In this article, the authors argue that the overwhelming
portion of the literature on intelligence, race, and genetics
is based on folk taxonomies rather than scientific analysis.
They suggest that because theorists of intelligence disagree
as to what it is, any consideration of its relationships to
other constructs must be tentative at best. They further
argue that race is a social construction with no scientific
definition. Thus, studies of the relationship between race
and other constructs may serve social ends but cannot
serve scientific ends. No gene has yet been conclusively
linked to intelligence, so attempts to provide a compelling
genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this
time. The authors also show that heritability, a behavior-
genetic concept, is inadequate in regard to providing such
a link.
A number of scholars claim to have studied rela-
tionships among intelligence, race, and genetics
(e.g., Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Rushton,
1995). The thesis of this article is that these studies are not
grounded in scientifically derived constructs but rather in
folk beliefs about them. There is a big difference between
studying relationships between constructs and folk beliefs
regarding such relationships. The bigger problem, how-
ever, is when one studies the latter but believes one is
studying the former.
In this article, we first review the nature of intelli-
gence. We then discuss the relationship between intelli-
gence and race. Finally, we reflect upon the relationships
among intelligence, race, and genetics.
Intelligence, Race, and Genetics
