Editing Race and intelligence (section)

===Genetics of race and intelligence===
{{main|Race and genetics}}
Geneticist [[Alan R. Templeton]] argued that the question about the possible genetic effects on the test score gap is muddled by the general focus on "race" rather than on populations defined by gene frequency or by geographical proximity, and by the general insistence on phrasing the question in terms of heritability.<ref name="Templeton 2001">{{harvnb|Templeton|2001}}</ref> Templeton pointed out that racial groups neither represent [[sub-species]] nor distinct [[lineage (evolution)|evolutionary lineages]], and that therefore there is no basis for making claims about the general intelligence of races.<ref name="Templeton 2001"/> He argued that, for these reasons, the search for possible genetic influences on the black–white test score gap is ''a priori'' flawed, because there is no genetic material shared by all Africans or by all Europeans. {{harvp|Mackintosh|2011}}, on the other hand, argued that by using genetic cluster analysis to correlate gene frequencies with continental populations it might be possible to show that African populations have a higher frequency of certain genetic variants that contribute to differences in average intelligence. Such a hypothetical situation could hold without all Africans carrying the same genes or belonging to a single evolutionary lineage. According to Mackintosh, a biological basis for the observed gap in IQ test performance thus cannot be ruled out on ''a priori'' grounds.{{Page needed|date=January 2022}}

{{harvtxt|Hunt|2010|page=447}} noted that "no genes related to difference in cognitive skills across the various racial and ethnic groups have ever been discovered. The argument for genetic differences has been carried forward largely by circumstantial evidence. Of course, tomorrow afternoon genetic mechanisms producing racial and ethnic differences in intelligence might be discovered, but there have been a lot of investigations, and tomorrow has not come for quite some time now." {{harvtxt|Mackintosh|2011|page=344}} concurred, noting that while several environmental factors have been shown to influence the IQ gap, the evidence for a genetic influence has been negligible. A 2012 review by {{harvp|Nisbett|Aronson|Blair| Dickens|2012a}} concluded that the entire IQ gap can be explained by known environmental factors, and Mackintosh found this view to be plausible.

More recent research attempting to identify genetic loci associated with individual-level differences in IQ has yielded promising results, which led the editorial board of ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' to issue a statement differentiating this research from the "racist" pseudoscience which it acknowledged has dogged intelligence research since its inception.<ref name="Nature-2017" /> It characterized the idea of genetically determined differences in intelligence between races as definitively false.<ref name="Nature-2017">{{Cite journal |date=25 May 2017 |title=Intelligence research should not be held back by its past |journal=Nature |volume=545 |issue=7655 |pages=385–386 |doi=10.1038/nature.2017.22021 |pmid=28541341 |bibcode=2017Natur.545R.385. |s2cid=4449918|doi-access=free }}</ref> Analysis of polygenic scores sampled from the 1000 Genomes Project has likewise found no evidence that intelligence was under diversifying selection in Africans and Europeans, suggesting that genetic differences make up a negligible component of the observed Black-White gap in IQ.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bird |first=Kevin A. |date=2 February 2021 |title=No support for the hereditarian hypothesis of the Black–White achievement gap using polygenic scores and tests for divergent selection |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.24216 |journal=[[American Journal of Physical Anthropology]] |language=en |volume=175 |issue=2 |pages=465–476 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.24216 |pmid=33529393 |issn=0002-9483 |access-date=1 November 2024 |via=Wiley Online Library}}</ref>