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Race and Intelligence RICHARD C. LEWONTIN RACE AND INTELLIGENCE In the Spring of 1653 Pope In­ programmatic conclusion is that nocent X condemned a pernicious A controversial doctrine that there is no use in trying to re­ heresy which espoused the doc­ genetic factors outueigh envi­ move the difference in I.Q. by trines of "total depravity, irre- ronment in producing I.Q. dif­ education since it arises chiefly sistable grace, lack of free will, ferences belts ecn racial groups from genetic causes and the beat predestination and limited atone­ has created a tempest in the thing that can be done for black ment." That heresy was Jansen­ educational and psychological children is to capitalize on those ism and its author was Cornelius groves of academe. The doc­ skills for which they are biologi­ Jansen, Bishop of Ypres. trine has been labeled “ jen• cally adapted. Such a conclusion In the winter of 1968 the same senitm," after its proponent. is so clearly at variance with the doctrine appeared in the "Har­ Arthur R. Jensen, professor of present egalitarian consensus and vard Educational Review.” That educational psychology at the so clearly smacks of a racist elit­ doctrine is now called "jensen- University of California. It has ism, whatever its merit or moti­ ism” by the "New York Times also attracted sttde attention in vation, that a very careful analy­ Magazine” and its author is Ar­ the general media because it sis of the argument is in order. thur R. Jensen, professor of edu­ appears to challenge the envi­ The article begins with the cational psychology at the Uni­ ronmental deprivation theory- pronouncement: "Compensatory versity of California at Berkeley. on uhich federal compensatory education ha* been tried and it It is a doctrine as erroneous in education programs are based. apparently has failed.” A docu­ the twentieth century as it was In this article. Richard C. mentation of that failure and a in the seventeenth. I shall try l.euonlin, professor of biology definition of compensatory edu­ to play the Innocent. at the University of Chicago, cation arc left to the end of the Jensen's article, “How Much dissects the Jensen paper uhich article for good logical and peda­ Can We Boost I.Q. and Scholastic precipitated the grossing con­ gogical reason*. Having caught Achievement?" created such a fu­ troversy last year. Professor our attention by whacking us over ror that the "Review" reprinted l.euonlin s conclusion: Jensen the head with a two-by-four, like it along with critiques by psy­ is strong! that famous trainer of mules, chologists, theorists of education Jensen then asks: and a population geneticist under "What has gone wrong? In the title "Environment. Heredity neous conclusions. I shall say other fields, when bridges do not and Intelligence." The article little or nothing about the cri­ xtand, when nircraft do not fly. first came to my attention tiques of Jensen's article, which when machine* do not work, when, at no little expense, it was would require even more space when treatments do not euro, de­ sent to every member of the Na­ to criticize than the original ar­ spite all the conscientious effort* tional Academy of Sciences by ticle itself. on the part of many persons to the eminent white Anglo-Saxon m u p o s i t i o n make them do so. one begins to inventor, William Shockley, as question the basic assumptions, part of his continuing campaign Jensen’s argument consists es­ to have the Academy study the sentially of an elaboration on two principles, theories, and hypothe­ ses that guide one’s efforts. Is it effects of inter-racial mating. It incontrovertible facts, a causative time to follow suit in education?*’ i* little wonder that the "New explanation and a programmatic York Times” found the matter conclusion. The two fact* are Who can help but answer that newsworthy, and that Professor that black people perform, on the last rhetorical question with a re­ Jensen has surely become the average, more poorly than whites sounding “Yes”? What thought­ most discussed and least read on standard I.Q. tests, and that ful and intelligent person can essayist since Karl Marx. I shall special programs of compensatory avoid being struck by the intel­ try, in this article, to display education so far tried have not lectual and empirical bankruptcy Professor Jensen's argument, to had much success in removing of educational psychology as it show how the structure of hi* ar­ this difference. His causative ex­ is practiced in our mass educa­ gument is designed to make his planation for these facts is that tional systems? The innocent point and to reveal what appear I.Q. is highly heritable, with most reader will immediately fall into to be deeply embedded assump­ of the variation