The Politics of Intelligence · Episode 8 of 9 · 46 min
How Science Closed the Door on the Race-and-IQ Claim
By the late 1970s and 1980s geneticists, psychologists and anthropologists reached an unusually clear verdict: the genetic-racial reading of the IQ gap was rejected and environment better explained group differences. The episode traces professional statements from 1976 to the 1996 American Psychological Association report, which still affirmed that IQ tests predict real outcomes, and the dispute over Gould's critique of Morton.
Who's who
- Stephen Jay Gould+2 more episodesHarvard paleontologist and author of The Mismeasure of Man
- Samuel George MortonNineteenth-century skull measurer analyzed by Gould
- Arthur Jensen+7 more episodesBerkeley psychologist whose standing in mainstream psychology fell
- William Shockley+3 more episodesPhysicist and the most inflammatory hereditarian voice
- Hans Eysenck+2 more episodesLondon psychologist who argued for a partial genetic basis of group differences
- Ulric Neisser+1 more episodeChair of the 1996 APA task force on intelligence
- Jason LewisStanford researcher whose 2011 study re-measured Morton's skulls
Where it happens
- Stanford University, California+8 more episodesWhere Shockley faced demonstrations before retiring in 1975
Timeline
- 1973Resolution Against Racism published with over 1,000 signatories
- 1976Genetics Society of America issues a resolution on genetics, race and intelligence
- 1981Gould publishes The Mismeasure of Man
- 1996APA task force publishes 'Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns'
- 1998American Anthropological Association states race has no valid biological basis
- 2011Lewis and colleagues reanalyze Morton's skulls in PLOS Biology
Still debated
Lewis and colleagues found Morton's measurements largely accurate, which challenges Gould's specific claim of unconscious bias, though others defend his broader argument. Public debate also tends to blur rejecting racial-genetic inference with doubting that IQ is valid.
← PreviousThe Logical Error at the Heart of the Race-and-IQ ArgumentNext →Why the Race-and-IQ Claim Keeps Coming Back: The Bell Curve to Today
