I.Q., Heritability and Racism
In: Science & society: a journal of Marxist thought and analysis, Band 45, Heft 1, S. 117-119
ISSN: 0036-8237
In: Science & society: a journal of Marxist thought and analysis, Band 45, Heft 1, S. 117-119
ISSN: 0036-8237
In: Political research quarterly: PRQ ; official journal of Western Political Science Association, Pacific Northwest Political Science Association, Southern California Political Science Association, Northern California Political Science Association, Band 62, Heft 3, S. 601-613
ISSN: 1065-9129
In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 23, Heft 2, S. 181-196
ISSN: 0012-3846
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.
In: European psychologist: official organ of the European Federation of Psychologists' Associations (EFPA), Band 6, Heft 4
ISSN: 1016-9040
In: Political psychology: journal of the International Society of Political Psychology, Band 33, Heft 3, S. 363-374
ISSN: 0162-895X
In: Philosophy & public affairs, Band 4, Heft 1, S. 40-99
ISSN: 0048-3915
AT PRESENT, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW THE DEGREE OF GENETIC DETERMINATION OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS, IE, THEIR HERITABILITY. MAJOR PROBLEMS OF RELIABILITY ARE MANIFOLD. A CHILD WITH GENOTYPICALLY HIGH INTELLIGENCE MAY MAGNIFY HIS ADVANTAGE BY SHAPING HIS OWN ENVIRONMENT, WHICH THUS MAY BECOME MORE RESPONSIVE TO HIS NEEDS. A CHILD WITH GENOTYPICALLY LOW INTELLIGENCE, BEING AT A DISADVANTAGE, MAY NOT RESPOND TO HIS OWN ENVIRONMENT IN WAYS WHICH CAN AMPLIFY HIS EXPERIENCES. THIS RAISES A QUESTION AS TO THE JUSTICE OF ADULT RESPONSE TO CHILDREN WHICH ENCOURAGES SOME & DISCOURAGES OTHERS. NO MEANINGFUL ESTIMATE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF SUCH INDIRECT GENETIC EFFECTS CAN BE MADE. WHERE IQ IS CONCERNED, IQ'S HERITABILITY MAY BE CALCULATED EVEN THOUGH WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT IQ REALLY IS, OR WHAT VALUE IT HAS. HERITABILITY ESTIMATES ARE USEFUL ONLY IN THAT THEY RELATE TO POSSIBILITIES FOR CHANGE IN PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES; THEY HAVE NO FUNCTION IN PREDICTING POTENTIAL CHANGES ARISING FROM NEW ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATIONS. WHERE DYSGENICS IS CONCERNED, GIVEN THE SUSPICION THAT IQ TESTS HAVE LIMITED VALUE IN JUDGING INTELLIGENCE, ANY EUGENIC PROGRAM SEEMS FRAUGHT WITH PROFOUND MORAL QUESTIONS. ARGUMENTS REGARDING SOCIAL STRATIFICATION & ITS INEVITABLE STRENGTHENING THROUGH GENETIC REINFORCEMENT ARE SOPHISTICATED BUT FALLACIOUS. WHILE SOME R DOES SEEM TO EXIST BETWEEN IQ & SOCIAL STANDING, THIS MIGHT BE DETERMINED BY A GREAT MANY NONGENETIC FACTORS RELATING TO THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH STATUS & MONEY IN OUR SOCIETY PROVIDE. SUCH IDEOLOGICAL & RACIST OVERTONES IN HERITABILITY DISCUSSIONS RAISE SERIOUS QUESTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS; THE WIDE DISSEMINATION & POSSIBLE MISINTERPERTATIONS OF THEIR CONCLUSIONS ARE MAJOR PROBLEMS. SCIENTISTS DO HAVE A CERTAIN OBLIGATION TO CONSIDER THE MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF THEIR RESEARCH & THE POSSIBLE MISUSE OF RESULTS. STUDIES OF HERITABILITY OF IQ SHOULD CERTAINLY CONTINUE; STUDIES WHICH EMPLOY RACE AS THEIR MAJOR VARIABLE, HOWEVER, PARTICULARLY IN VIEW OF OUR TREMENDOUSLY IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE OF THE VALUE OF IQ, SHOULD BE STOPPED. 1 FIGURE. C. LELAND.
