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The Evolution of Racism: Human Anthropology is the study of human diversity, its history, and Differences and the Use and Abuse of Science its origins. For most of the past two centuries, the study of hu- By Pat Shipman (1994). , Ny: man diversity has often involved cataloging of this variation Simon and Schuster. 318 p. $23.00. ISBN 0-67 1-75460-2 into a small number of largely geographic groups called

Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and races. While modern biological anthropologists see more History value in the study of the genetics of human diversity and the By Jonathan Marks (1995). New York, NY Aldine Hawthorne. xiii+321 p. $23.95. evolutionary history of our species, the nature and significance ISBN 0-202-02033-9. of human races is a controversial issue of tremendous political The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class importance. It is also a topic which biological anthropologists Structure in American Life are particularly qualified to address. In response to the recent By Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994). New York, NY The Free publication of a series of books on race that have received Press. xxvi+845 p. $30.00. ISBN wide publicity and very mixed reception from the public and 0-02-914763-9. the scientific community, we solicited essay reviews for the four Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life books listed on the left, from two biological anthropologists, Dr. History Perspective By J. Philippe Rushton (1995). New Henry Harpending and Dr. George Armelagos. Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. xviii+334 p. $34.95. ISBN 1-56000-146-1. --The Editor

ing in it about human biodiversity. understood to proceed from evolu- Human Biological The Evolution ofRacism is the best tionary principles. In retrospect, it is written book of the lot. It is as absorb- clear that they both would have better Diversity ing as a novel, full of strange and won- reputations today if they had stuck to These four books are about biologi- derful characters. One of the least science. Indeed, the central lesson cal diversity in our species. Shipman’s interesting is himself, from Shipman’s book is that anyone Evolution of Racism is an excellent the main subject of the first part of the who deduces political or moral conse- history of how has book. His important insight, that spe- quences from science is sure to look been treated by scientists and others cies are fluid, caused a ruckus among like a fool several decades later. This with political agenda. Murray and European intellectuals when it was sad parade continues to the present; Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve describes published. The conventional view of Spencer, Haeckel, Virchow, MufIer, correlations between IQ test scores the story is that this was a revolution Dobzhansky, Washburn, Montagu. and other attributes of individuals. in science and our understanding of The Evolution ofRacism is a pleas- The strong associations between IQ the world. A more cynical view is that ure to read and gives a nice perspec- and economic success, family stabil- European intellectuals, mesmerized tive on the controversies, inspired by ity, and other aspects of people’s lives by Aristotle, would have been sur- political conviction, that plague stud- put to shame popular social science prised to learn that milk comes from a ies of the history and diversity of our treatments of these issues. Rushton’s cow. Farmers must have known all species today. I am not so convinced Race, Evolution, and Behavior, which about it for millenia. Thomas Huxley (nor, I gather, is Shipman) that ideas is about race differences in IQ and cra- was the most interesting character in and trends in the human sciences have nial capacity, is an attempt to under- the play, someone with whom one such a great impact on public policy stand these differences in terms of a would really like to have a chat. Dar- and practice. There were pogroms in theory of life-history evolution. The win, on the other hand, must have central Europe long before Haeckel’s result is not very satisfymg to me, but been every bit as dull in person as his Monist movement. It makes no more Rushton’s provocative attempt to prose suggests that he was. sense to blame the eugenicists for the bring the methods of science to the The struggle between Virchow and holocaust than it does to blame Mar- data deserves serious attention and re- Haeckel in Germany over evolution, garet Mead for the AIDS epidemic:. spect. Finally, Marks’ Human Biodi- education, and race is less familiar to The Bell Curve and Race, Evolution, versity is an articulate, witty many of us. Virchow emerges as a sort and Behavior are mostly about IQ hodge-podge of information and opin- of Boas of physical anthropology who tests, what they predict about people, ion about human differences and the resorted to massive data collection to and how IQ is distributed within and history of scientific concern with show that Germans were not all, or between groups. The Bell Curve is a them. I enjoyed reading the book, but even predominantly, blonde and blue- classical social science description of I have little sense of what it was about eyed Aryans. Haeckel was the oppo- the correlation between IQ test scores or why the author wrote it. Whatever site, a theoretician who created a and many measurable aspects of the else fills its pages, there is little or noth- whole doctrine of racial purity that he lives of people in America, while 100 Evolutionary Anthropology BOOK REVIEWS

