Questions About Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis

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Hi, is this book still relevant? Are there major findings that have been disproved by now, or is there a more recent work with more relevant data?

VEL – The Contemporary Heretic Although the original edition came out in 2006, Lynn published a new ‘revised edition’ in 2015, so I expect this is pretty up-to-date.

I’ve only read t…moreAlthough the original edition came out in 2006, Lynn published a new ‘revised edition’ in 2015, so I expect this is pretty up-to-date.

I’ve only read the 2006 edition, but I have read the preface to the revised edition, and, in this, Lynn claims that the only major revision is with regard to European populations, with Lynn now claiming that:

“IQs are consistently several points lower throughout the far south of Europe, i.e., in the Balkans, Italy and southern Spain. The explanation for this is that the populations of those regions are a genetic mix of European peoples with those from the Near East and North Africa [whom Lynn claims score lower than Europeans]”

In the 2006 edition, Lynn only said this in respect of Balkan populations (p15). Now he maintains, for example, that there is a north-south gradient in IQ in Italy (Lynn 2010)

Regarding recent studies, this paper looks interesting, but was apparently rejected for publication by the journal Intelligence much to the author's chagrin.

Personally, as a summary of the evidence, I would still recommend Rushton and Jensen’s paper, Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability published in the journal, Psychology, Public Policy & Law in 2005.

For balance, the critique by Richard Nisbett in the same issue is also worth reading – Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005).

The chapter on ‘group differences’ in the second edition of Nicholas Mackintosh's IQ and Human Intelligence, published in 2011, also provides a good, reasonably balanced summary.

References
Lynn (2010) In Italy, north–south differences in IQ predict differences in income, education, infant mortality, stature, and literacy. Intelligence 40 (2012) 255–259
Nisbett, R. E. (2005). Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ:A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005) . Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11(2), 302-310.
Rushton & Jensen (2005). Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy & Law, 11:235-94.(less)

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