Genes, Heritability, ‘Race’, and Intelligence: Misapprehensions and Implications

Abstract

The role of genetics in determining measured differences in mean IQ between putative racial groups has been a focus of intense discussion and disagreement for more than 50 years. While the last several decades of research have definitively demonstrated that genetic variation can influence measures of cognitive function, the inferences drawn by some participants in the controversy regarding the implications of these findings for racial differences in cognitive ability are highly dubious. Of equal importance, there is no compelling scientific rationale for focusing on and devoting substantial effort to determining mean differences in intelligence or other cognitive functions between groups with incompletely defined and dynamic (and therefore not definitively definable) boundaries.