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Add to FavoritesIn 1839 Samuel George Morton published his 'Crania Americana' in which he categorized the human race into four distinct subgroups, concluding that that the white, caucasian race is the most intelligent due to there larger cranial capacity. His research has since been discredited, though the argument has not moved on, while contemporary advocates for a difference in intelligence between races use evidence gathered from IQ testing, their argument rests on the same two basic principles; that intelligence is inherited, and that race is a concise classification of mankind.
The fundamental basis for this modern debate is the average fifteen point variation in IQ score between black and white people. It was Jensen (1960), 'How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement?' who first found this difference and this exact same disparity was found by Shuey (1966). For both researchers, and others, the reason for the fifteen point difference is a matter of genetics, part of the biological make up of white people somehow makes them more intelligent than black.
It is no surprise that this genetic determinist stance has been criticized, notably by a biologist, Bodmer (1971), with his eloquent seed analogy. The basis being that it is unwise to rely upon the results of IQ tests given the economic and cultural advantages generally afforded to white people. To highlight this quandary Dove (1968), devised the Chitling Test, drawing heavily from the language of black culture to parody the white bias in mainstream IQ testing. Unsurprisingly black participants scored the best.
The Chitling Test cannot be considered definitive proof that there is no difference in intelligence between races. The test is not standardized and does not have predictive validity; however it does serve as a good example that the fifteen point variation demonstrated by Jensen and Shuey is anything but clear cut. The ambiguous ground of the nature/nurutre debate in relation to IQ is indicative of the fundamental error made by those who claim any race is intellectually superior.
Not only is intelligence a concept not wholly determined by genetic makeup but it is highly unlikely that any measure of race as we define it, skin color, eye-color, etc. a related characteristic. Deferring to geneticist Steven Rose, "The consensus view among population geneticists and biological anthropologists is that the concept of 'race' to indicate analytically distinct subgroups of human race is biologically meaningless".
The genetic variation between any two humans is 0.1% from this figure 85% of the variation is found within any given race, 7% between different populations of the same race and only 8% between races. The minute difference between racial populations is accounted for by the superficial variations, with which we define race, but fundamentally human beings are the same, and more importantly, there is no scientific basis to any claim that any race is more intelligent than the other.
The fact that this debate inevitably leads to a black/white divide is perhaps indicative of the underlying prejudice of those who wish to perpetuate the myth. The real shame here is that if you tried to claim that tall people are more intelligent, or those with a size ten shoe and you be rightfully denounced; propose that white people are more intelligent than black and people are willing to listen.
References
Paul Gross: Pyschologhy The Science of Mind and Behaviour, Hodder and Stoughton, 1996
Paul Taylor et al: Sociology in Focus, Causeway Press, 1997
Larry Orcutt: What Race Where the Ancient Egyptians: Catchpenny Mysteries, 2000
Learn more about this author, William J. Stevens.
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Yes
Suggesting there are differences in intelligence between races can be misunderstood as racism, rather than a misunderstanding of intelligence. It is also a gross misunderstanding of what "race" is or means.
First to tackle the concept of "race." Nobody really knows what race, as it applies to humans, means. We do know that certain people look different, come from different cultures, and that the differences in humanity are closely tied to which part of the world their ancestors came from. People with pale skin and eyes, thinner hair, and less excitable temperaments tend to come from colder climates. All of their features, and much of their temperament, are adaptations to environment for the purposes of survival. People with ancestry closer to the equator, where the sun is stronger and stays in the sky for a longer duration, tend to have darker skin and eyes, hair that is more dense and wiry to protect their scalp from the sun, and broader noses that do not need to warm the air before it reaches their lungs. These are just two examples of how race may be defined. They're also two of the most common groupings of physical characteristics that we're familiar with in our contemporary word. But do these characteristics define race? According to the experts, those whose knowledge and research is extensive, the answer is, "No." Why? Because race based on physical characteristics is a modern concept. It has only been during the past few hundred years that "race" has moved from being defined through wealth, power, and status to physical characteristics. If something is possible of changing its meaning, then it has no intrinsic meaning and cannot be absolutely defined by modern, and often arbitrary, criteria.
Race may not exist as an absolute, but our modern culture has established criteria for defining race, and we do place value on the different races. One of those value systems is intelligence. And here we go again with a Big Question: What is intelligence? Ask 50 experts what intelligence is, then brace yourself for a mind-numbing, theory-clashing, hot-headed debate on what it actually is. Experts achieve the crown of Expert by researching what already exists, and then putting it together in a way new enough to attract attention. If any two "experts" agreed on anything, one of them would be redundant. We can't rely on any one definition of intelligence.