Rushton’s monograph tries to compre- of money measuring anything meas- on the other, but they seem to have hend data about race differences in IQ urable about substances and materials been an ugly surprise to many intellec- scores and in other aspects of mor- around us. With modern computers, tuals and journalists in between. One phology and behavior within a frame- we would create a huge database; with colleague who uses the NLSY data re- work of different selective regimes in modern software, we would make any marked to me that “we have all known the histories of human races. The Bell patterns readily apparent. We would that IQ blows all the other variables Curve is a straightforward narrative discover, for example, a correlation be- away.” Several decades ago, Arthur that describes how an individual’s IQ tween “conducts electricity” and Jensen and Richard Herrnstein both predicts job performance, school per- “shininess.” In the jargon we would published monographs about IQ tests formance, likely mode of reproduc- say that “shininess” is a determinant of and their correlates, and both were tion, likelihood of being convicted of a conducting electricity. Another group shouted down in print by those who crime, and, perhaps even health and would find that “density” is also a de- found the political implications of longevity. This is as good as social sci- terminant of conducting electricity. their findings to be incorrect. Many ence gets and, perhaps, as good as so- Papers would appear discussing journalists apparently heard the loud- cial science ever will get. It is a treasure whether density is a determinant of est voices, never looked at the evi- chest of applicable knowledge of greal shininess or shininess of density None dence, and were taken completely by potential value for business, com- of this would get us close to the peri- surpise when the The Bell Curve ap- merce, education, and politics. On the odic table or anywhere near modern peared. Two sources that many of us other hand, it is not science and it does chemistry. Meanwhile policy experts want to respect, Scientific American not point to any new directions or new would advocate polishing household and The New York Times, have dis- understandings about the world. It is machinery to make it shinier, and thus graced themselves over the book. just high-quality inductive tabulation. more efficient. Universities would be Second, it is a sad commentary on Two polar ways of understanding the plagued with workshops on shining up the practice of social science in this world are induction and deduction. In- things. All these applications of em- country that the importance of IQ duction, generalizing from data to pirical knowledge would follow from scores in the NLSY and other data principles, is the foundation of schol- the linguistic sleight of mind equating sources was not described so thor- arship and most social science. Deduc- “determinant” with “cause.” oughly until 1994. The CD Rom Nith tion, the formulation of models and The Bell Cuwe is the very best of this all the data can be had for about ten the attempt to falsify them by compar- gray social science kind of knowledge. dollars, and it has been available for ing the prediction of models to what is The authors have taken a huge data- years. Many readers of this review observed, is the foundation of natural base about the lives of a large sample could, with little difficulty, duplicate science. Natural science is an estheti- of Americans, used modern comput- the analyses in The Bell Curve on their cally barren way of understanding, but ers to tabulate the relationship be- own desktop computers. The whole it has Ied us to bridges that stand up tween IQ test score and other topic has been so loaded, because of and airplanes that stay in the air. In- characteristics of the subjects, and the association with race, that most duction and scholarship, on the other shown that it is possible to predict a lot researchers have covered their eyes so hand, hardly ever lead to new under- about most of these characteristics they would not see it. standings about the world. We can de- given the IQ test score. In particular Why has orthodox social science fend the claim that twentieth-century they tabulated information from the avoided IQ? There seem to be several natural science is better than nine- National Longitudinal Study of Youth reasons. First, much of the support for teenth-century natural science but (NLSY),a publicly available set of data social science research, and it is well there is little basis to claim that twen- on a sample of thousands of Ameri- supported, comes from the National tieth-century art criticism, history, and cans that is not unlike my hypothetical Institutes of Health, where the politi- social science are better than their database on substances. There are no cal context of social science research