Inadequate Evidence and Illogical Conclusions

Abstract

Professor Kagan is critical of the logic of Dr. Jensen's article and presents evidence that any IQ data collected in the standardized manner may not reflect the actual potential of lower class children. In Kagan's opinion, Jensen's major fallacies are(I) his inappropriate generalization from within-family IQ differences to an argument that separate racial gene pools are necessarily different and (2) his conclusion that IQ differences are genetically determined, although he glosses over evidence of strong environmental influences on tested IQ—even between identical twins. Kagan cites new studies which suggest that part of the perceived intellectual inadequacy of lower class children may derive from a style of mother-child interaction that gives the lower class child less intense exposure to maternal intervention. Finally, Kagan argues, present compensatory education programs have been neither adequately developed nor evaluated. We cannot, therefore, use current evaluations of them to dismiss all possible compensatory programs.