IQ Debate Between Charles Murray and James Flynn

Charles Murray and James Flynn debated on the topic of race and IQ at the American Enterprise Institute. You can view the full video of the debate here.

The debate is quite interesting in contrasting the different approaches to understanding the reasons for the persistent 1 standard deviation gap between mean IQ scores in the US between resident blacks and whites. I recommend listening to both debaters with an open mind, rather than only listening with the aim of gathering ammunition to defeat the point of view with which you may disagree.

It is in the interest of all North Americans that the well documented IQ gap between the populations classified as "white" and "black" be amenable to closing--by lifting the black IQ average to the white IQ average. The question before the debaters is whether such a closing of the gap is possible.

The topic is complex, with a long history that documents less than laudable actions and beliefs. Yet it is of vital importance that the issue be faced, rather than sidestepped, or glibly explained away. The disturbing tendency of ideological groups to attempt to influence what can be studied within science should be discontinued.

Also, see this recent Steve Sailer commentary on a recent NYT article on the Flynn effect.


Readers of Al Fin will understand that the quest for the Next Level involves raising the average intelligence of all persons to unprecedented levels. In the search for ways to do this, it is likely that there will be genetic "borrowing" from persons of all racial classifications. East Asian populations test higher on average on IQ tests than European populations, who test higher than Arab or SubSaharan African populations. There is no doubt that genetics is involved in these differences, even though environmental factors are likely also at work.

So to improve the intelligence of human populations across the board, genetic therapies will need to find more global optima, where currently it is local optima that determine population IQ differences.

I will not comment on either Flynn or Murray in this post, in the hopes that most readers will listen to both authors and thinkers with an open mind., Please do not comment on either debater unless you have listened to his full presentation above.