In: Philosophy & public affairs, Band 3, Heft 4, S. 331-409
ISSN: 0048-3915
A NEW LOOK AT THE CONCEPT OF 'INTELLIGENCE TESTS' IS REQUIRED, IN VIEW OF THE CONTROVERSIAL 'GENETIC INEQUALITY OF THE RACES' & 'STERILIZATION OF THE LOW IQ' THEORIES FOSTERED IN SOME PLACES TODAY. INTELLIGENCE IS MOST AMBIGUOUSLY DEFINED, YET POPULARLY SO, AS "WHAT IQ TESTS MEASURE." THIS LACK OF CLEAR DEFINITION FOR THE TERM IMPLIES A REAL LACK OF A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE & AN ATTENDANT VALIDITY QUESTION IN REGARD TO WHAT IQ TESTS DO MEASURE. SOME R DOES EXIST BETWEEN THE IQ TEST SCORE & SUCCESS IN SCHOOL & SOCIETY, BUT ARE WE REALLY MEASURING INTELLIGENCE WITH IQ TESTS, OR IS IT FACTORS OF MOTIVATION, 'TEST-WISENESS', CULTURAL BACKGROUND, ETC? IQ TESTS ARE FOUNDED ON AN UNSTATED THEORY: THEY TEST KNOWLEDGE & DEVELOPED SKILLS ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT THOSE QUALITIES MEASURE INTELLIGENCE. THEY MAKE NO ALLOWANCES FOR THE DIFFERENTIAL IN SUBJECT'S ACCESS TO INFORMATION, OR FOR VARIABLES IN MOTIVATION, INTEREST, ETC. NO ACCOUNT IS TAKEN OF INDIVIDUAL'S VARYING CAPACITIES TO DEMONSTRATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TYPE DEMANDED BY THE TEST, WHILE SUCH ASPECTS OF INTELLIGENCE AS CREATIVITY ARE IGNORED ENTIRELY. THE TESTS ASSUME THE EXISTENCE OF 'GENERAL INTELLIGENCE'--SOMETHING LIKE ABSTRACT REASONING ABILITY--DESPITE THE FACT THAT PSYCHOMETRICIANS THEMSELVES ARE DEEPLY DIVIDED AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF THIS ENTITY. 3 FIGURES. C. LELAND.
In: Political psychology: journal of the International Society of Political Psychology, Band 37, Heft 1, S. 73-88
ISSN: 0162-895X
In: Politikon: South African journal of political studies, Band 36, Heft 2, S. 289-314
ISSN: 0258-9346
In: Political psychology: journal of the International Society of Political Psychology, Band 33, Heft 3, S. 343-363
ISSN: 0162-895X
In: Presidential studies quarterly, Band 45, Heft 4, S. 760
ISSN: 0360-4918
In: Presidential studies quarterly, Band 45, Heft 4, S. 760-777
ISSN: 0360-4918
In: NBER working paper series 16711
"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. While it has long been known that genetic-environmental covariance is likely to be non-trivial and confound estimates of narrow-sense (additive) heritability for social and behavioral outcomes, there has not been an effective way to address this concern. Indeed, in a classic paper, Goldberger (1979) shows that by varying assumptions of the GE-covariance, a researcher can drive the estimated heritability of an outcome, such as IQ, down to zero or up close to one. Survey questions that attempt to measure directly the extent to which more genetically similar kin (such as monozygotic twins) also share more similar environmental conditions than, say, dizygotic twins, represent poor attempts to gauge a very complex underlying phenomenon of GE-covariance. Methods that rely on concordance between interviewer classification and self-report offer similar concerns about validity. In the present study, we take advantage of a natural experiment to address this issue from another angle: Misclassification of twin zygosity in a nationally-representative study (Add Health). Since such twins were reared under one "environmental regime of similarity" while genetically belonging to another group, this reverses the typical GE-covariance and allows us bounded estimates of heritability for a range of outcomes of interest to medical and behavioral scientists"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site
In: Patterns of prejudice: a publication of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the American Jewish Committee, Band 40, Heft 4-5
ISSN: 0031-322X
"Gender is a social construct." A framework for thinking about sex differences -- Sex differences in personality -- Sex differences in neurocognitive functioning -- Sex differences in educational and vocational choices -- Sex differences in the brain -- "Race is a social construct." A framework for thinking about race differences -- Genetic distinctiveness among ancestral populations -- Evolution since humans left Africa -- The landscape of ancestral population differences -- "Class is a function of privilege." A framework for thinking about heritability and class -- The ubiquity of heritability and the small role of the shared environment -- Abilities, personality, and success -- Constraints and potentials -- Looking ahead. The shape of the revolution -- Reflections and speculations.