Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

g
Intelligence o f racial hybrids
Those social scientists who insist that there are no racial genetic
differences in ability are often the most critical of studies which
have used a social criterion of race rather than more precise genetic
criteria. The Council of the Society for the Psychological Study of
Social Issues (SPSSI), for example, published a statement saying,
‘Many of the studies [on white-Negro IQ differences] cited by
Jensen [1969a] have employed a social definition of race, rather
than the more rigorous genetic definition. Conclusions about the
genetic basis for racial differences are obviously dependent on the
accuracy of the definition of race employed’ (Council of SPSSI,
1969). The SPSSI Council seems not to have considered the idea
that if the observed IQ differences between racial groups are due
only to social-environmental factors, then the social definition of
race should be quite adequate, and, in fact, should be the only
appropriate definition. If it is argued that two socially defined
racial groups which differ in mean IQ are not racially ‘pure’ and
that one or both groups have some genetic admixture of the other,
it can mean only that the biological racial aspect of the IQ differences,
if such exists, has been underestimated by comparing
socially, rather than genetically, defined racial groups.
For this reason, a few investigators have attempted to study the
relationship between intelligence and more refined biological
criteria of race than is afforded by the crude social classification of
persons as ‘Negro’ or ‘white’. The results of these attempts to
date are highly ambiguous and contribute little, if anything, to
reducing the uncertainty concerning the possible genetic basis of