Race and Intelligence: Is There a Link?
Farai Chideya, NPR, October 23, 2007
DNA pioneer James Watson caused a furor recently after saying Africans were intellectually inferior to Westerners. Farai Chideya talks about why the conversation of race and intelligence persists with Phil Rushton, a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario.
Like Watson, Rushton says people of African descent have a lower IQ and smaller brain size, which he says is “50 percent genetic and 50 percent cultural.”
Rushton is the head of the Pioneer Group [sic], an organization dedicated to the research of intelligence and racial differences.
What is a good measure of intelligence? And when does the study of intelligence become political? Farai Chideya continues the conversation with Bill Tucker, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University. He’s also the author of The Intelligence Controversy: A Guide to the Debates.
