Talk:Race and intelligence
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Is there really a scientific consensus that there is no evidence for a genetic link between race and intelligence?
Yes, and for a number of reasons. Primarily:
Isn't it true that different races have different average IQ test scores?
On average and in certain contexts, yes, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Crucially, the existence of such average differences today does not mean what racialists have asserted that it means (i.e. that races can be ranked according to their genetic predisposition for intelligence). Most IQ test data comes from North America and Europe, where non-White individuals represent ethnic minorities and often carry systemic burdens which are known to affect test performance. Studies which purport to compare the IQ averages of various nations are considered methodologically dubious and extremely unreliable. Further, important discoveries in the past several decades, such as the Flynn effect and the steady narrowing of the gap between low-scoring and high-scoring groups, as well as the ways in which disparities such as access to prenatal care and early childhood education affect IQ, have led to an understanding that environmental factors are sufficient to account for observed between-group differences. And isn't IQ a measure of intelligence?
Not exactly. IQ tests are designed to measure intelligence, but it is widely acknowledged that they measure only a very limited range of an individual's cognitive capacity. They do not measure mental adaptability or creativity, for example. You can read more about the limitations of IQ measurements here. These caveats need to be kept in mind when extrapolating from IQ measurements to statements about intelligence. But even if we were to take IQ to be a measure of intelligence, there would still be no good reason to assert a genetic link between race and intelligence (for all the reasons stated elsewhere in this FAQ). Isn't there research showing that there are genetic differences between races?
Yes and no. A geneticist could analyze a DNA sample and then in many cases make an accurate statement about that person's race, but no single gene or group of genes has ever been found that defines a person's race. Such variations make up a minute fraction of the total genome, less even than the amount of genetic material that typically varies from one individual to the next. It's also important to keep in mind that racial classifications are socially constructed, in the sense that how a person is classified racially depends on perceptions, racial definitions, and customs in their society and can often change when they travel to a different country or when social conventions change over time (see here for more details). So how can different races look different, without having different genes?
They do have some different genes, but the genes that vary between any two given races will not necessarily vary between two other races. Race is defined phenotypically, not genotypically, which means it's defined by observable traits. When a geneticist looks at the genetic differences between two races, there are differences in the genes that regulate those traits, and that's it. So comparing Africans to Europeans will show differences in genes that regulate skin color, hair texture, nose and lip shape, and other observable traits. But the rest of the genetic code will be essentially the same. In fact, there is much less genetic material that regulates the traits used to define the races than there is that regulates traits that vary from person to person. In other words, if you compare the genomes of two individuals within the same race, the results will likely differ more from each other than a comparison of the average genomes of two races. If you've ever heard people saying that the races "are more alike than two random people" or words to that effect, this is what they were referring to. Why do people insist that race is "biologically meaningless"?
Mostly because it is. As explained in the answer to the previous question, race isn't defined by genetics. Race is nothing but an arbitrary list of traits, because race is defined by observable features. The list isn't even consistent from one comparison to another. We distinguish between African and European people on the basis of skin color, but what about Middle Eastern, Asian, and Native American people? They all have more or less the same skin color. We distinguish African and Asian people from European people by the shape of some of their facial features, but what about Native American and Middle Eastern people? They have the same features as the European people, or close enough to engender confusion when skin color is not discernible. Australian Aborigines share numerous traits with African people and are frequently considered "Black" along with them, yet they are descended from an ancestral Asian population and have been a distinct cultural and ethnic group for fifty thousand years. These standards of division are arbitrary and capricious; the one drop rule shows that visible differences were not even respected at the time they were still in use. But IQ is at least somewhat heritable. Doesn't that mean that observed differences in IQ test performance between ancestral population groups must have a genetic component?
This is a common misconception, sometimes termed the "hereditarian fallacy". [1] In fact, the heritability of differences between individuals and families within a given population group tells us nothing about the heritability of differences between population groups. [2] [3] As geneticist and neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell explains:
What about all the psychometricians who claim there's a genetic link?
The short answer is: they're not geneticists. The longer answer is that there remains a well-documented problem of scientific racism, which has infiltrated psychometry (see e.g. [5] and [6]). Psychometry is a field where people who advocate scientific racism can push racist ideas without being constantly contradicted by the very work they're doing. And when their data did contradict their racist views, many prominent advocates of scientific racism simply falsified their work or came up with creative ways to explain away the problems. See such figures as Cyril Burt, J. Phillipe Rushton, Richard Lynn, and Hans Eysenck, who are best known in the scientific community today for the poor methodological quality of their work, their strong advocacy for a genetic link between race and intelligence, and in some cases getting away with blatant fraud for many years. Isn't it a conspiracy theory to claim that psychometricians do this?
