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Intelligence, Race, And Genetics: Conversations With Arthur R. Jensen
In a series of provocative conversations with Skeptic magazine Ssenior editor Frank Miele, renowned University of California-Berkeley psychologist Arthur R. Jensen details the evolution of his thoughts on the nature of intelligence, tracing an intellectual odyssey that leads from the programs of the Great Society to the Bell Curve Wars and beyond. Miele cross-examines Jensen's views on general intelligence (the g factor), racial differences in IQ, cultural bias in IQ tests, and whether differences in IQ are due primarily to heredity or to remediable factors such as poverty and discrimination. With characteristic frankness, Jensen also presents his view of the proper role of scientific facts in establishing public policy, such as Affirmative Action.“Jensenism,” the assertion that heredity plays an undeniably greater role than environmental factors in racial (and other) IQ differences, has entered the dictionary and also made Jensen a bitterly controversial figure. Nevertheless, Intelligence, Race, and Genetics carefully underscores the dedicated lifetime of scrupulously scientific research that supports Jensen's conclusions.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2002
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June 2, 2011
Among personal characteristics of any individual, none is more sensitive topic of discuss than that of intelligence. We all have a somewhat schizophrenic attitude towards it, at the same time considering everyone to be equal while constantly measuring ourselves to others. And, of course, we all think that we are above the average when it comes to intelligence. However, all our scientifically based attempts to quantify intelligence have shown what all of us would expect to find if we were just more honest with ourselves: intelligence varies, sometimes substantially, it is fairly stable throughout our lives, and it has a large heritable component. It is possible to conceive that these psychometric findings would have been accepted by now in public discourse were it not for the persistent and sometimes significant race and sex differences. These differences go against everything that our PC culture has taught us, and people who dare to even hint at them are permanently branded as racist and sexist in public discourse. Even being in top echelons of intellectual elite does not inoculate you from this, as a president of Harvard and co-discoverer of DNA have recently found out. In the light of this, it is not surprising that Arthur Jensen, one of the foremost authorities on individual differences in cognitive ability, has been one of the most controversial figures in science for the past forty years. A former University of California at Berkeley professor of Psychology, he became almost a household name in the late 60s upon the publication of an article in which he speculated about the genetic basis of large racial differences in IQ. Ever since then his scientific work and has been maligned in popular press, and the term "jensenism" entered the English language. The aim of this book is to provide a critical look at this controversy, and to provide an opportunity for Jensen himself to answer some of his critics. The book consists of a series of interviews, conducted by Frank Miele, through which most of Jensen's controversial research and statements are examined. Miele does not pull any punches, and throws almost every at Jensen almost every criticism that he had been faced with over the past several decades. Jensen, meanwhile, passes all the challenges. He provides us with very convincing and well-researched arguments that strongly support his position.
One of the most controversial aspects of the intelligence research is the existence of general intelligence, or the so called "g-factor." This is the idea that all of our mental abilities are very strongly correlated with each other, and the ability to excel at one set of mental tasks is the best predictor of our ability to excel at others. There is over a century of hard quantitative research that strongly supports this view, and Jensen in his answers to the critics provides all the relevant information showing why that is the case. Even though g-factor has been inferred from statistical analysis, it is not an artifact of mathematical sleigh-of-hand, but a very well documented real property of human mind. Recent neurological research has only served to further confirm and strengthen this hypothesis.
Jensen also does not shy away from actual and verifiable fact that races are indeed real, and not culturally constructed. It is rather surprising, although maybe in hindsight it ought not to be, that the racial grouping that was found based on the genetic research matches perfectly with the racial classification that had been developed in the nineteenth century. It serves no purpose to try to brush these findings under the carpet, as it is too often done in present day academia. It only leads to the schizophrenic situation where at one hand we are "celebrating diversity" and promoting people based on their skin color, while at the same time claiming that races are nothing but cultural artifacts.
The last chapter of the book may be its weakest. Here Jensen is asked to provide his own ideas for public policy, and one gets sense that here he is definitely out of his depth. Admittedly, he himself has stated very clearly that for the most part of his career he had avoided politics, so we should not be to critical of him in this regard. Nonetheless, it is obvious that he is more than sympathetic to the use of government to provide solutions to social ills, be they actual or perceived. This sentiment goes decidedly against all the progress that has been made in promoting greater individual freedom.
For a book consisting of a series of interviews, it is very conceptually demanding, and some of the arguments can be very technically intricate. If you are able to follow this kind of reasoning the rewards are immense and well worth the effort.
One of the most controversial aspects of the intelligence research is the existence of general intelligence, or the so called "g-factor." This is the idea that all of our mental abilities are very strongly correlated with each other, and the ability to excel at one set of mental tasks is the best predictor of our ability to excel at others. There is over a century of hard quantitative research that strongly supports this view, and Jensen in his answers to the critics provides all the relevant information showing why that is the case. Even though g-factor has been inferred from statistical analysis, it is not an artifact of mathematical sleigh-of-hand, but a very well documented real property of human mind. Recent neurological research has only served to further confirm and strengthen this hypothesis.
Jensen also does not shy away from actual and verifiable fact that races are indeed real, and not culturally constructed. It is rather surprising, although maybe in hindsight it ought not to be, that the racial grouping that was found based on the genetic research matches perfectly with the racial classification that had been developed in the nineteenth century. It serves no purpose to try to brush these findings under the carpet, as it is too often done in present day academia. It only leads to the schizophrenic situation where at one hand we are "celebrating diversity" and promoting people based on their skin color, while at the same time claiming that races are nothing but cultural artifacts.
