Is race a valid construct?
Prof J. Philippe Rushton | 24.07.2004 02:38 | Anti-racism
This essay is Professor Rushton’s latest Statement on 'Race'. It updates the research in his book 'Race', 'Evolution', and 'Behavior' (3rd edition, 2000), which contains over 1,000 references to the literature.
Over the years egalitarians have questioned the taxonomic classification of race in terms of its empirical value and utility. Notwithstanding these criticisms which seek to undermine the legitimacy of race as a scientific concept, the answer to the question posed in the title of this paper is “yes.” If the concept of race didn’t exist, science would have to invent it (and did)! Race is a valid taxonomic construct because it allows us to make predictions about people’s behavior, especially at the group level.
In science, a concept is useful if it groups facts so that general laws and conclusions can be drawn from them. Predictions can be made using the taxonomic category of race because, on average, the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are similar to each other and different from White Americans, Germans, and Russians, who are similar to each other and different from Black Americans, Haitians, and sub-Saharan Africans. Predictability is the criterion by which the value of a hypothetical construct like race is evaluated. As I will show, race is highly predictive.
For the past 20 years my research has focused on differences between the three major races, commonly termed Orientals (East Asians, Mongoloids), Whites (Europeans, Caucasoids), and Blacks (Africans, Negroids). Roughly speaking, Orientals are those who have most of their ancestors from East Asia. Whites have most of their ancestors from Europe. And Blacks have most of their ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa. In the main, I have not addressed the many other groups outside of these three major races, or sub-groups within the three major races, though they are of interest as well.
What I've found is that in brain size, intelligence, temperament, sexual behavior, fertility, growth rate, life span, crime, and family stability, Orientals, as a group, consistently fall at one end of the spectrum, Blacks fall at the other end, and Whites fall in between. On average, Orientals are slower to mature, less fertile, and less sexually active, and have larger brains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the opposite end in each of these areas. Whites fall in the middle, often close to Orientals (see Chart 1):
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart1.jpg
Of course, these three-way racial differences are averages. Individuals are individuals. However, I've found that this three-way pattern is consistently true over time and across nations. That the same three-way racial pattern occurs repeatedly on some 60 different biological and behavioral variables is profoundly interesting and shows that race is more than “just skin deep.” The international data come from the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and Interpol. Recently, I even traveled to South Africa to collect new IQ data.
Let's start with the biological differences in sports, which is something almost everyone observes. Jon Entine's recent book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It, addresses the old cliché that "White men can't jump" (and the new one that Oriental men jump even less well). Entine shows that in sports, it is Black men and women who can sky! And yet, as the data also show, it is mainly Blacks of West African descent who excel at running over short distances, while Blacks of East African descent – from Kenya and Ethiopia – excel at marathon running over long distances. These differences between East and West Africans show that taking an average can sometimes gloss over important distinctions. Still, Blacks from both East and West Africa excel at one or another kind of running. In sports, Blacks as a group, have a genetic advantage.
It is interesting to know that race differences show up early in life. Black babies are born a week earlier than White babies, yet they mature faster as measured by bone development. By age five or six, Black children excel in the dash, the long jump, and the high jump, all of which require a short burst of power. By the teenage years, Blacks have faster reflexes, as in the famous knee-jerk response.
Blacks also have from 3 to 19% more of the sex hormone testosterone than Whites or Orientals. This means more explosive energy, which gives Blacks the edge in sports like boxing, basketball, football, and sprinting.
Why is it taboo to say that Blacks are on average better at sports? Because the hormones that give Blacks the edge in sports also make them more masculine in general. They are physically more active in school, and this can sometimes get them into trouble or even lead to their being diagnosed as hyperactive.
So the next question is, “Why do East Asians and Whites and have wider hips than Blacks, and so make poorer runners?” The answer is that they give birth to larger brained babies. During evolution, as the head size of newborns increased, women had to have a wider pelvis. Orientals average 1 cubic inch more cranial capacity than Whites, and Whites average a very large 5 cubic inches more cranial capacity than Blacks.
Some people are surprised to hear that the races differ in brain size. And they wonder how convincing the evidence is that brain size is related to intelligence. In fact, dozens of studies, including those based on state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging, have demonstrated the relation between brain size and intelligence.
Race differences in brain size have been demonstrated using four different methods: (1) magnetic resonance imaging, (2) brain weight at autopsy, (3) endocranial volume, and (4) external head measurements. These data are summarized in Chart 2 which presents the brain size averages across the four measurement techniques and also, where possible, corrected for body size. Orientals averaged 1,364 cm3, Whites averaged 1,347 cm3, and Blacks averaged 1,267 cm3. Naturally the averages vary between samples and the races do overlap. But the results from different methods on different samples, measured from the 1840s to the 1990s, show the same strong pattern.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart2.jpg
The racial differences in brain size show up at birth. One study of my own, published in the 1997 issue of the journal Intelligence, was carried out using the resources of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS) in Bethesda, Maryland. In it, I analyzed data from the enormous Collaborative Perinatal Project, which took head circumference measures and IQ scores from over 50,000 children followed from birth to seven years. The Oriental children averaged larger head circumferences than did the White children at birth, four months, one year, and seven years; the White children averaged larger head circumferences than did the Black children (see Chart 3).
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart3.jpg
I published several other studies during the 1990s, also in Intelligence, confirming the racial differences in brain size. In one study, I (1991) analyzed data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and found the mean cranial capacity for East Asians was 1,460 cm3, and for Europeans it was 1,446 cm3. From a stratified random sample of 6,325 U.S. Army personnel, I (1992) calculated average cranial capacities for Asians, Whites, and Blacks, respectively, of 1,416 cm3, 1,380 cm3, and 1,359 cm3. (I also found that officers averaged 1,393 cm3 while enlisted personnel averaged 1,375 cm3.) From a compilation made by the International Labour Office in Geneva of tens of thousands of people from around the world, I (1994) found that samples from the Pacific Rim, Europe, and Africa averaged cranial capacities, respectively, of 1,308 cm3, 1,297 cm3, and 1,241 cm3. Travis Osborne and I (1995) published a paper showing that brain size was about 50% heritable for both Blacks and Whites using data from the Georgia Twin Study based on 236 pairs of Black and White adolescent twins. And once again we found Whites averaged greater cranial capacity than Blacks.