No. It is a well-documented fact that there is an organized group of psychometricians pushing for mainstream acceptance of racist, unscientific claims, and that this group has a long history of doing so. See this, this and this, as well as our article on scientific racism for more information. Isn't this just political correctness?
No, it's science. As a group of scholars including biological anthropologists Agustín Fuentes of Princeton and Jonathan M. Marks of the University of North Carolina explain: "while it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed". These authors compare proponents of a genetic link between race and IQ to creationists, vaccine skeptics, and climate change deniers. [7] At the same time, researchers who choose to pursue this line of inquiry have in no way been hindered from doing so, as is made clear by this article: [8]. It's just that all the evidence they find points to environmental rather than genetic causes for observed differences in average IQ-test performance between racial groups. What about the surveys which say that most "intelligence experts" believe in some degree of genetic linkage between race and IQ?
Is there really no evidence at all for a genetic link between race and intelligence?
No evidence for such a link has ever been presented in the scientific community. Much data has been claimed to be evidence by advocates of scientific racism, but each of these claims has been universally rejected by geneticists. Statistical arguments claiming to detect the signal of such a difference in polygenic scores have been refuted as fundamentally methodologically flawed (see e.g. [9]), and neither genetics nor neuroscience are anywhere near the point where a mechanistic explanation could even be meaningfully proposed (see e.g. [10]). This is why the question of a genetic link between race and intelligence is largely considered pseudoscience; it is assumed to exist primarily by advocates of scientific racism, and in these cases the belief is based on nothing but preconceived notions about race. What is the current state of the science on a link between intelligence and race?
Please see the article itself for an outline of the scientific consensus. What is the basis for Wikipedia's consensus on how to treat the material?
Wikipedia editors have considered this topic in detail and over an extended period. In short, mainstream science treats the claim that genetics explains the observable differences in IQ between races as a fringe theory, so we use our own guidelines on how to treat such material when editing our articles on the subject. Please refer to the following past discussions:
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Anyone around who can check recent edits for Richard Lynn?
[11] Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:00, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Genome-wide association study recent changes
Editors who follow this page will probably take an interest in recent edits over at Genome-wide association study. MrOllie (talk) 21:46, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
And, a bit more distantly, Talk:Gynoid fat distribution#Gynoid fat and skeletons. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:12, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
Introduction is inflammatory
This isn't going anywhere. Please read the FAQ.
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I will gloss over the 1st paragraph for now - who in the world wrote the second paragraph? Were they trying to be as inflammatory and biased as possible? This is ridiculous and must be fixed. Opinions? Epifanove🗯️ 23:55, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
References
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"no evidence for a genetic component"
The article still states: "The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups", with nine(!) sources supposedly supporting this claim. Why do we need nine distinct sources to support such a claim? Is it perhaps because the phrase "no evidence" is inherently and intentionally misleading? Because there is in fact an abundance of evidence for a genetic component, but it simply gets dismissed as fringe, aka "bad" science.
'Saying there is ‘no evidence’ of something isn’t not lazy or bad science reporting (or other talk). It is definitely both of those, but that is not what it centrally is. No evidence is a magic phrase used to intentionally manipulate understanding by using a motte and bailey between ‘this is false’ and statements of the form ‘this has not been proven using properly peer reviewed randomized controlled trials with p less than 0.05.’ It makes one sound Responsible and Scientific in contrast to those who update their beliefs based on the information they acquire, no matter the source.
...
This is not an ‘honest’ mistake. This is a systematic anti-epistemic superweapon engineered to control what people are allowed and not allowed to think based on social power, in direct opposition to any and all attempts to actually understand and model the world and know things based on one’s information. Anyone wielding it should be treated accordingly.[12]
Stonkaments (talk) 07:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- It's cliche to say at this point, but it's still true: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and where is this evidence of a genetic component? Harryhenry1 (talk) 08:06, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
- 1) That's a popular aphorism, not Wikipedia policy.
- 2) In fact, the extraordinary claim here is that no evidence of a genetic component exists. What is the evidence that supports that claim?