The last chapter of the book may be its weakest. Here Jensen is asked to provide his own ideas for public policy, and one gets sense that here he is definitely out of his depth. Admittedly, he himself has stated very clearly that for the most part of his career he had avoided politics, so we should not be to critical of him in this regard. Nonetheless, it is obvious that he is more than sympathetic to the use of government to provide solutions to social ills, be they actual or perceived. This sentiment goes decidedly against all the progress that has been made in promoting greater individual freedom.
For a book consisting of a series of interviews, it is very conceptually demanding, and some of the arguments can be very technically intricate. If you are able to follow this kind of reasoning the rewards are immense and well worth the effort.
November 28, 2018
This book adopts an unusual but innovative format. It consists of a transcript of a discussion/interview conducted via email between celebrated/notorious psychologist Arthur Jensen and journalist Frank Miele.
In principle, I think the format of the book is excellent. Unlike a face-to-face ‘real-time’ interview, a discussion conducted by email ensures that Jensen's responses are considered and thought through.
All too often, the results of face-to-face debates, whether between academics or presidential candidates, are determined not by the respective merits of the antagonists’ positions, nor even, for that matter, the intelligence of the antagonists themselves, but rather their confidence, charisma, public-speaking ability and ability to ‘think on their feet’. Yet many great scientists have been notoriously poor lecturers, let alone debaters.
In reading reasoned considered written responses submitted by email, one is better able to assess the actual merits of the participants’ theses rather than their charisma or speaking ability.
On the other hand, however, communication by email is sufficiently instantaneous to permit Miele to follow-up Jensen's answers with further questions. This would not have been practical prior to the development of instantaneous methods of written communication over long distances such as email.
A useful comparison in this regard is provided by Intelligence: the Battle for the Mind: H.J. Eysenck Versus Leon Kamin, something of a forerunner of the work currently under review, in both subject-matter and format.
In that work, which was published long before email had been invented, the contributions of the two authors (celebrated psychologist Hans Eysenck and leftist ideologue Leon Kamin) were authored independently. As a result, even in the brief rejoinders each were permitted to write in response to the portions of the book authored by the other, they largely ‘talk past one another’ and only rarely directly address the points raised by the other.
In conclusion, interviewing by email therefore combines the best of both written communication and face-to-face interaction. The discussions are both readable and informative and introduce a format that, I suggest, should be a model for future works. I might even say that they approximate something akin to an idealised Platonic dialogue.
The problem with the book is therefore not its format. Rather the primary problem is the identity of the ostensible antagonists themselves.
On the face of it, they seem ideal candidates for this innovative format of book - one is a formidable and imminent but highly controversial psychologist, the other a journalist and populariser, exceptionally well-informed on the topic under debate. This seems to promise both readability and academic rigour - and, sure enough, both readability and academic rigour are apparent.
The problem, however, is that both contributors appear to be in complete agreement with one another on virtually every topic they discuss.
To be sure, Miele makes a pretence of challenging Jensen's views – but it is, in reality, just that, namely a pretence and he is merely going through the motions. Miele is in reality a committed hereditarian (a ‘Jensenist’ even?). He is, after all, a co-author with anthropologist Vincent Sarich of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, which defends both the race concept and asserts the existence of racial differences in both physiology and psychology, and, while still a student, published articles in the notorious ‘racialist’ academic journal ‘The Mankind Quarterly’.
This bias is most apparent in the book's ‘Prelude’, subtitled ‘The man behind the ism’, which verges on the hagiographic. It is also apparent in the introductions to each topic that Miele begins each chapter with before the question and answer transcript begins.
In the interview segments themselves, Miele admittedly makes at least an initial pretence of disagreeing with Jensen, interrogating him and presenting counterarguments. However, to adopt a familiar idiom, we might say that Miele is merely ‘playing devil’s advocate’.
To be sure, the book does not purport to be a ‘debate’ as such, but rather a series of interviews. But, still, on a topic as controversial as this one, one expects the interviewer to give at least a rigorous grilling.
And, while, to his credit, Miele never descends to presenting a ‘straw man’ or caricatured version of the views of Jensen's critics, an unabashed ‘Jensenist’ is surely not the ideal choice of interviewer to interview Arthur Jensen.
For example, Miele fails to raise some legitimate objections to Jensen’s positions to which it would be interesting to read Jensen's response.
For example, Jensen claims rather dogmatically that the “the claim that the black-white IQ difference is a result of culturally biased tests has been disproved” (p128), because IQ tests “predict other important real-life criteria such as school grades and job performance with the same accuracy for both groups” (p129).
However, this could be interpreted as suggesting, not that IQ tests are not biased against blacks, but rather than schools, employers and workplaces are equally biased against blacks (i.e. that we live in a racist society, as we are so often told).
Similarly, Miele fails to mention whatsoever perhaps the strongest evidence against there existing a substantial genetic component to that most controversial of group differences in IQ (i.e. the black-white test score gap), namely studies of the effect of degrees of racial admixture on IQ which have used blood groups to assess ancestry (Loehlin et al 1973; Scarr et al 1977).
Moreover, on occasion he does appear to be deliberately setting Jensen up with knock-down responses. For example, in response to Jensen's claim of media bias against the hereditarian position, Miele points out that critics of hereditarianism have also made claims of media bias against them, and asks if Jensen could "provide any solid evidence to support your claim of media bias?" (p79).