Since one cubic inch of brain matter contains millions of brain cells and hundreds of millions of nerve connections, brain size helps to explain why the races differ in IQ. On standardized IQ tests, hundreds of studies show the three-way pattern. Orientals average slightly ahead of Whites on such tests and Whites average substantially ahead of Blacks. Most IQ tests have an average score of 100, with a “normal” range from 85 to 115. Around the world, Whites average an IQ of about 100, Orientals an IQ of about 104, and Blacks in Britain, the Caribbean, and the U.S. average lower IQs -- about 85. The lowest average IQs are found for sub-Saharan Africans – around 70 (see Chart 4). Like the other data sets in this essay, these are reviewed in my book Race, Evolution, and Behavior. An even more recent book on the topic is by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, IQ and the Wealth of Nations.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart4.jpg
The extremely low average IQ of 70 for sub-Saharan Africans has been difficult for many people to accept. To determine for myself how realistic a figure it was, I traveled to South Africa to initiate a series of studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, one of the most prestigious universities in Africa. In the first study, we administered the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices to 173 African first year psychology students who scored at the 14th percentile on 1993 U.S. norms, giving them an average IQ of 84. In a second study, we administered the same test to another group of psychology students who scored an IQ of 83. After training on how to solve these types of tests, their IQs rose to 96. In a third study, we gave the same test to a more academically select student population -- 198 African engineering students who had taken mathematics and sciences courses in high school. This group scored at the 41st percentile with an IQ of 97. These results, from an elite university, showing mean IQ scores for African undergraduates ranging from 83 to 97, confirm the overall IQ of 70 for Africans because around the world university students typically score 15 to 30 IQ points above their population average.
Race differences in brain size and IQ, along with those in testosterone, have important implications for social behavior. For example, in the United States, Orientals are seen as a “model minority.” They have fewer divorces, out-of-wedlock births, and cases of child abuse than do Whites. More Orientals graduate from college and fewer go to prison. Blacks, on the other hand, are 12% of the American population but make up 50% of the prison population.
The racial pattern of crime in the U.S. is not due to local conditions like “White racism.” For nearly 20 years I have been monitoring the Interpol Yearbooks and publishing data on the worldwide crime statistics. These consistently show that the rate of violent crime (murder, rape, and serious assault) is about three times lower in East Asian and Pacific Rim countries than they are in African and Caribbean countries. Whites in European countries are intermediate. The 1996 rates of violent crime, for example, were: East Asian countries, 35 per 100,000 people; European countries, 42; and African and Caribbean countries, 149 (see Chart 5).
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart5.jpg
Orientals are the least sexually active, whether measured by age of first intercourse, intercourse frequency, or number of sexual partners. Blacks are the most active on all of these. Once again Whites fall in between. National surveys in Britain and the U.S., and international surveys by the World Health Organization, reveal the three-way racial pattern in sexual behavior. These racial differences, in turn, affect the rate of sexually transmitted diseases. For example, the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (for the year 2000) shows the rate of chlamydia in African Americans is 10 times higher than it is for Whites, and for gonorrhea and syphilis the rate among Blacks is nearly 30 times the White rate.
Sadly, racial differences are also reflected in the current AIDS crisis. Over 40 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS. Chart 6 shows the HIV infection rates in various parts of the world based on the latest figures from UNAIDS (December 2001). The epidemic started in Black Africa in the late 1970s. Today 28 million adults there are living with HIV/AIDS. Over fifty percent of these are female. This shows that transmission is mainly heterosexual. Currently, nearly 9 out of every 100 Africans are infected with the AIDS virus and the epidemic is considered out of control. In several countries the AIDS rate is over 20%, including South Africa, where one in 5 adults is living with HIV/AIDS.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart6.jpg
The HIV infection rate is also high in the Black Caribbean – 2.2%! The high rate of HIV/AIDS in the 2,000-mile band of Caribbean countries extends from Bermuda to Guyana, and it is highest in the Bahamas and in Haiti, where the rates are 4% and 5%, respectively.
Data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that African Americans have HIV/AIDS rates similar to the Black Caribbean and parts of Black Africa. Three percent of Black men and 1% of Black women in the U.S. are living with HIV. The rate for White Americans is about 0.4%, while the rate for Asian Americans is less than 0.05%. Rates for Europe and the Pacific Rim are also low. Of course AIDS is a serious public health problem for all racial groups, but it is especially so for Africans and people of African descent.
Importantly, the races also differ in rate of ovulation. Not all women produce just one egg during the menstrual cycle. When two or more eggs are produced at the same time, pregnancy and the likelihood of producing two-egg twins are more likely. The number of such twins born is 16 out of every 1,000 births for Blacks, 8 out of every 1,000 births for Whites, and 4 or less for Orientals. Black women also average shorter menstrual cycles than White women. These and other data make it plain that the race differences in reproductive behavior are biological in nature.
Twin and adoption studies show that genes play a big part in athletic ability, brain size, IQ, and personality. Trans-racial adoption studies, where infants of one race are adopted and reared by parents of a different race, provide some of the strongest evidence that race differences are heritable. Oriental children, even if malnourished before being adopted by White parents, go on to have IQs above the White average. Black infants adopted into middle-class White families end up with IQs lower than the White average. Some of these data are summarized in Chart 7.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart7.jpg
The Evolution of Racial Differences
Look back again at all the traits in Chart 1. They form a pattern. Whites consistently average between Orientals and Blacks in dozens of areas. Also, the groups with the largest brains have the lowest rates of two-egg twinning! Why? The answer lies in evolution. No purely cultural theory can explain all of these traits taken together. There is, however, a gene-based explanation that explicitly involves the trade-off between reproductive effort (twinning rates) and brain size. The patterns make up what is called a “life-history.” They evolved together to meet the trials of life -- survival, growth, and reproduction.
I have explained the racial pattern in brain size, intelligence, and other traits using a gene-based life-history theory that evolutionary biologists call the r-K scale of reproductive strategies. At one end of this scale are r-strategies that rely on high reproductive rates. At the other end are K-strategies that rely on high levels of parental care. This scale is generally used to compare the life histories of different species of animals. I have used it to explain the smaller but real differences between the human races.
On this scale, Orientals are more K-selected than Whites, while Whites are more K-selected than Blacks. Highly K-selected women produce fewer eggs (and have bigger brains) than r-selected women. Highly K-selected men invest time and energy in their children rather than the pursuit of sexual thrills. They are “dads” rather than “cads.”
Race differences also make sense in terms of human evolution. Modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Africans and non-Africans then split about 110,000 years ago. Orientals and Whites split about 40,000 years ago, around the time that modern humans were first in Europe. Analyses of DNA sequencing, along with the fossil and archaeological record, demonstrate this sequence, as does the pattern of traits shown in Chart 1.
The further north people went out of Africa, the harder it was to get food, gain shelter, make clothes, and raise children. So the groups that evolved into today’s Whites and Orientals needed larger brains, more family stability, and a longer life. But building a bigger brain takes time and energy so there is a trade off with slower rates of growth, lower levels of sex hormones, less aggression, and less sexual activity. Thus came about the pattern of traits in Chart 1.
What are the implications of this research? One is, obviously, that race is a valid taxonomic construct. If it were not it would have no reliable predictive value and we would not find the same racial pattern all around the world and over time. The fact that, on average, African-descended children are born with smaller brains than European- or East Asian-descended children, regardless of where in the diasporas the children are located, allows reliable predictions to be made about their future academic and occupational achievement. Similarly, the fact that throughout the world Blacks have a stronger sex drive than Whites or East Asians explains why Black Americans, Black Caribbeans, and sub-Saharan Africans have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and why East Asians have even lower rates than Whites.
