Book Review: Race and IQ Again:
Abstract
Evolutionary Psychology human-nature.com/ep – 2005. 3: 255-262 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Book Review Race and IQ Again A review of Race: the Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele. Boulder Colorado: Westview Press, 2004. Mark Nathan Cohen, SUNY University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, SUNY Plattsburgh, NY 12901, USA. Email: Mark.cohen@Plattsburgh.edu. The ugly but apparently immortal snake of “scientific” racism--“proof” of Black intellectual inferiority--has reared its head again. The most recent entry is Race: the Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, and Frank Miele, senior editor with Skeptic magazine. The essence of the book is that despite much recent discussion to the contrary, races (the traditional three) are real and distinguished by cognition and morality as well as by physical differences. As usual the Black “race” finishes last. The authors begin by critiquing some pronouncements that have been made by people who oppose the idea of race. They follow with a discussion of the history and anthropology of “race” as a concept. Attempting to bolster the underpinnings of their own arguments they point out that awareness if color differences is as old as civilized art and that imputing