As anyone familiar with the nature-nurture controversy with regard to IQ would be aware, this is virtually an invitation to Jensen to cite the Snyderman and Rothman study (The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy), much-cited by defenders of hereditarianism, which purports to quantitatively survey both expert opinion and media representations of the issue, and, in doing so, conclusively demonstrate media bias against hereditarianism. It goes without saying, of course, that Jensen duly obliges (Ibid).
It is inconceivable that a journalist on the front-line of the nature-nurture debate like Miele would not have been aware of this study and one suspects that this was precisely why he asked this specific question.
__________
In conclusion, the format of the book is excellent, but the identity of the interviewer is less than ideal.
Perhaps a similar book written by Jensen and one of the less hysterical opponents of his views (e.g. Richard E. Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, or James R. Flynn, author of What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect or, better yet, N.J. Mackintosh, author of IQ and Human Intelligence would have been preferable, if it were possible to get agreement from all prospective authors.
However, given Jensen's recent death, and also the death of Mackintosh, this will no longer possible and the present volume is, unfortunately, the best we will get.
Overall, ‘Intelligence, Race and Genetics’ is both eminently readable and eminently worth reading. Just don't mistake it for a genuine debate or anything other than a thinly-veiled work of advocacy.
References
Loehlin, Vandenberg and Osborne (1973) 'Blood group genes and negro-white ability differences' Behavior Genetics 3(3): 263-270
Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, & Barker (1977) 'Absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestry and intellectual skills within a black population' Human Genetics 39(1): 69-86
In principle, I think the format of the book is excellent. Unlike a face-to-face ‘real-time’ interview, a discussion conducted by email ensures that Jensen's responses are considered and thought through.
All too often, the results of face-to-face debates, whether between academics or presidential candidates, are determined not by the respective merits of the antagonists’ positions, nor even, for that matter, the intelligence of the antagonists themselves, but rather their confidence, charisma, public-speaking ability and ability to ‘think on their feet’. Yet many great scientists have been notoriously poor lecturers, let alone debaters.
In reading reasoned considered written responses submitted by email, one is better able to assess the actual merits of the participants’ theses rather than their charisma or speaking ability.
On the other hand, however, communication by email is sufficiently instantaneous to permit Miele to follow-up Jensen's answers with further questions. This would not have been practical prior to the development of instantaneous methods of written communication over long distances such as email.
A useful comparison in this regard is provided by Intelligence: the Battle for the Mind: H.J. Eysenck Versus Leon Kamin, something of a forerunner of the work currently under review, in both subject-matter and format.
In that work, which was published long before email had been invented, the contributions of the two authors (celebrated psychologist Hans Eysenck and leftist ideologue Leon Kamin) were authored independently. As a result, even in the brief rejoinders each were permitted to write in response to the portions of the book authored by the other, they largely ‘talk past one another’ and only rarely directly address the points raised by the other.
In conclusion, interviewing by email therefore combines the best of both written communication and face-to-face interaction. The discussions are both readable and informative and introduce a format that, I suggest, should be a model for future works. I might even say that they approximate something akin to an idealised Platonic dialogue.
The problem with the book is therefore not its format. Rather the primary problem is the identity of the ostensible antagonists themselves.
On the face of it, they seem ideal candidates for this innovative format of book - one is a formidable and imminent but highly controversial psychologist, the other a journalist and populariser, exceptionally well-informed on the topic under debate. This seems to promise both readability and academic rigour - and, sure enough, both readability and academic rigour are apparent.
The problem, however, is that both contributors appear to be in complete agreement with one another on virtually every topic they discuss.
To be sure, Miele makes a pretence of challenging Jensen's views – but it is, in reality, just that, namely a pretence and he is merely going through the motions. Miele is in reality a committed hereditarian (a ‘Jensenist’ even?). He is, after all, a co-author with anthropologist Vincent Sarich of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, which defends both the race concept and asserts the existence of racial differences in both physiology and psychology, and, while still a student, published articles in the notorious ‘racialist’ academic journal ‘The Mankind Quarterly’.
This bias is most apparent in the book's ‘Prelude’, subtitled ‘The man behind the ism’, which verges on the hagiographic. It is also apparent in the introductions to each topic that Miele begins each chapter with before the question and answer transcript begins.
In the interview segments themselves, Miele admittedly makes at least an initial pretence of disagreeing with Jensen, interrogating him and presenting counterarguments. However, to adopt a familiar idiom, we might say that Miele is merely ‘playing devil’s advocate’.
To be sure, the book does not purport to be a ‘debate’ as such, but rather a series of interviews. But, still, on a topic as controversial as this one, one expects the interviewer to give at least a rigorous grilling.
And, while, to his credit, Miele never descends to presenting a ‘straw man’ or caricatured version of the views of Jensen's critics, an unabashed ‘Jensenist’ is surely not the ideal choice of interviewer to interview Arthur Jensen.
For example, Miele fails to raise some legitimate objections to Jensen’s positions to which it would be interesting to read Jensen's response.
For example, Jensen claims rather dogmatically that the “the claim that the black-white IQ difference is a result of culturally biased tests has been disproved” (p128), because IQ tests “predict other important real-life criteria such as school grades and job performance with the same accuracy for both groups” (p129).
However, this could be interpreted as suggesting, not that IQ tests are not biased against blacks, but rather than schools, employers and workplaces are equally biased against blacks (i.e. that we live in a racist society, as we are so often told).