among individ­ close sympathy with Professor tions derived from a particular uals arising from genetic rather Jensen, who, it seems, is about world view, leading him to erro- than environmental sources. His to dissect educational psychology 2 and show it up as a prc-scicntific jumble without theoretic coher­ ence or prescriptive competence. But the innocent reader will be wrong. For the rest of Jensen’s article puts the blame for the failure of his science not on the scientists but on the children. According to him, it is not that his science and its practitioners have failed utterly to understand human motivation, behavior and development but simply that the damn kids arc ineducable. The unconscious irony of his metaphor of bridges, airplanes and machines has apparently been lost on him. The fact is that in the twentieth century bridges do stand, machines do work and airplanes do fly, be­ cause they arc built on clearly understood mechanical and hy­ drodynamic principles which even moderately careful and intelligent engineers can put into practice. In the seventeenth century that of Jensen’s thesis which can only testing for so-called “deprived” was not the case, and the general be appreciated when seen in this children, since it is supposed that opinion was that men would never light. they have developed in a sub­ succeed in their attempts to fly Having begun with the assump­ culture that does not prepare because flying was impossible. tion that I.Q. cannot be equal­ them for such tests. What role Jensen proposes that we take the ized. Jensen now goes on to why does this “environmentalist" ar­ same view of education and that, not. He begins hi* investigation gument play in Jensen’s thesis? in the terms of his metaphor, fal­ with a discussion of the “nature Is it simply evidence of his total len bridges be taken as evidence of intelligence," by which he fairness and objectivity? No. of the unbridgeability of rivers. means the way in which intelli­ Jensen has seen, more clearly The alternative explanation, that gence is defined by testing and than most, that the argument of educational psychology is still in the correlation of intelligence test the specific cultural origins of the seventeenth century, is ap­ scores with scholastic and occupa­ I.Q. testing and especially the parently not part of his philos­ tional performance. A very strong high correlation of these tests ophy. point is made that I.Q. testing with occupational status cuts This view of technological fail­ was developed in a western indus­ both ways. For if the poorer per­ ure as arising from ontological trialized society specifically as a formance of blacks on I.Q. tests rather than epistemological sourc­ prognostication of success in that has largely genetic rather than es is a common form of apology society by the generally accepted environmental causes, then it fol­ at many levels of practice. Any­ criteria. He makes a special point lows that blacks are also gene­ one who has dealt with plumbers of noting that psychologists' no­ tically handicapped for other high will appreciate how many things tions of status and success have status components of Western "can't be fixed" or “weren’t a high correlation with those of culture. That is. what Jensen is meant to be used like that.” the society at large, so that it is arguing is that differences be­ Physicists tell me that their fail­ entirely reasonable that testa tween cultures are in large part ure to formulate an elegant gen­ created by psychologists will cor­ genetically determined and that eral theory of fundamental par­ relate highly with conventional I.Q. testing is simply one mani­ ticles is a result of there not be­ measures of success. One might festation of those differences. ing any underlying regularity to think that this argument, that In this light we can also under­ be discerned. How often men, in I.Q. testing is “culture bound,” stand his argument concerning their overweening pride, blame would militate against Jensen’s the existence of "general intelli­ nature for their own failures. This general thesis of the biological gence” as measured by I.Q. tests. profcssionalist bias, that if a and specifically genetical basis of Jensen is at some pains to con­ problem were soluble it would I.Q. differences. Indeed, it is an vince his readers that there is a have been solved, lies at the basis argument often used against I.Q. single factor, g, which, in factor Marti, 1970 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientutt 3 analysis of various intelligence is that true merit, given equality ally caused deaf-mutism is han­ testa, accounts for a large frac­ of opportunity, act as a basis for dicapped to different extents in tion of the variance of scores.
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