- 3) As requested, here is a sampling of the evidence of a genetic component:[13][14][15]. You may not like it, you may call it "fringe", but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Stonkaments (talk) 09:40, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not denying that this kind of research exists, just the claim that there's any actual proof of the differences being genetic seems dubious. Indeed, citing the likes of Richard Lynn, J. Philippe Rushton, and Emil Kirkegaard for your evidence isn't gonna convince anyone here. Harryhenry1 (talk) 11:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- All of the sources with excerpts in the notes do not say that there is no evidence. They say that there is scientific consensus that racial IQ differences are not genetic, and one says polemically that no relevant genes have ever been identified. You should read the sources and change the prose to match what they say, because from what I see, no source goes so far as to say that there is "no evidence" for a genetic component to the differences. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 09:01, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and done so. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 09:04, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- @LokiTheLiar has reverted me, saying that the sources were better reflected by the "no evidence" phrasing. Loki, do any of these sources actually say that there is no evidence for a genetic component? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- Gathered quotations in order of cite anchors:
1."Recent articles claim that the folk categories of race are genetically meaningful divisions, and that evolved genetic differences among races and nations are important for explaining immutable differences in cognitive ability, educational attainment, crime, sexual behavior, and wealth; all claims that are opposed by a strong scientific consensus to the contrary".
2."There is an emerging consensus about racial and gender equality in genetic determinants of intelligence, most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences".
3."It is worth remembering that no genes related to difference in cognitive skills across the various racial and ethnic groups have ever been discovered. The argument for genetic differences has been carried forward largely by circumstantial evidence. Of course, tomorrow afternoon genetic mechanisms producing racial and ethnic differences in intelligence might be discovered, but there have been a lot of investigations, and tomorrow has not come for quite some time now."
4. Waiting for access to this one.
5. I don't really know how to excerpt this one, but it's an argument that racial IQ gaps are environmental based on test scores, not a holistic evaluation of evidence, and says nothing like "there is no evidence" for a genetic component.
6.As there remains no way to gather evidence that would permit the direct refutation of the environmental hypotheses, and no direct evidence for the hereditarian position, it remains the case, I argue, that the hereditarian position is unsupported by current evidence.
7."[T]he claims that genetics defines racial groups and makes them different, that IQ and cultural differences among racial groups are caused by genes, and that racial inequalities within and between nations are the inevitable outcome of long evolutionary processes are neither new nor supported by science (either old or new)."
8. Don't know how to excerpt this either, but it's a counter to a specific racial argument by a scientist named Jensen, and never says anything like the statement in prose that it ostensibly supports.
9.It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis.
To me, these sources can be taken to support prose that says the scientific consensus is against a genetic explanation for racial IQ gaps, or that the genetic thesis is unsupported by evidence—but not one says there is "no evidence". ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:31, 20 March 2025 (UTC)- I agree with Zanahary here. His suggested language is clearer and just as consistent with the sources. The "no evidence" language was reflective of a time when it was difficult to get stable text in place because of persistent disruption in the topic area. The more recent sources in particular, esp. Bird et al., are more emphatic that the hereditarian hypothesis is flatly false. Generalrelative (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- My interpretation of Zanahary's edit is that he thinks the sourcing is insufficient (it's not) and is trying to weaken the wording as a result. I see you interpret the resulting wording as actually stronger, which I disagree with: if I wanted to strengthen it I would say that
there is no genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups
, not merely thatIQ differences between racial groups cannot be attributed to genetic factors
. That sounds weasel-y to me: attributed by who? It's not a matter of attribution, it's a matter of facts. Loki (talk) 21:12, 20 March 2025 (UTC)- The sourcing is definitely insufficient to say "there is no evidence", because no source says that. I’m not trying to weaken wording, I’m trying to reflect sources, which generally say that the scientific consensus is environmental and the genetic thesis is unsupported by evidence. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:32, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- This conversation has been had many times before and the consensus has always been that "the genetic thesis is unsupported by evidence" = "there is no evidence". But I also think that your wording is more to-the-point and clearer to the reader. I don't get a weasely vibe from it, but I also respect Loki's intuitions a great deal, so I'm open to being persuaded. It might just be a matter of differing perspectives. Generalrelative (talk) 23:07, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- The sourcing is definitely insufficient to say "there is no evidence", because no source says that. I’m not trying to weaken wording, I’m trying to reflect sources, which generally say that the scientific consensus is environmental and the genetic thesis is unsupported by evidence. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:32, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- My interpretation of Zanahary's edit is that he thinks the sourcing is insufficient (it's not) and is trying to weaken the wording as a result. I see you interpret the resulting wording as actually stronger, which I disagree with: if I wanted to strengthen it I would say that
- #4 Mackintosh 2001 is available at archive. Conclusion has:
One could reasonably defend Nisbett's[citing [16]] argument that the gap was entirely environmental in origin.[speaking to test score gap] But it would probably be even more reasonable to acknowledge that the evidence is simply not sufficient to provide a definitive answer one way or the other—and possibly never will be.
fiveby(zero) 20:49, 20 March 2025 (UTC)- Thank you! This would support text saying the thesis is unsupported by evidence. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- I like: Turkheimer E. (2024). "IQ, Race, and Genetics". Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate. Understanding Life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 132–147.
