Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence) [Hardcover]

Michael Levin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0275957896 | ISBN-13: 978-0275957896 | Publication Date: November 1997

Opposing the denial of race differences and the claim that they do not matter anyway, Michael Levin explains why these differences do matter. He summarizes what has been written about the differences in intelligence and temperament, and, more important, explores their larger significance. Finding significant genetic difference between races, Levin unflinchingly considers the broad social and philosophical implications of these variations. No one making an effort to think clearly about race can ignore Why Race Matters.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

MICHAEL LEVIN is Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Praeger Publishers (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275957896
• ISBN-13: 978-0275957896
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,584,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

101 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An integral approach to the race issue, June 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence) (Hardcover)

The true virtue of this book, besides its candor, is its careful analysis of all aspects of racial difference. Some books focus solely on the facts regarding racial differences in intelligence without presenting evidence detailing the effects these differences have on lived social reality. The fact that blacks do not on average possess the same level of intelligence as whites or Asians is so well established by extensive documentation in statistical analysis, recorded social phenomena, and the empirical witness of experience that the burden of proof clearly rests on egalitarians. Levin wisely does not reinvent the wheel, but instead provides a masterly summary of the evidence and moves on to a much more controversial, but equally well-grounded conclusion: that intelligence does not just predict test scores, academic grades and career attainment, but it also has important implications for personality traits and moral codes. Our moral choices, and the standards of morality in our culture, are dictated by many factors which depend upon intelligence. As Levin argues, intelligence has a clear relationship with the ability to make abstract plans for the future. Such traits as honesty, which are central to our cultural norms of morality, are directly correlated with our ability to plan. Everyone knows that in every interpersonal exchange which involves trust, such as the sale of goods and the provision of services, the person who acts dishonestly can usually achieve a short term advantage through deception or violence. Intelligent persons, who have a correspondingly abstract and longer-term grasp of social interaction, will normally choose honesty - a response which will facilitate continued interactions, and thus mutually beneficial transactions. A less intelligent person will be more inclined to assault, steal, rob or kill because they have a correspondingly shorter-term conception of the relationship between effort and reward. All the social programs in the world, except perhaps negative reinforcement utilizing physical sanctions, will never extend the internal time-horizon of the less intelligent and therefore will never significantly alter their behavior. Levin further argues that if attenuated intelligence contributes largely to economic failure and antisocial behavior, it is unjust, dishonest and immoral to blame those of higher intelligence, to redistribute their life opportunities to others unqualified to undertake them, and to submit more intelligent groups to exorbitant financial sacrifice and moral opprobrium. This is where Levin departs from the dry scientism of Jensen and the minimalist social analysis of Herrnstein and Murray - it is also where his work provides its most important contribution. The expensive and oppressive web of lies, lawsuits, disabilities, animosity and guilt perpetuated by the advocates of the egalitarian fairy-tale are logically and irrefutably exposed here as irrational and immoral. Every one of the objections raised against Prof. Levin's thesis, on this website or elsewhere, is addressed and refuted in this remarkable volume. Buy it, read it, and ask yourself why our government, our media and our universities are afraid to answer his arguments except by insult and evasion.

103 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars READ THIS BOOK, it will open your mind, October 5, 2000

By 

B. Lynch "the_onewhoknows" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence) (Hardcover)

The subject of race, the role of intelligence, and the differences that exist between racial groups in their intellectual capacity have been a major source of friction for most of America's national history.

Levin may not be politically popular in some circles, but his book proves the old adage tht "There is nothing as immovable nor as powerful as the truth." Even when the truth may be unpleasant.

While much of this book is taken up with statistical tables and analysis therof, it illustrates the painstaking care that Levin has gone to in an effort to establish his major thesis.

In a nutshell (to borrow a cliche), Levin's thesis is that America is not a land of racists and white supremacists who have colluded to suppress other groups or deny them equal opportunity. Rather, Americans have not faced up to the fact that in a nation and era when one's ability to prosper is increasingly tied to intelligence and mental abilities, the mental differnces between racial groups are major determinants of well being (to no less an extent than physical abilities are in atheletics).

Levin concludes, with a huge amount of scientific data to back hjim up, that black failure is almost entirely due to genetic factors tht cause blacks to be less intelligent than whites. Moreover, he notes that whites are in danger of being displaced by Chinese and other Asians if they persist in dysgenic breeding (where the most educated and inelligent whites have children at below reproduction rates, while the breeding of less intelligent ones is heavily subsidized by government programs).

Levin makes a very forceful case against affirmative action and other racial preference programs, noting that they are immoral (they give some people benefits which others must earn), and they distort society economically, and in other ways as well. He further notes that those most hurt are blacks who come to believe that they are all victims of a huge whiche racial conspiracy, and therefore have false hopes rased by politicians who promise to advance them by creating special preference programs. Levin shows that blacks fail in America because of their genetics, not white attitudes.

WHile this book is politically incorrect, the facts make it essential reading, and show why three decades of black preference programs have done nothing to elevate black people.

65 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Persuasive refutation of egalitarianism, September 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence) (Hardcover)

Michael Levin here refutes egalitarian/environmentalist dogma by showing unequivocally that the black/white IQ gap(Blacks in America have an IQ of 85 versus 100 for Whites) is mostly genetic in origin.He mention 7 arguments for a genetic cause of the black/white difference:

1)the high interindividual heritability of IQ and personality 2)the early appearance of race differences in IQ 3)The physiological racedifferences(in for exampel brain size) 4) Transracial adoptionstudies (which shows little IQgain for adopted black children in prosperous white homes) 5) Failure of Intervention to raise black IQ 6)That many other minorities who have been "discriminated" (such as jews and chinese)have in fact higher( not lower) IQ than non-jewish whites 7) the VERY low IQ of african blacks and their non-existent cultural achievements.

Adding it all together Levin makes a very strong case for a genetic cause of black/white IQdifferences.

Even though Why Race Matters alone makes a very persuasive case for a genetic explanation of the Black/White IQ gap it should be complemented with Philippe Rushton's Race, Evolution and Behaviour who gives a very persuasive evolutionary explanation of why genetic racedifferences in IQ(and other things) have arisen.