Expression of Concern: Lynn, R. Reflections on Sixty-Eight Years of Research on Race and Intelligence. Psych, 2019, 1, 123–131

The Editorial Office of Psych issues the following Expression of Concern about the published paper: Reflections on Sixty-Eight Years of Research on Race and Intelligence [1].

We note that the article was originally published as an Editorial; however, the author is not affiliated with the publisher and the views are not intended to represent those of the journal Psych or the publisher MDPI. The article type has therefore been changed to Opinion.

We wish to highlight the following points that could lead to the biased interpretation of the research covered by [1]:

• There was no discussion of the correlation and causation, most notably between IQ and GDP. This has been an area of substantial discussion in the field, but this point is not sufficiently mentioned. Given the paper’s overall content, we believe this topic should have been given more prominence.
• Support is given in the article to several quotations expressing extreme views not widely considered as being supported by current research results. The people making these statements are clearly characterized as ‘victims’. While the author may sincerely hold such a point of view, we do not agree that a scientific journal is the correct place to express such opinions.
• The mainstream acceptance of the body of research presented has been over-stated. While there are a significant number of scholars who support the research, the topic remains controversial and not accepted by a large proportion of the research community.

We have re-evaluated the paper with the assistance of scholars in the field, the editor who accepted the paper for publication, and the author. Given that the author has a high profile in the field, we believe that [1] has value in providing an insight into the author’s own opinion of his research and the field as a whole. However, we recommend against using it as established fact, and that statements made in the article should be treated with skepticism.

The content of the paper covers a topic that is highly controversial and we acknowledge that the author has made contributions to the field over many years. As a publisher, MDPI does not wish to deliberately avoid controversial topics, but we believe that they should be presented in a scientific and balanced way.

MDPI remains committed to the addition of only high-quality and scientific research and discussion to the literature, and we are reviewing the process that led to the publication of [1].