A second implication is that “White racism” is not responsible for all of society’s problems. Black underachievement is not simply due to “White prejudice.” It is more deeply rooted. On average, Black children are born with smaller brains than White or East Asian children. Pointing this out is not constructing stereotypes, it is simply observing facts as they are. Both science and justice call for us to seek and tell the truth, not to tell lies and spread error.
Another implication is that we have to accept that racial differences will not just disappear. Hitherto, most theories in the behavioral sciences have assumed that all human populations have equal abilities to achieve equal levels of social development. We need to accept the existence of the evolved diversity of human populations.
Sometimes it is claimed by those who argue that race is just a social construct that the human genome project shows that because people share 99% of their “genes” in common, that there are no races. This is silly. Human genes are 98% similar to chimpanzee genes. Yet no one thinks that chimpanzees have the same intelligence, brain size, or social behavior patterns as human beings; they look and behave very differently. In fact humans share 90% of their genes with mice, which is why we can use them to test drug therapies. Similarly, although men and women are genetically 99% the same, it is foolish to believe that sex is just a “social construction.”
Much confusion arises because there are several sets of genetic measures. A much more realistic story comes from looking at the 3.1 billion base pairs that make up the 30,000 genes. People differ in 1 out of every 1,000 of these base pairs. Each change in a base pair can alter a gene. Technically, base pair differences are called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Base pair differences are important and SNPs clump together in races. Just one change in the base pair for hemoglobin, for example, causes sickle-cell anemia, from which many Blacks suffer. Other base pair differences affect IQ, aggression, and mental illness. The 3.1 billion base pairs provide plenty of room for large racial differences.
In summary, the same racial pattern would not occur so consistently all around the world and over time if race were a mere social construct. If it were a meaningless construct, it would have no power to predict phenomena like brain size, growth rate, life span, crime, and family stability. Other evidence also shows that race is a biological reality. For example, coroners in crime labs can identify race from a skeleton or even just the skull. They can even identify race from blood, hair, or semen. How could they do this if race was only a social construct? The scientific evidence shows that the politically correct mantra “race is just skin deep” is a case of deep denial.
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J. Philippe Rushton is professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and the author of Race,Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (3rd Edition).
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References
Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. "Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines," Current Anthropology, 1984: 25, 301-330.
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P., & Piazza, A. The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton.University Press, 1994.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 2000. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001.
Ellis, L., & Nyborg, H. "Racial/ethnic variations in male testosterone levels: A probable contributor to group differences in health," Steroids, 1992: 57, 72-75.
Entine, J. Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It. New York: Public Affairs Press, 2000.
Herman-Giddens, M. E., et al, "Secondary sexual characteristics and menses in young girls seen in the office practice," Pediatrics, 1997: 99, 505-512.
Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. "Analysis of brain weight," Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, 1980: 104, 635-645.
Jensen, A. R. The g Factor. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998.
Lewis, B. Race and Slavery in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
Rushton, J. P. " Cranial capacity related to sex, rank, and race in a stratified random sample of 6,325 U.S. military personnel," Intelligence, 1992: 16, 401-413.
Rushton, J. P. "Brain size and cognitive ability in Asian Americans from birth to age seven," Intelligence, 1997: 25, 7-20.
Rushton, J. P. Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (3rd edition). Port Huron, MI: Charles Darwin Research Institute, 2000.
Rushton, J. P., & Ankney, C. D. "Brain size and cognitive ability: Correlations with age, sex, social class and race," Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 1996: 3, 21-36.
Rushton, J. P., & Osborne, R. T. "Genetic and environmental contributions to cranial capacity estimated in Black and White adolescents," Intelligence, 1995: 20, 1-13.
Rushton, J. P., & Skuy, M. "Performance on Raven's Matrices by African and White university students in South Africa," Intelligence, 2000: 28, 251-265.
Stringer, C. & McKie, R. African Exodus. London: Cape, 1996.
Taylor, J., & Whitney, G. "Crime and racial profiling by U.S. police: Is there an empirical basis?" Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 1999: 24, 485-510.
UNAIDS/WHO AIDS epidemic update: December 2001. Geneva, Switzerland: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and World Health Organization (WHO).
Weinberg, R. A., Scarr, S., & Waldman, I. D. "The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: follow-up of IQ test performance at adolescence," Intelligence, 1992: 16, 117-135.
In science, a concept is useful if it groups facts so that general laws and conclusions can be drawn from them. Predictions can be made using the taxonomic category of race because, on average, the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are similar to each other and different from White Americans, Germans, and Russians, who are similar to each other and different from Black Americans, Haitians, and sub-Saharan Africans. Predictability is the criterion by which the value of a hypothetical construct like race is evaluated. As I will show, race is highly predictive.
For the past 20 years my research has focused on differences between the three major races, commonly termed Orientals (East Asians, Mongoloids), Whites (Europeans, Caucasoids), and Blacks (Africans, Negroids). Roughly speaking, Orientals are those who have most of their ancestors from East Asia. Whites have most of their ancestors from Europe. And Blacks have most of their ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa. In the main, I have not addressed the many other groups outside of these three major races, or sub-groups within the three major races, though they are of interest as well.
What I've found is that in brain size, intelligence, temperament, sexual behavior, fertility, growth rate, life span, crime, and family stability, Orientals, as a group, consistently fall at one end of the spectrum, Blacks fall at the other end, and Whites fall in between. On average, Orientals are slower to mature, less fertile, and less sexually active, and have larger brains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the opposite end in each of these areas. Whites fall in the middle, often close to Orientals (see Chart 1):
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart1.jpg Of course, these three-way racial differences are averages. Individuals are individuals. However, I've found that this three-way pattern is consistently true over time and across nations. That the same three-way racial pattern occurs repeatedly on some 60 different biological and behavioral variables is profoundly interesting and shows that race is more than “just skin deep.” The international data come from the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and Interpol. Recently, I even traveled to South Africa to collect new IQ data.
Let's start with the biological differences in sports, which is something almost everyone observes. Jon Entine's recent book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It, addresses the old cliché that "White men can't jump" (and the new one that Oriental men jump even less well). Entine shows that in sports, it is Black men and women who can sky! And yet, as the data also show, it is mainly Blacks of West African descent who excel at running over short distances, while Blacks of East African descent – from Kenya and Ethiopia – excel at marathon running over long distances. These differences between East and West Africans show that taking an average can sometimes gloss over important distinctions. Still, Blacks from both East and West Africa excel at one or another kind of running. In sports, Blacks as a group, have a genetic advantage.
It is interesting to know that race differences show up early in life. Black babies are born a week earlier than White babies, yet they mature faster as measured by bone development. By age five or six, Black children excel in the dash, the long jump, and the high jump, all of which require a short burst of power. By the teenage years, Blacks have faster reflexes, as in the famous knee-jerk response.
Blacks also have from 3 to 19% more of the sex hormone testosterone than Whites or Orientals. This means more explosive energy, which gives Blacks the edge in sports like boxing, basketball, football, and sprinting.
Why is it taboo to say that Blacks are on average better at sports? Because the hormones that give Blacks the edge in sports also make them more masculine in general. They are physically more active in school, and this can sometimes get them into trouble or even lead to their being diagnosed as hyperactive.
