The misuse of life history theory: J. P. Rushton and the pseudoscience of racial hierarchy

The year 1994 saw the resurgence of psychometric theories of race and racial hierarchy with the publication of Herrnstein and Murrays The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. The Bell Curve provided no new analysis of the original psychometrician views on race and intelligence, which can be traced back to Sir Francis Galtons (1869) work in Hereditary Genius. The psychometrician program consists of the following elements: 1. General intelligence can be quantified by a single metric known as g. 2. Standardized tests can be utilized to measure g. 3. g is mostly genetically determined. 4. Races differ consistently in their performance on intelligence tests. 5. This difference must in part be due to the genetic differences between races. 6. Races of human being can be unambiguously defined by biological means.