"Mainstream Science on Intelligence" was a public statement issued by a group of researchers of topics associated with intelligence testing. It was published originally in ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' on December 13, 1994, as a response to criticism of the book ''
The Bell Curve
''The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life'' is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by b ...
'' by
Richard Herrnstein
Richard Julius Herrnstein (May 20, 1930 – September 13, 1994) was an American psychologist at Harvard University. He was an active researcher in animal learning in the B. F. Skinner, Skinnerian tradition. Herrnstein was the Edgar Pierce Profess ...
and
Charles Murray Charles Murray may refer to:
Politicians
*Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore (1661–1710), British peer
*Charles Murray (author and diplomat) (1806–1895), British author and diplomat
*Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore (1841–1907), Scotti ...
, which appeared earlier the same year. The statement defended Herrnstein and Murray's controversial claims about
race and intelligence
Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically, claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of Race (human categorization), race was fi ...
.
The statement was drafted by
Linda Gottfredson
Linda Susanne Gottfredson (née Howarth; born 1947) is an American psychologist and writer. She is professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Delaware and co-director of the Delaware-Johns Hopkins Project for the Study of I ...
, a professor of
educational psychology
Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences i ...
at the
University of Delaware
The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...
. It was sent to 131 researchers whom Gottfredsen described as "experts in intelligence and allied fields". Of these, 52 signed the statement, 48 returned the request with an explicit refusal to sign, and 31 ignored the request.
According to a 1996 response by former
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
president
Donald Campbell
Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...
, only ten of those who signed were actual experts in intelligence measurement.
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
reported that 20 of the signers were recipients of funding from the
white-supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
organization the
Pioneer Fund
Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences". The organization has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature. One of its first projects w ...
, including Gottfredson herself.
During subsequent years, both the substance and the interpretation of this letter have received criticism from scientists.
Background
Gottfredson was prompted to write the statement by what she considered to be "outdated, pseudoscientific notions of intelligence" promoted by critics of ''
The Bell Curve
''The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life'' is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by b ...
'' in the controversy that resulted from the publication of the book. She contacted
David Brooks of ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', who was willing to publish a short statement signed by experts describing what he considered mainstream in the study of intelligence. Gottfredson drafted the statement, had it vetted by several researchers, and finally solicited signatures for it from experts in several disciplines, including anthropology, behavior genetics, mental retardation, neuropsychology, sociology, and various specialties in psychology. The experts invited to sign the statement were not given an opportunity to revise it, nor was anyone told who else had been invited or who had already given his or her signature.
The invitation to sign was sent to 131 researchers, of whom 100 responded by the deadline. The signature form asked whether the respondent would sign the statement, and if not, why not. 48 sent back the request with an explicit refusal to sign and 31 ignored the request.
According to Gottfredson, seven of those who explicitly refused to sign did so "because they thought the statement did not represent the mainstream, 11 because they did not know whether it did, and 30 for other reasons".
52 respondents agreed to sign the statement.
Statement
The letter to ''The Wall Street Journal'' set out 25 numbered statements it termed "conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence" and "fully described in the
major textbooks, professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence":
# "Intelligence is a very general mental capability ... it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings ..."
# "Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests measure it well. They are among the most accurate (in technical terms, reliable and valid) of all psychological tests and assessments."
# "While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all measure the same intelligence."
# "The spread of people along the IQ continuum ... can be represented well by the ... 'normal curve'."
# "Intelligence tests are not culturally biased".
# "The brain processes underlying intelligence are still little understood".
# "Members of all racial-ethnic groups can be found at every IQ level...The bell curves for some groups (Jews and East Asians) are centered somewhat higher than for whites in general. Other groups (blacks and Hispanics) are centered somewhat lower than non-Hispanic whites."
# "The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85; and those for different subgroups of Hispanics roughly midway between those for whites and blacks. The evidence is less definitive for exactly where above IQ 100 the bell curves for Jews and Asians are centered".
# "IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any other single measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes ... Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of great practical and social importance".
# "A high IQ is an advantage because virtually all activities require some reasoning and decision-making".
# "The practical advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life's settings become more complex".
# "Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor affecting performance in education, training, and complex jobs ... but intelligence is often the most important".
# "Certain personality traits, special talents,
tcare important ... in many jobs, but they have narrower (or unknown) applicability or 'transferability' across tasks and settings compared with general intelligence".
# "Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 ... indicating genetics plays a bigger role than environment in creating IQ differences".
# "Members of the same family also tend to differ substantially in intelligence".
# "That IQ may be highly heritable does not mean that it is not affected by the environment ... IQs do gradually stabilize during childhood, however, and generally change little thereafter".