So the next question is, “Why do East Asians and Whites and have wider hips than Blacks, and so make poorer runners?” The answer is that they give birth to larger brained babies. During evolution, as the head size of newborns increased, women had to have a wider pelvis. Orientals average 1 cubic inch more cranial capacity than Whites, and Whites average a very large 5 cubic inches more cranial capacity than Blacks.
Some people are surprised to hear that the races differ in brain size. And they wonder how convincing the evidence is that brain size is related to intelligence. In fact, dozens of studies, including those based on state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging, have demonstrated the relation between brain size and intelligence.
Race differences in brain size have been demonstrated using four different methods: (1) magnetic resonance imaging, (2) brain weight at autopsy, (3) endocranial volume, and (4) external head measurements. These data are summarized in Chart 2 which presents the brain size averages across the four measurement techniques and also, where possible, corrected for body size. Orientals averaged 1,364 cm3, Whites averaged 1,347 cm3, and Blacks averaged 1,267 cm3. Naturally the averages vary between samples and the races do overlap. But the results from different methods on different samples, measured from the 1840s to the 1990s, show the same strong pattern.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart2.jpg The racial differences in brain size show up at birth. One study of my own, published in the 1997 issue of the journal Intelligence, was carried out using the resources of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS) in Bethesda, Maryland. In it, I analyzed data from the enormous Collaborative Perinatal Project, which took head circumference measures and IQ scores from over 50,000 children followed from birth to seven years. The Oriental children averaged larger head circumferences than did the White children at birth, four months, one year, and seven years; the White children averaged larger head circumferences than did the Black children (see Chart 3).
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart3.jpg I published several other studies during the 1990s, also in Intelligence, confirming the racial differences in brain size. In one study, I (1991) analyzed data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and found the mean cranial capacity for East Asians was 1,460 cm3, and for Europeans it was 1,446 cm3. From a stratified random sample of 6,325 U.S. Army personnel, I (1992) calculated average cranial capacities for Asians, Whites, and Blacks, respectively, of 1,416 cm3, 1,380 cm3, and 1,359 cm3. (I also found that officers averaged 1,393 cm3 while enlisted personnel averaged 1,375 cm3.) From a compilation made by the International Labour Office in Geneva of tens of thousands of people from around the world, I (1994) found that samples from the Pacific Rim, Europe, and Africa averaged cranial capacities, respectively, of 1,308 cm3, 1,297 cm3, and 1,241 cm3. Travis Osborne and I (1995) published a paper showing that brain size was about 50% heritable for both Blacks and Whites using data from the Georgia Twin Study based on 236 pairs of Black and White adolescent twins. And once again we found Whites averaged greater cranial capacity than Blacks.
Since one cubic inch of brain matter contains millions of brain cells and hundreds of millions of nerve connections, brain size helps to explain why the races differ in IQ. On standardized IQ tests, hundreds of studies show the three-way pattern. Orientals average slightly ahead of Whites on such tests and Whites average substantially ahead of Blacks. Most IQ tests have an average score of 100, with a “normal” range from 85 to 115. Around the world, Whites average an IQ of about 100, Orientals an IQ of about 104, and Blacks in Britain, the Caribbean, and the U.S. average lower IQs -- about 85. The lowest average IQs are found for sub-Saharan Africans – around 70 (see Chart 4). Like the other data sets in this essay, these are reviewed in my book Race, Evolution, and Behavior. An even more recent book on the topic is by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, IQ and the Wealth of Nations.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart4.jpg The extremely low average IQ of 70 for sub-Saharan Africans has been difficult for many people to accept. To determine for myself how realistic a figure it was, I traveled to South Africa to initiate a series of studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, one of the most prestigious universities in Africa. In the first study, we administered the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices to 173 African first year psychology students who scored at the 14th percentile on 1993 U.S. norms, giving them an average IQ of 84. In a second study, we administered the same test to another group of psychology students who scored an IQ of 83. After training on how to solve these types of tests, their IQs rose to 96. In a third study, we gave the same test to a more academically select student population -- 198 African engineering students who had taken mathematics and sciences courses in high school. This group scored at the 41st percentile with an IQ of 97. These results, from an elite university, showing mean IQ scores for African undergraduates ranging from 83 to 97, confirm the overall IQ of 70 for Africans because around the world university students typically score 15 to 30 IQ points above their population average.
Race differences in brain size and IQ, along with those in testosterone, have important implications for social behavior. For example, in the United States, Orientals are seen as a “model minority.” They have fewer divorces, out-of-wedlock births, and cases of child abuse than do Whites. More Orientals graduate from college and fewer go to prison. Blacks, on the other hand, are 12% of the American population but make up 50% of the prison population.
The racial pattern of crime in the U.S. is not due to local conditions like “White racism.” For nearly 20 years I have been monitoring the Interpol Yearbooks and publishing data on the worldwide crime statistics. These consistently show that the rate of violent crime (murder, rape, and serious assault) is about three times lower in East Asian and Pacific Rim countries than they are in African and Caribbean countries. Whites in European countries are intermediate. The 1996 rates of violent crime, for example, were: East Asian countries, 35 per 100,000 people; European countries, 42; and African and Caribbean countries, 149 (see Chart 5).
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart5.jpg Orientals are the least sexually active, whether measured by age of first intercourse, intercourse frequency, or number of sexual partners. Blacks are the most active on all of these. Once again Whites fall in between. National surveys in Britain and the U.S., and international surveys by the World Health Organization, reveal the three-way racial pattern in sexual behavior. These racial differences, in turn, affect the rate of sexually transmitted diseases. For example, the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (for the year 2000) shows the rate of chlamydia in African Americans is 10 times higher than it is for Whites, and for gonorrhea and syphilis the rate among Blacks is nearly 30 times the White rate.
Sadly, racial differences are also reflected in the current AIDS crisis. Over 40 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS. Chart 6 shows the HIV infection rates in various parts of the world based on the latest figures from UNAIDS (December 2001). The epidemic started in Black Africa in the late 1970s. Today 28 million adults there are living with HIV/AIDS. Over fifty percent of these are female. This shows that transmission is mainly heterosexual. Currently, nearly 9 out of every 100 Africans are infected with the AIDS virus and the epidemic is considered out of control. In several countries the AIDS rate is over 20%, including South Africa, where one in 5 adults is living with HIV/AIDS.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart6.jpg The HIV infection rate is also high in the Black Caribbean – 2.2%! The high rate of HIV/AIDS in the 2,000-mile band of Caribbean countries extends from Bermuda to Guyana, and it is highest in the Bahamas and in Haiti, where the rates are 4% and 5%, respectively.
Data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that African Americans have HIV/AIDS rates similar to the Black Caribbean and parts of Black Africa. Three percent of Black men and 1% of Black women in the U.S. are living with HIV. The rate for White Americans is about 0.4%, while the rate for Asian Americans is less than 0.05%. Rates for Europe and the Pacific Rim are also low. Of course AIDS is a serious public health problem for all racial groups, but it is especially so for Africans and people of African descent.