Similarly, Miele fails to mention whatsoever perhaps the strongest evidence against there existing a substantial genetic component to that most controversial of group differences in IQ (i.e. the black-white test score gap), namely studies of the effect of degrees of racial admixture on IQ which have used blood groups to assess ancestry (Loehlin et al 1973; Scarr et al 1977).
Moreover, on occasion he does appear to be deliberately setting Jensen up with knock-down responses. For example, in response to Jensen's claim of media bias against the hereditarian position, Miele points out that critics of hereditarianism have also made claims of media bias against them, and asks if Jensen could "provide any solid evidence to support your claim of media bias?" (p79).
As anyone familiar with the nature-nurture controversy with regard to IQ would be aware, this is virtually an invitation to Jensen to cite the Snyderman and Rothman study (The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy), much-cited by defenders of hereditarianism, which purports to quantitatively survey both expert opinion and media representations of the issue, and, in doing so, conclusively demonstrate media bias against hereditarianism. It goes without saying, of course, that Jensen duly obliges (Ibid).
It is inconceivable that a journalist on the front-line of the nature-nurture debate like Miele would not have been aware of this study and one suspects that this was precisely why he asked this specific question.
__________
In conclusion, the format of the book is excellent, but the identity of the interviewer is less than ideal.
Perhaps a similar book written by Jensen and one of the less hysterical opponents of his views (e.g. Richard E. Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, or James R. Flynn, author of What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect or, better yet, N.J. Mackintosh, author of IQ and Human Intelligence would have been preferable, if it were possible to get agreement from all prospective authors.
However, given Jensen's recent death, and also the death of Mackintosh, this will no longer possible and the present volume is, unfortunately, the best we will get.
Overall, ‘Intelligence, Race and Genetics’ is both eminently readable and eminently worth reading. Just don't mistake it for a genuine debate or anything other than a thinly-veiled work of advocacy.
References
Loehlin, Vandenberg and Osborne (1973) 'Blood group genes and negro-white ability differences' Behavior Genetics 3(3): 263-270
Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, & Barker (1977) 'Absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestry and intellectual skills within a black population' Human Genetics 39(1): 69-86
July 25, 2020
Excellent for showing Jensen's personality through his own words. I truely feel Jense was a rare scientist who was able to put ego and beliefs to the side when conducting his research, unlike his educated (about psychology and intelligence) critics. The book is a nice resource for introducing one's self to a topic that is very detailed and has minute but important distinctions. Additionally, there are many points when Jensen's personal life rules makes one reflect upon themselves. I was expecting more science but instead learned a great deal about an often poorly depicted man.
August 30, 2022
This book adopts an unusual but innovative format. It consists of a transcript of a discussion/interview conducted via email between celebrated/notorious psychologist Arthur Jensen and journalist Frank Miele.
In principle, I think the format of the book is excellent. Unlike a face-to-face ‘real-time’ interview, a discussion conducted by email ensures that Jensen's responses are considered and thought through.
All too often, the results of face-to-face debates, whether between academics or presidential candidates, are determined not by the respective merits of the antagonists’ positions, nor even, for that matter, the intelligence of the antagonists themselves, but rather their confidence, charisma, public-speaking ability and ability to ‘think on their feet’. Yet many great scientists have been notoriously poor lecturers, let alone debaters.
In reading reasoned considered written responses submitted by email, one is better able to assess the actual merits of the participants’ theses rather than their charisma or speaking ability.
On the other hand, however, communication by email is sufficiently instantaneous to permit Miele to follow-up Jensen's answers with further questions. This would not have been practical prior to the development of instantaneous methods of written communication over long distances such as email.
A useful comparison in this regard is provided by Intelligence: the Battle for the Mind: H.J. Eysenck Versus Leon Kamin, something of a forerunner of the work currently under review, in both subject-matter and format.
In that work, which was published long before email had been invented, the contributions of the two authors (celebrated psychologist Hans Eysenck and leftist ideologue Leon Kamin) were authored independently. As a result, even in the brief rejoinders each were permitted to write in response to the portions of the book authored by the other, they largely ‘talk past one another’ and only rarely directly address the points raised by the other.
In conclusion, interviewing by email therefore combines the best of both written communication and face-to-face interaction. The discussions are both readable and informative and introduce a format that, I suggest, should be a model for future works. I might even say that they approximate something akin to an idealised Platonic dialogue.
The problem with the book is therefore not its format. Rather the primary problem is the identity of the ostensible antagonists themselves.
On the face of it, they seem ideal candidates for this innovative format of book - one is a formidable and imminent but highly controversial psychologist, the other a journalist and populariser, exceptionally well-informed on the topic under debate. This seems to promise both readability and academic rigour - and, sure enough, both readability and academic rigour are apparent.
The problem, however, is that both contributors appear to be in complete agreement with one another on virtually every topic they discuss.
To be sure, Miele makes a pretence of challenging Jensen's views – but it is, in reality, just that, namely a pretence and he is merely going through the motions. Miele is in reality a committed hereditarian (a ‘Jensenist’ even?). He is, after all, a co-author with anthropologist Vincent Sarich of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, which defends both the race concept and asserts the existence of racial differences in both physiology and psychology, and, while still a student, published articles in the notorious ‘racialist’ academic journal ‘The Mankind Quarterly’.
This bias is most apparent in the book's ‘Prelude’, subtitled ‘The man behind the ism’, which verges on the hagiographic. It is also apparent in the introductions to each topic that Miele begins each chapter with before the question and answer transcript begins.