nineteenth-century counterparts. surprises in the findings of strong sta- has high salience. Second, the rela- Tabulation of data is an important tistical relationships between IQ score tionship between IQ and other vari- task, and modern computing machin- and race, class, educational attain- ables is not comprehended by any ery makes it easy. There are important ment, criminality, and even health. extant theory. The relationship be- empirical questions that can be an- There has been a lot of public discus- tween IQ and income, for example, is swered only by tabulations. Is surgical sion and debate about the political too much like the relationship be- procedure A better than surgical pro- context and implications of these find- tween being shiny and conducting cedure B? Does garlic cure infections? ings. Although a substantial part of the electricity. Finally, there is a stance in Is an aspirin tablet better or worse book is about policy, I will confine my- a lot of social science that social phe- than a vitamin C tablet for treating self to aspects of the book that are rele- nomena have to be explained in terms headache? But tabulations by them- vant to evolutionary anthropology. of other social phenomena and struc- selves have hardly ever led to scientific First, it is stunning that the strong tures, whereas IQ is a property of in- understanding of anything. relationships between IQ test scores dividuals that is mostly genetically Imagine, for example, that we were and other characteristics of people are transmitted. Truly wretched environ- to approach chemistry by social sci- well known to most laymen, on the one ments during development may lower ence techniques. We would spend a lot hand, and to professionals in the field IQ scores, but there is almost no solid BOOK REVIEWS Evolutionary Anthropology 101 evidence of any environmental effects our statistic that measures size. Pick a tion should exhaust the additive vari- on IQ test scores in the normal range series of apparently random ques- ance of a trait. Milk production in of variation. Methods for estimating the tions: What is the capital of Paraguay? dairy cows, for example, is not very heritability of IQ yield a term that is How many digits of pi do you know? heritable because of the long history called “environment,”but this term in- What is the difference between effect of selection for milk production. In the cludes measurement error, nonadditive and affect? Then find the linear com- history of our own species, we know gene effects, and other noise. Direct bination of responses that has maxi- that the brain has expanded rapidly in searches for environmental causes of IQ mum variance, and you have an IQ the last several million years, probably dfferences, like exposure to lead, have test. With this in mind, two themes in because of for a big- not turned up anything convincing. the literature about IQ testing clearly ger brain. Was this also selection for The result is that IQ tests, arguably are not very important. First, do IQ IQ? If so, why is IQ so highly heritable the most effective and useful nonmedi- tests really measure intelligence? Does today? The suggestion from the heri- cal technology produced by the human our formula really measure size? tability is that IQ has not had much sciences, are almost self-consciouslyig- These are entirely semantic matters to effect on fitness in our phylogeny. nored in academia. It is as if there were which there is no sensible answer. Another puzzle is the apparently a large federal agency devoted to re- These are just numbers that describe high level of variation among groups search on headache, but no one in this attributes or abilities of people. Sec- in average IQ levels. Genetic differ- agency ever discussed aspirin because ond, what isg? Within the testingcorn- ences among groups are convention- its mechanism of action was unknown munity there is an idea that there is a ally described in and aspirin was politically dangerous. hidden dimension called g that IQ by a statistic called F,,, the ratio of At any rate, it is important to under- tests are measuring. It is as if there genic variance between groups to the stand what IQ is and how it is meas- were a very real but difficult-to-ob- total genic variance of the trait. For ured. To do this, it is easier to think serve quantity S that different statis- most genetic markers that are neutral about an analogous problem, how we tics related to size reflect. We might or nearly so, the value of this statistic might go about measuring someone’s say that weight is closely related to S, among regional human groups is size. Size, like intelligence, is some- whereas toe length is less so. In the about ten percent. The equivalent sta- thing that we all understand but that jargon of the discipline, weight is tistic computed from mitochondria1 has no explicit definition. Recognizing highly S-loaded, while toe length is DNA diversity is also ten percent. Even that the problem of defining size isjust not. F,, estimated from a large suite of semantics, we might decide that by The mystical g is just as elusive as measurements of skulls is ten percent. size we mean weight. Or we might de- Plato’s essential chair, which was only On the other hand, the estimated