Importantly, the races also differ in rate of ovulation. Not all women produce just one egg during the menstrual cycle. When two or more eggs are produced at the same time, pregnancy and the likelihood of producing two-egg twins are more likely. The number of such twins born is 16 out of every 1,000 births for Blacks, 8 out of every 1,000 births for Whites, and 4 or less for Orientals. Black women also average shorter menstrual cycles than White women. These and other data make it plain that the race differences in reproductive behavior are biological in nature.
Twin and adoption studies show that genes play a big part in athletic ability, brain size, IQ, and personality. Trans-racial adoption studies, where infants of one race are adopted and reared by parents of a different race, provide some of the strongest evidence that race differences are heritable. Oriental children, even if malnourished before being adopted by White parents, go on to have IQs above the White average. Black infants adopted into middle-class White families end up with IQs lower than the White average. Some of these data are summarized in Chart 7.
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/images/jpr21-chart7.jpg The Evolution of Racial Differences
Look back again at all the traits in Chart 1. They form a pattern. Whites consistently average between Orientals and Blacks in dozens of areas. Also, the groups with the largest brains have the lowest rates of two-egg twinning! Why? The answer lies in evolution. No purely cultural theory can explain all of these traits taken together. There is, however, a gene-based explanation that explicitly involves the trade-off between reproductive effort (twinning rates) and brain size. The patterns make up what is called a “life-history.” They evolved together to meet the trials of life -- survival, growth, and reproduction.
I have explained the racial pattern in brain size, intelligence, and other traits using a gene-based life-history theory that evolutionary biologists call the r-K scale of reproductive strategies. At one end of this scale are r-strategies that rely on high reproductive rates. At the other end are K-strategies that rely on high levels of parental care. This scale is generally used to compare the life histories of different species of animals. I have used it to explain the smaller but real differences between the human races.
On this scale, Orientals are more K-selected than Whites, while Whites are more K-selected than Blacks. Highly K-selected women produce fewer eggs (and have bigger brains) than r-selected women. Highly K-selected men invest time and energy in their children rather than the pursuit of sexual thrills. They are “dads” rather than “cads.”
Race differences also make sense in terms of human evolution. Modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Africans and non-Africans then split about 110,000 years ago. Orientals and Whites split about 40,000 years ago, around the time that modern humans were first in Europe. Analyses of DNA sequencing, along with the fossil and archaeological record, demonstrate this sequence, as does the pattern of traits shown in Chart 1.
The further north people went out of Africa, the harder it was to get food, gain shelter, make clothes, and raise children. So the groups that evolved into today’s Whites and Orientals needed larger brains, more family stability, and a longer life. But building a bigger brain takes time and energy so there is a trade off with slower rates of growth, lower levels of sex hormones, less aggression, and less sexual activity. Thus came about the pattern of traits in Chart 1.
What are the implications of this research? One is, obviously, that race is a valid taxonomic construct. If it were not it would have no reliable predictive value and we would not find the same racial pattern all around the world and over time. The fact that, on average, African-descended children are born with smaller brains than European- or East Asian-descended children, regardless of where in the diasporas the children are located, allows reliable predictions to be made about their future academic and occupational achievement. Similarly, the fact that throughout the world Blacks have a stronger sex drive than Whites or East Asians explains why Black Americans, Black Caribbeans, and sub-Saharan Africans have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and why East Asians have even lower rates than Whites.
A second implication is that “White racism” is not responsible for all of society’s problems. Black underachievement is not simply due to “White prejudice.” It is more deeply rooted. On average, Black children are born with smaller brains than White or East Asian children. Pointing this out is not constructing stereotypes, it is simply observing facts as they are. Both science and justice call for us to seek and tell the truth, not to tell lies and spread error.
Another implication is that we have to accept that racial differences will not just disappear. Hitherto, most theories in the behavioral sciences have assumed that all human populations have equal abilities to achieve equal levels of social development. We need to accept the existence of the evolved diversity of human populations.
Sometimes it is claimed by those who argue that race is just a social construct that the human genome project shows that because people share 99% of their “genes” in common, that there are no races. This is silly. Human genes are 98% similar to chimpanzee genes. Yet no one thinks that chimpanzees have the same intelligence, brain size, or social behavior patterns as human beings; they look and behave very differently. In fact humans share 90% of their genes with mice, which is why we can use them to test drug therapies. Similarly, although men and women are genetically 99% the same, it is foolish to believe that sex is just a “social construction.”
Much confusion arises because there are several sets of genetic measures. A much more realistic story comes from looking at the 3.1 billion base pairs that make up the 30,000 genes. People differ in 1 out of every 1,000 of these base pairs. Each change in a base pair can alter a gene. Technically, base pair differences are called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Base pair differences are important and SNPs clump together in races. Just one change in the base pair for hemoglobin, for example, causes sickle-cell anemia, from which many Blacks suffer. Other base pair differences affect IQ, aggression, and mental illness. The 3.1 billion base pairs provide plenty of room for large racial differences.
In summary, the same racial pattern would not occur so consistently all around the world and over time if race were a mere social construct. If it were a meaningless construct, it would have no power to predict phenomena like brain size, growth rate, life span, crime, and family stability. Other evidence also shows that race is a biological reality. For example, coroners in crime labs can identify race from a skeleton or even just the skull. They can even identify race from blood, hair, or semen. How could they do this if race was only a social construct? The scientific evidence shows that the politically correct mantra “race is just skin deep” is a case of deep denial.
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J. Philippe Rushton is professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and the author of Race,Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (3rd Edition).
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References
Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. "Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines," Current Anthropology, 1984: 25, 301-330.
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P., & Piazza, A. The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton.University Press, 1994.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 2000. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001.
Ellis, L., & Nyborg, H. "Racial/ethnic variations in male testosterone levels: A probable contributor to group differences in health," Steroids, 1992: 57, 72-75.
Entine, J. Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It. New York: Public Affairs Press, 2000.
Herman-Giddens, M. E., et al, "Secondary sexual characteristics and menses in young girls seen in the office practice," Pediatrics, 1997: 99, 505-512.
Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. "Analysis of brain weight," Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, 1980: 104, 635-645.
Jensen, A. R. The g Factor. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998.
Lewis, B. Race and Slavery in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
Rushton, J. P. " Cranial capacity related to sex, rank, and race in a stratified random sample of 6,325 U.S. military personnel," Intelligence, 1992: 16, 401-413.
Rushton, J. P. "Brain size and cognitive ability in Asian Americans from birth to age seven," Intelligence, 1997: 25, 7-20.
Rushton, J. P. Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (3rd edition). Port Huron, MI: Charles Darwin Research Institute, 2000.
Rushton, J. P., & Ankney, C. D. "Brain size and cognitive ability: Correlations with age, sex, social class and race," Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 1996: 3, 21-36.
Rushton, J. P., & Osborne, R. T. "Genetic and environmental contributions to cranial capacity estimated in Black and White adolescents," Intelligence, 1995: 20, 1-13.