{{cite book}}
: Wikipedia Library link in
(help) Would not really support either way as a citation concerning "evidence" ("half-baked evidence", "no evidence worth pursuing") but worth reading i think. fiveby(zero) 21:56, 20 March 2025 (UTC)|chapter-url=
- I like: Turkheimer E. (2024). "IQ, Race, and Genetics". Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate. Understanding Life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 132–147.
- Thank you! This would support text saying the thesis is unsupported by evidence. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with Zanahary here. His suggested language is clearer and just as consistent with the sources. The "no evidence" language was reflective of a time when it was difficult to get stable text in place because of persistent disruption in the topic area. The more recent sources in particular, esp. Bird et al., are more emphatic that the hereditarian hypothesis is flatly false. Generalrelative (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- Gathered quotations in order of cite anchors:
- @LokiTheLiar has reverted me, saying that the sources were better reflected by the "no evidence" phrasing. Loki, do any of these sources actually say that there is no evidence for a genetic component? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- The reason one of the sources is "polemical" is that it's a cherry picked quote. A much more representative, explicit quote (p. 436, the conclusion of the " Biological Causes for Racial and Ethnic Differences" section):
- "Plausible cases can be made for both genetic and environmental contributions to differences in intelligence. The evidence required to quantify the relative sizes of these contributions to group differences is lacking. The relative sizes of environmental and genetic influences will vary over time and place. Some of these influences may be amenable to change, while others will be resistant to change. The relevant questions can be studied. Denials or overly precise statements on either the pro-genetic or pro-environmental side do not move the debate forward. They generate heat rather than light.
- And this is what I really believe!" Hi! (talk) 22:59, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- available at archive btw https://archive.org/details/EarlHuntHumanIntelligence2010/page/n452/mode/1up Hi! (talk) 23:03, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and done so. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 09:04, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- Y'all, I just WP:BOLDly copied the language from the lead down into the relevant part of the article body:
Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between groups.
Does that satisfy everybody's concerns? I also went and removed one extraneous citation. We can probably refine the list of citations further. Generalrelative (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2025 (UTC)- Thumbs up, thank you! ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:03, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
- I've fine with that. Loki (talk) 00:23, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
- I agree that's much better, thanks! Stonkaments (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
Meta-Analysis & Rushton
Pinging @Generalrelative: We just edit conflicted. I'm okay with removing that sentence about Rushton if you don't like it, even though it's in my latest edit. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:44, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
- Ah no worries. I didn't have time to consult the cited source. I'd say if the source singles out Rushton for special consideration then the sentence is DUE, and not if not. Generalrelative (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
- From a quick scan of the source, it seems that all three outliers –– Murray (2006), Gottfredson (2005), and Rushton (2012) –– are given roughly equal consideration. We could discuss the ways in which each of these outliers were flawed, or we could leave it at a general summary. I'd say that highlighting Rushton in particular is probably UNDUE. Note too that this source is really a lit review rather than a meta-analysis, so our text in article space should reflect that. Generalrelative (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
- Funny how three names best known for pushing the fringe theory that IQ differences between racial groups are genetic are the only ones who didn't find a narrowing of the gap... (To be fair, research Murray did a year later did find a narrowing).
- In any event, I agree with your take. The author doesn't single out Rushton.
- Also, good catch on 'meta-analysis' to 'literature review'. I feel a little dumb for not noticing that myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:11, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
- Lol, sooner or later we all get mud in our eye! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Generalrelative (talk) 03:18, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
- That's way too funny, lol. Yeah, I actually thought "has this been published in a PRJ? But then I saw a squirrel and all thoughts flew from my pretty lil head. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:45, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
- Lol, sooner or later we all get mud in our eye! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Generalrelative (talk) 03:18, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
- From a quick scan of the source, it seems that all three outliers –– Murray (2006), Gottfredson (2005), and Rushton (2012) –– are given roughly equal consideration. We could discuss the ways in which each of these outliers were flawed, or we could leave it at a general summary. I'd say that highlighting Rushton in particular is probably UNDUE. Note too that this source is really a lit review rather than a meta-analysis, so our text in article space should reflect that. Generalrelative (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2025 (UTC)
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