3.5: “Racial Hierarchies” Online

No credible anthropological or genetic evidence supports claims that Black people are inherently less intelligent than white people (Saini, 2019). Yet the internet is flooded with assertions of “racial IQ hierarchies,” usually based on misinterpreted or decontextualized IQ data. Such claims ignore overwhelming evidence that environmental factors—education, wealth, nutrition, exposure to discrimination, and community resources—play far greater roles in cognitive outcomes than genetics (Nisbett et al., 2012).

Journalist Loretta Charlton, former race editor at The New York Times, summarizes the scientific consensus:

“Most scientists believe that differences in human IQ are not genetic but environmental. Wealth, access to education, nutrition, and the racial climate in society—white and Black people grow up in vastly different environments. Ignoring these factors means ignoring the truth.” (Charlton, 2017)

Anthropologist Jonathan Marks argues in Is Science Racist? that race is not a biological constant but a social classification system shaped by history, power, and inequality. Using racial categories to claim innate differences, he writes, is “scientifically indefensible and morally bankrupt” (Marks, 2017). Yet each time public debates arise over immigration, schooling, or policing, online pseudoscientific “race studies” reappear, repackaged as legitimate research.

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