Aufsatz(gedruckt)1976

Race and IQ: Fallacy of Heritability

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 23, Heft 2, S. 181-196

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Abstract

This is the first of a series of three articles on IQ, heredity, & equality. Focus here is on A. Jensen's hypothesis (Educability and Group Differences, New York: Harper & Row, 1973) that the mean IQ short-fall for blacks is genetically caused. Consideration is given to the theoretical & logical structure of the argument that intergroup variations in average IQ are primarily influenced by heredity. Original data from heritability studies involving separated identical twins are untrustworthy, besides which, such statistics apply only to specific breeding & rearing populations, & they cannot be generalized to other populations. The heritability of a trait may be nothing more than a function of the extent to which salient features of the environments in which the observed population lives are themselves alike or unlike. Within-group variance cannot be generalized to account for between-group differences. Ss of twin studies involve much less group-environment conflict than is true for black people in largely white America. No plausible historical or anthropological account has been offered as to why ex-Africans in America should have disfavored genes for intelligence. The heritability of the intelligence-as-measured-by-IQ is irrelevant to questions of causation & prognosis; that kind of intelligence is a malleable trait. If inheritance is discounted as a major cause of between-group differentials in IQ, it is not difficult to find aspects of environment that can reasonably & clearly be expected to have had a striking differential impact on the IQ performances of the races in the US. Jensen's "genetic hypothesis" is not only illogically applied to interracial comparisons, it is unnecessary & misconceived for explaining the racial IQ gap. AA.

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