William Saletan at Slate says the unsayable:
"Last month, James Watson, the legendary biologist, was condemned and forced into retirement after claiming that African intelligence wasn't 'the same as ours.' 'Racist, vicious and unsupported by science,' said the Federation of American Scientists. 'Utterly unsupported by scientific evidence,' declared the U.S. government's supervisor of genetic research. The New York Times told readers that when Watson implied 'that black Africans are less intelligent than whites, he hadn't a scientific leg to stand on.'
"I wish these assurances were true. They aren't."
Saletan goes on to offer a very short course on the science of racial difference, which I read with deepest wonder - not because anything in it comes as news to me, but because it's being said by a prominent liberal in a prominent liberal publication. Herewith a few particularly outrageous bits:
"It's time to prepare for the possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial averages on tests, will turn out not to be true...
"How could genes cause an IQ advantage? The simplest pathway is head size. I thought head measurement had been discredited as Eurocentric pseudoscience. I was wrong...
"Scientists have already identified genes that influence brain size and vary by continent...
"Nature isn't stupid. If Africans, Asians, and Europeans evolved different genes, the reason is that their respective genes were suited to their respective environments...
"In fact, there's a mountain of evidence that differential evolution has left each population with a balance of traits that could be advantageous or disadvantageous, depending on circumstances. The list of differences is long and intricate. On average, compared with whites, blacks mature more quickly in the womb, are born earlier, and develop teeth, strength, and dexterity earlier. They sit, crawl, walk, and dress themselves earlier. They reach sexual maturity faster, and they have better eyesight. On each of these measures, East Asians lag whites and blacks. In exchange, East Asians get longer lives and bigger brains...
"IQ tests do their job. They accurately predict the outcomes of black and white kids at finishing high school, staying employed, and avoiding poverty, welfare, or jail. They also accurately predict grades and job performance in modern Africa. The SAT, GRE, and tests in the private sector and the armed forces corroborate the racial patterns on IQ tests...
"When I look at all the data, studies, and arguments, I see a prima facie case for partial genetic influence..."
Etc. etc. etc.
I can't help wondering: why would Saletan risk this? Was it the destruction of Watson? Did that arouse his conscience?
Comments (14)
That is just ... dumbfounding. Not what is being said, but who is saying it. And where he is saying it.
Make sure to keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, and check that your seatbelts are securely fastened.
Posted by Zippy | November 19, 2007 7:37 PM
As I've always known .. being a average white guy ... Asians have always been smarter, just walk through the UCLA campus.
What do you think about this study if it ever became acknowledged truth, would the PC liberal guilt trip group push to impose more quotas etc. in our society?
Posted by GregGS | November 19, 2007 10:04 PM
While there may indeed be differences in the IQ of various races, the proferred explanantion in terms of evolution is laughable. We have to accept that in a continent as large as Africa, there isn't a sufficiency of challenging environments for natural selection to work its voodoo magic so that the unfit die and a race of intellectual supermen emerge. Yet at the same time; in a continent of comparable diversity the ancestral Orientals managed to hone their hunting, cooperative and child-rearing skills to such an extent that their descendants have much higher IQs now. As bedtime stories these are quite entertaining but a more cogent explanation for the poor scholastic attainments of blacks is the simpler one: the idiots are just plain lazy.
The notion has taken hold through popular books like those of Richard Feynman and any number of crappy TV serials that one doesn't need to work hard to master difficult subjects such as physics or English grammar. The student merely has to dance like an assclown while making fun of the teacher and the grades will pour in. The calculus for example was developed by geniuses over centuries. Is it too much to ask that students concentrate over long hours if they want to master it? This is the reason for the success of the Asians, they spend all their time in the libraries while their compatriots find better things to do. If their intelligence levels were truly out of this world, the intelligent Asians would have cured AIDS, dominated the book awards, given us a TOE, brought peace to the Middle East, anticipated the housing loan meltdown and freed us from dependence on petroleum. So far none of this has happened.
Posted by Ivan | November 20, 2007 1:21 AM
Coming from a line of high IQ individuals, I don't have difficulty seeing a genetical basis for IQ. From a similar line of data, I have no problem asserting that humanity is more complex than those wedded to a double predestination belief in IQ would like us to believe. This attraction also requires subscribing to the lie that we live in a meritocrasy and the lie that a meritocrasy is desirable.