Rushton, J. P., & Skuy, M. "Performance on Raven's Matrices by African and White university students in South Africa," Intelligence, 2000: 28, 251-265.
Stringer, C. & McKie, R. African Exodus. London: Cape, 1996.
Taylor, J., & Whitney, G. "Crime and racial profiling by U.S. police: Is there an empirical basis?" Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 1999: 24, 485-510.
UNAIDS/WHO AIDS epidemic update: December 2001. Geneva, Switzerland: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and World Health Organization (WHO).
Weinberg, R. A., Scarr, S., & Waldman, I. D. "The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: follow-up of IQ test performance at adolescence," Intelligence, 1992: 16, 117-135.
Prof J. Philippe Rushton
Comments
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24.07.2004 12:15
Surely this is iterative? We can make predictions based on race *because* we discriminate between people based on race (well, skin pigmentation anyway), thus their behaviour differs. Black americans aren't born with a penchant for getting harrassed by cops and living in poor areas, a legacy of racism creates differentiated racial behaviour which then 'justifies' the perpertuation of racial classification. We are a *human race*.
The only way ethnicity has taxonomic utility is at the human scale - family, extended family, and at a push, tribe - because this most closely reflects the cultural norms and therefore likely behaviour of a group. The only correlations between race and behaviour are constructed by racial prejudice in the first place.
human
J Phillipe Rushton and the New Eugenics Movement
24.07.2004 13:02
Foundation for Fascism: the New Eugenics Movement in the United States, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 23, no. 4. 1989 by BARRY MEHLER
Andrew Winston on Rushton [link:
At the January 1989 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science a little-known psychologist from the University of Western Ontario delivered a paper(1) at a symposium on evolution and political theory. That paper caused a major international uproar.(2) This article outlines the background to the paper's author and his connection to the right wing eugenic organizations, Mankind Quarterly and the Pioneer Fund [link:
J. Philippe Rushton, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow with an impressive publication history, explained that data show Asians and whites to be different and, by implication, superior to blacks. Orientals and whites have evolved into races that are allegedly more intelligent, family oriented and law-abiding than Negroes. According to this explanation, the Negro race is, on the whole, smaller brained, slower to mature, less sexually restrained and more aggressive than its white and Asian cousins. Yet the use of a tripartite division of races into white, black and yellow has been widely discredited by biologists and anthropologists.(3)
David Peterson, the Premier of Ontario, called Rushton's work 'morally offensive' and 'destructive'.(4) The Urban Alliance on Race Relations in London, Ontario, called for Rushton's dismissal from the university and for an investigation of his activities. Indeed, the Ontario police initiated an investigation under the hate propaganda laws following numerous complaints about statements Rushton made on a radio phone-in show. As a result, Rushton had to cancel a planned speaking engagement before the Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform, an extremist anti-immigration group.(5) Instauration, a racist and antisemitic magazine, also embraced Rushton as a scientific source for its belief in the inferiority of Afro-Americans.(6)
Rushton's theories are a bizarre mélange of nineteenth century anthro-pometrism and twentieth century eugenics. Although there is no evidence showing different cranial sizes between races, Rushton has cited the genetic distance studies of Allen Wilson of the University of California to claim that /18/ Africans have smaller brains and are more primitive than whites and orientals, who evolved to cope with the more demanding northern climes.(7) Wilson commented: 'He is misrepresenting our findings'. These 'show that Asians are as closely related to modern Africans as Europeans are'. When asked if he was aware of any anthropological evidence at all that might support Rushton's claim, he replied, 'I'm not aware of any such evidence. The claim shocks and dismays me'.(8)
According to Rushton, the differences between the three races emanate from evolutionary differences in reproductive strategies. Rushton uses the r/K selection theory developed in the late 1960s(9) to explain differences between species in evolutionary development. Species that emphasize r-selected strategies, such as the cockroach, reproduce quickly and invest little in their offspring, many of whom die. The K end of this scale is best represented by humans who produce very few offspring but lavish great care upon them to ensure survival.
Rushton applies this theory to humans. At one extreme are blacks who are said to produce large numbers of offspring and offer little care. At the other extreme are Orientals and whites who have fewer children but lavish great care on them.(10) Rushton even suggests that grieving patterns are related to genetic investment. This suggests that black parents will grieve less upon the death of a child than white or Asian parents.(11)
Dr Mark Feldman, Stanford University Population Biologist and recognized authority on r/K selection theory, claims that r/K is 'absolutely inapplicable' to differences between humans. Feldman concluded that Rushton's work 'doesn't really classify as science . . . it has no content, it is laughable'.(12)
Rushton uses measurements of sixty different characteristics to put forward his case for blacks being less advanced in evolution. These include everything from family size to brain size, but the vulgarity of his racism is evident in his use of an inconsistent nineteenth century source described as 'anthro-porn',(13) from which Rushton claimed that black men not only have larger penises than other men, but that this accounts for promiscuity and large families.(14)
Despite academic opposition to Rushton, it seemed that precipitate action against a tenured professor might be regarded as damaging the fundamental principle of academic freedom.(15) Tom Collins, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Western Ontario, compared the calls to silence Rushton to the Ayatollah's death threat against British author Salman Rushdie, whose book The Satanic Verses offended Muslims.(16) A Toronto Star editorial chastised the University for not taking decisive action against Rushton, whose theories had been found 'without exception' to have 'no scientific basis'.(17) Western 'has shirked its responsibility', the editorial concluded. Yet calls for Rushton's dismissal only helped to obscure the dimensions of the problem.
Reports of Rushton's theories spread throughout the United States, /19/ Canada and Britain, and Rushton even appeared on a popular US television show.(18) Most disturbing about the media-fest which surrounded Rushton was the lack of understanding of the context of academic racism and the resurgence of eugenics. Rushton was regularly depicted as a lone kook spouting nonsensical theories.(19) It was as if he had dropped out of the sky.
Mark Feldman commented that both the scientific and the lay community would quickly dispense with Rushton. 'There is no merit in any of his claims and it won't take a trained eye more than a microsecond to realize that.(20)
Rushton and the new eugenics movement
What was missed in the two-month debate was any sense of history. Where had Rushton come from? At forty-five years old, he is a tenured professor holding one of America's most prestigious fellowships (the Guggenheim). He has been publishing in prestigious journals in North America and Britain regularly for five years (21) and has coauthored articles with some of the most highly respected academics in the fields of psychology and sociobiology in the US, Canada and Britain;(22) he has even published an article containing all of the essential elements of his biological determinism - that individuals seek out genetically similar people for friendship, marriage and social and cultural organization - in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.(23)
It is only by examining Rushton in the context of his support and the large movement for which he speaks, that one begins to understand the significance of his work.
The publication of E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975 (24) allowed sociobiological concepts to be applied to an ideology of racial nationalism. Rushton has taken the 'new synthesis' and developed it into a full-blown naturalistic ethic.
He draws heavily on the work of Arthur Jensen, Hans Eysenck, Daniel Vining, R. T. Osborne and Richard Lynn. All these men are closely associated with each other and with Mankind Quarterly, which is the primary outlet for the new eugenics, and with the Pioneer Fund, which is the movement's major funding source.
