Philippe Rushton and racial differences in intelligence

Andrew Duffy:

In January 1989, when University of Western Ontario psychologist Philippe Rushton presented a research paper at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, it triggered an academic maelstrom.

His paper, which argued that genetic evolution has created identifiable IQ gaps among groups of East Asians, whites and blacks, was denounced by scientists on the conference floor. Why would he launch such an inquiry? How, they demanded, could he draw findings from intelligence tests that were culturally biased?

Then-premier David Peterson called him a racist and demanded that he be fired by the university. The police launched a hate crimes investigation. Security concerns forced him to deliver lectures by videotape.

Mr. Rushton became part of the Canadian lexicon, an epithet. He also became the most famous university professor in the country, a guest on The Geraldo Rivera Show.

All of which makes the muted reaction to Mr. Rushton's latest academic paper so curious.

In June, Mr. Rushton and University of California psychology professor Arthur Jensen published a 60-page study in Psychology, Public Policy and Law, a journal of the American Psychological Association. In it, the scholars presented 10 categories of evidence, including military and academic tests, brain size and adoption studies, to support their contention that East Asians as a group enjoy an evolutionary advantage over whites, and whites over blacks, that has contributed to measurable intelligence gaps between them.

"Neither the existence nor the size of race differences in IQ are a matter of dispute, only their cause," the authors wrote.

The cause of that difference is contentious. Some blame the tests, arguing that they measure a narrow, western notion of intelligence. Others say intelligence is primarily determined not by genetics but by environmental factors: poverty, nutrition, parental education, discrimination, the quality of local schools.

But Mr. Rushton and Mr. Jensen posit that 50 to 80 per cent of the IQ gaps between racial groups can be explained by genetics, by the gift of inherited intelligence.

That theory, they contend, holds important policy implications since it suggests that society must accept that group differences will repeatedly reveal themselves in scholastic achievement and other important measurements of "success."

"Ultimately," they wrote, "the public must accept the pragmatic reality that some groups will be over-represented and other groups under-represented in various socially valued outcomes."

Race, medicine and multiculturalism

Black-White-East Asian IQ differences at least 50% genetic