A scientific response to the best-selling The Bell Curve which set off a hailstorm of controversy upon its publication in 1994. Much of the public reaction to the book was polemic and failed to analyse the details of the science and validity of the statistical arguments underlying the books conclusion. Here, at last, social scientists and statisticians reply to The Bell Curve and its conclusions about IQ, genetics and social outcomes.
In a series of provocative conversations with Skeptic magazine Ssenior editor Frank Miele, renowned University of California-Berkeley psychologist Arthur R. Jensen details the evolution of his thoughts on the nature of intelligence, tracing an intellectual odyssey that leads from the programs of the Great Society to the Bell Curve Wars and beyond. Miele cross-examines Jensen's views on general intelligence (the g factor), racial differences in IQ, cultural bias in IQ tests, and whether differences in IQ are due primarily to heredity or to remediable factors such as poverty and discrimination. With characteristic frankness, Jensen also presents his view of the proper role of scientific facts in establishing public policy, such as Affirmative Action.“Jensenism,” the assertion that heredity plays an undeniably greater role than environmental factors in racial (and other) IQ differences, has entered the dictionary and also made Jensen a bitterly controversial figure. Nevertheless, Intelligence, Race, and Genetics carefully underscores the dedicated lifetime of scrupulously scientific research that supports Jensen's conclusions.
Through more than 50 years of academic research, Richard Lynn has distinguished himself as one of the world's preeminent authorities on intelligence, personality, and human biodiversity. *Race Differences in Intelligence* is his essential work on this most controversial and consequential topic. Covering more than 500 published studies that span 10 population groups, Lynn demonstrates both the validity of innate intelligence as well as its heritability across racial groups. The Second Edition (2014) has been revised and updated to reflect the latest research.
Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than just a social construct can get a scholar run out of town, or at least off campus, on a rail. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years—to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes. Race is not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart, the more they evolve their own distinct traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. For many thousands of years, most human populations stayed where they were and grew distinct, not just in outward appearance but in deeper senses as well. Wade, the longtime journalist covering genetic advances for The New York Times, draws widely on the work of scientists who have made crucial breakthroughs in establishing the reality of recent human evolution. The most provocative claims in this book involve the genetic basis of human social habits. What we might call middle-class social traits—thrift, docility, nonviolence—have been slowly but surely inculcated genetically within agrarian societies, Wade argues. These “values” obviously had a strong cultural component, but Wade points to evidence that agrarian societies evolved away from hunter-gatherer societies in some crucial respects. Also controversial are his findings regarding the genetic basis of traits we associate with intelligence, such as literacy and numeracy, in certain ethnic populations, including the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews. Wade believes deeply in the fundamental equality of all human peoples. He also believes that science is best served by pursuing the truth without fear, and if his mission to arrive at a coherent summa of what the new genetic science does and does not tell us about race and human history leads straight into a minefield, then so be it. This will not be the last word on the subject, but it will begin a powerful and overdue conversation.
A top behavioral geneticist argues DNA inherited from our parents at conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses. This “modern classic” on genetics and nature vs. nurture is “one of the most direct and unapologetic takes on the topic ever written” (Boston Review). In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality—the blueprint that makes us who we are. Plomin reports that genetics explains more about the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Nature, not nurture, is what makes us who we are. Plomin explores the implications of these findings, drawing some provocative conclusions—among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect. This book offers readers a unique insider’s view of the exciting synergies that came from combining genetics and psychology.
In recent years, reported racial disparities in IQ scores have been the subject of raging debates in the behavioral and social sciences and education. What can be made of these test results in the context of current scientific knowledge about human evolution and cognition? Unfortunately, discussion of these issues has tended to generate more heat than light. Now, the distinguished authors of this book offer powerful new illumination. Representing a range of disciplines--psychology, anthropology, biology, economics, history, philosophy, sociology, and statistics--the authors review the concept of race and then the concept of intelligence. Presenting a wide range of findings, they put the experience of the United States--so frequently the only focus of attention--in global perspective. They also show that the human species has no "races" in the biological sense (though cultures have a variety of folk concepts of "race"), that there is no single form of intelligence, and that formal education helps individuals to develop a variety of cognitive abilities. Race and Intelligence offers the most comprehensive and definitive response thus far to claims of innate differences in intelligence among races.
A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal society In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health—and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society. In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces readers to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Weaving together personal stories with scientific evidence, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Reclaiming genetic science from the legacy of eugenics, this groundbreaking book offers a bold new vision of society where everyone thrives, regardless of how one fares in the genetic lottery.
Ashley Montagu, who first attacked the term "race" as a usable concept in his acclaimed work, Man's Most Dangerous Myth , offers here a devastating rebuttal to those who would claim any link between race and intelligence. In now classic essays, this thought-provoking volume critically examines the terms "race" and "IQ" and their applications in scientific discourse. The twenty-four contributors--including such eminent thinkers as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, Urie Bronfenbrenner, W.F. Bodmer, and Jerome Kagan--draw on fields that range from biology and genetics to psychology, anthropology, and education. What emerges in piece after piece is a deep skepticism about the scientific validity of intelligence tests, especially as applied to evaluating innate intelligence, if only because scientists still cannot distinguish between genetic and environmental contributions to the development of the human mind. Five new essays have been included that specifically address the claims made in the recent, highly controversial book, The Bell Curve. Must reading for anyone interested in racism and education in America, Race and IQ is a brilliantly lucid exploration of the boundary line between race and intelligence.
Nisbett debunks the myth of genetic inheritance of intelligence and persuasively demonstrates how intelligence can be enhanced : the anti-Bell Curve book.--From publisher description.
