Was the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study Abhorrent or Just Controversial?

The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (MTRAS) has been a source of enduring controversy due to its goal of addressing genetic and environmental explanations of Black-White IQ differences. The study followed the intellectual development of 130 Black and interracial children adopted into relatively advantaged White households. However, contrary to the initial interpretations of its original researchers, MTRAS became a tool for hereditarian racial ideologies. Its findings were appropriated and publicized by figures associated with racist research agendas, such as J. Philippe Rushton. We contend that the design of MTRAS was never capable of achieving its most ambitious scientific aims and, as a result, unintentionally contributed to a body of speculative literature that leveraged its inconclusive findings to support harmful discriminatory ideologies. To the extent that MTRAS was both limited in scientific value and potentially harmful, this paper examines the question: was MTRAS abhorrent race science?