# "Although the environment is important in creating IQ differences, we do not know yet how to manipulate it".
# "Genetically caused differences are not necessarily irremediable".
# "There is no persuasive evidence that the IQ bell curves for different racial-ethnic groups are converging".
# "Racial-ethnic differences in IQ bell curves are essentially the same when youngsters leave high school as when they enter first grade ... black 17-year-olds perform, on the average, more like white 13-year-olds".
# "The reasons that blacks differ among themselves in intelligence appear to be the same as those for why whites ... differ among themselves".
# "There is no definitive answer as to why bell curves differ across racial-ethnic groups. The reasons for these IQ differences between groups may be markedly different from the reasons for why individuals differ among themselves within any particular group".
# "Racial-ethnic differences are somewhat smaller but still substantial for individuals from the same socio-economic backgrounds".
# "Almost all Americans who identify themselves as black have white ancestors – the white admixture is about 20% ... research on intelligence relies on self-classification into distinct racial categories".
# "The research findings neither dictate nor preclude any particular social policy, because they can never determine our goals. They can, however, help us estimate the likely success and side-effects of pursuing those goals via different means".
Response and criticism
A 1995 article by
Joseph L. Graves
Joseph L. Graves Jr. (born 1955) is an American Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist and geneticist. He is a professor of biological science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and a former associate dean for res ...
& Amanda Johnson was critical of the scientific basis on which ''Mainstream Science on Intelligence'' rested. The article stated that the statements in ''Mainstream Science in Intelligence''
In a posthumous article in 1996,
Donald T. Campbell, a former president of the
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
, included his own analysis of the ''Wall Street Journal'' statement, drafted previously as a letter to that newspaper.
Campbell first remarked that:
He remarked that the rhetorical organization of statements in the letter seemed to him to imply, inadvertently or deliberately, the conclusion that the black-white racial gap had a genetic cause. He said that for statement 5, no provision had been allowed for differences in educational opportunity. Later on regarding statement 14, he judged that the claims for heritability had been made without mentioning that it was based on
twin studies
Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics a ...
, where environmental opportunities had been excluded as possible factors. For statement 23, he said out that it was not possible to compare children of black and white parents that were "equally" educated, because in these circumstances the opportunities in the quality of education, both before and at college, would differ. For statement 25, Campbell remarked that Jensen had himself published policy recommendations concerning rote learning.
As reports in his discussion of the editorial, there is not any general agreement about what is meant by intelligence. The editorial gave the following general definition of intelligence:
describes intelligence in her own article in the same volume less broadly as "the ability to deal with complexity". However, the article by , one of the signatories of the statement, reviewed the numerous attempts in the academic literature to define what was meant by intelligence and found that there was not any agreement. He cites experts as describing intelligence as "the total intellectual repertoire of behavioral responses," "some
general property or quality ... of the brain," "reaction-time and physiological measures," "many different information-processing abilities" and
"the rate with which learning occurs or the time required for learning." in the same volume describe intelligence as what is measured by intelligence tests: "What we mean by intelligence is general cognitive functioning (g) as assessed in the psychometric tradition of a general factor derived from a battery of diverse cognitive ability tests".
gives a point-by-point analysis of the conclusions of the letter. He states that the validity of tests is claimed as a property of the tests, rather than how or where they are used. He questioned the letter's claims about there not being any cultural bias in IQ tests; and that intelligence was a major factor determining fitness in human evolution, something that he argued was inconsistent with the claims of heritability, if the geneticist's version of evolution was being used. Harrington argued that heritability is
phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
, not
ontogenetic
Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the st ...
as the letter suggested. He pointed out that the use of the term "race" differed from the way geneticists classify population groups. Regarding the assertion that IQ research does not preclude or dictate any particular social policy, Harrington commented that the opinions of
Charles Murray Charles Murray may refer to:
Politicians
*Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore (1661–1710), British peer
*Charles Murray (author and diplomat) (1806–1895), British author and diplomat
*Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore (1841–1907), Scotti ...
concerning
social policy
Social policy is a plan or action of government or institutional agencies which aim to improve or reform society.
Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize soci ...
have been used by
US Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washingto ...
men to argue for policy changes.
The validity of the "mainstream science" described in the editorial was also questioned by , who argued that the signatories were attempting to revive the "pseudo-scientific inquiry" of
biological determinism
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether i ...
.
In a 2001 article in ''
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
''Trends in Cognitive Sciences'' (''TiCS'') is a monthly peer-reviewed review journal published by Cell Press. It is one of 14 journals in the '' Trends'' series. its editor is Lindsey Drayton. ''Journal Citation Reports'' (Thomson Reuters) lists ...
