Egalitarian Fiction and Collective Fraud
Linda S. Gottfredson
Society, March-April 1994
Brief Summary: Social Science researchers have contributed
to the myth that there is no difference in intelligence levels among different
racial and ethnic groups. Some researchers ignored significant data because
it did not fit into the accepted belief of genetic equality.
Social science today condones and perpetuates a great falsehood - one
that undergirds much current social policy. This falsehood, or "egalitarian
fiction," holds that racial-ethnic groups never differ in average
developed intelligence (or, in technical terms, g, the general mental ability
factor). While scientists have not yet determined their source, the existence
of sometimes large group differences in intelligence is as well-established
as any fact in the social sciences. How and why then is this falsehood
perpetrated on the public? What part do social scientists themselves play,
deliberately or inadvertently, in creating and maintaining it? Are some
of them involved in what might be termed "collective fraud?"
Intellectual dishonesty among scientists and scholars is, of course, nothing
new. But watchdogs of scientific integrity have traditionally focused on
dishonesty of individual scientists, while giving little attention to the
ways in which collectivities of scientists, each knowingly shaving or shading
the truth in small but similar ways, have perpetuated frauds on the scientific
community and the public at large. Perhaps none of the individuals involved
in the egalitarian fiction could be accused of fraud in the usual sense
of the term. Indeed, I would be the first to say that, like other scientists,
most of these scholars are generally honest. Yet, their seemingly minor
distortions, untruths, evasions, and biases collectively produce and maintain
a witting falsehood. Accordingly, my concern here is to explore the social
process by which many otherwise honest scholars facilitate, or feel compelled
to endorse, a scientific lie.
It is impossible here to review the voluminous evidence showing that
racial-ethnic differences in intelligence are the rule rather than the
exception (some groups performing better than whites and others worse),
and that the well-documented black-white gap is especially striking. All
groups span the continuum of intelligence, but some groups contain greater
proportions of individuals that are either gifted or dull than others.
Three facts regarding these group differences are of particular importance
here for together they contradict the claim that there are no meaningful
group differences. Racial-ethnic differences in intelligence are real.
The large average group differences in mental test scores in the United
States do not result from test bias, which is minuscule overall, as even
a National Academy of Science panel concluded in 1982. Moreover, intelligence
and aptitude tests measure general mental abilities, such as reasoning
and problem solving, not merely accumulated bits of knowledge - and thus
tap what experts and laymen alike view as "intelligence."
Regardless of how we choose to construe them, differences in intelligence
are of great practical importance. Overall they predict performance in
school and on the job better than any other single attribute or condition
we have been able to measure. Intelligence certainly is not the only factor
that affects performance, but higher levels of intelligence greatly increase
people's odds of success in many life settings. Group disparities in intelligence
are stubborn. Although individuals fluctuate somewhat in intelligence during
their lives, differences among groups seem quite stable. The average black-white
difference, for example, which appears by age six, has remained at about
18 Stanford-Binet IQ points since it was first measured in large national
samples over seventy years ago. It is not clear yet why the disparities
among groups are so stubborn - the reasons could be environmental, genetic,
or a combination of both - but so far they have resisted attempts to narrow
them. Although these facts may seem surprising, most experts on intelligence
believe them to be true but few will acknowledge their truth publicly.
The 1988 book The IQ Controversy: The Media and Public Policy by psychologist-lawyer
Mark Snyderman and political scientist Stanley Rothman provides strong
evidence that the general public receives a highly distorted view of opinion
among "IQ experts." In essence, say Snyderman and Rothman, accounts
in major national newspapers, newsmagazines, and television reports have
painted a portrait of expert opinion that leaves the impression that "the
majority of experts in the field believe it is impossible to adequately
define intelligence, that intelligence tests do not measure anything that
is relevant to life performance, and that they are biased against minorities,
primarily blacks and Hispanics, as well as against the poor." However,
say the authors, the survey of experts revealed quite the opposite: On
the whole, scholars with any expertise in the area of intelligence and
intelligence testing ... share a common view of [what constitute] the most
important components of intelligence, and are convinced that [intelligence]
can be measured with some degree of accuracy. An overwhelming majority
also believe that individual genetic inheritance contributes to variations
in IQ within the white community, and a smaller majority express the same
view about the black-white and SES [socioeconomic] differences in IQ.
