Have You Heard #206 Race Science is Back. It Never Went Away.
Oct 16, 2025
Quinn Slobodian, a historian and Boston University professor, dives into the resurgence of race science and its political roots. He reveals how the fixation on IQ mirrors historical social upheavals, linking modern arguments to the 1970s and 1990s. Slobodian discusses the damaging implications of these ideas for public education and civil rights. He also examines how rhetoric around genetic determinism resurfaces as a backlash against social progress and explores the unlikely coalitions pushing for privatization in education. A thought-provoking conversation!
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IQ Recast As Meritocratic Proof
- Richard Herrnstein's 1971 Atlantic article re-centered IQ as a measure of moral and economic worth.
- Quinn Slobodian says the piece framed equality as obstructing 'meritocracy' and fueled a New Right backlash.
Murray Normalized Hereditarian IQ Talk
- Charles Murray absorbed hereditarian IQ ideas in the late 1980s and popularized them.
- Quinn explains Murray's embrace of heritable IQ helped normalize race science into mainstream debate.
The Bell Curve Lowered The Taboo
- The Bell Curve (1994) acted as a taboo-breaking moment that comforted scientific racists.
- Quinn says its publication allowed formerly censured claims about race and IQ to surface in mainstream forums.
