Evolution And History

The Social Significance of Race: Racism 285

But IQ tests themselves are not a fully valid measure

of inborn intelligence. An IQ test measures performance

(something that the individual does) rather than genetic

disposition (something that the individual was born with).

Performance reflects past experience and present motiva-

tional state, as well as innate ability.

Though IQ tests are not a reliable measure of inborn

intelligence, using them to prove the existence of signifi-

cant differences in intelligence among human populations

has been going on for at least a century. In the United

States systematic comparisons of intelligence between

“whites” and “blacks” began in the early 20th century and

were frequently combined with data gathered by physical

anthropologists about skull shape and size.

During World War I, for example, a series of IQ tests,

known as Alpha and Beta, were regularly given to draft-

ees. The results showed that the average score attained by

Euramericans was higher than that obtained by African

Americans. Even though African Americans from the

urban northern states scored higher than Euramericans

from the rural South, and some African Americans scored

Unfortunately, there is no general agreement as to what

abilities or talents actually make up what we call intel-

ligence, even though some psychologists insist that it is

a single quantifiable thing measured by IQ tests. Many

more psychologists consider intelligence to be the prod-

uct of the interaction of different sorts of cognitive abili-

ties: verbal, mathematical-logical, spatial, linguistic,

musical, bodily kinesthetic, social, and personal.^9 Each

may be thought of as a particular kind of intelligence, un-

related to the others. This being so, these types of intel-

ligence must be independently inherited (to the degree

they are inherited), just as height, blood type, skin color,

and so forth are independently inherited. Thus the vari-

ous abilities that constitute intelligence are independently

distributed like other phenotypic traits such as skin color

and blood type.

PHYSIOGNOMY

HEADS & FACES: HOW TO READ THEM

PHYSIOGNOMY

Prof. George Bush Otho The Great African

General Napier

Emperor Paul of Russia

A. M. Rice

George Eliot

General Wisewell

King Fred’k the Strong

? VAUGHT & POWELL’S VISUAL GUIDE TO?

PRACTICAL CHARACTER READINGPRACTICAL CHARACTER READING

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “physiognomists” practiced a pseudo-science in which they

associated particular facial or skull features with criminal behavior or insanity. Though these ideas may seem

humorous and far-fetched to us today, they were only a step away from the racism embedded in the science

of the time. Academic texts regularly use the terms “degraded” and “animalized” when describing the skulls

and skeletons of non-whites. To challenge contemporary people to think about the boundary between sci-

ence and pseudo-science, graphic artist W. David Powell has taken a series of these historical images as the

subject of his artwork. The images and words he presents are taken directly from two books from that time:

Heads and Faces and How to Study Them: A Manual of Phrenology and Physiognomy for the People (1885)

by Nelson Sizer and H. S. Drayton; and Vaught’s Practical Character Reader (1902) by Louis Allen Vaught.

What signs of racism and stereotyping do you see in these images?

© W. David Powell

(^9) Jacoby, R., & Glauberman, N. (Eds.). (1995). The Bell Curve debate (pp. 7,
55–56, 59). New York: Random House.