Unfortunately, such wholesale misrepresentation of expert opinion is
not limited to the field of intelligence, as Rothman has shown in parallel
studies of other policy-related fields such as nuclear energy or environmental
cancer research. However, the study of IQ experts revealed something quite
surprising. Most experts' private opinions mirrored the conclusions of
psychologist Arthur Jensen, whom the media have consistently painted as
extreme and marginal for holding precisely those views. As Snyderman and
Rothman point out, the experts disclosed their agreement with this "controversial"
and putatively marginal position only under cover of anonymity. No one,
not even Jensen himself, had any inkling that his views now defined the
mainstream of expert belief. Although Jensen regularly received private
expressions of agreement, he and others had been, as Snyderman and Rothman
note, widely castigated by the expert community for expressing some of
those views.
Several decades ago, most experts, among them even Jensen, believed
many of the views that the media now wrongly describe as mainstream - for
example, that cultural bias accounts for the large black-white differences
in mental test scores. While the private consensus among IQ experts has
shifted to meet Jensen's "controversial" views, the public impression
of their views has not moved at all. Indeed, the now-refuted claim that
tests are hopelessly biased is treated as a truism in public life today.
The shift in private, if not public, beliefs among IQ experts is undoubtedly
a response to the overwhelming weight of evidence which has accumulated
in recent decades on die reality and practical importance of racial-ethnic
differences in intelligence. This shift is by all indications a begrudging
one, and certainly no flight into "racism."
Snyderman and Rothman found that as many IQ experts as journalists and
science editors (two out of three) agreed with the statement that "strong
affirmative action measures should be used in hiring to assure black representation."
Fully 63 percent of the IQ experts described themselves as liberal politically,
17 percent as middle of the road, and 20 percent as conservative - not
much different than the results for journalists (respectively, 64, 21,
and 16 percent). Moreover, as Snyderman and Rothman suggest (and as is
consistent with personal accounts by Jensen and others), many of the surveyed
experts, while agreeing with Jensen's conclusions, may disapprove of his
expressing these conclusions openly. Consistent with this, when queried
about their respect for the work of fourteen individuals who have written
about intelligence or intelligence testing, the IQ experts rated Jensen
only above the widely but apparently unjustly) vilified Cyril Burt. Despite
the fact that most agreed with Jensen, they rated him far lower than often
like-minded psychometricians who had generally stayed clear of the fray.
Jensen even received significantly lower ratings than his vocal critics,
such as psychologist Leon Kamin, whose scientific views are marginal by
the experts' own conclusions. By contrast, the experts in environmental
cancer research behaved as one would expect; they gave higher reputational
ratings to peers who are closer to the mainstream than to high-profile
critics. Snyderman's and Rothman's findings therefore suggest that a high
proportion of experts are misrepresenting their beliefs or are keeping
silent in the face of a public falsehood. It is no wonder that the public
remains misinformed on this issue.
IQ experts feel enormous pressure to "live within a lie,"
to use a phrase by Czech writer and leader Vaclav Havel characterizing
daily life under communist rule n Eastern Europe. Havel argued, in The
Power of the Powerless, that, by living a lie, ordinary citizens were complicit
in their own tyranny. Every greengrocer, every clerk who agreed to display
official slogans not reflecting his own beliefs, or who voted in elections
known to be farcical, or who feigned agreement at political meetings, normalized
falsification and tightened the regime's grip on thought. Each individual
who lived the lie, who capitulated to "ideological pseudo-reality,"
became a petty instrument of the regime. As many commentators have noted,
Americans may not speak certain truths about racial matters today. To adapt
a phrase, there is a "structured silence."