'',
Ian J. Deary noted that ''The Wall Street Journal'' "... is an odd place for such a document, and readers might view the signatories as one-sided, largely committed to the psychometrics-based intelligence research they were endorsing".
analysed the editorial as one of five responses to ''The Bell Curve'', a book which he described as "an attempt to influence both psychological knowledge and U.S. politics". He concluded that some of the responses, including the editorial, "fell far short of providing a critical analysis of the book's racially biased argument and did little to reduce the misleading picture of race and IQ that the book promulgated". More specifically, Alderfer criticized the failure of the psychologists to recognize the effect of such a book on race relations in the US; as well as their failure to discuss the third and last part of the book on the implications for social policy. He wrote that, "Some psychologists said they wanted to keep themselves out of the emotional turmoil that had been generated by publication of the Bell Curve ... They might also have wanted to preserve the neutrality of psychology as a science. When examined in the contemporary racial context, however, their action was neither scientifically nor politically neutral. Essentially, they took a stand by not taking a stand. Their stand was not to become involved in how their expertise might be used to affect people's lives ...they missed an opportunity to caution their readers about regressive forces affecting U.S. race relations and to locate the book within that context. They did not fully use the authority based on their expertise to prevent harm."
argued:
argued that the statement's claim that IQ tests were unbiased is not accepted by some prominent researchers of psychometrics who have described problems with using tests on population groups with a substantively different cultural background from those for whom the test was originally designed.
Anthropologist
Robert Wald Sussman criticized the statement in his 2014 book ''
The Myth of Race'', writing, "In this letter, the members of the new bigot brigade claimed that since as many as fifty-two scientists signed this letter, the contents of the book
.e. ''the Bell Curve''and of the letter must be true. Using this logic, since the vast majority of anthropologists and other social scientists and of geneticists do not agree with the conclusions of this volume, does that mean it must be false? Obviously not. However, it is the actual science that began with
Boas and his colleagues and that has continued to this date that makes these authors' beliefs and approach untenable at any level."
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
states that some of the editorial's signatories "...had no relevant qualifications at all.
Garrett Hardin
Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American ecologist. He focused his career on the issue of human overpopulation, and is best known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper of the same ti ...
, for example, was an ecologist and anti-immigration activist, while
Vincent Sarich
Vincent Matthew Sarich (December 13, 1934October 27, 2012) was an American anthropologist and biochemist. He was Professor Emeritus in anthropology at University of California, Berkeley.
Sarich and his PhD advisor, Allan Wilson, used molecular dat ...
was an anthropologist who gained notoriety for making racist and homophobic claims in his undergraduate courses (he later admitted to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' that these assertions were not based on established scientific facts)." After citing Campbell's estimate that only 10 signatories were experts on the measurement of intelligence, the Center noted that "...at least 20
ignatorieswere recipients of money from the
Pioneer Fund
Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences". The organization has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature. One of its first projects w ...
, including one director of the Fund,
R. Travis Osborne
Robert Travis Osborne (October 20, 1913 – May 28, 2013) was an American psychologist. He was professor emeritus of psychology at University of Georgia, and director of the Pioneer Fund, an organization prominently described as white supremaci ...
, and two future presidents,
J. Philippe Rushton
John Philippe Rushton (December 3, 1943 – October 2, 2012) was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario until the early 1990s, and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for resea ...
and
Richard Lynn
Richard Lynn (born 20 February 1930) is a controversial English psychologist and author. He is a former professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, having had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018. He is former assistant edit ...
."
In a 2015 interview, behavior geneticist
Robert Plomin
Robert Joseph Plomin (born 1948) is an American/British psychologist and geneticist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Plomin as the 71st most cited ...
was asked whether he regretted signing the statement. He reiterated his support for the factual assertions in the letter, but rejected interpretations of that data in ''The Bell Curve'':
Signatories
See also
*
History of the race and intelligence controversy
The history of the race and intelligence controversy concerns the historical development of a debate about possible explanations of group differences encountered in the study of race and intelligence. Since the beginning of IQ testing around the ...
*
Snyderman and Rothman (study)
*''
The Bell Curve Debate
''The Bell Curve Debate'' is a 1995 book edited by the historian Russell Jacoby and the writer Naomi Glauberman.
Summary
A response to ''The Bell Curve'' (1994), by the psychologist Richard Herrnstein and the political scientist Charles Murra ...
''
*''
Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns''
*''
Intelligence and How to Get It''
* ''
Superior: The Return of Race Science''
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* (2009
AERA distinguished lecture)
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Original article'
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mainstream Science On Intelligence
Intelligence
1994 documents
Race and intelligence controversy
Scientific racism
The Wall Street Journal