Abstract
Rushton and Jensen’s “Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability” documents IQ differences in populations on the basis of race. The authors explain these data by arguing that cold winter conditions in Europe had greater pressure for the selection of higher intelligence. Critics of Rushton and Jensen, and of the very category of race, claim that race is a social construct that only came up in the 16th century, as a result of overseas voyages and the Atlantic slave trade. The goal of this article is to refute that particular claim, by documenting how, long before the 16th century, in classical antiquity race was already a meaningful concept, and how some Greek authors even developed ideas that bear some resemblance to Rushton and Jensen’s theory. The article documents how ancient Egyptians already had keen awareness of race differences amongst various populations. Likewise, the article documents passages from the Hippocratic and Aristotelian corpus, which attests that already in antiquity, there was a conception that climatic differences had an influence on intelligence, and that these differences eventually become enshrined in fixed biological traits.
Highlights
IntroductionRushton and Jensen’s landmark article, “Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive
Rushton and Jensen’s Landmark WorkRushton and Jensen’s landmark article, “Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in CognitiveAbility” [1] was an opportunity to bring together two different strains of research on intelligence into a unified coherent perspective.Jensen’s work focused on educational psychology, and he opened the way for a thorough discussion of academic achievements amongst different populations
Prominent authors from classical antiquity had geographic determinist views of the conventional type. They appeared to have some intuitive understanding that was closer to Rushton and Jensen’s ecological determinism, for the way they wrote about differences amongst populations was very much reminiscent of race, with fixed attributes grounded in biology
Summary
Rushton and Jensen’s landmark article, “Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive. Greek and Roman civilizations were certainly xenophobic, but this xenophobia was never expressed in racial (i.e., biological) terms This reasoning typically attempts to prove that views such as the ones advanced by Ruston and Jensen in their article, are contingent on particular social and cultural circumstances of the last five centuries, and that were it not for the dramatic transformations of the Age of Exploration and the Atlantic slave trade, such views would have never been advanced. Prominent authors from classical antiquity had geographic determinist views of the conventional type (i.e., similar to those of Montesquieu, Diamond, etc., in modern times) They appeared to have some intuitive understanding that was closer to Rushton and Jensen’s ecological determinism, for the way they wrote about differences amongst populations was very much reminiscent of race, with fixed attributes grounded in biology. In order to refute the claim that race as a concept only came about with historical events of the 16th century, it suffices to focus on the one civilization that has had the greatest influence on the Western world, ancient Greece
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