All the reasons Rushton was wrong, in one post

Some people have claimed that critics of the work of infamous race scientist J. Philippe Rushton can't point to any methodological issues in his work, and instead must attack it simply for being "politically incorrect", "racist", etc. These arguments have even been made by people who really ought to know better. When you see someone make this claim, point them to this post, which compiles all peer-reviewed critiques of his methodology.

Racial differences in things like criminality and maturation rates may not even exist as Rushton claimed:
Gorey & Cryns 1995

Rushton misused r/k selection theory:
Anderson 1991
Weizmann et al. 1990
See esp. this quote from Weizmann et al. (1990) on page 3: "...it is precisely this extended and oversimplified version of the r/K model, with its rigid specification of traits, that has been embodied in Differential K theory." This comes after them noting that the more sweeping and extended versions of the r/k selection model have been criticized extensively by some researchers.
Graves 2002
Zuckerman 1990 (full text available for free at this link) See p. 60 (of the book): "...Rushton's theory is contrary to the evolutionary theory on which he bases his conclusions..."
Also, there are inherent issues in using the r/k model, which is supposed to apply to between-species differences, to explain within-species differences:
Fairchild 1991

Rushton is wrong about crime:
Gabor & Roberts 1990
Cernovsky & Litman 1993
Neapolitan 1998
Lynch 2000

Rushton is wrong about brain size:
Cernovsky 1990
Cernovsky 1991
Cain & Vanderwolf 1990
Willerman 1991

And also about sexual behavior:
Lynn 1989a
Lynn 1989b
Zuckerman & Brody 1988 
Cunningham & Barbee 1991
Note this quote from Zuckerman & Brody's abstract: "Data on sexual behavior is based on small and unrepresentative samples of blacks. Sizes of heads and genitals are compared with no obvious connection to the primary issue of biological fertility strategies. Everything is assumed to be on a primarily genetic basis although sexual mores have shown remarkable changes in a single generation."

LOL, he's even wrong about being censored by the "politically correct" establishment in academia!


He's also been caught misrepresenting and selectively citing sources: 
Weizmann et al. 1989
Cernovsky 1995: See p. 673: "...Rushton (1990a, 1990b, 1990c) also repeatedly misrepresented findings by Beals, Smith, and Dodd (1984) on cranial capacity." And at the bottom of the same page: "Rushton (1990a, 1990c, 1991) also misrepresents the evidence for racial differences in brain/body size ratio."
See also Fairchild 1991, p. 106, where he notes that Rushton is guilty of "repeated misrepresentations" of his cited sources.

Examples of Rushton misrepresenting sources include him citing the work of Tobias (1970) without mentioning his caveats regarding the validity of his own data (Fairchild 1991, p. 106-7; Weizmann et al. 1990, p. 9). These caveats include "...equating subjects on age, sex, body size, cause of death, time since death, method of preservation, temperature, and the methods employed in removing and preparing the brain. In addition, brain development is plastic, and brain size may be affected by early environmental factors. Because of all these difficulties, Tobias (1970) concluded that no adequate racial comparative studies had actually been conducted" (Weizmann et al. 1990, p. 9).

He also falsely claimed that papers by Ho et al. supported his claims of genetically determined race differences in brain size--they do not. In fact, Ho et al.'s reviews of their own research concluded that environmental factors best explained race differences in adult brain size (Fairchild 1991, p. 107).

He also inappropriately aggregated data on disparate populations:
Lieberman 2001
Cernovsky 1993

He also used unreliable sources:
Here, for instance, is what Weizmann et al. (1990, p. 8) write about a paper Rushton co-authored in 1987 (Rushton & Bogaert 1987): "One of the major sources for their conclusions is an alleged report of an anonymous French Army surgeon (1896), a curious source for reliable data." Weizmann et al. continue by writing that: "While Rushton and Bogaert (1987; Rushton, 1988a) describe the work as an example of the "ethnographic record," it might more accurately be described as an example of nineteenth century "anthroporn."...This work is filled with internal contradictions." And later on the same page: "It should be noted that the French Army surgeon (1896) is not an unimportant source. It is Rushton's (Rushton, 1988a; Rushton & Bogaert, 1987) only source for the "data" on racial differences in clitoral size and on the placement of female genitalia. It is also the only source which contains comparative "data" on male genitalia from all three racial groups, and the only source (e.g., Rushton, 1988a) at all for data on erectile "angle and texture" ("Orientals parallel to body and stiff, blacks at right angles and flexible." p. 1015)."
Weizmann et al. 1991 (p. 7) also make this point about another one of the sources cited in the same paper: "This is an article by P. Nobile (1982) which is identified in their bibliography as an article which appeared in Forum: International Journal of Human Relations. Professor Vidmar's colleague, Michael Atkinson, could find no library listing of this journal (nor could we), but he finally tracked it down. As Professor Vidmar writes: "it is more commonly known as the Penthouse Forum, and can be purchased from the covered display rack at your neighborhood Mac's Milk Store (Vidmar, 1990).""
Cernovsky 1994 criticizes Rushton's theory for being based on "weak trends in excessively suspect data sets", and also claims Rushton's work is based on "weak, biased, and unrepresentative data".
General failure to replicate results:
Peregrine, Ember & Ember 2003 
See also Neapolitan 1998 and Cernovsky & Litman 1993

And he defined his 3 main "races" inconsistently in different parts OF HIS OWN BOOK- I don't think people realize how big a deal this. It doesn't get much more dishonest than internal inconsistency in a blatant, desperate attempt to create the illusion of support for your theory. Specifically, Peregrine, Ember & Ember (2003) note that "...in Race, Evolution and Behavior, he says that Filipinos and Malays are “Mongoloid” and includes Malaysia along with the Philippines and Indonesia in comparing crime statistics but excludes all three from his analysis of cranial capacity; that the Indian subcontinent is “Caucasoid” but excludes 26 Indian samples from his analysis of cranial capacity; that Amerindians are “Mongoloid” but excludes 20 Latin American populations (especially Bolivian and Peruvian) on measures of cranial capacity; and includes the Caribbean in crime statistics but excludes Caribbean island states as “European/Negroid” mixtures for the purpose of comparing cranial capacity."

He is also wrong about twinning.

And about penis size:
Weizmann et al. 1990, p. 8: "Much of Rushton's other data (Rushton, 1988a; Rushton & Bogaert, 1987) on penis size relies heavily on studies based on Kinsey's data, which, as Zuckerman and Brody (1988) point out, can hardly be considered representative."

Environmental explanations make more sense than genetic ones:
Mealey 1990: "I concur with Rushton in the belief that different human groups utilize different strategies, but find the differential use of species-wide, environmentally contingent tactics a more parsimonious explanation than genetic differences."