Social scientists had already begun subordinating scientific norms to
political preferences and creating much of our current pseudo-reality on
race by the mid-1960s. Sociologist Eleanor Wolf, in a 1972 article in Race,
for example, detailed her distress at how fellow social scientists were
misusing research data to support particular positions on civil rights
policy: presenting inconclusive data as if it were decisive; lacking candor
about "touchy" subjects (such as the undesirable behavior of
lower-class students); blurring or shaping definitions (segregation, discrimination,
racism) to suit "propagandistic" purposes; making exaggerated
claims about the success of favored policies (compensatory education and
school integration) while minimizing or ignoring contrary evidence. As
a result, social science and social policy are now dominated by the theory
that discrimination accounts for all racial disparities in achievements
and well-being. This theory collapses, however, if deprived of the egalitarian
fiction, as does the credibility of much current social policy. Neither
could survive intact if their central premise were scrutinized.
No wonder, then, that IQ researchers find themselves under great professional
and institutional pressure to avoid not only engaging in such scrutiny
but even appearing to countenance it. The scrutiny itself must be discredited;
the egalitarian fiction must be raised above serious scientific question.
Scientists must at least appear to believe the dogma. As was the case in
Havel's communist-dominated Eastern Europe, in American academe feigned
belief in the official version of reality is maintained largely by routine
obeisance of academics as they pursue their own ambitions.
Scholars realize their scholarly ambitions primarily through other scholars.
Peer recognition is the currency of academic and scientific life. It is
crucial to a scholarly reputation and all the steps toward status and success
- publications, professional invitations and awards, promotion, tenure,
grants, fellowships, election to professional office, appointment to prestigious
panels. One's ability even to carry out certain kinds of research, funded
or not, may be contingent upon peer recognition and respect - for instance,
getting collaborators, subjects, or cooperation from potential research
sites. Just as in personal life, a high professional reputation depends
upon a sustained history of "appropriate" behavior, and it may
be irreparably damaged by hints of scandal or impropriety. Similarly, the
reputations of scientists and their organizations are enhanced or degraded
by those for whom they show regard and approval. Associating oneself with
highly regarded individuals or ideas enhances, even if slightly, one's
own status.
Awarding an honor to a luminary can enhance the reputation of one's
own organization, especially if the recipient accepts the honor with genuine
appreciation. By the same token, one risks "staining" one's reputation
by associating with, honoring, defending, or even failing to condemn the
"wrong" sort of individual or idea. In short, how one gives or
withholds one's regard is important for one's professional reputation because
it affects the regard one receives. Such a social system enhances the integrity
of science and is furthered by personal ambition when the members of the
community base their regard on scholarly norms, such as competence, creativity,
and intellectual rigor. However, such a system breeds intellectual corruption
when members systematically subordinate scientific norms to other considerations
- money, politics, religion, fear. This is what appears to be happening
today in the social sciences on matters of race and intelligence. As sociologist
Robert Gordon argues, social science has become "one-party science."
Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, virtually all American
intellectuals publicly adhere to, if not espouse, the egalitarian fiction.
And many demonstrate their party loyalty by enforcing the fiction in myriad
small ways in their academic routine, say, by off-handedly dismissing racial
differences in intelligence as "a racist claim, of course," criticizing
authors for "blaming the victim," or discouraging students and
colleagues from doing "sensitive" research. One can feel the
gradient of collective alarm and disapproval like a deepening chill as
one approaches the forbidden area. Researchers who cross the line occasionally
face overt censorship, or calls for it. For example, one prominent (neoconservative)
editor rejected an author's paper, despite finding it scientifically sound,
because there are social "considerations" which "overweigh
the claims of social science." Another eminent editor, after asking
an author to soften the discussion in his article, recently published the
revised paper with an editorial postscript admonishing scientists in the
field to find a "balance" between the need for free exchange
of research results on intelligence and the (presumably comparable) "need"
that "no segment of our society. . .feel threatened" by it.
