Negative Evidence from Child and Adolescent Samples
Author:
Thomas E. Joiner Jr., Department of Psychology, Florida State University.
Author
Note:
The author is indebted to several people who commented on earlier versions of this paper.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Thomas E. Joiner Jr., Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1270. E-mail: joiner@psy.fsu.edu.
Abstract:
Proponents of a genetic/biological account of racial differences in measured IQ have argued that people of African descent possess lesser cognitive ability because they possess fewer cortical neurons (as reflected by head/brain size), and they possess fewer cortical neurons, according to this model, because of evolutionary forces associated with being of African descent. In this paper, I argue that the evidence for this claim is questionable; moreover, I provide new analyses that contradict the genetic/biological model of racial differences in measured IQ.
