# Are there any proven hereditary psychological differences (intelligence or other) between "races"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 17, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771 "2010-03-17T17:20:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/61 "2010-03-19T03:31:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Claiming that very limited and specific attempts at normalization, such as controlling for socioeconomic status in a study or aggressively recruiting black Ph.D. students, are adequate approximations to “normalization of nurturing” overall is simply bollocks. You might just as well claim that you’ve “normalized nurture” for your groups of greyhounds and mutts because you feed them from the same color food dish. Rushton & Jensen cite the research of the late behavioural geneticist David Rowe on whether there are some particular variables affecting some groups. > [@](#): > > Jensen [24, p. 137] dubbed as “X factors” critical variables such as those found in Nisbett’s list, to dramatize their plausible but mysterious or not-yet-demonstrated character. One way to test whether hypothesized X factors are operating is to compare the similarity of the correlations between background variables (such as the home environment or the peer group) and outcome measures (such as scholastic achievement or delinquency rates). If Black-specific X factors are truly having an effect, some of these correlations for Blacks should be offset (up or down). > > A series of studies on large samples by David Rowe [52] found no evidence of X factors acting to lower the IQ scores of Blacks. For example, Rowe et al. [53] examined test scores for 8,528 Whites, 3,392 Blacks, 1,766 Hispanics, and 906 Asians and found the exact same relation between background variables and outcome measures in each race. There was no evidence that any special Black minority-specific process was affecting academic achievement or lowering IQ scores. > > Another study examined longitudinal data on academic achievement (Rowe et al. [54]). Correlations were computed between academic achievement and family environment measures in 565 full-sibling pairs (White N = 296 pairs; Black = 149; Hispanic = 120) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth tested at ages 6.6 and 9.0 years. Including age as a variable yielded three 8 x 8 correlation matrices. Analysis showed the matrices were equivalent across the three groups with no evidence of any Factor X affecting academic achievement or developmental changes of any group. Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2010). Race and IQ: A Theory-Based Review of the Research in Richard Nisbett’s Intelligence and How to Get It. The Open Psychology Journal, 3, 9-35. [http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/2010%20Review%20of%20Nisbett.pdf](http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/2010%20Review%20of%20Nisbett.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/62 "2010-03-19T03:32:45Z")
I really don’t get why some people find it so impossible that different races have different cognitive abilities. We see differences in things like hair, facial features, melatonin levels, height/stature, speed, etc. Why is it so impossible that there might be physical differences that manifest themselves in cognitive ability? I find that quite odd. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/63 "2010-03-19T03:44:51Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am in favor of race-based AA quotas because I do not think equal opportunity alone will result in equal representation due to innate average differences among race-based cohorts. To date no efforts at providing equal opportunity have resulted in equal results, and if we are to have a reasonably just society we need to have some sort of proportionate representation along commonly-accepted categories. While I look forward to a race-blind society, I do not see it happening soon, and among the persistent reasons for that is that races are innately different in capability for a number of skillsets. So how many qualified Asians are you willing to not allow into top colleges so that people less qualified can attend? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/64 "2010-03-19T04:11:12Z")
> [@Chief Pedant](#): > > We’ve just gotta do something to improve the nurturing of asians and whites in general for basketball. > > Bullocks on me for thinking there could possibly be anything innately different among the capabilities of those groups at basketball to explain the dominance of the black athlete The illogical bollocks in your thinking isn’t the notion that there **COULD POSSIBLY** be anything innately different among the capabilities of different racial groups; that’s a perfectly reasonable possible hypothesis to consider. The bollocks is in your imagining that there’s any **reliable scientific evidence unambiguously supporting** the hypothesis that such differences **actually exist**. Sure, anybody can pull specious evolutionary arguments out of their ass to account for something that they just know in their gut MUST be true (what you like to call a “sniff test”). The hard part is convincingly showing that what seems so instinctively obvious to them actually has some demonstrable basis in scientific fact. > [@magellan01](#): > > I really don’t get why some people find it so impossible that different races have different cognitive abilities. Where are you seeing anybody around here claiming that they find any such hypothesis “so impossible”? In fact, this whole thread was started in order to discuss the current status of such possible hypotheses. Moreover, I’ve repeatedly pointed out in this thread (and in previous threads on the same topic) that I **don’t** consider any such hypothesis _a priori_ impossible. But just because such a hypothesis is perfectly possible, and just because it seems somehow intuitively obvious to sedentary white guys staring at big black basketball players, doesn’t mean we should therefore conclude that it’s been scientifically demonstrated. ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/65 "2010-03-19T04:27:31Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > **Kimstu** , > > Watching Kansas-Lehigh right now. > > We’ve just gotta do something to improve the nurturing of asians and whites i **n general** for basketball. They must have substantially inferior coaching, or programs, or external support or something to be so hugely underrepresented in a sport where the payoff is free college education and maybe even a shot at the NBA…unless maybe the white and asian wanna-bes dropped out voluntarily along the way so they could go push paper or participate in the glory of lacrosse instead. > > Bullocks on me for thinking there could possibly be anything innately different among the capabilities of those groups at basketball to explain the dominance of the black athlete since we gave him a seat at the opportunity table. It’s gotta be environmental. It’s just so confoundingly hard to figure out where the \*\*in general \*\*under-opportunity must be for whites and asians. I’ll keep looking, though, and please keep reminding me that you can set the absolute proof bar so high I’ll be able to go to bed at night confident the Inuit and Mbuti will be the next groups dominating the court. > > 😉 Bullocks indeed. What is innate in whiteness that causes white players to excel in hockey? For being one of the most athletic of sports, you would expect blacks to be vastly overrepresented. By my count, there are only [27](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_ice_hockey_players) black hockey players in the nhl. Is it your position that you have to be smart to play hockey? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/66 "2010-03-19T04:50:39Z")
> [@](#): > > kingbighair wrote, > > What is innate in whiteness that causes white players to excel in hockey? This is a poor example because there are obvious large entry costs in terms of equipment & training, so you only get a small sample of the population. The entry costs for something like basketball are much lower. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/67 "2010-03-19T05:20:48Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I really don’t get why some people find it so impossible that different races have different cognitive abilities. We see differences in things like hair, facial features, melatonin levels, height/stature, speed, etc. Why is it so impossible that there might be physical differences that manifest themselves in cognitive ability? I find that quite odd. the traits in which humans vary the most are governed by a small number of genes - skin color, for example. Brain development is governed by large numbers of genes in interaction with the environment. It’s also true that no one has even attempted to demonstrate how the balmy climate of the Mediterranean coasts would select in favor of intelligence in a way that the relatively harsh environments of the modern day Sahel and the ancient Sahara wouldn’t. Impossible in the abstract, in general? Nobody argues that. In fact, the late Stephen Jay Gould used to point out in lecture that if some of the other hominids who coexisted with early man had survived to the present day, we would really be faced with the moral dilemma of how to deal with beings who were recognizably human but hopelessly inferior to us. Humans as a species are quite inbred. We went through a population bottleneck early in our history that made all the billions of us descend from a relatively small number of folks. So what we call races are not like different breeds of dogs. In comparison to dogs, it’s as if we were all dalmatians with different patterns of spots. It’s not that the claim has been rejected out of hand. The claim has been thoroughly investigated and no proof has been found. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/68 "2010-03-19T05:24:13Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > This is a poor example because there are obvious large entry costs in terms of equipment & training, so you only get a small sample of the population. > > The entry costs for something like basketball are much lower. Very true. This is an excellent example of how the development of certain skillsets is affected by social, economic and cultural factors as well as by innate abilities and preferences. Young white athletes on average have a wider range of sports with a wider range of accessibility levels and entry costs available to them than young black athletes do. Consequently, young white athletes play proportionately more hockey (and more lacrosse, and more snow sports, etc.) and proportionately less basketball than young black athletes. So why should we assume _a priori_ that the race ratios in basketball are determined exclusively or even primarily by innate differences in racial ability, while the race ratios in ice hockey or lacrosse are determined mostly by other factors? Clearly, if most black kids are mostly playing basketball while white kids are diversifying into a much broader range of recreational sports, _then we’d expect to see a lot more blacks than whites on basketball teams irrespective of whether blacks are **innately** better at basketball._ ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/69 "2010-03-19T05:55:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Belowjob2.0 wrote > > Brain development is governed by large numbers of genes in interaction with the environment. > > It’s also true that no one has even attempted to demonstrate how the balmy climate of the Mediterranean coasts would select in favor of intelligence in a way that the relatively harsh environments of the modern day Sahel and the ancient Sahara wouldn’t. I thought that the climate argument was more that those who headed north had to plan and survive harsh winters? In any case there is evidence that some of the genes relevant to neurological function show up in different frequencies across groups. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/science/09brain.html?pagewanted=print](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/science/09brain.html?pagewanted=print) > **[PLOS Genetics](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/)** > **[PLOS Biology](https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/)** There’s also considerable evidence of average differences in brain size, although the reasons aren’t exactly clear. International Journal of Neuroscience, 119, 691-731 (2009) [http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2009%20IJN.pdf](http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2009%20IJN.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/70 "2010-03-19T13:13:16Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > This is a poor example because there are obvious large entry costs in terms of equipment & training, so you only get a small sample of the population. > > The entry costs for something like basketball are much lower. Thank you for making my point for me. It is almost as if you are saying there are non-genetic, cultural reasons for the racial disparity in hockey. How come the world’s strongest men are always [white Europeans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Strongest_Man)? All you need is a gym. Shouldn’t blacks be dominating? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/71 "2010-03-19T14:27:07Z")
> [@kingbighair](#): > > Bullocks indeed. What is innate in whiteness that causes white players to excel in hockey? For being one of the most athletic of sports, you would expect blacks to be vastly overrepresented. By my count, there are only [27](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_ice_hockey_players) black hockey players in the nhl. Is it your position that you have to be smart to play hockey? > > 😉 You may be new to a number of these discussions; each time we do tend to go round and round the same points. The reason basketball (let’s take the NBA) is a good case example for nature v nurture is that it meets the following criteria: The pool of all potential NBA players is heavily skewed toward whites. The white population is about 4x the black population in the US. The pool of basketball participants at a starting level is heavily skewed toward whites. From gradeschool onward, every school in the nation has basketball programs which are heavily sought after and attended. The nurturing of whites for basketball is much greater than that of blacks. Better schools; better facilities; better coaching; better family structure to pursue interests; better you-name-it. The motivation of whites to have the NBA as a primary end-goal is as great as that of blacks. While black athletes may feel they have fewer alternatives than whites, it is the case that talented whites stick with basketball as a primary pursuit up to the point where they are no longer competitive, and only then do they pursue a secondary goal. For example, a white basketball athlete who attains a college scholarship is not going to abandon an NBA offer to go work in an office. He chooses that secondary pursuit after not attaining his primary choice. You can make a similar observation all the way down to grade school level play. For top performers at basketball, that pursuit is abandoned only when the player is no longer competitive. Despite all of these enormous advantages, what we see is an enormous disproportionate representation of blacks in the NBA. We cannot explain this pattern by nurturing, because nurturing favors the under-represented group. For hockey, would you want to argue that the starting pool is analagous? I am not aware of that, and it is not my observation that blacks express much interest in it. As **Kimstu** notes, _“This is an excellent example of how the development of certain skillsets is affected by social, economic and cultural factors as well as by innate abilities and preferences. Young white athletes on average have a wider range of sports with a wider range of accessibility levels and entry costs available to them than young black athletes do. Consequently, young white athletes play proportionately more hockey (and more lacrosse, and more snow sports, etc.) and proportionately less basketball than young black athletes.”_ (Notice that despite the disproportionate interest of blacks in basketball versus hockey, in terms of absolute numbers the starting pool of white basketball players is still much larger than the starting pool of black basketball players because whites outnumber blacks by 4:1) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/72 "2010-03-19T14:56:09Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I really don’t get why some people find it so impossible that different races have different cognitive abilities. We see differences in things like hair, facial features, melatonin levels, height/stature, speed, etc. Why is it so impossible that there might be physical differences that manifest themselves in cognitive ability? I find that quite odd. AFAIK, no skeptic on this point suggests it is **impossible.** Any dog breeder will tell you different breeds of dogs have different psychological characteristics (with the caveat that popular prejudice regarding such is often wrong, e.g., pit bulls are not really of dangerous disposition). But, WRT to question of differences in cognitive ability among human “racial” groups, **the burden of proof should be on those suggesting the existence of such differences,** and it should be a high burden indeed – especially considering the long history of [pseudoscientific racial theories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism) being used as justification for white supremacy and racially discriminatory public policies. The analogy with dogs does not quite hold anyway. Dogs are a product of **artificial** selection, which has produced such a wide range of types that a person from a country without dogs, walking into a dog show for the first time, might be some time in figuring out that these are all animals of the same species. Humans, OTOH, have never been selectively bred, and [have less intra-species genetic variation than chimpanzees,](http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1904301.htm) despite their much wider prehistorical geographical range. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/73 "2010-03-19T15:01:09Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > The bollocks is in your imagining that there’s any **reliable scientific evidence unambiguously supporting** the hypothesis that such differences **actually exist**. And yet, the donkey of real outcomes brays in the backyard despite all protests that those outcomes cannot possibly exist. I submit that if it were not a sensitive subject, there would be little support for the notion that populations are differently enabled. A study showing that SAT scores of poor whites cannot be brought to the performance level of wealthy whites would not generate anywhere near the same consternation that a study comparing poor blacks and wealthy whites would. It seems to me patterns repeated the world over in every political system and circumstance despite sincere efforts to reverse them are increasingly difficult to dismiss as conspiracies against racial groups or intractably racist societal systems. I suggest that your criteria of “reliable” and “unambiguous” will never be met to your satisfaction. And perhaps that’s a good thing. A naive sincerity demanding ever more stringent “proof” that all groups are not innately equal at least promotes a constant guardianship which errs on the side of protecting opportunity for the less capable to participate as fully as possible in society. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/74 "2010-03-19T15:04:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, WRT to question of differences in cognitive ability among human “racial” groups, **the burden of proof should be on those suggesting the existence of such differences,** and it should be a high burden indeed – especially considering the long history of [pseudoscientific racial theories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism) being used as justification for white supremacy and racially discriminatory public policies. Agreed. Out of curiosity, would you be particularly put off by studies which show significant innate differences among various populations of whites? ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/75 "2010-03-19T15:31:01Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I submit that if it were not a sensitive subject, there would be little support for the notion that populations are differently enabled. This is really the essence of why honest discussion can’t happen. Steven Pinker dedicated 4 whole chapters on this mental block (what he calls “fears”) in his book **[The Blank Slate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate)**: chapter 8: The Fear of Inequality chapter 9: The Fear of Imperfectability chapter 10: The Fear of Determinism chapter 11: The Fear of Nihilism The studies in IQ have normalized in various ways to account for “nurture.” The critics of the studies say the various normalizations are “incomplete.” Yes, this is somewhat true but the only “normalization” that will ever satisfy these folks is a complete observable parallel universe with the duplicate Earth as a laboratory housing 6 billion cloned humans. Well, we wouldn’t be looking for this impossible standard if we were studying insects instead of ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/76 "2010-03-19T15:45:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. Corrollary issue: **Apart** from the above, is there any defensible value in the concepts of “racial consciousness” or “racial identity” or “racial loyalty”? That is, in defining “us” vs. “them” in racial terms (as opposed to, say, cultural terms, or ideological terms). I’m trying here to flesh out the thinking implied by [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12201190&postcount=90) of **LonesomePolecat** in the white-nationalism-and-immigration thread: > > See also [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=555430) on the Dalai Lama’s stated concern with preserving the ethnic purity of Tibet from Han colonization. No one responded, yet, to this part of the OP, so I started a [new thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=556423) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/77 "2010-03-19T15:50:15Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Agreed. > > Out of curiosity, would you be particularly put off by studies which show significant innate differences among various populations of whites? Of course – not because there is a similar history of racial pseudoscience in that regard (there is – see [Madison Grant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Grant) – but it has been far less historically significant), but because any such “study” would automatically and justly raise suspicion that it is put forward as a wedge to legitimize serious consideration of white-supremacist racial pseudoscience. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/78 "2010-03-19T15:59:44Z")
I’m on my way to a meeting or I’d look for a cite, but I’ll be lazy and mention without one in case anyone else is familiar with this: There was a study in recent years comparing black high school students in the U.S. to that of their white peers (in age, socioeconomic status, etc.) and showing that as a general rule blacks did not perform as well. HOWEVER, what was interesting was that the same study examined the performance of black high school students in England to that of their white peers (in age, socioeconomic status, etc.) that showed essentially _no difference_ at all. Is anybody else familiar with this study? It’s been on my “to do” list for a while as I think its findings are fascinating in interest of cultural impact. (For the record I’m white and I was an absolutely miserable high school student.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/79 "2010-03-19T16:44:49Z")