Whether motivated by a sincere concern over supposedly "dangerous"
ideas or by a desire to distance themselves publicly from unpopular ideas,
editors who use such non-academic standards discourage candor and stifle
debate. They deaden social science by choking off one source of the genuine
differences of opinion that are its lifeblood. Overt censorship of research
is uncommon, probably because it is an obvious affront to academic norms.
Less striking forms of censorship directly affect many more academics,
however, and so may be more important. Easier to practice without detection
and to disguise as "academic judgment," they serve to keep scholars
from pursuing ideas that might undermine the egalitarian dogma.
A less obvious form of censorship, which has become somewhat common
recently, is indirect censorship. It is accomplished when academic or scientific
organizations approve some views but repudiate or burden others on ideological
grounds. Sometimes the ideological grounds are explicit Campus speech codes
are a well-known example which, had they been upheld in the courts, would
have made repudiation of the egalitarian fiction a punishable offense on
some campuses. The earlier (unsuccessful) attempt to include possible "offense
to minority communities" as grounds for refusing human subjects approval
is another example.
Gordon reports yet others, including the National Institutes of Health's
new extra layer of review for politically "sensitive" grant proposals
and the University of Delaware's recent policy (reversed by a national
arbitrator) of banning a particular funding source because, so the university
claimed, it supports research on race which "conflicts with the university's
mission to promote racial and cultural diversity." Gordon also outlines
in detail - as political scientist Jan Blits has done - the covert application
of ideological standards to facilitate expression of some views but burden
others. This form of indirect censorship, also falling under the rubric
of "political correctness," occurs when university administrators,
faculty, or officers of professional associations disguise as "professional
judgment" an ideological bias in their enforcing of organizational
rules, extending faculty privileges, protecting faculty rights, and weighing
evidence in faculty promotions and grievances.
Recently, some American universities have invoked "professional
judgment" as a pretext for reclassifying "controversial"
scholarly publications in their annual merit reviews as "non-research,"
to misrepresent outside peer reviews in evaluating controversial professionals
up for promotion, and to limit student access to these professors. Such
thinly veiled bias publicly demonstrates the officials' own adherence to
the prescribed institutional attitudes and their willingness to enforce
them, not only protecting those officials from protest but also encouraging
fellow members of the institution to toe the line.
Covert censorship is far more common than overt or indirect censorship.
It consists of bias in the application of scientific norms when reviewers
evaluate their peers' work for funding, publication, presentation, or dissemination.
Individual ideological biases are found in all fields, of course, but the
hope is that such biases remain small and will cancel each other out over
the long run-hence the importance of a free and open exchange of data,
theories, and results. What I have in mind is systematic bias and a pervasive
double standard which impedes one line of research and accords another
undeserved hegemony. In one-party science, the disfavored line of work
is subjected to intense scrutiny and nearly impossible standards, while
the favored line of work is held to lax standards in which flaws are overlooked
(called "oversight bias" in the psychological literature). Similarly,
the disfavored idea is rejected unless it is "balanced" by including
proponents of the favored view (even if that view is the equivalent of
"flat-earth theory"), where the favored line of work is readily
accepted for publication or presentation, even when it totally ignores
the opposing literature. Getting a controversial paper accepted under such
circumstances often becomes a test of endurance between the editor and
reviewers (in coming up with criticisms) and the author (in rebutting them).
Submitting IQ research or grant proposals outside the narrowest professional
confines exposes intelligence researchers to yet other biases, usually
of the kind to which reviewers of the proposals will accept no rebuttal.
