Race, Evolution, and Behavior
Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective is a book by Canadian psychologist and author J. Philippe Rushton. Rushton was a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario for many years, and the head of the controversial Pioneer Fund. The first unabridged edition of the book came out in 1995, and the third, latest unabridged edition came out in 2000; abridged versions were also distributed.
Rushton argues that
The book was generally received negatively, its methodology and conclusions being criticized by many experts. The aggressive marketing strategy also received a lot of criticism. The book received positive reviews by some researchers, many of whom were personally associated with Rushton and with the
Summary
The book grew out of Rushton's 1989 paper, "Evolutionary Biology and Heritable Traits (With Reference to Oriental-White-Black Difference)".[5] The 1st unabridged edition was published in 1995, the 2nd unabridged edition in 1997, and the 3rd unabridged edition in 2000.
Rushton argues that Mongoloid, Caucasoid and Negroid populations fall consistently into the same one-two-three way pattern when compared on a list of sixty distinctly different behavioral and anatomical traits and variables.[6]
Rushton uses averages of hundreds of studies, modern and historical, to assert the existence of this pattern. Rushton's book is focused on what he considers the three broadest racial groups, and does not address other populations such as
Differential K theory
Differential K theory is a debunked theory proposed by Rushton,
This theory has been widely rejected as unscientific or
Responses
According to Richard R. Valencia, the response to the first edition of Rushton's book was "overwhelmingly negative", with only a small number of supporters, many being, like Rushton, Pioneer Fund grantees, such as psychologists Arthur Jensen, Michael Levin, Richard Lynn, and Linda Gottfredson.[13]
Valencia identified the main areas of criticism as focusing on Rushton's use of "race" as a biological concept, a failure to appreciate the extent of variation within populations compared with that between populations, a false separation of genetics and environment, poor statistical methodology, a failure to consider alternative hypotheses, and the use of unreliable and inappropriate data to draw conclusions about the relationship between brain size and intelligence. According to Valencia, "experts in life history conclude that Rushton's (1995) work is pseudoscientific and racist."
A more favorable review of the book came from Gottfredson, who wrote in Politics and the Life Sciences that the book "confronts us as few books have with the dilemmas wrought in a democratic society by individual and group differences in key human traits".[14] Another favorable review of the book appeared in the National Review.[15]
Mailing controversy
The first special abridged edition published under the Transaction Press name in 1999 caused considerable controversy when 40,000 copies were "mailed, unsolicited, to
According to Tucker, many academics who received the book unsolicited were outraged at its content, calling it "racial pornography" and a "vile piece of work"; at least one insisting on returning it to the publisher.[3] Hermann Helmuth, a professor of anthropology at Trent University, said, "It is in a way personal and political propaganda. There is no basis to his scientific research."[20]
As an example of Pioneer Fund activity
Race, Evolution, and Behavior has been cited as an example of the Pioneer Fund's activities in promoting scientific racism. Valencia notes that many of the supportive comments for the book come from Pioneer grantees like Rushton himself, and that a 100,000 copy print-run of the third edition was financed by Pioneer.[13] The book is cited by psychologist William H. Tucker as an example of the Pioneer Fund's continued role "to subsidize the creation and distribution of literature to support racial superiority and racial purity." The mass distribution of the abridged third edition he described as part of a "public relations effort", and "the latest attempt to convince the nation of 'the completely different nature' of blacks and whites." He notes that bulk rates were offered "for distribution to media figures, especially columnists who write on race issues".[3]
Reviews
- What is Intelligence and Who has it?, The New York Times' review of Race, Evolution, and Behavior, The Decline of Intelligence in America, and The Bell Curve.
- The Return of Racial Science, by Glayde Whitney, published in Contemporary Psychology, December 1996, pp. 1189–1191.
- Review of Race, Evolution and Behavior, by Henry Harpending, published in Evolutionary Anthropology, 1995.
- The Race-Research Funder, discussing the links of the Pioneer Fund to the distribution and positive reviews for Race, Evolution and Behavior.
- Review of Race, Evolution and Behavior, by Irving Louis Horowitz in Society, Jan-Feb 1995 v32 n2.
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 1-56000-320-0.
- ^ ISBN 9780415877107.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-02762-8.
- ISBN 9781446264461.
- ^ Presented at the Symposium on Evolutionary Theory, Economics and Political Science, AAAS Annual Meeting (San Francisco, CA, January 19, 1989)
- ^ The terms Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid used by Rushton (2000) was in wide use in mainstream literature until the 1990s at least, e.g. by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. Since the 2000s, these terms have been deprecated in by some authorities. For example, the recommended Medical Subject Headings as of 2004 was "Oriental Continental Ancestry Group, "African Continental Ancestry Group" and "European Continental Ancestry Group" for "Mongoloid", "Caucasoid" and "Negroid", respectively. The MeSH descriptor Racial Stocks, and its four children (Australoid Race, Caucasoid Race, Mongoloid Race, and Negroid Race) have been deleted from MeSH in 2004 along with Blacks and Whites. Race and ethnicity have been used as categories in biomedical research and clinical medicine. Recent genetic research indicates that the degree of genetic heterogeneity within groups and homogeneity across groups make race per se a less compelling predictor.
- .
- ^ doi:10.1037/h0078934.
- .
- doi:10.1037/h0078956.
- ^ "Statement from the Department of Psychology regarding research conducted by Dr. J. Philippe Rushton". Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario.
- .
- ^ ISBN 9780415877107.
- ^ Gottfredson, Linda (March 1996). "Race, Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective" (PDF). Politics and the Life Sciences.
- ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
- JSTOR 2935246.
- JSTOR 682972.
- ISBN 1-56000-146-1.
- ^ doi:10.1037/h0088141.
- ^ UWO Gazette Volume 93, Issue 68 Tuesday, February 1, 2000 Archived May 15, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Psych prof accused of racism
External links
- Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective - Copy of the 2nd Special Abridged Edition that the author put on his personal website