ABSTRACT
The Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton affairs are only two of the many cases in which research on racial differences, particularly as to IQ and cognitive abilities, has met with opposition by individuals or groups convinced that all inquiries into some differences are motivated by racism and are intended to do them damage. By the mid-1960s, just when heredity was turning into a dirty word in psychology, it was becoming well established among knowledgeable researchers that genetics played a significant part in the differences in IQ scores within any given population. By a roundabout route, via the University of California-Berkeley and Columbia University, Jensen found his calling in psychology. Like most other young psychologists in the 1950s, his orientation was behaviorist and environmental; he was a political liberal who opposed the Vietnam War, was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and harbored a deep wish to serve his fellow human beings.