In the interview segments themselves, Miele admittedly makes at least an initial pretence of disagreeing with Jensen, interrogating him and presenting counterarguments. However, to adopt a familiar idiom, we might say that Miele is merely ‘playing devil’s advocate’.
To be sure, the book does not purport to be a ‘debate’ as such, but rather a series of interviews. But, still, on a topic as controversial as this one, one expects the interviewer to give at least a rigorous grilling.
And, while, to his credit, Miele never descends to presenting a ‘straw man’ or caricatured version of the views of Jensen's critics, an unabashed ‘Jensenist’ is surely not the ideal choice of interviewer to interview Arthur Jensen.
For example, Miele fails to raise some legitimate objections to Jensen’s positions to which it would be interesting to read Jensen's response.
For example, Jensen claims rather dogmatically that the “the claim that the black-white IQ difference is a result of culturally biased tests has been disproved” (p128), because IQ tests “predict other important real-life criteria such as school grades and job performance with the same accuracy for both groups” (p129).
However, this could be interpreted as suggesting, not that IQ tests are not biased against blacks, but rather than schools, employers and workplaces are equally biased against blacks (i.e. that we live in a racist society, as we are so often told).
Similarly, Miele fails to mention whatsoever perhaps the strongest evidence against there existing a substantial genetic component to that most controversial of group differences in IQ (i.e. the black-white test score gap), namely studies of the effect of degrees of racial admixture on IQ which have used blood groups to assess ancestry (Loehlin et al 1973; Scarr et al 1977).
Moreover, on occasion he does appear to be deliberately setting Jensen up with knock-down responses. For example, in response to Jensen's claim of media bias against the hereditarian position, Miele points out that critics of hereditarianism have also made claims of media bias against them, and asks if Jensen could "provide any solid evidence to support your claim of media bias?" (p79).
As anyone familiar with the nature-nurture controversy with regard to IQ would be aware, this is virtually an invitation to Jensen to cite the Snyderman and Rothman study (The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy), much-cited by defenders of hereditarianism, which purports to quantitatively survey both expert opinion and media representations of the issue, and, in doing so, conclusively demonstrate media bias against hereditarianism. It goes without saying, of course, that Jensen duly obliges (Ibid).
It is inconceivable that a journalist on the front-line of the nature-nurture debate like Miele would not have been aware of this study and one suspects that this was precisely why he asked this specific question.
__________
In conclusion, the format of the book is excellent, but the identity of the interviewer is less than ideal.
Perhaps a similar book written by Jensen and one of the less hysterical opponents of his views (e.g. Richard E. Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, or James R. Flynn, author of What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect or, better yet, N.J. Mackintosh, author of IQ and Human Intelligence would have been preferable, if it were possible to get agreement from all prospective authors.
However, given Jensen's recent death, and also the death of Mackintosh, this will no longer possible and the present volume is, unfortunately, the best we will get.
Overall, ‘Intelligence, Race and Genetics’ is both eminently readable and eminently worth reading. Just don't mistake it for a genuine debate or anything other than a thinly-veiled work of advocacy.
References
Loehlin, Vandenberg and Osborne (1973) 'Blood group genes and negro-white ability differences' Behavior Genetics 3(3): 263-270
Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, & Barker (1977) 'Absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestry and intellectual skills within a black population' Human Genetics 39(1): 69-86
Merged review:
This book adopts an unusual but innovative format. It consists of a transcript of a discussion/interview conducted via email between celebrated/notorious psychologist Arthur Jensen and journalist Frank Miele.
In principle, I think the format of the book is excellent. Unlike a face-to-face ‘real-time’ interview, a discussion conducted by email ensures that Jensen's responses are considered and thought through.
All too often, the results of face-to-face debates, whether between academics or presidential candidates, are determined not by the respective merits of the antagonists’ positions, nor even, for that matter, the intelligence of the antagonists themselves, but rather their confidence, charisma, public-speaking ability and ability to ‘think on their feet’. Yet many great scientists have been notoriously poor lecturers, let alone debaters.
In reading reasoned considered written responses submitted by email, one is better able to assess the actual merits of the participants’ theses rather than their charisma or speaking ability.
On the other hand, however, communication by email is sufficiently instantaneous to permit Miele to follow-up Jensen's answers with further questions. This would not have been practical prior to the development of instantaneous methods of written communication over long distances such as email.
A useful comparison in this regard is provided by Intelligence: the Battle for the Mind: H.J. Eysenck Versus Leon Kamin, something of a forerunner of the work currently under review, in both subject-matter and format.
In that work, which was published long before email had been invented, the contributions of the two authors (celebrated psychologist Hans Eysenck and leftist ideologue Leon Kamin) were authored independently. As a result, even in the brief rejoinders each were permitted to write in response to the portions of the book authored by the other, they largely ‘talk past one another’ and only rarely directly address the points raised by the other.
In conclusion, interviewing by email therefore combines the best of both written communication and face-to-face interaction. The discussions are both readable and informative and introduce a format that, I suggest, should be a model for future works. I might even say that they approximate something akin to an idealised Platonic dialogue.
The problem with the book is therefore not its format. Rather the primary problem is the identity of the ostensible antagonists themselves.
On the face of it, they seem ideal candidates for this innovative format of book - one is a formidable and imminent but highly controversial psychologist, the other a journalist and populariser, exceptionally well-informed on the topic under debate. This seems to promise both readability and academic rigour - and, sure enough, both readability and academic rigour are apparent.
