Kistler Prize
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2003 Recipient
Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology
University of California, Berkeley
 Dr.
Arthur R. Jensen, Professor Emeritus of educational psychology at the
University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2003 Kistler Prize
in recognition of his scientific research establishing the genetic
basis for individual difference in human intelligence.
Born in 1923,
Jensen was educated at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.),
San Diego State College (M.A.), and Columbia University (Ph.D.).
His postdoctoral research was completed at the University of London
with noted differential psychologist Hans J. Eysenck in the late 1950s.
Jensen became a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley,
in 1958, and Professor of educational psychology in 1966.
Dr.
Jensen first sparked significant controversy and protest in 1969 when
his article “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?” was
published in Harvard Educational Review. Among the empirically based
claims of the article, which has been cited extensively in scientific
and professional journals, was that individual differences in IQ result
for the most part from genetic differences, with much lesser impact
from environment. He provided further explication of the article’s
main issues in his books Educability and Group Differences (1973),
Bias in Mental Testing (1980), and Straight Talk about Mental Tests (1981). In addition, Jensen reported his ongoing research over the
years in some 400 book chapters and journal articles. Dr. Jensen’s
latest book, The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (1998), explains
the psychometric, statistical, genetic, and physiological bases of
g and provides refutations to all major challenges that have been brought
against the concept. He has come to regard g, which is a product of
genetics and human evolution, as one of the most central phenomena
in all of behavioral science.
 “In my opinion, a most desirable aim
for the immediate future [of humanity] is to promote strict priority
in recognizing the realities of individual differences, regardless
of group membership … A goal I have
long advocated is making public education much more radically diverse
in ways that will better accommodate the great diversity of individual
differences in the whole population, disregarding the current profusion
of group classifications.”
—From Dr. Jensen’s acceptance speech at the 2003 Kistler Prize Banquet
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