The Ethics of Life
Should We Talk About Race and Intelligence?
Peter Singer
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PRINCETON, NJ - The intersection of genetics and intelligence is an intellectual minefield. Harvard’s former president Larry Summers touched off one explosion in 2005 when he tentatively suggested a genetic explanation for the difficulty his university had in recruiting female professors in math and physics. (He did not suggest that men are on average more gifted in these fields than women, but that there is some reason for believing that men are more likely than women to be found at both the upper and lower ends of the spectrum of abilities in these fields – and Harvard, of course, only appoints people at the extreme upper end.)
Now one of the most eminent scientists of our time has blundered much more clumsily into the same minefield, with predictable results. In October, James Watson, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for his description of the structure of DNA, was in London to promote his memoir, Avoid Boring People and Other Lessons From a Life in Science . In an interview in the London Sunday Times , he was quoted as saying that he was gloomy about Africa’s prospects, because “All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.” He added that he hoped everyone was equal, but that “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”
Watson tried to clarify his remarks in a subsequent interview in The Independent, saying:
The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity. It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science. To question this is not to give in to racism.
Watson is right that questioning this assumption is not, in itself, racist. A racist has a negative attitude to people of a particular race. There is nothing racist about trying to learn what the facts are. What does raise the suspicion of racism, however, is propagating a negative view of the facts when that view lacks a solid scientific foundation.
That is precisely what Watson has now admitted he did. Returning to New York, he apologized to those who had drawn from his remarks the implication that Africa is somehow “genetically inferior.” This was not, he claimed, what he meant, and more importantly, “there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
The retraction came too late. The Science Museum cancelled a lecture Watson was to give about his book and his career. Under pressure from the board, Watson resigned his position as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an institution that under his leadership has become one of the world’s leading research and educational institutions in the biological sciences. Rockefeller University also cancelled a lecture that Watson had been scheduled to give.
Putting aside the specific claims that Watson made in his Sunday Times interview, a genuinely difficult question remains: should scientists investigate the possibility of a link between race and intelligence? Is the question too sensitive for science to explore? Is the danger of misuse of the results of such research too great?
The dangers are obvious enough. Racist stereotyping harms the prospects of many non-whites, especially those of African descent. The concepts of intelligence and of race are less clear-cut than we often assume them to be. Scientists need to handle them carefully if they are to pose meaningful questions about the point at which these two concepts intersect.
Some say that the tools we use to measure intelligence – IQ tests – are themselves culturally biased. The late Stephen J. Gould, author of The Mismeasure of Man, dismissed cross-cultural research using IQ tests as an attempt by white men to show their superiority. But if that was so, the attempt has backfired, because East Asians tend to score better than people of European descent. On the other hand, it clearly is possible that differences in IQ scores between people living in impoverished countries and people living in affluent countries are affected by factors like education and nutrition in early childhood. Controlling for these variables is difficult.
Yet to say that we should not carry out research in this area is equivalent to saying that we should reject open-minded investigation of the causes of inequalities in income, education, and health between people of different racial or ethnic groups. When faced with such major social problems, a preference for ignorance over knowledge is difficult to defend.
In explaining why it was canceling Watson’s lecture, the Science Museum said that his remarks had gone “beyond the point of acceptable debate.” It then struck a reasonable balance by inviting people who want to learn more about “the science behind genetics and race” to attend other upcoming events at the museum. The speakers at these events will presumably have better credentials than Watson to discuss topics like race and intelligence. If so, one can only hope that watching how Watson blew himself up will not discourage them from venturing into the minefield.
Finally, no matter what the facts on race and intelligence turn out to be, they will not justify racial hatred, nor disrespect for people of a different race. Whether some are of higher or lower intelligence has nothing to do with that.
Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. His books include Practical Ethics, Pushing Time Away, The Moral of the Story, and, most recently, The Ethics of What We Eat.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2007.
www.project-syndicate.org
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reddog 11:30 06 Jan 12
Dr. Singer,
When Larry Summers made the statement about women in science, I waited for his continued explanation. There was none. Women gathered, carried signs, burned bras, still no comment from Summers.
I sent an explanation to the Harvard address. No response. Possibly he didn't get it. Female employees may have intercepted my e-mail and "garbage'd" it.Later, I learned he was in the White House so I sent him the explanation there. Nothing. OK, what the hell? I'll send it to you.
There is good evidence for the existence of Cro-Magnon 125,000 years ago. There is some evidence for 150,000 years. Data, not yet accepted as fact, is being debated for 175,000 years. I will avail myself of the poets license and say we have been here for 200,000 years. I choose this number because it is easily divisible by 20, the age of a generation.
