Race and IQ - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195102207 ISBN 13: 9780195102208

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Ashley Montagu, who first attacked the term "race" as a usable concept in his acclaimed work, Man's Most Dangerous Myth, offers here a devastating rebuttal to those who would claim any link between race and intelligence.
In now classic essays, this thought-provoking volume critically examines the terms "race" and "IQ" and their applications in scientific discourse. The twenty-four contributors--including such eminent thinkers as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, Urie Bronfenbrenner, W.F. Bodmer, and Jerome Kagan--draw on fields that range from biology and genetics to psychology, anthropology, and education. What emerges in piece after piece is a deep skepticism about the scientific validity of intelligence tests, especially as applied to evaluating innate intelligence, if only because scientists still cannot distinguish between genetic and environmental contributions to the development of the human mind. Five new essays have been included that specifically address the claims made in the recent, highly controversial book, The Bell Curve.
Must reading for anyone interested in racism and education in America, Race and IQ is a brilliantly lucid exploration of the boundary line between race and intelligence.

About this title

Review:

Publication of the controversial book The Bell Curve prompted an updating of this scholarly masterpiece by distinguished anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose work has been among the most articulate critiques of pseudoscientific racism over the past five decades. Montagu includes pieces by 20 scientists and writers, including an insightful history of biological determinism by Stephen Jay Gould ("Racist Arguments and IQ"), Jerome Kagan's deconstructive analysis "The Magical Aura of the IQ," and a comprehensive attack on The Bell Curve by Alan Ryan ("Bad Science, Worse Politics"). In his own essays, "Intelligence, IQ, and Race" and "The IQ Mythology," Montagu continues his tireless crusades against the mythologies of racial purity and the fallacies of inherent and inalterable intelligence differences among nonwhite peoples. "Intelligence is a complex function of highly complex variables," Montagu writes, "so complex, indeed, that we can hardly be said to have made a beginning in understanding any of them." --Eugene Holley Jr.

About the Author:

Ashley Montagu is a distinguished anthropologist and author of over 40 books, including The Nature of Human Agression, Statement on Race, and Science and Creationism. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0195102207
• ISBN 13: 9780195102208
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 496
• Editor: Montagu Ashley