ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the history of the notion that human races have different genetically determined levels of intelligence. It examines twentieth-century scientific debates among anthropologists, psychologists, and geneticists concerning the purported association of race and intelligence. Compulsory sterilization would become the weapon of choice for politically and economically powerful entities to apply the progressive, scientific principles of negative eugenics to improve the quality of the American population. Individuals, races, or nations of low intelligence could expect to be dominated by those with high intelligence, and an individual could not expect to rise above the level of achievement indicated by his or her IQ. In spite of the administrative problems and cultural bias of these early intelligence tests, the results were interpreted at the time as providing an accurate measure of innate intelligence, and the ethnic and racial differences in average IQ were considered to be real, substantial, and innate.
