Please see page 844 in attached PDF for this review.Reviews the book: Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. By Richard Lynn. Pp 322+xiii. (Washington Summit Publishers, Augusta, GA, USA, 2006.) $17.95, ISBN 978-1-59368-020-6, hardback; ISBN 978-1-59368-021-3, paperback.Maciej Henneber

Henneberg, M.

Journal of Biosocial Science

Adelaide Research &amp; Scholarship

 PUBLISHED VERSION       Henneberg, Maciej.  Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis, Journal of Biosocial Science, 2006; 38 (6):844-845. Copyright © 2006 Cambridge University Press                 http://hdl.handle.net/2440/32682  PERMISSIONS http://journals.cambridge.org/action/stream?pageId=4088&level=2#4408  The right to post the definitive version of the contribution as published at Cambridge Journals Online (in PDF or HTML form) in the Institutional Repository of the institution in which they worked at the time the paper was first submitted, or (for appropriate journals) in PubMed Central or UK PubMed Central, no sooner than one year after first publication of the paper in the journal, subject to file availability and provided the posting includes a prominent statement of the full bibliographical details, a copyright notice in the name of the copyright holder (Cambridge University Press or the sponsoring Society, as appropriate), and a link to the online edition of the journal at Cambridge Journals Online.  Inclusion of this definitive version after one year in Institutional Repositories outside of the institution in which the contributor worked at the time the paper was first submitted will be subject to the additional permission of Cambridge University Press (not to be unreasonably withheld).  9th  May 2011  routinely, and the latter tried to regulate the illicit drug abuse among elite athletes,more or less unsuccessfully. His examination of the doctor–athlete relationship andpublic views on doping and sports – including elite and recreational sports, as well assports for the handicapped – highlight the modern fascination with perfection inperformance as well as possible eﬀects of unregulated hormone replacement therapyon society. Hoberman argues that the political and economic demands athletes areexpected to meet influences the ongoing persistence of doping in sports as much asthe pharmacological ingenuity of athletes and their doctors. The author has a broaddefinition of ‘doping procedures’. He maintains that doping procedures in sports arenot limited to ‘taking drugs’, but also include performance-enhancing variables suchas sleeping in high-altitude chambers to create more red blood cells.In sum, Testosterone Dreams is all about performance, social ideas of the highlyperfected, and performance-oriented approaches to sports, health, and old age. Viewsof the public on athlete doping reflect that there is a public need for increasinglystronger doses of emotion and performance, perhaps to satisfy people’s own dreams.Hoberman’s book is not only well researched and useful for anthropologists andsocial scientists, but is also written for a larger public and asks the questions that areimportant to demystify testosterone dreams.B GMedical and Social Anthropology,Oxford UniversityRace Diﬀerences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. By Richard Lynn.Pp 322+xiii. (Washington Summit Publishers, Augusta, GA, USA, 2006.) $17.95,ISBN 978-1-59368-020-6, hardback; ISBN 978-1-59368-021-3, paperback.doi:10.1017/S0021932006221539The book appears to be written in a clear, sober style usual in modern science. Theargument is supported by numerous tables of data, maps and 54 pages of references.The author discusses the concept of intelligence and explains how intelligence ismeasured by means of various tests. The link between brain size and intelligence isaccepted as real, so that head size is used as a proxy for intelligence when theevolutionary past is discussed. Using the critical approach of a modern scientist, theauthor explains that intelligence cannot be precisely defined, nor measured accurately.Then he proceeds to explain the meaning and formation of races using the samecritical attitude. What follows, however, is based on the assumption that intelligenceand races are real biological entities determined primarily by genes, with someenvironmental influences modifying their phenotypic expression. The author givesdetailed descriptions of variously-measured intelligence in following races: Europeans,Africans, Bushmen and Pygmies, South Asians and North Africans, South-eastAsians, Australian Aborigines, Pacific Islanders, East Asians, Arctic Peoples andNative Americans. This is accompanied by some discussion of socioeconomic andeducational factors that may confound results of measurements of intelligence,and thus obscure genetic diﬀerences. According to the author, these genetic diﬀerencesindicate that highest intelligence evolved in those races that were exposed to844 Book reviewschallenging temperate climates with strongly marked seasons. East Asians andNorthern Europeans score the best, while people of the warm climates the worst;Australian Aborigines being placed at the very bottom of the list. These conclusionssupport and expand ideas of J. P. Rushton and his intellectual predecessors, andsupport the erroneous view that we can use race as a proxy for intelligence.This book is a frightening example of how an intelligent European author withgood skills of academic presentation can argue any case by selectively ignoring vastareas of research on the roles of individual biological variation, cultural traditions andbiases in psychological testing, and by creating conceptual entities from unreliableobservational phenomena. This is dangerous because, in the past, similar argumentshave confirmed racist political and layperson attitudes, and at their extremes resultedin the holocaust and apartheid.M HUniversity of AdelaideThe Metaphysics of Apes: Negotiating the Animal–Human Boundary. By RaymondCorbey. Pp. 227. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.) £14.99, ISBN0-521-54533-1, paperback. doi:10.1017/S0021932006231535After a vast bibliography, and many book-chapters and lectures about the develop-ment of concepts regarding animal/human and nature/culture antagonism, which areso stubbornly resistant to change, Corbey writes a synthesis on these issues in hislastest book The Metaphysics of Apes. This time, however, the approach is not onlyepistemologic but totally transdisciplinary. Metaphysics of apes here means that ‘apeshave always been assigned a certain metaphysical or ontological – these two terms areused synonymously – status in the grand scheme of things’. Furthermore, heremetaphysics means also the underlying concepts that guide data collection andinterpretation, as well as it means signalling the multiplicity of diﬀering views, and theway in which non-human primates themselves see the world. Timely, this book dealswith the animal–human boundary in a diﬀerent way than do other books availableon this issue. While other authors take a more historical view, covering such en voguethemes as xenotransplantation and genetics, Corbey’s book stresses the dualism thatnot only tears apart, but also sometimes undermines debates about origins andmeanings of humanness in the anthropological sciences. The fields of knowledgeaddressed in this study include cultural and biological anthropology, paleoanthro-pology, primatology, archaeology, liguistics, as well as psychology and philosophy.The principal aim of Corbey’s work is ‘the reconstruction of overall patterns in, andconstraints on, negotiations of the ape–human boundary in anthropological disci-plines since the mid-seventeenth century’ in Europe. It explores the ‘intricatelyinterwined network of assumptions, argument, metaphors and narratives which havebeen drawn upon,’ referring to authors such as Linnaeus, Freud, Durkheim, Binfordand Mauss.Since this study is transdisciplinary, some of the concepts used may requirepatience and eﬀort from readers not familiar with all of them. On the other hand,perhaps the book’s title attracts mainly those who already long for a more openBook reviews 845

Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis

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Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis

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Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis

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