God Fearing Atheist

I was curious as to everyone thoughts on the work of J.P. Rushton.

His book "Race, Evolution and Behavior" can be found here:
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/reb.html

Toto

Isn't this the guy who claims Negros have larger penises and this means something?

"Pseudoscientific Racism" seems to be the consensus. Science of Racism

See also the Pioneer Fund

God Fearing Atheist

Not only is reflexivly labeling Rushton a "racist" in poor taste, it does nothing to add to the discussion, or response to my post.

It is no different, in my mind, than the neoconservative tendency to label any critic of Israeli foreign policy "anti-semitic", or the christian penchant for slandering atheists as immoral.

Professor Rushton is not some third-rate academic charlatan. He's no creationist hiding from peer-review. And its for this reason that i'm interested in seeing some informed opinions of *his work*.

You can read Rushton's response to the accusations leveled against the Pioneer Fund here: http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/fac...dfs/ALRpdf.pdf

Toto

So you concede the pseudoscientific part?

Quote:

It is no different, in my mind, than the neoconservative tendency to label any critic of Israeli foreign policy "anti-semitic", or the christian penchant for slandering atheists as immoral. Professor Rushton is not some third-rate academic charlatan. He's no creationist hiding from peer-review. And its for this reason that i'm interested in seeing some informed opinions of *his work*.

Read the first link I gave you - scroll down or search for Rushton.

"Race" is not a scientific concept. His use of statistics is not scientific.

God Fearing Atheist

Not until I see the case against his work.

Its altogether quite interesting that the author of that piece cites no evidence for his claims. I dont know about you, but if i stumbled across a creationist page whos entire body of arguments were of the sort, "theres are tons of studies proving creationism is true," without actually referencing those studies and/or responses to them, i'd be more than a little skeptical.

Professor Rushton, on the other hand...

Gurdur

Perhaps you don't read too thoroughly.
Plenty of evidence in the references. Maybe you should research more.

God Fearing Atheist

*For his claims about studies refuting Rushton's research*! Sheesh Gurdur...

Gurdur

*yawn*
The race question has been tackled repeatedly in science.
For some of the best summaries and further reading, see
The Mismeasure of Man , by Stephen Jay Gould.

But I bet you're more into simply trying to confirm your prejudices rather than actually researching.
I do hope I'm wrong about that at least.

Did you also check out the other threads Toto cited to you ?

Toto

I mean, really. Some psychologist who should be analyzing himself and his own sexual hangups comes up with a statistical model that reinforces every taudry and discredited racial stereotype of the Victorian age. Should it be dignified with an extensive discussion here?

Jesse

I'm don't know much about the details of Rushton's work beyond the general idea that some races have evolved to have smaller families and higher average intelligence due to climate differences. But the idea that there could be a genetic component to statistical differences in mental traits between races is still open to debate--the evidence is probably not strong enough to justify any definite conclusions on this subject. Acknowledging the possibility of some genetic basis for statistical differences between races need not make one a racist; after all, everyone accepts nowadays that one can acknowledge genetically-based mental differences between the sexes without being a misogynist (although I think the average IQ of men and women is very similar, despite all their other differences, which might suggest that average IQ is fairly robust and that IQ differences among the races are likely to be cultural).

On Toto's claim that "'Race' is not a scientific subject", ps418 posted a number of links refuting this claim on p.2 of the eugenics thread:

I would also add this recent story:

Study: Humanity can be sorted into five geographical groups

Also, Mismeasure of Man is hardly the last word on these issues--for example, Gould also claims to refute the idea of general intelligence g, but there is plenty of disagreement among scientists on this subject (see this review and critique of his book that appeared in the journal Intelligence). A number of Gould's other claims, like no correlation between cranial capacity and IQ or no difference in cranial capacity between races, seem to be false according to our current best evidence, even if the conclusions Rushton draws from this are also unwarranted--see Does Brain size matter? A Reply to Rushton and Ankney for a summary (Rushton also wrote his own response to Gould's book which can be found here).

Rushton's theories on the reasons for the statistical patterns he points to may not be very sound (see this page for some real evolutionary psychologists commenting on his theories), and it's also quite possible that his presentation of the evidence for these patterns may be one-sided or biased, justifying the accusation of bad science, but such accusations must be based on specific critiques of Rushton's work rather than general claims that race does not exist or that science has already ruled out all possibility of genetically-based mental differences between races.

Some examples of specific critiques of Rushton:

Could r Selection Account for the African Personality and Life Cycle?

Psychometrics and Misinterpretation: A Look at Rushton's Work on Intelligence and Race

On the similarities of American blacks and whites: A reply to J.P. Rushton

What is it to be high-K? (more of a mixed review than a critique)

The Science of Racism and its Consequences (this article deals mostly with creationist claims about race but there is a section on Rushton at the end, and the author references a more detailed author that he wrote titled 'Genes, genitals and genius: the evolutionary ecology of race'.)