Race to the finish
H. J. Eysenck
Race Science and Society edited by Leo Kuper (George Allen and Unwin £5.95)
Racism is a terrible thing; we need only recall the evil that Hitler wrought to understand that racism cannot be tolerated in any civilised society. Yet the most unlikely people can be found among the racists. Who wrote the following sentences about the great German socialist Ferdinand LassaIle, characterising him as "a greasy Jew disguised under brilliantine and flashy jewels"? Marx's famous colleague, Engels. And Marx himself wrote this to Engels in 1862, also about LassaIle: "It is now perfectly clear to me that, as the shape of his head and the growth of his hair indicate, he is descended from the negroes who joined in the flight of Moses from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on the father's side was crossed with a nigger). Now this union of Jewishness to Germanness on a negro basis was bound to produce an extraordinary hybrid. The importunity of the fellow is also niggerlike."
Nowadays, the anti-semitism still prevalent in the USSR is proverbial, yet we are assured that racism is opposed by Marxists, and that, as the book under review says, "the foundations of the prejudices lie . . in the economic and social systems of a society." This is just one of the oracular pronouncements which crowd the pages of this book; there is of course no attempt to back up such statements by recourse to facts, or even argue the case. I believe the statement is probably false; racial prejudices are found in practically all societies that have ever been studied, and in a huge variety of economic and social systems. Capitalism, as it obtains at the moment in the Western world, is probably as free from racial prejudice as any large society has ever been in. the last few centuries.
This book, which is a collection of about a dozen essays covering a large number of very divergent themes, was "prepared as part of Unesco's contribution to the International Year to combat racism and racial discrimination." Unfortunately, there is no serious discussion in the book of those factual questions which caused Jensen and others to argue that the environmentalist position concerning the observed differences in intelligence between different races was difficult to defend, and that the evidence was more and more tilting in the direction of implicating genetic causes. Where the book touches on these matters — notably in a chapter by Otto Klineberg — the discussion is so one-sided and inaccurate that the reader will receive little enlightenment; like much else in the book, it is all propaganda. The propaganda is of course in a good cause, but even the best of causes cannot subsist on a diet of untruthful propaganda; it needs some more nourishing factual food. Let me indicate just one or two points on which Klineberg is factually misleading.
On page 181 he mentions the notorious book by Rosenthal and Jacobson, entitled Pygmalion in the Classroom, in which these authors tried to establish that giving teachers faked IQ scores about the children under their care caused the teachetS to alter their attitude to
these children, and in due course actually changed the IQ scores of the children in the direction of the faked scores. Klineberg presents these results as if they were accepted facts, yet the book was unmercifully criticised by the leading experts on the grounds of incompetent experimental design and grosslY biased statistical treatment, leading to incorrect conclusions. Furthermore, many excellent psychologists, attempting to replicate the conclusions, failed to do so; they concluded that the facts simply are not as alleged. All this is very relevant to Klineberg's discussion, yet the reader would in vain look for any mention of these facts.
On other pages, Klineberg deals with the effects of poverty, poor teaching, and other disadvantages which, according to him, account for the 15 IQ points which separate the American blacks from the whites. He does not mention the fact that American Orientals, who also suffer great socio-economic deprivations, have actually better IQ scores than American whites, and he does not mention the fact that Eskimos, who are much more deprived than American blacks, equal white Canadians in IQ scores. These are all facts, among many others. which Klineberg fails to mention — they might have indicated to the reader that perhaps his belief in 100 per cent environmentalism was beset by many difficult problems to which no answers have yet been found.
There is ample room for debate about the facts, and about the conclusions to be drawn from them; occasionally even Klineberg seems to realise this, as when he writes, in commenting on Jensen's thesis, that: "On this latter, point the conclusion is still 'Not proven" Exactly; then why produce a whole book which pretends that in fact there is no argument. and the angels have won the day handsomely?
All this, of course, is no benediction on racism. Racism is wrong for ethical, moral, and social reasons; there can be no compromise with discrimination based on racial grounds. TO base the argument against racism on allegedlY factual grounds, by stating that different ethnic groups are known not to differ with respect to their mental abilities even to the slightest degree, is to invite a factual disproof, and the further argument that if such innate differences in ability exist, then racism is right. I would saY that the factual argument about the possible genetic causes of racial differences in intelligence, and the ethical argument against racism, have no connection whatever; after all, the evidence clearly shows that there is mach overlap in IQ between any two races ever studied, and this alone makes it imperative that we assess each person as an individual, n'at as a member of a racial group. If only the authors of this book had got this argument straight! Unesco might with advantage learn the simple lesson that there is little advantage in getting together a group of people all prejudiced in favour of a certain conclusion to a complex and difficult problem, all quoting such evidence as favours their prejudice, and failing to note such evidence as goes counter to it, and all determined to beg all the questions at issue. Propagandais bad, even when it is produced for the best of motives; this book is no exception. Readers might like to look at some statement of the opposite viewpoint, and discover for themselves how many of the best arguments against the Unesco position are simply riot mentioned in this book. This will teach them something about the difference between propaganda and science; there is precious little else they are likely to learn from this book.
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