The history of the race and intelligence controversy concerns the historical development of a debate, concerning possible explanations of group differences encountered in the study of race and intelligence. Although it has never been disputed that there are systematic differences between average scores in IQ tests of different population groups, sometimes called "racial IQ gaps", there has been no agreement on whether this is mainly due to environmental and cultural factors, or whether some inherent genetic factor is at play.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, group differences in intelligence were assumed to be due to race and, apart from intelligence tests, research relied on measurements such as brain size or reaction times. By the mid-1930s most psychologists had adopted the view that environmental and cultural factors played a dominant role. In 1969 the educational psychologist Arthur Jensen published a long article reviving the older hereditarian point of view, with the suggestion that there might be genetic reasons why compensatory education had failed. His work, publicized by the Nobel laureate William Shockley, sparked controversy amongst the academic community and even led to student unrest. A similar debate amongst academics followed the publication in 1994 of The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. They argued in favor of the hereditarian viewpoint. It not only provoked the publication of several interdisciplinary books on the environmental point of view, some in popular science, but also led to a report from the American Psychological Association that found no adequate explanation for the observed differences between average IQ scores of racial groups—none conclusive for a cultural explanation, and even less for a genetic interpretation.
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, race, intelligence and/or controversy:
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“For do but note a wild and wanton herd
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music.”
—William Shake{peare (1564–1616)
“It is worth the while to detect new faculties in man,—he is so much the more divine; and anything that fairly excites our admiration expands us. The Indian, who can find his way so wonderfully in the woods, possesses an intelligence which the white man does not,—and it increases my own capacity, as well as faith, to observe it. I rejoice to find that intelligence flows in other channels than I knew. It redeems for me portions of what seemed brutish before.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)