadvantaged and more for gifted programs Affirmative action: Currently practice has lost touch with its original intent Issue relates to the difference between ethnic equity and competitive fairness Affirmative action fosters differences in the distribution of academic ability across races on college campuses After controlling for IQ, it s difficult to demonstrate that the US still suffers from racial discrimination in occupations and pay Remember they assume that IQ differences is what makes income differences) Solution: abolish affirmative action in college admissions and in the workplace This will mean that admission to Harvard or Stanford or employment in any particular job means the same for different ethnic groups 5
Bell Curve predictions for the future Old class stratifications are fading, replaced by a greater reliance on merit Hence, the rise of the cognitive elite a status acquired via high IQ implying that social background, ethnicity, and money would serve as obstacles toward its attainment The rich vs. the intellectuals: the affluent will constitute a major portion of the population and they will increasingly consist of the most talented population The underclass: Emigration of the best cognitive individuals out of lower class neighborhoods and settings This will exacerbate the conditions of the underclass The cognitive elite will perceive the underclass as being in their condition through no fault of their own, but due to inherent shortcomings about which little can done Because the underclass cannot be trusted to make wise decisions for themselves (i.e., to use cash wisely), the cognitive elite will develop social welfare policies primarily in the form of services rather than cash policies of custodialism This has implications on the socio-demographic make -up of communities, state and federal budgets, centralization of governance. The population of the underclass will continue to grow Racial tensions will re-emerge Joseph L. Graves 2001 The Emperor s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium Cites six common errors in The Bell Curve Makes claims not substantiated by data Makes mathematical and statistical errors that support claims Ignores alternative hypotheses to explain data Ignores theory and data contradicting core assumptions Makes sweeping policy recommendations that conform to preconceived racist philosophies and notions A Strong Response Fischer CS, Hout M, Sanchez Jankowski M, Lucas SR, Swidler A, and Voss K. 1996. Inequality by design: Cracking the Bell Curve myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. The purpose is to reject the philosophy promoted by The Bell Curve that widening inequalities among Americans are inevitable The authors believe that Americans are responsible for creating and maintaining inequality and inequality is a social construction determined by genetic endowments Instead, environmental factors such as governmental policies and social environments have a much greater influence on inequality than nature Uses The Bell Curve as a starting point for understanding inequality Opposes its arguments about intelligence Reanalyzes the same data to prove that social environment is mor e important than intelligence in predicting who becomes poor in America An overview Americans have created the extent and type of inequality we have, and Americans maintain it (p.7) Inequalities among Americans are not inevitable Inequality is a social construction; not solely determined by genetic endowments The problem with psychometrics Psychometrics main assumptions The fundamental skill critical to human functioning is intelligence General intelligence (g) is a general capacity for inferring and applying relationships People must rank in a bell curve Information-processing approach Intelligence is mental self-management (p.47) [quote from Robert Sternberg] Intelligence can be taught and trained Measurement tools test intellectual process New research tests everyday problem solving Adds new insights to psychometrics 6
What do IQ tests measure? Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure (p.27) [quote from Arthur Jensen] Screw-up attitudes and luck Exposure to curricula, not intelligence Tests are limited in their ability to predict how people apply their knowledge in practical situations Reanalysis of the NLSY data Bell Curve errors in the analysis Missing information Unreliable parental SES scale Inappropriately weighted parental SES variables Omitted variable bias Corrected findings Parental home environment, community context, educational attainment, and gender are more accurate predictors of poverty than nature Systems of inequality America s level of inequality is by design. It is not by nature, nor by the distribution of its people s talents, nor by the demands of the Western market. (p.125) Between WWII and 1970 inequality decreased, then widened in the early 1970s and through the 1980s These changes cannot be explained by individual inherited characteristics (e.g., intelligence) U.S. has greater degree of income inequality than any other developed nation, but inequality is not necessary for economic growth America s policy choices Policies to reduce poverty AFDC, school lunches, food stamps, etc. Most successful among elderly, while many children are left poor Americans less supportive of such programs than citizens of other affluent nations Subsidizing the middle class Health care, tax deductions for families, subsidizing homeownership America s policy choices, cont d. Subsidizing the wealthy Corporate welfare, tax laws Regulating the labor market Union rules, plant relocation, wage setting Enriching intelligence Quality of schooling affects rates of learning Biased track placement in schools Summer vacations Job structure affects adult development Race, ethnicity, and intelligence A racial or ethnic group s position in society determines its measured intelligence rather than vice versa. (p.173) Koreans in Japan; Polish Jews in 1920s US History matters: Africans and Mexicans in US Inequality and discrimination continue today 7
Subordination & low performance Socioeconomic deprivation Segregation concentrates and accentuates disadvantages Stigma of inferiority prompts attitudes of resignation and rebellion J. Philippe Rushton 1995 Race, Evolution, and Behavior Rushton argues that intelligence is conditioned by cranial capacity which is greatest in Asians, lowest in Africans He associates cranial capacity intelligence, maturation rate, personality, social organization, and reproduction Subscribes to an old myth about intelligence evolving in the temperate latitudes because of a stable and more challenging environment Tropics are actually much more stable Important subsistence evolution took place in Africa that s what made it possible to migrate to Asia and then Europe! Rushton s evolution Reminiscent of Coon s ideas about the sapienization of Homo Coon thought Caucasians evolved first and therefore were the most intelligent and cultured Rushton has it the other way around Negroids evolving first, at a smaller cranial capacity and lesser intellect Then Caucasoids and Mongoloids Relative Ranking of Races on Diverse Variables Variable Orientals Whites Blacks Brain