The problem, however, is that both contributors appear to be in complete agreement with one another on virtually every topic they discuss.
To be sure, Miele makes a pretence of challenging Jensen's views – but it is, in reality, just that, namely a pretence and he is merely going through the motions. Miele is in reality a committed hereditarian (a ‘Jensenist’ even?). He is, after all, a co-author with anthropologist Vincent Sarich of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, which defends both the race concept and asserts the existence of racial differences in both physiology and psychology, and, while still a student, published articles in the notorious ‘racialist’ academic journal ‘The Mankind Quarterly’.
This bias is most apparent in the book's ‘Prelude’, subtitled ‘The man behind the ism’, which verges on the hagiographic. It is also apparent in the introductions to each topic that Miele begins each chapter with before the question and answer transcript begins.
In the interview segments themselves, Miele admittedly makes at least an initial pretence of disagreeing with Jensen, interrogating him and presenting counterarguments. However, to adopt a familiar idiom, we might say that Miele is merely ‘playing devil’s advocate’.
To be sure, the book does not purport to be a ‘debate’ as such, but rather a series of interviews. But, still, on a topic as controversial as this one, one expects the interviewer to give at least a rigorous grilling.
And, while, to his credit, Miele never descends to presenting a ‘straw man’ or caricatured version of the views of Jensen's critics, an unabashed ‘Jensenist’ is surely not the ideal choice of interviewer to interview Arthur Jensen.
For example, Miele fails to raise some legitimate objections to Jensen’s positions to which it would be interesting to read Jensen's response.
For example, Jensen claims rather dogmatically that the “the claim that the black-white IQ difference is a result of culturally biased tests has been disproved” (p128), because IQ tests “predict other important real-life criteria such as school grades and job performance with the same accuracy for both groups” (p129).
However, this could be interpreted as suggesting, not that IQ tests are not biased against blacks, but rather than schools, employers and workplaces are equally biased against blacks (i.e. that we live in a racist society, as we are so often told).
Similarly, Miele fails to mention whatsoever perhaps the strongest evidence against there existing a substantial genetic component to that most controversial of group differences in IQ (i.e. the black-white test score gap), namely studies of the effect of degrees of racial admixture on IQ which have used blood groups to assess ancestry (Loehlin et al 1973; Scarr et al 1977).
Moreover, on occasion he does appear to be deliberately setting Jensen up with knock-down responses. For example, in response to Jensen's claim of media bias against the hereditarian position, Miele points out that critics of hereditarianism have also made claims of media bias against them, and asks if Jensen could "provide any solid evidence to support your claim of media bias?" (p79).
As anyone familiar with the nature-nurture controversy with regard to IQ would be aware, this is virtually an invitation to Jensen to cite the Snyderman and Rothman study (The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy), much-cited by defenders of hereditarianism, which purports to quantitatively survey both expert opinion and media representations of the issue, and, in doing so, conclusively demonstrate media bias against hereditarianism. It goes without saying, of course, that Jensen duly obliges (Ibid).
It is inconceivable that a journalist on the front-line of the nature-nurture debate like Miele would not have been aware of this study and one suspects that this was precisely why he asked this specific question.
__________
In conclusion, the format of the book is excellent, but the identity of the interviewer is less than ideal.
Perhaps a similar book written by Jensen and one of the less hysterical opponents of his views (e.g. Richard E. Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, or James R. Flynn, author of What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect or, better yet, N.J. Mackintosh, author of IQ and Human Intelligence would have been preferable, if it were possible to get agreement from all prospective authors.
However, given Jensen's recent death, and also the death of Mackintosh, this will no longer possible and the present volume is, unfortunately, the best we will get.
Overall, ‘Intelligence, Race and Genetics’ is both eminently readable and eminently worth reading. Just don't mistake it for a genuine debate or anything other than a thinly-veiled work of advocacy.
References
Loehlin, Vandenberg and Osborne (1973) 'Blood group genes and negro-white ability differences' Behavior Genetics 3(3): 263-270
Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, & Barker (1977) 'Absence of a relationship between degree of
In principle, I think the format of the book is excellent. Unlike a face-to-face ‘real-time’ interview, a discussion conducted by email ensures that Jensen's responses are considered and thought through.
All too often, the results of face-to-face debates, whether between academics or presidential candidates, are determined not by the respective merits of the antagonists’ positions, nor even, for that matter, the intelligence of the antagonists themselves, but rather their confidence, charisma, public-speaking ability and ability to ‘think on their feet’. Yet many great scientists have been notoriously poor lecturers, let alone debaters.
In reading reasoned considered written responses submitted by email, one is better able to assess the actual merits of the participants’ theses rather than their charisma or speaking ability.
On the other hand, however, communication by email is sufficiently instantaneous to permit Miele to follow-up Jensen's answers with further questions. This would not have been practical prior to the development of instantaneous methods of written communication over long distances such as email.
A useful comparison in this regard is provided by Intelligence: the Battle for the Mind: H.J. Eysenck Versus Leon Kamin, something of a forerunner of the work currently under review, in both subject-matter and format.
In that work, which was published long before email had been invented, the contributions of the two authors (celebrated psychologist Hans Eysenck and leftist ideologue Leon Kamin) were authored independently. As a result, even in the brief rejoinders each were permitted to write in response to the portions of the book authored by the other, they largely ‘talk past one another’ and only rarely directly address the points raised by the other.