value fine size as stature. However, there is manifest in the real world as shadows of F,, for skin color is six times as great, another way of measuring size that is on the wall of the cave. G is every bit leading to the obvious deduction that purely inductive, but that has some de- as misguided as S, our Platonic es- skin color has been subject to local se- sirable statistical properties. We take sence of size that is only vaguely re- lection pressure. IQ differences a large number of measurements of a flected in height, weight, and all the among groups are probably more vari- lot of people, then compute the linear rest of the things we measure. Much able than the ten percent charac- combination of measurements that of the fancy discussion in the IQ litera- teristic of neutral markers, but has the greatest variability in our ture is about reifying g, and it prob- perhaps less variable than the sixty population. We might end of with a ably is safely ignored. percent characteristic of skin color. If formula like the following: On the other hand, there are some this means that there is a selective his- size = 0.20 * height + 0.45 * weight + quite interesting problems and puz- tory determining group differences in 0.27 * leg length + 0.15 * arm circum- zles in all this crass empiricism. Why IQ, what could it have been? ference +... should IQ be such a fundamental pre- Rushton’s Race, Evolution, and Be- This is a desirable definition of size dictor of human performance and be- havior, which is a description of group because it is the single number that havior? How can one number describe differences in IQ and in other morpho- best differentiates people in our sam- and predict so many abilities and at- logical and social traits, also attempts ple. But it is important to understand tributes of individuals? Why is it not to understand them in terms of the dif- that this definition has no basis other multidimensional? If we look sepa- ferent evolutionary histories of than convenience. With another sam- rately at tests that seem to demand groups. His thesis is that as modern ple of people, we might construct a language competence of some sort humans moved out of Africa into similar measure with slightly different and at tests that seem to demand alge- colder climates there were selection coefficients. Given a population in braic and geometric skills we find that pressures that favored a whole con- which stature vaned a lot, the coef- scores are correlated. People who are stellation of traits, including higher in- fiecient of height in the equation better at language are also, statisti- telligence. might be larger. cally, better with numbers and figures. There is a poorly understood heu- Intelligence tests are simply batter- Why should this be so? Why are they ristic concept in ecology that relates ies of a lot of questions and tasks, pre- not negatively related? the life histories of organisms to their cisely like the collection of physical It is a basic understanding in evolu- environments. The idea is that organ- measurements we took to construct tionary biology that directional selec- isms have first to maintain them- 102 Evolutionary Anthropology EOOK REVIEWS

selves, then to reproduce in order to have larger testes. Rushton presents ence. Perhaps there ultimately will be propagate their genetic material. Or- some evidence about this, but he pre- some serious contribution from the ganisms that allocate more resources sents even more evidence about race traditional smoke-and-mirrors social to maintenance are called K-strate- differences in penis size. How does pe- science treatment of IQ, but for now gists; those that allocate relatively nis size reflect r- versus K-strategy? I Rushton’s framework is essentially the more to reproduction are r-strategists. don’t think it does. only game in town. The terms Y and K are from the con- The mechanism driving race differ- Marks’ Human Biodiversity is witty vention inwriting the logistic model of ences in reproductive strategy is also and articulate. I have read it three population growth in which r is the in- not clear in Rushton’s formulation. He times and enjoyed it each time, but at trinsic rate of increase of a population suggests that the relative K-strategy of the end of the third reading I had no in the absence of intraspecific compe- Europeans and Asians was favored by more coherent view of what it was tition and K is the “carrying capacity” harsh cold seasonal environments. In about than I had after the first read- of the environment. Thus, selection the ecological literature, however, ing. Readers of this review should be might favor higher r in a species that harsh environments favor r-strate- aware of my inability to grasp the colonizes empty habitats or that suf- gists. Willows in the arctic are strate- theme or purpose of the book, for 1 fers high levels of random prerepro- gic weeds compared to teak trees in a may do it an injustice. ductive mortality, while selection tropical forest. There are some sugges- But whatever it is about, the book is would favor higher Kin a species that tions: IQ may have been favored in not about human diversity. There is al- must compete with conspecifics. cold climates because intelligence is most no substantive