size Autopsy data (cm 3 equivalents) 1,351 1,356 1,223 Endocranial volume (cm 3 ) 1,415 1,362 1,268 External head measures (cm 3 ) 1,356 1,329 1,294 Cortical neurons (billions) 13.767 13.665 13.185 Rushton s Intelligence Summary Table IQ test scores 106 100 85 Decision times Faster Intermediate Slower Cultural achievements Higher Higher Lower Maturation rate Gestation time? Intermediate Earlier Skeletal development Later Intermediate Earlier Motor development Later Intermediate Earlier Dental development Later Intermediate Earlier Age of first intercourse Later Intermediate Earlier Age of first pregnancy Later Intermediate Earlier Life span Longer Intermediate Shorter Personality Activity level Lower Intermediate Higher Aggressiveness Lower Intermediate Higher Cautiousness Higher Intermediate Lower Dominance Lower Intermediate Higher Impulsivity Lower Intermediate Higher Self-concept Lower Intermediate Higher Sociability Lower Intermediate Higher Social organization Marital stability Higher Intermediate Lower Law abidingness Higher Intermediate Lower Mental health Higher Intermediate Lower Administrative capacity Higher Higher Lower Reproductive effort Two-egg twinning (per 1,000 births) 4 8 16 Hormone levels Lower Intermediate Higher Size of genitalia Smaller Intermediate Larger Secondary sex characteristics Smaller Intermediate Larger Intercourse frequencies Lower Intermediate Higher Permissive attitudes Lower Intermediate Higher Sexually transmitted diseases Lower Intermediate Higher Lieberman on Rushton How is it possible for Rushton to support the Mongoloid > Caucasoid > Negroid ordering while using the data of several anthropologists who have rejected racial hierarchies on empirical grounds? Some of the problems: Rushton s use of the race concept Aggregation of diverse populations into three traditional races Explanation of differences in cultural achievements on the basis of variation in brain size Race concept Rushton s definition of race emphasizes that races are natural hereditary biological units and assumes that it is possible to aggregate populations and calculate a mean score to represent this conglomerate A variety, a subspecies... characterized by a more or less distinctive combination of physical traits transmitted in descent. A genetically distinct inbreeding division within a species... distinguished on the basis of skeletal morphology, hair and facial features, and molecular genetic information His concept of race derives from his school boy years in South Africa during Aparteid 8
Aggregation Rushton identifies three major races by reducing measurements of diverse populations to the mathematical mean, aggregating many populations from diverse studies The first objection is to the assumption is that there is an underlying relationship shared by the races, a Platonic essence obscured by the variation within each race In fact, the variation itself is the empirical reality; mean scores are useful data points when used in conjunction with the range of variation Adaptive Principles Rushton s cranioracial variation is contradicted by evolutionary anthropology He takes cranial measurements from a study without mentioning that study s finding that while climate variables were strongly correlated with cranial variation, race and cranial variation had low correlations The relationship between latitude and cranial size is an example of Bergmann s principle that crania are more spherical in cold climates because mass increases relative to surface area to conserve core temperatures A slight increase in head size combined with a rounder cranium has a disproportionate effect upon volume Ignoring Control Variables Rushton s collection of brain measurements fails to utilize control variables Tobias reviewed 14 variables affecting the measurement of brain weight Sex, body size, age at death, early-life nutrition, early-life environment, source of sample, occupational group, cause of death, lapse of time after death, temperature after death, anatomical level of severance, presence or absence of cerebral spinal fluid, presence or absence of meninges, and presence or absence of blood vessels Tobias concluded that brain weight depends significantly on body height but not on body weight Unless corrections have been made for differences in body height... all comparisons between Negro and white brain size to date are invalid Ignoring Confounding Variables Rushton does not relate environment, nutrition, cranial size, and IQ Nutrition is an important environmental influence on brain size and on IQ Inadequate nutrition is more likely to affect children living in poverty in the United States and the Third World, and it is very likely to reduce IQ scores Environment and genes interact, but optimum nutrition maximizes each child s potential Although Rushton refers to environmental influences, he traces them to genetics: When there is a correlation between genetic and environmental effects it means that people are exposed to environment on the basis of their genetic propensities Outcome Aggregation Rushton claims to explain a vast array of human behavior He aggregates diverse behaviors under one label to identify traits on which his races differ Aggressiveness, impulsivity, permissive attitudes, and law -abidingness What are the diverse indicators of these behaviors in various reports and for various populations? Were they consistently measured? What is the meaning of these traits in different cultures? Do they in fact share an empirical essence? Most of the same questions can also be asked of several of the listed biological features, such as twinning, age of first intercourse, and cranial capacity Rushton on his aggregation Obviously the groupings shown do not represent in any sense pure types and there is enormous racial and ethnic variation within almost every country; moreover, each country undoubtedly differs in the procedures used to collect and disseminate the crime figures. Certainly within each racial grouping are to be found countries reporting both high and low crime rates. The Philippines, for example, a country grouped as Mongoloid, reported one of the highest homicide rates in the world, 43 per 100,000 in 1984; Togo, a country grouped as Negroid, had the lowest reported crime rate in the world, a rounded down 0 per 100,000 in all 3 crime categories in 1984. 9
Recent Update on Race and IQ Templer D, Arikawa H. 2006. Temperature, skin color, per capita income, and IQ: An international perspective. Intelligence 34: 121-139. Attempts to test contention of Lynn and Rushton that IQ is stimulated by cold climate Global sample of 129 countries Mean IQ correlated with mean skin color (from Biasutti), average annual temperature, and gross domestic product per capita Highest correlations are with skin color Darkest skin colors show lowest Iqs What do we know about Biasutti s skin color map? Conclude that cold does increase IQ and economic output The Lesson The racial idiocy will not go away We must remain skeptical and ever-vigilant about any kind of claims having to do with socalled racial characteristics Anthropology must take the lead in this task because we have contributed so much to the abuse of the race concept in the past 10