However, we can, and do, adopt certain definitions of intelligence in our school and workplace environments. We just can't resist measuring people and putting them into little boxes. The definition of intelligence generally adopted by schools are those theories that have orderly tests attached to them that measure the theory and make it easier for schools to label children and move them through the system. At the beginning of standardized school testing, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Quotient Test was the most commonly used test. It was terribly discriminatory in its use of language, and did not take into consideration the wide range of non-racial temperaments that allows one child to excel at taking tests, while causing a "brighter" child to choke up when faced with a test they could ace while half asleep. In short, it was useless, showed false differences in intelligence between different races, and damaged the self-perception of millions of children. But it did serve its purpose. It brought a small, but unjust, amount of order out of chaos.
More recently the WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) has been introduced as a more accurate way of testing intelligence in children. We still can't come up with a definitive definition of intelligence, but what the heck, let's go ahead and test it anyway. And this time, let's use WISC because, if given in its entirety, it covers roughly 20 different areas we hope will help us better categorize and file away our children, and make our task of public education manageable. Generally, only the ten verbal and performance portions of the WISC are given in public schools. These do tend to have less of a racial bias because, as explained to me by an educational therapist, the most heavily weighted section of the WISC to define intelligence is the ability to memorize random words and symbols. Not problem solving, just memorizing gibberish. Yep, that pretty much sounds like public education. At least it lessens the possibility of racial bias.
At its best, "intelligence" can, and should, be defined as human potential and the realization of that potential. Potential is endless, and in 1983 Dr. Howard Gardner published a book entitled "Frames of Mind" that outlined multiple intelligences (or potentials) that exist in human beings. They are:
-Logical-Mathematica l Intelligence
-Linguistic Intelligence
-Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
-Musical Intelligence
-Interpersonal Intelligence
-Intra-personal Intelligence
-Spacial Intelligence
In the 20th anniversary edition of "Frames of Mind" Gardner proposed a possible eighth intelligence-spiritu al intelligence. Whether or not there are seven or seventy different types of intelligence, it's fairly easy to see that there are many ways that individuals can be gifted with potential that enriches their lives, expands the quality of life for them and those around them, and makes a contribution to the world. Many educators embrace Gardner's vision of intelligence, but it still remains too broad, too liberating, and too hard to narrow down into a tidy test to begin actually educating our children to help them realize their unique potential.
Now, to bring this back to my contention that there are differences in intelligence between races, we have to go back and refresh our memories on how our modern world defines race-the geography of our ancestors, which in turn shapes our outward appearance. If the geography of our ancestors shapes the architecture of our bones, the color and density of our skin, and the color of our eyes, it stands to reason that the same geography has helped shape our cognitive abilities. One example would be any race with ancestry from arctic regions. With that much blinding snow in all directions, the mind has to form finely tuned spacial relations on a minimum of sensory clues, or they're going to freeze where they stand. Another example would be a person with geographical ancestry that comes from a crowded island environment with a somewhat harsh climate. People in that environment, along with their long noses to warm air before it hits the lungs, would probably adapt their intelligence/cogniti on/psychometric abilities in the direction of logistics and mathematics. It takes a little logic and math to keep order in a crowd.
No discussion of the differences of intelligences in races would be complete without at least some mention of Michael Jordan. With his broad, flat nose, long and slender body, dark skin, and physical strength, it's safe (in several different ways) to say that he's of African decent. It's also fairly safe to say that his ancestors came from a region of Africa with wide open spaces that were arid, and the people relied on the fruits of the hunt for survival. This would require a great deal of bodily-kinesthetic intelligence-an awareness of where one's body is in space, judgment of how and when and how hard to throw a spear, and infinite unconscious mathematical computations happening simultaneously to know when to move in closer and when to run. His performance on the basketball court is a scorecard in motion of his superior bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. But his intelligence doesn't stop there. Neither his, nor any person's, degrees of intelligence in the seven different areas Gardner has identified is limited. Jordan was a horrible basketball player in high school and was kicked off the team. That didn't stop him, and that requires a tremendous amount of intra-personal intelligence. His charisma is testimony to his off-the-charts interpersonal intelligence, and his adaptation to a successful post-basketball career suggests a whole lot of logical-mathematical intelligence going on.
Superior intelligence of a specific type, mostly determined by what we define as race, is not a limitation or a value judgment. As our world becomes more complex and competitive, we all need to build on our natural gifts of intelligence, nurture our dominant intelligence, have the smarts to delegate our weaknesses to the next guy who excels in that area, and get over our emotional-cultural fixation on the concepts of "race" and "intelligence."
Yes, there are differences in intelligence between races, but there are enough different intelligences to go around, and enough ambiguity about race to make both non-issues. Don't impose value judgments on others because of who their ancestors were, and you'll open the floodgates of your own potential. Honor and respect intelligence in all its different forms, and you take the first step to realizing all the potential that time and place have given to you. Don't wish you were anybody but yourself, then be yourself all the way. It's the best road to appreciating others, with the clearest sign posts, you'll ever travel.
Learn more about this author, Cyd Madsen.
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