We are made immediately aware that 10,000 women in a row were loved and cared for as children. Raised through puberty, they found a man, had sex, became pregnant and successfully produced a child. I find nothing particularly profound in this process because up to this point each phase has been generated by instinctual urge or biological response. But the next phase becomes less obvious because the man stayed. As the female became less desirable, fat, sweaty and testy, the man stayed. Following the pregnancy, he brought food and fed her. He built a fire and warmed her. Then, resolute, he stood between your ancestor and the malevolent savagery just outside the door; he protected her.
The northwest coast of the United States is populated by a series of Indian villages all spaced equal distances apart. This distance is determined by the ability of the inhabitants to travel the radius, do work or protect the boundary, and return to the village all in one day. The area required for a small tribe is apparent when we see the villages are about 30 miles apart. Assuming a circle, the radius squared multiplied by pi is an area about 750 miles. The concept of competitive advantage determined that the male would manage the territory, while the female managed the less ambulatory household.
Once, about closing time, I was having a meaningful conversation with a bartender when he pointed out that "specialization is speciation." My mind immediately went to the gender specific roles that circumstance has assigned to us. After 200,000 years of memorizing the territory, my father and the older men were able to describe the territory to me, today, with a few succinct phrases about streams, rock cliffs, and mountain ridges. After 200,000 years of watching the baby, the fire, the food, and the horizon; today's female is able to hold in her mind the schedules of half a dozen people, the location of each item of their clothing, the precise position of the good scissors, and the birthdays of all the relatives and most of the neighbors. Male and female have become so specialized it's a wonder that we can still breed.
In the sixth grade, after taking a series of tests, the boys began referring to the girls as a bunch of "dumb girls". I wasn't happy with this blanket condemnation because it certainly did not apply to my mother nor my sisters, so I waited for the teachers explanation. There was none. Again, I realized what I had already learned, if I wanted something done I would probably have to do it myself. So, I began to think.
After a few days I had identified the problem as a difference in "spatial recognition" abilities. Then I realized we had different "comfort levels" regarding our environment which affected our "druthers". On the weekends, the boys headed for the woods while the girls gathered at someone's house. Over time, I expanded these thoughts from the
present, across time. Eventually, I came to understand this one of the many differences between boys and girls.
Many times, I have told women friends of mine, "if you want to do as well as men in problems of spatial recognition, then do what we did; kill everyone who fails the test. It's called "getting lost".
jon 06:28 30 Dec 09
"Yet to say that we should not carry out research in this area is equivalent to saying that we should reject open-minded investigation of the causes of inequalities in income, education, and health between people of different racial or ethnic groups. When faced with such major social problems, a preference for ignorance over knowledge is difficult to defend."
I disagree. Not only are IQ tests inheritantly subject to bias on the basis of what should be tested, they are also far more likely to be indicators of educational (and/or language knowing) status than intelligence (all the tests involve learned skills: especially maths, general knowledge, and language comprehension). In addition, "intelligence" has as much to do with family surroundings as it does education or genetics. (For example: presence or absence of books or television, and their number and quality, hours watched, content watched, etc.; presence of computers, and their uses; topics of, and levels of intelligence of, parental and filial conversations; whether friends are allowed over, what sort and how many, and the friends' conversational intelligence.)
Moreover, even if one argued for a genetic role in intelligence, it would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to test for (in humans). It would amount to being able to isolate specific genes involved in intelligence (if single genes alone are active enough to generate specific skills), then turn them off in a large enough sample, and compare them to another group whose aren't turned off. (But this would still be subject to the biases, aluded to above, in intelligence testing. Controlling for such biases would be both highly expensive, and unreliable.) This would have to be carried out for every gene found to have a role in intelligence. (Not all of which are known.) It would also miss the possibility that it is specific sets of genes which control intelligence, not genes at the single-gene level. There is also the problem that some genes require environmental influences for their expression to be turned on or off.
Not only do the above factors make it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to accurately claim discovery of genetic differences in intelligence. (Which I agree are probably there.) There is also the problem that it would be politically and socially inadviseable to carry out such research. Even were it possible to make such discoveries, the uses they would likely be put to would be largely uncontrolled, and would include: arguments about racial or national superiority, with concomitant religious arguments - since religious spread can be mapped geographically; arguments about gender superiority/inferiority; arguments justifying eugenics/genetic engineering/sterilisation; arguments justifying genetic elitism/social darwinism; etc.; etc.;
Even though the discovery of differences in race and intelligence "will not justify racial hatred, nor disrespect for people of a different race", that is exactly what they would come to be used for.