The Social Significance of Race: Racism 287have no way to measure schoolboys out-
side the boundaries of such an expecta-
tion, how can we gauge their “natural”
endowments? Lots of things go into the
observation of excellence or failure, only
one of which is genetic endowment.
But obviously humans differ. Thus,
the last question: What’s the relation-
ship between patterns of human genetic
variation and groups of people? The
answer: It’s complex.
All populations are heterogeneous
and are built in some sense in opposi-
tion to other groups. Jew or Muslim,
Hutu or Tutsi, Serb or Bosnian, Irish
or English, Harvard or Yale—one thing
we’re certain of is that the groups of
most significance to us don’t correspond
to much in nature.
Consider, then, the category “black
athlete”—and let’s limit ourselves to
men here. It’s broad enough to encom-
pass Arthur Ashe, Mike Tyson, and Kobe
Bryant.
When you read about the body of the
black male athlete, whose body do you
imagine? Whatever physical gift these
men share is not immediately apparent
from looking at them.
Black men of highly diverse builds
enter athletics and excel.
Far more don’t excel. In other words,
there is a lot more to being black andto being a prominent athlete than mere
biology. If professional excellence or
overrepresentation could be regarded as
evidence for genetic superiority, there
would be strong implications for Jew-
ish comedy genes and Irish policeman
genes.
Inferring a group’s excellence from
the achievements of some members
hangs on a crucial asymmetry: To ac-
complish something means that you
had the ability to do it, but the failure
to do it doesn’t mean you didn’t have
the ability. And the existing genetic data
testify that known DNA variations do not
respect the boundaries of human groups.
To be an elite athlete, or elite any-
body, presumably does require some
kind of genetic gift. But those gifts
must be immensely diverse, distributed
broadly across the people of the world—
at least to judge from the way that the
erosion of social barriers consistently
permits talent to manifest itself in
different groups of people.
In an interview with The Philadelphia
Daily News in February, Mr. Entine
observed that Jews are overrepresented
among critics of the views he espouses.
But is that a significantly Jewish thing?
Or is it simply a consequence of the fact
that among any group of American intel-
lectuals you’ll find Jews over representedbecause they are a well-educated
minority? There’s certainly no shortage
of non-Jews who find the ideas in Taboo
to be demagogic quackery.
Of course, Jewish academics may
sometimes be speaking as academics,
not as Jews. Likewise black athletes may
perform as athletes, not just as embod-
ied blackness.
How easy it is to subvert Michael
Jordan, the exceptional and extraordinary
man, into merely the representative of
the black athlete.
The problem with talking about the
innate superiority of the black athlete is
that it is make-believe genetics applied
to naïvely conceptualized groups of peo-
ple. It places a spotlight on imaginary
natural differences that properly belongs
on real social differences.
More important, it undermines the
achievements of individuals as individu-
als. Whatever gifts we each have are far
more likely, from what we know of genet-
ics, to be unique individual constella-
tions of genes than to be expressions of
group endowments.From Marks, J. (2000, April 8). A feck-
less quest for the basketball gene.
New York Times. Copyright © 2000 by
the New York Times Co. Reprinted by
permission.Separating genetic components of intelligence (or any
other continuous trait) from environmental contributors
poses enormous problems.^11 Most studies of intelligence
rely on comparisons between identical twins: genetically
identical individuals raised in the same or different envi-
ronments. Twin studies are plagued by a host of problems:
inadequate sample sizes, biased subjective judgments, fail-
ure to make sure that “separated twins” really were raised
separately, unrepresentative samples of adoptees to serve
as controls, untested assumptions about similarity of envi-
ronments. In fact, children reared by the same mother re-
semble her in IQ to the same degree, whether or not they
share her genes.^12 Clearly, the degree to which intelligence
is inherited through genes is far from understood.^13
Undoubtedly, the effects of social environment are
important for intelligence. This should not surprise us, as
other genetically determined traits are influenced by envi-
ronmental factors. Height in humans, for example, has a
genetic basis while also being dependent upon both nutri-
tion and health status. (Severe illness in childhood arrests
growth, and renewed growth never makes up for this loss.)
While it is possible to see the effects of the environment
on growth, the exact relative contributions of genetic and
environmental factors on either the height or the intelli-
gence of an individual are unknown.
Nevertheless, documentation of the importance of
the environment in the expression of intelligence exposes
further the problems with generalizations about IQ and
“race.” For example, IQ scores of all groups in the United
States, as in most industrial and postindustrial countries,
have risen some 15 points since World War II. In addi-
tion, the gap between Americans of African and European
descent, for example, is narrower today than in the past.
Other studies show impressive IQ scores for African
American children born into socially deprived and eco-
nomically disadvantaged backgrounds who have been
adopted into highly educated and prosperous homes. It
is now known that underprivileged children adopted into
such privileged families can boost their IQs by 20 points.(^11) Andrews, L. B., & Nelkin, D. (1996). The Bell Curve: A statement. Science
271, 13.
(^12) Lewontin, R. C., Rose, S., & Kamin, L. J. (1984). Not in our genes (pp. 100,
113, 116). New York: Pantheon.
(^13) Ibid., pp. 9, 121.