IQ, Race, and Racism

Somebody sent me an article by Erik Engheim that takes some jabs at Race-realism, which he refers to as “racism.” It’s obvious that Engheim considers racism to be evil, and he’s on a mission to destroy it. Living in Oslo, Norway, where there aren’t many black Africans, means he probably hasn’t had the experience of living among black Africans long-term. People who have, such as myself, tend to take a different approach. For us, racial differences are obvious; we don’t need scientific evidence, since we’re confronted with them every day.

When I say, “takes some jabs,” what I mean is that he doesn’t claim to debunk it completely. Similarly, it’s not my intention to write a comprehensive review of his article; just some thoughts that came to mind as I read it. I’ll leave the comprehensive reviews for those more trained and intelligent than myself.

He starts by accusing Race-realists of “abusing science” to:

push for policies such as:

• Segregation
• Immigration quotas based on race
• No bussing
• Ending affirmative action
• Cutting or scaling back programs aimed at disadvantaged children

I’ll point out that I vehemently opposed some of them well before I became a Race-realist. I experienced forced desegregation, busing, and Affirmative Action firsthand. All of those are abominations that cost innocent lives or livelihoods. All of the programs he lists come from taxpayer money and were often done against the wishes of local White populations. Even if we reject Race-realism, there are strong objections to all of them, especially when funded by taxes.

Engheim then takes aim at the Transracial Adoption Study, pointing out that the study is flawed because:

1. Several white adopted children with low IQ scores were lost from the follow-up studies. The Black adopted children who were lost did not have unusually low IQs. This skewed the results.
2. The study failed to account for the different times at which the children were tested, ignoring the Flynn effect. IQ tests are recalibrated over time. To score 100 on a test today, you must answer more questions correctly than someone who took the same test decades ago. Older scores cannot be directly compared to newer ones—they must be interpreted relative to the average at the time.

While it was considered important in its day, and Rushton cited it often, it’s by no means central to our position; much more recently, Jared Taylor has pointed out that all school districts in the US show the same pattern of academic performance – with Asians scoring highest, then Whites, then Latinos and blacks at the bottom. I’ll quote Grok’s answer when I posed this as a question:

While national data supports the general trend of Asians outperforming Whites, Whites outperforming Latinos, and Latinos outperforming Blacks on average, this pattern does not hold in every U.S. school district. Variations in demographics, socioeconomic status, school quality, and local policies lead to exceptions. For example, in some districts, Latino students may outperform Black students but approach or exceed White students’ performance, or small Asian populations may not consistently lead due to sample size or socioeconomic challenges. Without comprehensive district-level data for all 13,000+ U.S. school districts, the claim cannot be universally confirmed.

It’s important to remember that “Latino,” which generally means “mestizo” in the US, can also include Whites. Many Latinos are, in fact, White. Small sample sizes and disparities within Asian groups do not debunk Mr. Taylor’s claim. Furthermore, when Race-realists say that Asians score the highest, we’re referring specifically to Northeast Asians, not Southeast Asians or Pacific Islanders. US statistics lump them all together.

This phenomenon far outweighs any flaws in decades-old studies.

Next, Engheim attacks the heritability of IQ. He writes:

Why is this important? Because people often assume that a high heritability figure (like 80% for IQ) means the environment cannot significantly alter outcomes. But the Flynn effect—and similar observations for obesity and height—suggest otherwise.

I’m not sure who he’s referring to; I’m not aware of any respectable Race-realists who claim that environment cannot have a significant impact on IQ. Obviously, it can. It’s interesting that Engheim cites the Flynn effect here. He doesn’t seem to be aware that it has reversed in recent years, suggesting that (in most places) the limits of environmental impacts on IQ (for large populations) have been reached, and now we’re left with genetic factors…

… and that brings me to his next point: The high test scores of black British immigrant children.

Looking at British academic performance, if all Black students are grouped together, their average scores are slightly below those of British whites. However, when broken down by national origin, a more nuanced picture emerges. Some Black immigrant groups outperform the white British average on GCSE exams:

• Nigerians: +21.8%
• Ghanaians: +5.5%

The most obvious explanation for this is selective migration. Only the most intelligent Nigerians and Ghanaians tend to migrate to the West; they’re the ones who are motivated to improve their station in life.

Edit: Professor Nathan Cofnas has commented (on X):

I would add a question for Engheim’s cultural explanation for why certain African immigrant subgroups perform so well in the UK: Why doesn’t their “culture” work its magic in their country of origin?

Aside from that, not all black Africans are equal; some are more intelligent than others, as Engheim himself alludes to:

When breaking down African subgroups even further, some perform as well as or better than traditionally high-performing groups like Chinese and Indians.

How is this phenomenon linked to the previous point (of environment)? While the brightest Nigerians and Ghanaians migrate to the UK, at the same time, native White British youngsters have been marginalized by their own government. How does one suppose being the victim of Pakistani grooming gangs might impact one’s academic performance? A 2121 BBC article points out that certain segments of White teens in the UK are “left behind.” This may be an understatement, judging from accounts I’ve read on platforms such as X. Governments and school districts have been ignoring pleas for help from White children who are harassed by the children of non-white Migrants. The grooming gangs are just one aspect of this. Authorities routinely turn a blind eye to egregious abuse, including physical beatings and humiliation when the victims are White. Are we to believe that this has no effect on academic performance?

