IQ, Race, and Racism

Challenging popular "race realist" claims about the science of race and IQ

Unfortunately, we cannot avoid the question of race and IQ when discussing racism because modern-day racists—those who call themselves "race realists"—are actively abusing science to push for policies such as:

• Segregation

• Immigration quotas based on race

• No bussing

• Ending affirmative action

• Cutting or scaling back programs aimed at disadvantaged children

The thrust of their argument is that all the inequality seen in America is "natural" and not caused by discrimination, unequal opportunities, or racism. In their view, it is simply a reflection of racial inferiority.

This makes it very challenging to discuss racism without addressing these issues. Here, I have tried to present a collection of various studies and facts that challenge the narrative of the "race realists."

Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study

This is an important study often cited by "race realists." It is claimed to show Black intellectual inferiority.

Researcher Drew Thomas provides a counterpoint by reinterpreting the study in the paper Racial IQ Differences among Transracial Adoptees: Fact or Artifact?.

He computes updated average IQ scores for adopted white and Black children in different families. These are the summarized results:

• White child with white parents: 101.8

• Black child with white parents: 98.5

• Black child with Black parents: 89.4

This suggests that the difference between a white child adopted by a white family and a Black child adopted by a white family is minimal. That difference could easily be explained by discrimination present in society at large.

How did Drew Thomas reach this conclusion? By accounting for the following flaws in the original study:

1. Several white adopted children with low IQ scores were lost from the follow-up studies. The Black adopted children who were lost did not have unusually low IQs. This skewed the results.

2. The study failed to account for the different times at which the children were tested, ignoring the Flynn effect. IQ tests are recalibrated over time. To score 100 on a test today, you must answer more questions correctly than someone who took the same test decades ago. Older scores cannot be directly compared to newer ones—they must be interpreted relative to the average at the time.

The second point deserves some elaboration. Suppose I’m an Asian man with an average IQ of 100 today. If I take the same test used for white participants 50 years ago and compare my results directly to theirs, my IQ might appear significantly higher. This is the Flynn effect in action: average IQ scores tend to rise over time due to broader societal changes like improved education, nutrition, and cognitive stimulation.

Heritability of IQ Score

How much of your IQ is heritable? Many studies suggest around 80% heritability. This means that 80% of the variation in IQ scores within a population can be explained by genetic differences. However, Eric Turkheimer published a study showing that heritability varies with socioeconomic status (SES):

• High-SES children: 0.72 heritability, shared environment 0.15

• Low-SES children: 0.10 heritability, shared environment 0.58

Not all studies replicate this result, but Turkheimer is not alone. For example, this study of twins in Sudan found a heritability of just 17%, with shared environment accounting for 60% of the variation.

Is Heritability a Sensible Concept?

Heritability itself is a questionable concept. For instance, the heritability of obesity has been measured anywhere from 6% to 85%, depending on the population studied.

This article suggests a heritability of 70–80% for obesity. The heritability of height is estimated at 80–90%, depending on the study.

Why is this important? Because people often assume that a high heritability figure (like 80% for IQ) means the environment cannot significantly alter outcomes. But the Flynn effect—and similar observations for obesity and height—suggest otherwise.

We know for a fact that obesity can be drastically influenced by changes in diet and lifestyle. You are not biologically doomed to be obese just because of your genes. But the way heritability is measured can make it appear that way.

Consider two countries, A and B, with genetically similar populations. In country A, fast food is sold on every corner; in country B, only healthy food is available. People in A will tend to be much fatter than in B. Yet if you measure heritability within each country separately, you might find that most variation in obesity is attributed to genetics.

An illustration of the problem with heritability as a concept

This creates the illusion that environment doesn’t matter. In reality, measuring heritability in relatively uniform environments underestimates the true impact of environmental factors.

High Test Scores of Black British Immigrant Children

An article on unz.com discusses how "The IQ Gap Is No Longer a Black and White Issue."