treatment of hu- Weeds are v-strategists, whereas tropi- required to forage in these environ- man differences. Instead, there is a cal trees are K-strategists. Weeds suc- ments; cooperation may have been fa- mixture of fundamental biology, in- ceed by putting resources into a lot of vored by the need for communal cluding a coherent account of what seeds that colonize transient environ- hunting of herd mammals; and these those funny words from cladistics ments. The organisms themselves are changes were achieved at the cost of mean, and a history of ideas and of low quality and don’t last long. resources allocated to sexuality and speculation about human races and Tropical trees, on the other hand, suc- reproduction. But if, for example, Af- differences. ceed by making high-quality durable ricans allocate more resources to re- The pervasive political taint of every organisms that overgrow conspecifics production, why are birthweights chapter makes me leery of the sub- and synthesize elaborate chemical de- lower rather than higher in Africans? stantive parts of the book. Chapter 5, fenses against potential predators and Even simpler mechanisms that might for example, is about the against each other. I call this a “heuris- have been at work. Large brains and movement in the early part of this cen- tic” rather than a model because no corresponding high intelligence might tury. Marks identifies it as “The only one has ever been able to formalize it, be disfavored by high environmental major influence scientists have had on

make it into an expicit theoretical con- temperatures. Brains generate a lot of social legislation ....I’ My immediate struct, and use it to predict anything heat. Or the difference in the load of reaction is to recall that the “Great So- that was not already known. It feels parasitic and infectious diseases in ciety” of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency right but it is not a theory, despite a lot tropical and cold climates might be was firmly based on social and educa- of effort directed at trying to make it the critical environmental pressure. tional science. The same sort of peo- into a real theory. I could easily pick at Rushton’s hy- ple, dedicated to making a better Rushton organizes a wide-ranging pothesis and, much less easily, at his society by manipulating people, were description of race differences accord- data for many pages. He has given us advocates of eugenics in the 1920s and ing to his version of the Y to K contin- a lot of diverse material into which we of Great-Society-type social remedies uum. Asians, according to his can sink our teeth. It almost certainly in the 1960s. formulation, are the most extreme I(- fits together into a coherent pattern. I Marks contrasts the intellectual strategists of our species, with bigger am not at all convinced that he has styles of Linnaeus and Buffon--classi- brains, higher IQ test scores, lower seen the right pattern, but I don’t have fication and narrative description- mortality, lower criminality, smaller anything better to offer. Most impor- and traces competition between these genitalia, lower levels of sexuality, and tant, there are predictions that can be approaches to human differences in more introversion. Africans are at the tested-for example, that Eskimos European intellectual history. For ex- other extreme, with Europeans inter- ought to have high scores on IQ tests. ample, Carleton Coon, with his view of mediate on all these dimensions. Most alternative formulations do not ancient separate races, was an heir of There are problems with his formu- make any predictions. What, for ex- Linnaeus; Frank Livingstone, with his lation. Because the model is so vaguely ample, does the theory that racism ac- view that most human diversity is cli- defined in the ecological literature it is counts for group IQ test score nal, can be considered an heir of Buf- not difficult to be convinced that data differences predict about Eskimo IQ? fon. This is all pretty dull stuff. fit the model. For example, if r-strate- I believe that Rushton deserves con- Are human differences the legacy of gists put more resources into repro- gratulations for bringing together this ancient subdivisions of humanity that duction and reproductive tissues, then very important pioneering work and, were genetically isolated from each the prediction is that a relatively Y- most of all, for trying to understand it other? Or are the differences the result strategist variant of our species should within the framework of natural sci- of clinal variation with some lumpi- BOOK REVIEWS Evolutionary Anthropology 103