In conclusion, interviewing by email therefore combines the best of both written communication and face-to-face interaction. The discussions are both readable and informative and introduce a format that, I suggest, should be a model for future works. I might even say that they approximate something akin to an idealised Platonic dialogue.
The problem with the book is therefore not its format. Rather the primary problem is the identity of the ostensible antagonists themselves.
On the face of it, they seem ideal candidates for this innovative format of book - one is a formidable and imminent but highly controversial psychologist, the other a journalist and populariser, exceptionally well-informed on the topic under debate. This seems to promise both readability and academic rigour - and, sure enough, both readability and academic rigour are apparent.
The problem, however, is that both contributors appear to be in complete agreement with one another on virtually every topic they discuss.
To be sure, Miele makes a pretence of challenging Jensen's views – but it is, in reality, just that, namely a pretence and he is merely going through the motions. Miele is in reality a committed hereditarian (a ‘Jensenist’ even?). He is, after all, a co-author with anthropologist Vincent Sarich of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, which defends both the race concept and asserts the existence of racial differences in both physiology and psychology, and, while still a student, published articles in the notorious ‘racialist’ academic journal ‘The Mankind Quarterly’.
This bias is most apparent in the book's ‘Prelude’, subtitled ‘The man behind the ism’, which verges on the hagiographic. It is also apparent in the introductions to each topic that Miele begins each chapter with before the question and answer transcript begins.
In the interview segments themselves, Miele admittedly makes at least an initial pretence of disagreeing with Jensen, interrogating him and presenting counterarguments. However, to adopt a familiar idiom, we might say that Miele is merely ‘playing devil’s advocate’.
To be sure, the book does not purport to be a ‘debate’ as such, but rather a series of interviews. But, still, on a topic as controversial as this one, one expects the interviewer to give at least a rigorous grilling.
And, while, to his credit, Miele never descends to presenting a ‘straw man’ or caricatured version of the views of Jensen's critics, an unabashed ‘Jensenist’ is surely not the ideal choice of interviewer to interview Arthur Jensen.
For example, Miele fails to raise some legitimate objections to Jensen’s positions to which it would be interesting to read Jensen's response.
For example, Jensen claims rather dogmatically that the “the claim that the black-white IQ difference is a result of culturally biased tests has been disproved” (p128), because IQ tests “predict other important real-life criteria such as school grades and job performance with the same accuracy for both groups” (p129).
However, this could be interpreted as suggesting, not that IQ tests are not biased against blacks, but rather than schools, employers and workplaces are equally biased against blacks (i.e. that we live in a racist society, as we are so often told).
Similarly, Miele fails to mention whatsoever perhaps the strongest evidence against there existing a substantial genetic component to that most controversial of group differences in IQ (i.e. the black-white test score gap), namely studies of the effect of degrees of racial admixture on IQ which have used blood groups to assess ancestry (Loehlin et al 1973; Scarr et al 1977).
Moreover, on occasion he does appear to be deliberately setting Jensen up with knock-down responses. For example, in response to Jensen's claim of media bias against the hereditarian position, Miele points out that critics of hereditarianism have also made claims of media bias against them, and asks if Jensen could "provide any solid evidence to support your claim of media bias?" (p79).
As anyone familiar with the nature-nurture controversy with regard to IQ would be aware, this is virtually an invitation to Jensen to cite the Snyderman and Rothman study (The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy), much-cited by defenders of hereditarianism, which purports to quantitatively survey both expert opinion and media representations of the issue, and, in doing so, conclusively demonstrate media bias against hereditarianism. It goes without saying, of course, that Jensen duly obliges (Ibid).
It is inconceivable that a journalist on the front-line of the nature-nurture debate like Miele would not have been aware of this study and one suspects that this was precisely why he asked this specific question.
__________
In conclusion, the format of the book is excellent, but the identity of the interviewer is less than ideal.
Perhaps a similar book written by Jensen and one of the less hysterical opponents of his views (e.g. Richard E. Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, or James R. Flynn, author of What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect or, better yet, N.J. Mackintosh, author of IQ and Human Intelligence would have been preferable, if it were possible to get agreement from all prospective authors.
However, given Jensen's recent death, and also the death of Mackintosh, this will no longer possible and the present volume is, unfortunately, the best we will get.
Overall, ‘Intelligence, Race and Genetics’ is both eminently readable and eminently worth reading. Just don't mistake it for a genuine debate or anything other than a thinly-veiled work of advocacy.
References
Loehlin, Vandenberg and Osborne (1973) 'Blood group genes and negro-white ability differences' Behavior Genetics 3(3): 263-270
Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, & Barker (1977) 'Absence of a relationship between degree of white ancestry and intellectual skills within a black population' Human Genetics 39(1): 69-86
Merged review:
This book adopts an unusual but innovative format. It consists of a transcript of a discussion/interview conducted via email between celebrated/notorious psychologist Arthur Jensen and journalist Frank Miele.
In principle, I think the format of the book is excellent. Unlike a face-to-face ‘real-time’ interview, a discussion conducted by email ensures that Jensen's responses are considered and thought through.
All too often, the results of face-to-face debates, whether between academics or presidential candidates, are determined not by the respective merits of the antagonists’ positions, nor even, for that matter, the intelligence of the antagonists themselves, but rather their confidence, charisma, public-speaking ability and ability to ‘think on their feet’. Yet many great scientists have been notoriously poor lecturers, let alone debaters.
In reading reasoned considered written responses submitted by email, one is better able to assess the actual merits of the participants’ theses rather than their charisma or speaking ability.