Looking at British academic performance, if all Black students are grouped together, their average scores are slightly below those of British whites. However, when broken down by national origin, a more nuanced picture emerges. Some Black immigrant groups outperform the white British average on GCSE exams:

• Nigerians: +21.8%

• Ghanaians: +5.5%

Several other non-white immigrant groups also perform well:

• Chinese: +38%

• Sri Lankan Tamils: +32.5%

• Iranians: +31.9%

• Vietnamese: +31.5%

• Indians: +29.9%

Interestingly, some white immigrant groups score below the British average:

• Italians: –2.28%

• Eastern Europeans: –23.9%

• Portuguese: –45.9%

When breaking down African subgroups even further, some perform as well as or better than traditionally high-performing groups like Chinese and Indians. For instance:

African students speaking Luganda and Krio outperformed Chinese students in 2011.

The highest-performing student on the GCSE exam that year was a Nigerian Igbo girl—who was also the fastest runner in her cohort. She achieved the top academic result despite devoting significant time to athletics.

The Black-White IQ Gap Myth

It is persistently argued that the gap between black and whites in America in IQ score is fixed and will not change. Except the study "Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence from Samples" by William T. Dicken and James R. Flynn published in 2006 shows that is not the case.

They look at IQ score for blacks in different age cohorts to see the increase in IQ score. Remember we cannot just measure the whole black and white population given that gains will mainly be in newer generations. From the study:

It is safer to say that: blacks today aged 12 have a mean IQ of about 90.5; and young blacks have gained 5.52 points on whites over 30 years. Using the 95% confidence limits according to our regression estimates, the gain falls between 4.8 and 6.3 points.

In the conclusions Dicken and Flynn write:

All existing data suggest that since the 1960s, black children have made large IQ gains relative to whites even if the timing of those gains is uncertain. The constancy of the black/white IQ gap is a myth. Blacks have gained 5 or 6 IQ points on whites over the last 30 years. Neither changes in the ancestry of those classified as black nor changes in those who identify as black can explain more than a small fraction of this gain. Therefore, environment has been responsible.

Is the Crime Rate Among African-Americans Caused by Genetics or Environment?

Racists are often eager to claim that the disproportionate number of African-Americans shot by police or incarcerated is simply the natural order of things—a genetic predisposition to crime rooted in what they view as inferior genes.

Let’s examine the validity of this claim. African-Americans, on average, have 16–24% European ancestry. According to "race realists" (i.e., modern-day racists), this should make African-Americans up to 25% “better” than Africans—more intelligent and less prone to crime—due to the supposed superiority of white genes.

To evaluate this, let’s look at two simple crime-related metrics: homicide rate and incarceration rate.

For the general U.S. population:

• U.S. homicide rate: 5.35 per 100,000

• U.S. incarceration rate: 655 per 100,000

For the African-American population:

• Homicide rate (2015), per CDC: 20.9 per 100,000

• Incarceration rate: 2,300 per 100,000

If these disparities were purely genetic, we would expect African countries—where the population is nearly 100% African in ancestry—to have even worse statistics. But that’s not the case.

• Rwanda has the highest incarceration rate in Africa: 464 per 100,000 (five times lower than the U.S. overall)

• Central African Republic: incarceration rate of 16

• Congo: homicide rate of 13.55, incarceration rate of 29

These are troubled countries. But what about more stable and developed African nations? Shouldn’t they offer a more relevant comparison, since African-Americans do not live in extreme poverty?

• Ghana: incarceration rate of 51 (lower than Norway); homicide rate of 1.68—dramatically lower than the 20.9 figure among Black Americans

This raises the question: Could the issue be how African-Americans are treated in the U.S.? Perhaps institutionalized racism plays a larger role than is often acknowledged.

To explore this further, consider outcomes in areas beyond crime. For example:

• Infant mortality rate among Black Americans: 14 per 1,000 live births

• Sri Lanka: 8.23

• Cuba: 5.5

Before attributing the disadvantages faced by African-Americans to genetics, we must explain why a population living in one of the richest countries in the world has worse health and incarceration outcomes than people in far poorer nations. The evidence points more convincingly to cultural and societal factors than to biological ones.

But Are African Crime Statistics Reliable?

A common counterpoint is that crime statistics in many African countries—especially homicide rates—may be unreliable due to weaker bureaucracies or underreporting. If that's the case, how can we trust comparisons between African and American crime data?