ness superimposed by major episodes discuss the political implications of cant. For example, Shipman’s descrip- of population growth like the Bantu, one view or the other. I am not so tion of the reception of Carleton Han, or European expansions? This is happy with the idea that I have to cen- Coon’s Origin of Races is fair, even- an empirical issue, not an ideological sor my investigations so that the re- handed, and accords with my own issue, but the reader would never un- sults align correctly with my politics knowledge of what happened, derstand that from ths book. On page or those of anyone else. I do not for a whereas Marks’ narrative about the 163, for example, there is the remark- moment believe that scientific fashion same events does not ring quite right able assertion that anthropological ge- causes political fashion. For example, to me. netics was developed “in order to I can walk into any mall bookshop, ask The Bell Curve is dull reading, but validate racial categories” (emphasis about IQ, and be handed a book by the information it presents is centrally mine). Stephen Jay Gould, but not a book by Similarly, the idea that biological Arthur Jensen or Richard Herrnstein. important to a lot of people in busi- differences among groups have any- Gould writes what Americans want to ness, education, and government. thing to do with social inequalities hear, while Jensen and Herrnstein’s Anyone familiar with the literature on among groups is identified through- works are not welcome. Even so, there testing will recognize what has been out as pernicious, dangerous, and is an intellectual fad that claims that well known for decades, supple- wrong. But surely this too is an empiri- most science is politically motivated mented with new tabulations from the cal issue, and any political or moral and that imputation and analysis of NLSY database. Rushton’s book, on implications are in the mind of the im- these motivations is a worthy schol- the other hand, is anything but dull. plicator, not in the answers them- arly enterprise. This mostly amounts Some of it is, I think, far-fetched, like selves. Are Europeans greedy? Are to calling people racists. The prospect some of his genetic similarity theory Jews natural pugilists? Is love of of it all is that we may find the English and some of his account of ecological slaughter the mark of an English gen- department at our universities in theory, but it should not be shouted tleman? (These hypotheses come, re- charge of research policy if they don’t down and dismissed. spectively, from Leonard Jeffries, find a new fad. Jonathan Marks, and Marty Feld- All of these books are well worth Henry Harpending man.) These are not very interesting reading. For those interested in the Department of Anthropology questions, because there is no theory history of the study of human diver- College of Liberal Arts about any of them, to my knowledge, sity, I recommend the Shipman book. Pennsylvania State University but at least in principle they are ame- Although Marks’ book may provide University Park, PA 16802-3404 nable to empirical investigation. some different perspectives, I frankly [email protected] I am happy to have Marks or anyone don’t trust it because of its ideological 0 1995 Wiley-Liss, lnc.

clusions. J. Philippe Rushton uses a phy a scientist accepts is not of very Race, Reason, and life-history approach in which repro- much importance; his job is to ob- ductive adaptive strategies of races are serve the phenomena. This is a gross Rationale seen as driving evolutionary changes oversimplification and it involves the subsidiary hypothesis that all scien- Race has been a core concept in an- in morphology and behavior. These re- productive differences define races tists are fully equipped with serendip- thropology since the inception of the ity. A sensible philosophy controlled and allow us to rank order them. Rich- discipline. For the last century, an- by a relevant set of concepts saves so ard Hernnstein and Charles Murray’s thropologists have grappled with the much research time that it can nearly contribution is more narrowly fo- problem of racial analysis with little act as a substitute for genius .... A sci- cused on the impact of intelligence success. Now, at a time when race has entist can have no more valuable skill been abandoned by 50% of biological quotient on race and class. They see than the ability to see whether the as being and 70% of cultural anthropologists,‘ racial and class differences problem he is investigating exists and deeply imbedded in immutable, ge- whether the concepts he is using are four books have emerged to renew in- applicable (p. 280). terest in its value and use as a tool for netically determined measures of in- telligence. This interpretation has scientific research on human diver- become an important part the pub- sity These books address issues of race of Pat Shipman begins her discussion lic policy debate that is at the heart of and racial classification in different of the evolution of race and racism by ways, from different perspectives, and political decisions being made in the recounting Darwin’s contribution to United States. with different agendas. evolutionary theory. She neglects any The questions about race and its Pat Shipman and Jonathan Marks discussion of contributions from the role in understanding human biodi- deal with the history of race and the previous century, during which race versity are not trivial. As the philoso- study of human diversity. Although gained scientific and political promi- pher N.W. Pirie* noted, the answers to both authors examine the scientific nence. Shipman does not extensively such questions are indispensable: and political factors in the study of discuss the definition, history, devel- biodiversity, they reach disparate con- Some people think that the philoso- opment, or evolution of race or, for