Book review: INEQUALITY: A GENETIC HISTORY by Carles Lalueza-Fox
Given its putative topic, Lalueza-Fox’s (2022) book is most notable for what it doesn’t discuss.
Revisiting Moore’s transracial adoption study
Transracial adoption studies are a powerful methodology for examining the relative contribution of genetics and environment to average differences in IQ across racial and ethnic groups. The best — and most famous — transracial adoption study was the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (MTAS) conducted by Sandra Scarr and her colleagues (Scarr & Weinberg, 1976; Weinberg…
Stupid? No. Unfamiliar? Yes. The meaning of low mean IQs in developing nations
Illiterate people’s thinking probably remains grounded in their everyday experience. When these people take a test that solely measures abstract thinking, they perform poorly. This does not make them stupid. Instead, it shows the disconnect between their natural mode of thought and the unfamiliar test content.
Irish IQ: The Massive Rise That Never Happened
It is clear that there has not been a massive increase in Irish IQ during the 20th or 21st centuries.
1930s environmentalism in the IQ debate
It is clear that the pre-war views of intelligence and race were not guided blindly by racism.
In praise of Sandra Scarr
Given the impressive level of her empirical accomplishments, it should not be surprising that her theoretical accomplishments are also worth remembering.
Do non-g gains from the Flynn effect matter? Yes and no
Nobody questions the existence of the Flynn effect, which is the tendency for average IQ scores in a population to increase over time. The effect has been found in every country where data exist (Flynn, 1987), and the phenomenon has now been studied for over 30 years.
Notes on videos of Arthur Jensen defending his work
The most important name in intelligence research in the second half of the 20th century is educational psychologist Arthur Jensen (1923-2012). From the late 1960s until his death, Jensen was the world’s foremost intelligence researcher who singlehandedly made methodological and scientific breakthroughs that greatly advanced intelligence research. I never got to meet Arthur Jensen, but…
Comparing the 1975 and 1996 APA statements on intelligence
One of the most highly cited articles in intelligence research is a 1996 report commissioned by the American Psychological Association’s Board of Scientific Affairs to provide an authoritative statement on the science of intelligence (Neisser et al., 1996). What many people do not know, though, is that this was not the first time APA’s Board…
The $67.5 million wasted on stereotype threat research
One popular topic in psychology when discussing test performance is the idea of stereotype threat. First proposed by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson in 1995, the stereotype threat is phenomenon where a person who belongs to a stereotyped demographic group performs in accordance with the stereotype after being reminded of it. Usually this is suggested…