This is a valid question to raise, but there are several reasons why this objection doesn’t hold up under scrutiny:

1. Homicide rates are among the most reliable crime statistics worldwide.
   Unlike other crimes, homicide is difficult to hide or misclassify. A dead body is hard to ignore or bury in paperwork. Even in countries with weaker institutions, homicides tend to be noticed and counted. That's why organizations like the UNODC and WHO use homicide as a baseline metric for comparing crime across countries.

2. We don’t see uniformly low homicide rates across Africa.
   If unreliable reporting were the only issue, we would expect similar (and artificially low) homicide rates across the continent. Instead, we see major variation:

3. Congo has a high homicide rate (13.55), reflecting its ongoing conflict and instability.

4. Ghana and Rwanda, on the other hand, report much lower rates (1.68 and 2.5 respectively), aligning with their relative stability and functional governments.

5. Some African countries have competent and stable bureaucracies.
   While countries like Congo struggle with governance, others like Rwanda and Ghana are widely recognized for their improving administrative capacity and reliable data collection. These are not failed states—they have functioning civil services and are often cited as examples of good governance in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In short, while it’s important to question the reliability of statistics, there’s no clear reason to dismiss African homicide rates entirely—especially when they vary in ways that make sense given the political and social realities on the ground.

Proof of Racism in the American Justice System

Proving racism in the justice system is hard for several reasons. If say African-Americans are arrested at a higher percentage than whites this can have several possible explanations:

1. African-Americans simply commit more crimes.

2. There is not difference between African-Americans are subject of racism.

3. Both factors are present. African-Americans commit more crimes but are also subject to racism causing higher arrest numbers.

I think the latter is the more realistic explanation. But how do you prove it? The University of Maryland has an excellent study proving this.

It gets around a difficult problem. When cops arrest an African-American it is very hard to determine in an individual case whether he is grossly exaggerating the crime to get a higher sentence because the defendant is black rather than white.

However under the right circumstances such a bias can cause a statistical anomaly proving the prejudice. This is what we see here. The convictions around 280–290 gram for blacks is far above other sentences. This is highly unrealistic. There is no reason why criminals should choose to have a quantity of drugs exactly within this range. However because there are advantages to the police starting from 2010 in term of getting higher convictions, they have an incentive to lie and exaggerate to put defendants in that bracket.

Why You Should be Very Careful About Making Assumptions about Race and IQ

An argument I always see when I argue against IQ differences having a biological origin is the claim that we need to be open minded and suggestions that because so many other things in nature varies it would not be odd if intelligence varied in different regions of the world.

The problem with this seemingly “innocent” preposition is that we humans have been so profoundly wrong about race all through history.

I highly recommend Angel Saini’s book Superior: The Return of Race Science. It goes through the history or racial pseudo science all the way up to the present.

But I am also covering these mistakes myself in a this article:

In that article I cover how in 1922, the “race realists” of the day made the same arguments as today. Except back then it wasn’t about African-Americans but Southern Europeans. And supposedly they had all the science on their side to push their narrative. Of course today in retrospect we know that “science” didn’t add up.

Why is Africa Underdeveloped?

Invariably when I push back against the claims of inferiority of Africans, I tend to get the counter-argument that black people do poorly both as minorities in the West and Africa itself is the most underdeveloped part of the world.

Neither is surprising because they are related. Immigrants from more developed countries tend to do better than immigrants from poorer countries. There is nothing mysterious about that. Immigrants from rich countries will be better educated, have worked in more advanced jobs, been given better nutrition.

Ergo it is relevant to ask why Africa ended up as the worst developed region of the world. In my article I actually push back and reject most of the typical leftist argument such as colonization being the chief reason Africa is underdeveloped. That is simply not a credible explanation, given that Africa was colonized much later than many other countries. Africa was significantly less developed than Europe at the time of colonization and that needs an explanation.

Fortunately we have excellent explanations for this. It isn’t a big mystery. As I detail in my article it is a combination of many factors:

1. Humans evolving in Africa and how that influenced animals and their ability to evade human hunters unlike other regions of the world.

2. Low ratio of coastline and rivers relative to landmass.

3. Inhospitable climate.

4. North-South orientation of landmass and how that affects diffusion of crops and technology.