Suitability for study

Some scholars have expressed the view that the study of race differences in intelligence is meaningless, unethical or both. This is an on-going debate with proponents and opponents of this view making statements in the academic literature in support of their respective positions.^[1][2]
For example, according to Robert Sternberg and colleagues^[6], intelligence (often approximated using IQ) is not a well defined construct, and IQ tests do not provide definitive measures of intelligence. They argue that race and ethnicity are socially defined groups—rather than biological observations—whose membership is not homogeneous; races and ethnicities are often defined by affiliation with very large geographical areas (Asian) or common language (Hispanic). For these reasons, they conclude that discussions of correlations between race and intelligence which extrapolate a genetic causation are fundamentally flawed.
In another example, Richard E. Nisbett^[8] and James Flynn^{[9][citation needed]}, who each believe that the available evidence favors an entirely environmental explanation for differences in test scores between blacks and whites, nonetheless reject the argument that studying these differences is meaningless and also reject the argument that the research is unethical. Rather, each has endorsed the view that the cause of group differences can be resolved with empirical study. Flynn gives particular credit to Arthur Jensen for stimulating more rigorous research on the topic.^[10]