The broader circle of critics in the social sciences often implicitly
dismisses the legitimacy of research on intelligence itself by arguing
that "intelligence" is undefinable or unmeasurable - as if the
critics' own favored constructs (social class, culture, self-concept, anxiety,
and so on) were as well validated and operationalized. Others now also
seek to deny IQ researchers (but not themselves) use of the concept "race"
because, they assert, race is not a biological condition, but is socially
constructed. The double standards can even ricochet back and forth, depending
on the particular question being considered. Gordon recalls how sociologists
failed to criticize sociologist James Coleman for omitting student ability
from his analyses of school integration (which led to overstating the impact
of integrated schools on black achievement-for sociologists a favorable
outcome), but how they criticized him roundly for the very same omission
in analyses of private versus public schools,(which led to overstating
the impact of private schools on black achievement - an unfavorable outcome).
In short, in one-party science, scientific regard flows like political
patronage to loyal and active party members, who can demonstrate their
loyalty by being alert to hints of dissidence. Like all one-party political
systems, one-party science becomes intellectually corrupt and arrogant
as it gains confidence in its power.
The most insidious corruption to which one-party science leads is pervasive
self-censorship, what involved researchers generally prefer to regard as
"prudence" or "avoiding unnecessary trouble." Coleman
has drawn particular attention to the problem of "self-suppression
"the impulse not to ask the crucial question" - in research on
race. In an example from his own research for the influential "Coleman
Report," he describes his failure to conduct important analyses that
might have produced embarrassing findings about the abilities of black
teachers. Another way of avoiding unwanted results is to ignore certain
data, subjects, or variables. Or unwanted results can be omitted, buried
in footnotes, explained away, or simply ignored in one's conclusions. The
most subtle form of self-censorship is deliberate avoidance of making crucial
connections, or denying them. Psychologist Richard Herrnstein has noted
that it was his drawing out the implications of one such connection, namely,
that some portion of (white) social class differences in intelligence is
genetic, that sparked his public excoriation in the 1970s.
Normally, scholars are eager to explicate illuminating connections between
subspecialties. They are reluctant to do so, however, when these connections
put in question the egalitarian dogma on race. Virtually all sociologists
and economists ignore the literature on intelligence despite its central
importance to core issues in their disciplines, such as inequalities in
occupation and income. Researchers in the various subfields of intelligence
obviously cannot ignore the literature with impunity. Yet they, too, often
prefer to stay strictly within the confines of their specialties rather
than making crucial, but unpopular, connections, or they use language that
obscures what otherwise would be quite obvious.
Many psychometricians, especially those working for large testing organizations,
avoid referring to "intelligence" and often seem reluctant to
say much about the practical or theoretical meaning of the racial differences
they observe on unbiased tests. But even remaining within one's subfield
is often not enough, for the field of intelligence itself is widely suspect.
Hence some scholars explicitly disavow unpopular connections that critics
might attribute to them. For example, they will argue in favor of the importance
of intelligence for scholastic performance but then assure their readers,
over-optimistically, that the racial gap "seems to be closing rapidly."
The tenor of these preemptive disclaimers is clear. While researchers in
any field may lightly dismiss the credibility of key connections regarding
race and intelligence, no one ever lightly endorses their credibility with
impunity. Even those of us committed to candor are exceedingly cautious
when expressing informed opinions on certain topics, especially the genetics
of race. Thus, publicly stated opinions of researchers about matters outside
their subfields tend in one direction - to dispute or undercut the facts
necessary for toppling the egalitarian fiction. What may be tolerable behavior
at the individual level becomes intolerable bias at the aggregate level.
Censorship - even self-censorship - requires justification, or at least
apparent justification.
On the whole, those who would squelch open inquiry of the egalitarian
fiction base their justification on two assertions: 1) Research on racial
differences in intelligence has already been scientifically "discredited."
2) Inquiry into racial differences is immoral.
Point one asserts that the egalitarian premise is absolute truth and
hence beyond scientific scrutiny. Point two is indifferent to its truth.