The Mankind Quarterly
The Mankind Quarterly, dedicated to'race-science' and 'racial history', was established in 1960 by Professor R. Gayre of Edinburgh who believed that 'racial fundamentals' were 'all important' in human affairs. He maintained that scientific evidence proved blacks 'prefer their leisure to the dynamism which the white and yellow races show'.(25) Gayre's work owed a heavy debt to that of Hans F. K. Günther, a major Nazi race theorist. Indeed, Gayre's first important work, Teutotn and Slav, argued for improving the 'racial homogeneity' and 'Nordic' purity of the German nation.(26) Among the founders, early editors, advisory board members and contributors to the /20/ Mankind Quarterly one finds people who have supported apartheid and neo-Nazism, such as Donald Swan, Robert Kuttner [link:
In the late 1970s, control of the Mankind Quarterly - was transferred to Roger Pearson [link :
Richard Lynn, [link:
This raised a problem which Rushton recognized as a paradox in his own theory. If we are all out to advance our own genes, why have whites adopted ideologies which 'discourage nationalist and religious beliefs' reflecting their interest in outbreeding blacks and Hispanics? 'Why are European populations throughout the world currently experiencing negative growth while allowing extensive immigration from genetically less similar gene pools? Clearly ideologies can arise which have the paradoxical effect of dramatically decreasing fitness.(31) Rushton speculated that this is the key to why civilizations decay. The ruling group, either a class or race, fails to reproduce itself, How to solve the 'fertility paradox' will 'herald a quantum jump in understanding the nature of gene-culture coevolution.'(32)
The implications of this new biological determinism (spelt out in detail by Raymond B. Cattell) [link:
The Pioneer Fund
Behind this resurgent fascism stands the Pioneer Fund. Established in 1937 by textile machinery millionaire, Wickcliffe Draper, the Pioneer Fund has a long connection with Nazi and neo-Nazi race theories, and for many years has been funding a small, tightly knit group of people who cite each other's work, review each other's books and acknowledge each other in their books. When scandal emerges, these people invariably deny knowing anything of the Pioneer fund's nefarious history, even though many scandals have broken into national prominence and articles about the fund have appeared for over three decades.
The Pioneer Fund was incorporated in 1937 by two American scientists: Harry Laughlin, who received an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University in 1936 in honor of his contribution to Nazi eugenics, and Frederick Osborn, who wrote in 1937 that the Nazi sterilization law was 'the most exciting experiment that had ever been tried'.(35)
The fund had two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi breeding program, was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those 'descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended'. Its second purpose was to support academic research and the 'dissemination of information, into the 'problem of heredity and eugenics' and 'the problems of race betterment'.(36)
Among the first projects discussed for 1937 was the distribution of two Nazi eugenic propaganda films to 'high schools, colleges, clubs [and] churches'." (37)
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Pioneer Fund aligned itself with the American right fighting Brown v. Board of Education.(38) Draper [link
Ralph Scott [link:
Although Scott is not a geneticist, he also used Pioneer funds to study /22/ 'forced busing and its relationship to genetic aspects of educability',(42) and to organize anti-busing conferences, out of which grew the National Association for Neighbourhood Schools.(43) Scott defended his acceptance of Pioneer funds, even when the organization was exposed as racist.(44)
Eugenicists have successfully legitimated and integrated themselves with the Reagan right. In 1985 Scott was chosen as the chair of the Iowa Advisory Commission on Civil Rights by Clarence Pendelton, Reagan administration appointee to the US Civil Rights Commission.(45) The Pioneer Fund also is currently closely associated with Jesse Heim's [link:
The current focus for many scientists is the IQ question. A recent survey of 661 scholars working on this issue showed that the campaign to legitimate the work of the racist scholars connected to the Pioneer Fund is having a profound effect. The survey revealed that the single most compelling reason convincing scholars of the genetic component to IQ was the recent 'barrage of studies on identical twins reared apart'.(48)
The source of this 'barrage' is Thomas Bouchard's Minnesota Twins Study Project. Although only a few articles on personality and character traits have been published in refereed journals, the Minnesota group has announced 'conclusions' and generated massive publicity about the heritable nature of personality traits. In order for the scientific community to have an opportunity to evaluate the twin study a book-length monograph is needed. Such a monograph was promised by 1987. The twin project is now entering its second decade and a full-length study has still not appeared.(49)
It is possible that Bouchard's survey is methodologically rigorous, but few bodies save the Pioneer Fund would back a study which has not been published in a reputable academic journal. Until such time, 'a decade of media coverage will have made its impression',(50) and ideas generated by right wing eugenicists heralding all end to white civilization might have become acceptable and commonplace.
Notes
1. J. Philippe Rushton, 'Evolutionary Biology and Heritable Traits (With Reference to Oriental-White-Black Difference)'. Paper presented at the Symposium on Evolutionary Theory, Economics and Political Science, AAAS Annual Meeting (San Francisco, CA, 19 January 1989).
2 Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 January 1989; San Francisco Tribune; 20 January 1989; Houston Chronicle, 20 January 1989; St. Louis Post Dispatch, 22 January 1989; Detroit Free Press, 24 January 1989; Toronto Star, 28 January 1989, 1; Independent, 8 March 1989, Sunday Telegraph, 12 March 1989.
3 See S. Molnar, Races, Types and Ethnic Groups: the Problem of Human Variation (Englewood Cliffs 1975). Rushton does not define his racial categories. See Rushton, 'Race differences in behavior: a review and evolutionary analysis'; for criticism see M. Zuckerman and N. Brody, 'Oysters, rabbits and people: a critique of "Race differences in behavior" by J. P. Rushton'; see also Rushton's reply to Zuckerman, 'The reality of racial differences: a rejoiner with new evidence', all in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 9 (1988) 1009, 1025-33, 1035-40; see also F. Weizmann, et. al., 'Evolutionary biology, psychology and scientific racism: the strange case of differential-K theory', York University Department of Psychology Reports (March 1988), 54.
4 Toronto Star, 3 February 1989, 1.
5 Don Hughes and Howard Goldenthal, 'White-rights supporters draw close to controversial Western professor', Now Magazine, Toronto, 16-22 March 1989.
6 'Crime model', Instauration, vol. 14, no. 2 (January 1989), 36. See also vol. 14, no. 10 (September 1989), 31.
7 Dr Loring Brace, Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan, interview with John Ingram, host of Quirks and Quarks (CBC Radio, 18 February 1989). The arguments come directly from the eugenics movement 1900-30. See B. Mehler, 'A History of the American Eugenics Movement, 1921-1940', Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois 1988, 187-92.
8 Interview with John Ingram, CBC Radio, 18 February 1989.
9 First articulated in R. H. MacArthur and E. 0. Wilson, The Theory of Island Biogeography (Princeton 1967).
10 Rushton first presented this view publicly at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Behavior-Genetics Association in Bloomington, Indiana. J. P. Rushton, 'Do "r" and "k" apply to individual differences in humans?'
