Talk:Race and intelligence/new intro feb 07

Image:Two Curve Bell with Jobs.jpg. Some regard this book as solid science, while others consider it a modern example of scientific racism.[http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f01/web3/bishay.html The Bell Curve: An illustration of the existence of social science as a social problem] Vivian Bishay. 2001.[http://www.press.uillinois.edu/epub/books/tucker/intro.html Introduction: Keepers of the Flame] Tucker. These are idealized normal curves comparing the IQs of Blacks and Whites in the US in 1981.The 1981 normalization of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale]]

Race and intelligence are broad and variously defined terms used to classify and measure human beings. The relationship between race and intelligence has been a topic of study and speculation for western science, sociology, and philosophy since the 19th century.[http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp60116.pdf Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race] Audrey Smedley and Brian D. Smedley In the 19th and early 20th centuries research on race and intelligence was often used to assert that one race was superior to another, justifying poor outcomes and treatment for the supposedly inferior race.Social Darwinism, Scientific Racism, and the Metaphysics of Race Rutledge M. Dennis The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 243-252 Early notions about the differences among races grew out of stereotypes about non-whites developed during the period of colonialism and slavery.[http://www.ameno.ca/docs/A%20History%20of%20Race.doc. A History of Race/ism] Produced By: Tim McCaskell Toronto District School BoardJalata, Asafa 1954- "Race and Ethnicity in East Africa (review)" Africa Today - Volume 48, Number 4, Winter 2001, pp. 134-136 Indiana University PressThe Invention of the White Race By Chantal Mouffe, Theodore (Theodore W.) Allen[http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/crawford/jamesc.html Media, Stereotypes and the Perpetuation of Racism in Canada] by James Crawford

Indians were seen as a homogeneous group of savages despite the fact that individual groups varied extensively and had several well developed social systems. Black people were also portrayed as savage, uncivilized and having low intelligence. By creating these social constructs, expansion into North America was justified.

As the study of intelligence grew into a more systematic and rigorous science, researchers developed tools such as IQ tests. Using these tests, many studies measuring the average intelligence of adults of different populations in the US were performed over the years. Some researchers strove to separate the science from racial politics.Race and Intelligence: : Separating Science from Myth By Jefferson M. Fish ISBN 0805837574 Evidence became available about significant gaps between the test scores of people identified as Blacks and people identified as Whites. Later, concurrent with the rise of Japan's economic power in the 1980s, Lieberman, a psychologist, noted that the gap thought to exist between Whites and Asians was reversed in academic circles, putting Asians at the top.[http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Lieberman2001CA.pdf How "Caucasoids" Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank] The causes of these gaps in mean IQ test scores has been the major source of the modern controversy. There is significant disagreement about which environmental factors may be involved, whether or not genetics may play a role, and the relative magnitudes of genetic or environmental contributions.

Some researchers deny that race is a meaningful scientific category for the study of intelligence.[http://www.apa.org/divisions/div1/news/spring2002/Race.pdf. "Race" and IQ] www.apa.org Likewise, the idea of a 'measurable intelligence' is also controversial since many people question whether or not IQ tests measure innate qualities of individuals, or whether culture and environment play the primary role.[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-3920(199604)67%3A2%3C396%3AEDICIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6#abstract Ethnic Differences in Children's Intelligence Test Scores: Role of Economic Deprivation, Home Environment, and Maternal Characteristics] Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Pamela K. Klebanov, Greg J. Duncan Child Development, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 396-408

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Although the exact magnitude of the genetic and environmental components of the Black-White gap in IQ are debated, some direct research has been done adjusting for specific variables. A graph illustrates what the Black-White gap looks like when certain socioeconomic variables are controlled for. It is possible that as other non-genetic variables are controlled for, not only will the measured gap be eliminated, but even reversed, establishing a genetic deficit for Whites.[http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Heritability.html How Heritability Misleads about Race]

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Reanne Frank states, "The use of racial categories as a starting point for understanding genetic variation represents shoddy and imprecise research, leading to the misspecification of models and the misinterpretation of findings...It gives credence to the discredited findings of disreputable researchers: those who argue explicitly that there are many measurable genetic differences between racial groups, and implicitly that these racial differences connote hierarchical differences in worth."Frank, Reanne, The Misuse of Biology in Demographic Research on Racial/Ethnic Differences: A Reply to van den Oord and Rowe, Demography - Volume 38, Number 4, November 2001, pp. 563-567

The most malignant are the "true believers," who subscribe to the typological distinctions that imply hierarchical rankings of worth across different races. Although this group remains small, the members' work is often widely publicized and well known (e.g., Herrnstein and Murray 1994; Rushton 1991).