Race differences in brain size and IQ, along with those in testosterone, have important implications for social behavior.
Over the years egalitarians have questioned the taxonomic classification of race in terms of its empirical value and utility. Notwithstanding these criticisms which seek to undermine the legitimacy of race as a scientific concept, the answer to the question posed in the title of this paper is “yes.” If the concept of race didn’t exist, science would have to invent it (and did)! Race is a valid taxonomic construct because it allows us to make predictions about people’s behavior, especially at the group level.
In science, a concept is useful if it groups facts so that general laws and conclusions can be drawn from them. Predictions can be made using the taxonomic category of race because, on average, the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are similar to each other and different from White Americans, Germans, and Russians, who are similar to each other and different from Black Americans, Haitians, and sub-Saharan Africans. Predictability is the criterion by which the value of a hypothetical construct like race is evaluated. As I will show, race is highly predictive.
For the past 20 years my research has focused on differences between the three major races, commonly termed Orientals (East Asians, Mongoloids), Whites (Europeans, Caucasoids), and Blacks (Africans,Negroids). Roughly speaking, Orientals are those who have most of theirancestors from East Asia. Whites have most of their ancestors fromEurope. And Blacks have most of their ancestors from sub-SaharanAfrica. In the main, I have not addressed the many other groups outsideof these three major races, or sub-groups within the three major races,though they are of interest as well.
What I’ve found is thatin brain size, intelligence, temperament, sexual behavior, fertility,growth rate, life span, crime, and family stability, Orientals, as agroup, consistently fall at one end of the spectrum, Blacks fall at theother end, and Whites fall in between. On average, Orientals are slowerto mature, less fertile, and less sexually active, and have largerbrains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the opposite end in each ofthese areas. Whites fall in the middle, often close to Orientals