Both counsel outrage at the very thought of the research. The claim that
the research has been discredited rests largely on extensive misrepresentation
that is often embarrassingly crude or casual - for example, contradicting
arguments an author never made, while ignoring what was actually stated;
attributing policy preferences to an author which are opposite of what
the author actually expressed; or simply alleging fraud or gross incompetence
without any substantiation whatsoever. The claim that the research is immoral
rests squarely on the view that, regardless of the truth, the study itself
can only be harmful. In fact, some critics assert (mostly privately) that
the greater the truth, the greater the danger it poses to lower-scoring
groups, and thus the greater the need to suppress it.
Despite their differences, both justifications for censorship often
take the form of demonizing open inquiry by labeling it (and the people
who practice it) as "dangerous," "fascist," "ideological,"
or "racist." The study of race and intelligence is something,
they tell us, that no decent person - let alone a serious scientist - would
ever do and that every decent person and serious researcher would oppose.
Thus, in a kind of Orwellian inversion, marked by what Gordon calls "high
talk and low blows," the suppression of science presents itself as
science itself. Intellectual dishonesty becomes the handmaiden of social
conscience, and ideology is declared knowledge while knowledge is dismissed
as mere ideology. Neither social policy, nor science, nor society itself
is served well by scientific silence on racial differences in intelligence.
Enforcement of the egalitarian fiction has tragic consequences, especially
for blacks. The outcomes are even worse than researchers of intelligence
predicted two decades ago. The falsehood, because it tries to defy a reality
that has conspicuous repercussions in daily life, is doing precisely what
it was meant to avoid: producing pejorative racial stereotypes, fostering
racial tensions, stripping members of lower-scoring groups of their dignity
and incentives to achieve, and creating permanent social inequalities between
the races. Enforcement of the lie is gradually distorting and degrading
all institutions and processes where intelligence is at least somewhat
important (which is practically everywhere) but especially where it is
most important (in public schools, higher education, the professions, and
high-level executive work). The falsehood requires that there be racial
preferences and that their use be disguised, wherever intelligence has
at least moderate importance. Society is thus being shaped to meet the
dictates of a collective fraud. The fiction is aiding and abetting bigots
to a fat greater degree than any truth ever could, because its specific
side-effects - racial preferences, official mendacity, free-wielding accusations
of racism, and falling standards - are creating deep cynicism and broad
resentment against minorities, blacks in particular, among the citizenry.
Enforcement of the egalitarian fiction is not a moral or scientific
imperative; it is merely political. It is terribly short-sighted, for it
corrupts both science and society. However, just as the fiction is sustained
by small untruths, so can it be broken down by many small acts of scientific
integrity. This requires no particular heroism. All that is required is
for scientists to act like scientists-to demand, clearly and consistently,
respect for truth and for free inquiry in their own settings, and to resist
the temptation to win easy approval by endorsing a comfortable lie.
Linda S. Gottfredson is professor of educational studies
at the University of Delaware and co-director of the Project for the Study
of Intelligence and Society. She has published widely on fairness in testing
and racial inequality, focusing most recently on race-norming and the dilemmas
in managing workforce diversity. Her current work examines social policy
based on the egalitarian fiction.
Jan H. Blits and Linda S. Gottfredson. "Equality
or Lasting Inequality?" Society, 27 (3) March/April 1990.
Robert A. Gordon. The Battle to Establish a Sociology
of Intelligence: A Case Study in the Sociology of Politicized Disciplines.
Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkin University, Department of Sociology, 1993.
Linda S. Gottfredson. "Dilemmas in Developing Diversity
Programs." In Diversity in the Workplace: Human Resources Initiatives,
Susan Jackson (ed.). New York: The Guilford Press, 1992.
Linda S. Gottfredson and James C. Sharf (eds.). "Fairness
in Employment Testing." Journal of Vocational Behavior, 33,
December 1988.
Richard J. Herrnstein. "A True Tale from the Annals
of Orthodoxy." Preface to IQ in the Meritocracy. Boston, Mass.:
Little, Brown and Company, 1973.
Daniel Seligman. A Question of intelligence. New
York: Birch Lane Press, 1992.