This stuff keeps popping up again and again, BTW, sometimes from quarters you wouldn’t expect. In [this article,](http://orthodoxytoday.org/articles/Wolfe-Sorry-But-Your-Soul-Just-Died.php) Tom Wolfe speaks of the cultural implications of the rejection of an “IQ cap”: > [@](#): > > Even more radio–active is the matter of intelligence, as measured by IQ tests. Privately—not many care to speak out—the vast majority of neuroscientists believe the genetic component of an individual’s intelligence is remarkably high. Your intelligence can be improved upon, by skilled and devoted mentors, or it can be held back by a poor upbringing—i.e., the negative can be well developed or poorly developed—but your genes are what really make the difference. The recent ruckus over Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve is probably just the beginning of the bitterness the subject is going to create. > > Not long ago, according to two neuroscientists I interviewed, a firm called Neurometrics sought out investors and tried to market an amazing but simple invention known as the IQ Cap. The idea was to provide a way of testing intelligence that would be free of “cultural bias,” one that would not force anyone to deal with words or concepts that might be familiar to people from one culture but not to people from another. The IQ Cap recorded only brain waves; and a computer, not a potentially biased human test–giver, analyzed the results. It was based on the work of neuroscientists such as E. Roy John 1, who is now one of the major pioneers of electroencephalographic brain imaging; Duilio Giannitrapani, author of The Electrophysiology of Intellectual Functions; and David Robinson, author of The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and Personality Assessment: Toward a Biologically Based Theory of Intelligence and Cognition and many other monographs famous among neuroscientists. I spoke to one researcher who had devised an IQ Cap himself by replicating an experiment described by Giannitrapani in The Electrophysiology of Intellectual Functions. It was not a complicated process. You attached sixteen electrodes to the scalp of the person you wanted to test. You had to muss up his hair a little, but you didn’t have to cut it, much less shave it. Then you had him stare at a marker on a blank wall. This particular researcher used a raspberry–red thumbtack. Then you pushed a toggle switch. In sixteen seconds the Cap’s computer box gave you an accurate prediction (within one–half of a standard deviation) of what the subject would score on all eleven subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or, in the case of children, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—all from sixteen seconds’ worth of brain waves. There was nothing culturally biased about the test whatsoever. What could be cultural about staring at a thumbtack on a wall? The savings in time and money were breathtaking. The conventional IQ test took two hours to complete; and the overhead, in terms of paying test–givers, test–scorers, test–preparers, and the rent, was $100 an hour at the very least. The IQ Cap required about fifteen minutes and sixteen seconds—it took about fifteen minutes to put the electrodes on the scalp—and about a tenth of a penny’s worth of electricity. Neurometrics’s investors were rubbing their hands and licking their chops. They were about to make a killing. > > In fact—nobody wanted their damnable IQ Cap! > > It wasn’t simply that no one believed you could derive IQ scores from brainwaves—it was that nobody wanted to believe it could be done. Nobody wanted to believe that human brainpower is…that hardwired. Nobody wanted to learn in a flash that…the genetic fix is in. Nobody wanted to learn that he was…a hardwired genetic mediocrity…and that the best he could hope for in this Trough of Mortal Error was to live out his mediocre life as a stress–free dim bulb. Barry Sterman of UCLA, chief scientist for a firm called Cognitive Neurometrics, who has devised his own brain–wave technology for market research and focus groups, regards brain–wave IQ testing as possible—but in the current atmosphere you “wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s chance of getting a grant” to develop it. However, [I tried to verify independently that this “IQ Cap” ever existed, and I couldn’t, nor could anyone else in GQ.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278544) Can a journalist of Wolfe’s stature be simply, well, gullible, when gullibility serves his agenda? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/80 "2010-03-19T16:51:59Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I’m on my way to a meeting or I’d look for a cite, but I’ll be lazy and mention without one in case anyone else is familiar with this: > > There was a study in recent years comparing black high school students in the U.S. to that of their white peers (in age, socioeconomic status, etc.) and showing that as a general rule blacks did not perform as well. HOWEVER, what was interesting was that the same study examined the performance of black high school students in England to that of their white peers (in age, socioeconomic status, etc.) that showed essentially _no difference_ at all. > > Is anybody else familiar with this study? It’s been on my “to do” list for a while as I think its findings are fascinating in interest of cultural impact. (For the record I’m white and I was an absolutely miserable high school student.) It’d be interesting to see what they considered Black in that study. Did it include Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, …? For my racist uncle in England, even Italians and Greeks are too dark. Also, just looking at “black” people is not specific enough. There is an incredible amount of genetic variation within Africa. If we find any racial link to intelligence I would imagine it would be related to specific regional groups rather than just the color of skin. It is quite striking to see how over-represented Asian and Jewish Americans are in top colleges. I once joked to a friend of mine that Tokyo University looked just like UC Berkley except that it had less Asians. There are studies showing that black Americans that recently emigrated from the Caribbean do much better economically and scholastically than black Americans as a whole, so culture clearly has lots to do with it. You can look at the huge regional differences among white people in the US. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771.md?page=5)