11. Christine Littlefield and J. P. Rushton, 'When a child dies: the sociobiology of bereavement', Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 51, no. 4 (October 1986), 797-802.
12 CBC Radio, 18 February 1989.
13 The source, A French Army Surgeon, Untrodden Fields of Anthropology (Paris 1896), examined by Neil Wiener in F. Weizmann et al., 28-30.
14 J. P. Rushton and Anthony F. Bogaert, 'Race differences in sexual behavior: testing an evolutionary hypothesis'. Journal of Research on Personality, 21 December 1987, 536; F. Weizmann et al., 28-9.
15 Comments made to Frank Koller by Glen Caldwell, Western's Vice- President for Research on Sunday Morning, CBC Radio, 27 February 1989.
16 Tim Jones, Detroit Free Press, 7 March 1989.
17 Toronto Star, 9 March 1989, 28.
18 Geroldo, 8 March 1989.
19 See David Ansley, San Francisco Tribune, 20 January 1989, syndicated by Knight-Ritter Newspapers; St Louis Post Dispatch, 21 January 1989, 15A.
20 Quirks and Quarks, 18 February 1989.
21 Such as the British Journal of Psychology, British Journal of Social and clinical Psychology, Psychological Reports, Journal of Personality, European Journal of Social Psychology, American Psychologist, Developmental Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, American Psychologist, Developmental Psychology, Personality and Individual Differences, Behavior Genetics and The Proceedings of the American Academy of Science.
22 Rushton has coauthored Hans Eysenck, editor of the Journal of Personality and Individual Psychology. He has published dozens of articles and review and his work has been favorably commented upon by a host of academics. Among those he has co-authored with are N. P. Emier, J. Shapeland, Anne C. Campbell, Paul J. Barber, Janet Wiener, J, E. Grant, N. S. Endler, Goody Teachman, H. L. Roediger, F. F. Strayer, S. Wareing, Christine Littlefield, Mary Wheelwright, C. Winick, G. Cynthia Fekken, Douglas N. Jackson, Sampo V. Paunonen, S. Meltzer, Richard M. Sorrentino, Charles J. Brainerd, Michael Pressley, N. J. Allen, Robin J. H. Russell, Pamela A. Wells, Stephen Erdle, Harry G. Murray, David W. Fulker, Michael C. Neale, David K. B. Nias, Philip A. Vernon, Karen L. Horner, Ian R. Nicholson, P. F. K. Chan and Anthony F. Bogaert.
23 Rushton, Littlefield and Lumsden, 'Gene-culture coevolution of complex social behavior', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 83 (October 1986), 7340-3. The publication acknowledges the support of the Pioneer Fund.
24 E. 0. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass. 1975).
25 Quoted in Michael Billig, Chapter 5, 'Race science: the contribution of psychology', 3 of the English manuscript, published in French as L'Internationate Rasciste (Paris 1978) and in German as Die Rassistische Internationale (Frankfurt 1978). The quote is from Gayre's testimony at the 1968 trial of the Racial Preservation Society.
26 Ibid., R. Gayre, Teuton and Slav on the Polish Frontier (London 1944).
27 Roger Pearson, Eugenics and Race (London 1966), 35-40. For Pearson's antisemitism see his Blood Groups and Race (London 1966), 26. Pearson has also edited or published the journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies and the Journal of Indo-European Studies.
28 See, e.g. R. Lynn, 'The intelligence of the Mongoloids: a psychometric, evolutionary and neurological theory', Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 8, no. 6 (1987) 813-44. His work has gained a good deal of attention. See, for example, Chris Brand, 'British IQ: keeping up with the times', Nature, no. 328, 27 August 1987, 761; Bryan Silcock, Sunday Times, 13 March 1977; 'The land of the rising IQ, comment in New Scientist, 27 March 1982, 550. Many other citations could be listed.
29 Invitation of article confirmed in personal conversation with Rushton, 17 February 1989-, J. P. Rushton, 'Evolution, altruism and genetic similarity theory', Mankind Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 4 (Summer 1987), 379-95.
30 Ibid., 392. 31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 393.
33 Raymond B. Cattell, Beyondism: Religion from Science (New York 1987).
34 For similar arguments, see Lloyd Humphreys, 'Intelligence: three kinds of instability and their consequences for policy', in Robert L. Linn (ed.), Intelligence Measurement, Theory, and Public Policy (Urbana 1989).
35 See H. Laughlin to C. Schneider, I I August 1936, Harry Laughlin Papers, Northeast Missouri State University; Frederick Osbori-i, 'Summary of the proceedings' of the Con- ference on Eugenics in Relatioii to Nursing, 24 February 1937, American Eugenics Society Archives.
36 'Outline proposed foc the first year's work of the Foundation'. See also 11. Laughlin to Draper. 15 March 1937 and 9 December 1938. All in Harry Laughlin Papers.
37 Ibid.
38 The Supreme Court ruling which declared segregated schooling unconstitutional.
39 Ronald W. May, 'Genetics and subversion', Nation, vol. 190, no. 20 (14 May 1960), 420-2.
40 Peter Leo,Evening Journal, 14 June 1976, 3.
41 Robert Walsh, New York Daily News, 6 April 1966, 5; Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, 7 April 1966, 4.
42 Grace Lichtenstein, New York Times, 11 December 1977.
43 Jeffrey A. Raffel, The Politics of School Desegregation: The Metropolitan Remedy in Delaware (Philadelphia 1980) 156-7.
44 Evening Journal, 21 October 1977, 3. See also St Louis Post Dispatch, 11 December 1977, 60.
45 B. Mehler, 'Ralph Scott's curious career: rightist on the rights panel', Nation, 7 May 1989, 640-1.
46 Thomas B. Edsall and David A. Vise, Washington Post, 31 March 1985, A 16.
47 Wall Street Journal, 28 September 1989. Other connections to the administration are shown by membership of the right wing University Professors for Academic Order (president, Roger Pearson) of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education in the Department of Education, C. Ronald Kimberling. He was in charge of over $400 million per annum in federal education grants. Pearson was succeeded as president of the UPAO by Ralph Scott.
48 Daniel Seligman, 'Measureing intelligence', Commentary, vol. 87, no. 3(March 1989), 70-2, in Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman, The IQ Controversy: The Media and Public Policy (New Brunswick, NJ 1989).
49. Clare Mead Rosen, 'The eerie world of reunited twins', Discover, September 1987, 36-46; Robert Bazell, 'Sins and twins', New Republic, 21 December 1987.
50. Val Dusek, 'Bewitching science', Science for the People, vol. 19, no. 6 (November/December 1987), 19-22.
yozzee
...
24.07.2004 14:42
Ethiopia ( Nubia ) was a civilised nation while our ancestors were living in caves and wearing animal furs.
I don't even know what the hell this racist article is doing up here on this site. BNP members have been scientifically proven to have both smaller brain sizes AND penis sizes than all other social groups.
Anti-BNP
racist horse-shit
24.07.2004 21:08
pearl.
pearl