On the other hand, however, communication by email is sufficiently instantaneous to permit Miele to follow-up Jensen's answers with further questions. This would not have been practical prior to the development of instantaneous methods of written communication over long distances such as email.
A useful comparison in this regard is provided by Intelligence: the Battle for the Mind: H.J. Eysenck Versus Leon Kamin, something of a forerunner of the work currently under review, in both subject-matter and format.
In that work, which was published long before email had been invented, the contributions of the two authors (celebrated psychologist Hans Eysenck and leftist ideologue Leon Kamin) were authored independently. As a result, even in the brief rejoinders each were permitted to write in response to the portions of the book authored by the other, they largely ‘talk past one another’ and only rarely directly address the points raised by the other.
In conclusion, interviewing by email therefore combines the best of both written communication and face-to-face interaction. The discussions are both readable and informative and introduce a format that, I suggest, should be a model for future works. I might even say that they approximate something akin to an idealised Platonic dialogue.
The problem with the book is therefore not its format. Rather the primary problem is the identity of the ostensible antagonists themselves.
On the face of it, they seem ideal candidates for this innovative format of book - one is a formidable and imminent but highly controversial psychologist, the other a journalist and populariser, exceptionally well-informed on the topic under debate. This seems to promise both readability and academic rigour - and, sure enough, both readability and academic rigour are apparent.
The problem, however, is that both contributors appear to be in complete agreement with one another on virtually every topic they discuss.
To be sure, Miele makes a pretence of challenging Jensen's views – but it is, in reality, just that, namely a pretence and he is merely going through the motions. Miele is in reality a committed hereditarian (a ‘Jensenist’ even?). He is, after all, a co-author with anthropologist Vincent Sarich of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, which defends both the race concept and asserts the existence of racial differences in both physiology and psychology, and, while still a student, published articles in the notorious ‘racialist’ academic journal ‘The Mankind Quarterly’.
This bias is most apparent in the book's ‘Prelude’, subtitled ‘The man behind the ism’, which verges on the hagiographic. It is also apparent in the introductions to each topic that Miele begins each chapter with before the question and answer transcript begins.
In the interview segments themselves, Miele admittedly makes at least an initial pretence of disagreeing with Jensen, interrogating him and presenting counterarguments. However, to adopt a familiar idiom, we might say that Miele is merely ‘playing devil’s advocate’.
To be sure, the book does not purport to be a ‘debate’ as such, but rather a series of interviews. But, still, on a topic as controversial as this one, one expects the interviewer to give at least a rigorous grilling.
And, while, to his credit, Miele never descends to presenting a ‘straw man’ or caricatured version of the views of Jensen's critics, an unabashed ‘Jensenist’ is surely not the ideal choice of interviewer to interview Arthur Jensen.
For example, Miele fails to raise some legitimate objections to Jensen’s positions to which it would be interesting to read Jensen's response.
For example, Jensen claims rather dogmatically that the “the claim that the black-white IQ difference is a result of culturally biased tests has been disproved” (p128), because IQ tests “predict other important real-life criteria such as school grades and job performance with the same accuracy for both groups” (p129).
However, this could be interpreted as suggesting, not that IQ tests are not biased against blacks, but rather than schools, employers and workplaces are equally biased against blacks (i.e. that we live in a racist society, as we are so often told).
Similarly, Miele fails to mention whatsoever perhaps the strongest evidence against there existing a substantial genetic component to that most controversial of group differences in IQ (i.e. the black-white test score gap), namely studies of the effect of degrees of racial admixture on IQ which have used blood groups to assess ancestry (Loehlin et al 1973; Scarr et al 1977).
Moreover, on occasion he does appear to be deliberately setting Jensen up with knock-down responses. For example, in response to Jensen's claim of media bias against the hereditarian position, Miele points out that critics of hereditarianism have also made claims of media bias against them, and asks if Jensen could "provide any solid evidence to support your claim of media bias?" (p79).
As anyone familiar with the nature-nurture controversy with regard to IQ would be aware, this is virtually an invitation to Jensen to cite the Snyderman and Rothman study (The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy), much-cited by defenders of hereditarianism, which purports to quantitatively survey both expert opinion and media representations of the issue, and, in doing so, conclusively demonstrate media bias against hereditarianism. It goes without saying, of course, that Jensen duly obliges (Ibid).
It is inconceivable that a journalist on the front-line of the nature-nurture debate like Miele would not have been aware of this study and one suspects that this was precisely why he asked this specific question.
__________
In conclusion, the format of the book is excellent, but the identity of the interviewer is less than ideal.
Perhaps a similar book written by Jensen and one of the less hysterical opponents of his views (e.g. Richard E. Nisbett, author of Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, or James R. Flynn, author of What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect or, better yet, N.J. Mackintosh, author of IQ and Human Intelligence would have been preferable, if it were possible to get agreement from all prospective authors.
However, given Jensen's recent death, and also the death of Mackintosh, this will no longer possible and the present volume is, unfortunately, the best we will get.
Overall, ‘Intelligence, Race and Genetics’ is both eminently readable and eminently worth reading. Just don't mistake it for a genuine debate or anything other than a thinly-veiled work of advocacy.
References
Loehlin, Vandenberg and Osborne (1973) 'Blood group genes and negro-white ability differences' Behavior Genetics 3(3): 263-270
Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, & Barker (1977) 'Absence of a relationship between degree of
November 26, 2021
More racist garbage.
March 26, 2013
Very light on science, but a quick read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 7 reviews