Engheim then dusts off the tired argument that the black-White IQ gap has been disappearing. It’s an odd claim to make, since race-egalitarians have been saying this for decades. A 1998 Brookings article proclaims:

First, black-white differences in academic achievement have narrowed since 1970. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data on 17-year-olds show that the reading gap narrowed more than two-fifths between 1971 and 1994. The math gap has also narrowed, though not as much. Five major national surveys of high school seniors conducted since 1965 show the same trend.

One wonders when the gap will finally disappear. Over time, it will definitely be reduced – due to miscegenation. This is possibly one reason why young White women are so relentlessly encouraged to date black men. The offspring of such unions are usually considered “black.” This will have the effect of “reducing the racial gap in IQ.” In fact, it’s only smoke and mirrors. When studies are done to show how the racial gap in academics is narrowing, do they take this into consideration? Don’t count on it.

Engheim then writes about black criminality. Here, his arguments are especially flimsy. He seems to believe that Race-realists claim that black criminality is linked ONLY to genetics, without any contributions from culture or education. This would be an absurd position to take, and I’m not aware of anybody who claims this.

Bearing this in mind, we can clearly see that Engheim resorts to a straw man argument:

Racists are often eager to claim that the disproportionate number of African-Americans shot by police or incarcerated is simply the natural order of things—a genetic predisposition to crime rooted in what they view as inferior genes.

Let’s examine the validity of this claim. African-Americans, on average, have 16–24% European ancestry. According to “race realists” (i.e., modern-day racists), this should make African-Americans up to 25% “better” than Africans—more intelligent and less prone to crime—due to the supposed superiority of white genes.

He goes on to compare homicide rates for various African countries with the homicide rates of American blacks – which are often higher. Is Engheim completely oblivious to the fact that American blacks are bombarded with hateful CRT rhetoric from cradle to grave? Does he lack any knowledge of the toxic ghetto/crime culture that permeates American black communities? I can only wonder whether Engheim has lived his life in a cave or if he’s being intentionally dishonest.

I live in a majority-black/mulatto country. American blacks have a certain reputation here, even among those who share their skin-color. Intact cultures, religions and traditions can go a long way toward curbing crime, even when genetics push in the opposite direction.

Proof of Racism in the American Justice System is the next topic. Engheim’s position is that American blacks do commit more crime, but they’re also subject to racism which causes even higher arrest numbers. His evidence? A Maryland study that compares crack cocaine possession sentences. There is a large disparity between convictions for Whites and for blacks for the same amounts of the drug:

It gets around a difficult problem. When cops arrest an African-American it is very hard to determine in an individual case whether he is grossly exaggerating the crime to get a higher sentence because the defendant is black rather than white.

However under the right circumstances such a bias can cause a statistical anomaly proving the prejudice. This is what we see here. The convictions around 280–290 gram for blacks is far above other sentences. This is highly unrealistic. There is no reason why criminals should choose to have a quantity of drugs exactly within this range. However because there are advantages to the police starting from 2010 in term of getting higher convictions, they have an incentive to lie and exaggerate to put defendants in that bracket.

Unfortunately, the actual study requires a sign-up, which I refuse to do. I’ll leave an analysis for somebody else. I will point out, however, that many judges practice “Restorative Justice.” This means they actively give lighter sentences to black defendants than to White ones. On top of that, it appears (at least in UK) that black jurors discriminate against Whites, but not the other way around:

If anything, it is MORE likely that this is the case in the US, where black racial identity is strongly encouraged:

An American 2023 study did, indeed, uncover jury bias against White people.

There have been several instances where black murderers were set free because black jurors refused to convict. One notable example was O.J. Simpson. One of his black jurors later admitted that he voted to acquit out of racial loyalty. Therefore, even if there is judicial racism against blacks, the odds are (in my opinion) that there is much more racism against Whites in today’s system.

Engheim then goes on to attack “assumptions about race and IQ” because “we humans have been so profoundly wrong about race all through history.”

To this I say, why stop there? We’ve been wrong about astronomy, medicine, metallurgy, chemistry and physics. Let’s dump all those pseudo-sciences!

Similarly, Engheim points out that early IQ tests were flawed – and Race-realists of the early 20th century made similar claims, about Southern Europeans, as we do about blacks today. He claims that “the science didn’t add up.” Actually, it did. Southern Europeans do tend to have lower average IQs than Northern Europeans. In the US, they also had higher crime-rates. Be that as it may, being wrong in the past doesn’t negate an entire field of science (defined as “a quest to know the truth”). Engheim’s approach here is childish and simplistic. There were many things we were wrong about a hundred years ago. We correct course and keep searching. We don’t conclude that questions on that topic are no longer allowed.

Engheim concludes by summarizing the claims of Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel to explain why much of Africa is backward. I’ve already dealt with those arguments here. He links to another article he wrote that addresses this topic in more detail. Perhaps I’ll read it in the future and review it as well.

I’ll try to leave a link to this review in Engheim’s comments. Perhaps he and I can have a civil debate – despite my, admittedly, harsh words here.

Update: It’s been two full days since I posted the URL of this critique on his substack – and there has been no acknowledgement of it at all. Meanwhile, the comments are mostly gushing over his “open-minded and scientific” article. It appears that this flock of race-denialists prefer to pat themselves on the back in their echo-chambers rather than expose themselves to critical thinking. I’ll let y’all know if this changes.