Posted by M.Z. Forrest | November 20, 2007 10:47 AM
I think there is some truth to Ivan's observation. The "smart" Asians I have known spend three to four times the effort in studies, while others are out doing whatever. Even Asians recognize this - one of my Asian colleagues admits that Asians are not particularly bright, just extremely hard working.
But, at the same time, its silly to not recognize genetics has some influence, even if it is not be fully determinative. And it may be that there are upper limits our genes place on us, no matter how hard we work (just like not all of us will be able to run 4 minute miles, no matter how hard we
Posted by c matt | November 20, 2007 1:46 PM
...wedded to a double predestination belief in IQ would like us to believe...
I think it is important to acknowledge that this is just the sort of thing which in a materialist society can lead (and indeed in the past has led) from the frying pan into the fire, and that materialist race realism with all of its evolutionary just-so stories should not be held up as paradigmatically virtuous acceptance of the truth. But I think it is also important to accept the truth, and the truth is that groups differ statistically in ways that matter which are not amenable to reconstruction through imposed government policy. Statistical realities of groups don't constitute individual predestination of any sort, and criticism of "materialist race realism" on that basis - as "double predestination" - misses the mark in my view: that is, the problem is the materialism, not acceptance of natural facts about group differences. At bottom that is what this thread was all about. The only reason to be terrified of the implications of race realism is if race realism dehumanizes some people and superhumanizes others.
But then, that is just what materialism does in itself, independent of facts about group differences. If every person has an inherent dignity which cannot be destroyed or ignored then the fact that people differ, and those differences include unchosen differences such as race, and those unchosen differences have an impact that matters when it comes to one's vocation and state in life, is not threatening. That is, it isn't threatening unless we believe in the liberal autonomy theory which has it that each person is fully human to the extent he creates himself according to unfettered reason and will. If you don't believe in the equally emancipated superman though then you don't have to believe in the untermensch.
Posted by Zippy | November 20, 2007 2:26 PM
I have just read on VFR that some public schools that have tried to create a more disciplined atmosphere have been threatened with lawsuits if they were disciplining or expelling blacks (usually males) proportionately more frequently than whites. This is perhaps not surprising, but is the sort of self-defeating craziness you get from liberals. On the one hand, they claim education is the answer. But on the other hand, the conditions for education must not include any statistically different treatment, even well-deserved discipline, for different racial groups. That insane requirement defeats the attempt to educate, because in inner-city schools it is chiefly black students who want to learn who suffer when "disparate impact" is used in this way to encourage the coddling of the unruly.
Posted by Lydia | November 20, 2007 5:10 PM
there may indeed be differences in the IQ of various races, the proferred explanantion in terms of evolution is laughable. We have to accept that in a continent as large as Africa, there isn't a sufficiency of challenging environments for natural selection to work its voodoo magic so that the unfit die and a race of intellectual supermen emerge.
No one claims that no matter environment, selection is for intellect.
It is quite possible that environment in West Africa is such that powerful, fast, high jumping males have advantage. Perhaps selection there was for future NBA stars.
In East Arica for whatever reason selection was for skinny long distance runners.
in a continent of comparable diversity the ancestral Orientals managed to hone their hunting, cooperative and child-rearing skills to such an extent that their descendants have much higher IQs now.
Nonsense. Google before spouting.
Peoples in Asia range from the highest average IQ of 107 for Hong Kong, S Korea 105 and Japan 104 to below average Thailand's 91 and Indoneasia's 89, to horrible Phillipines 86 and India's 81(!).
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations for more.
Posted by mik_infidelos | November 20, 2007 10:07 PM
The "smart" Asians I have known spend three to four times the effort in studies, while others are out doing whatever. Even Asians recognize this - one of my Asian colleagues admits that Asians are not particularly bright, just extremely hard working.
That just proves it. Are you planning to publish your studies of Asian IQ?
Posted by mik_infidelos | November 20, 2007 10:22 PM
Here is Saletan's final installment
http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178125/
Being a good liberal Saletan concludes
that this recently-assimilated information merely provides a further basis for even more comprehensive interventions of the sort he already favored, now extended to the very genes, of, apparently, all the world's people. Note the rather ominous use of the word "we". So, nothing has changed, not really.
Here we see that diversity is so wonderful that the only answer to it is the end of diversity. "We" must do it.
Larry Auster (as usual) has some apt commentary on this.
Posted by Cyrus | November 21, 2007 10:07 AM
But we are endowed by our Creator with the ideal of equality, and the intelligence to finish the job.
The ubermensch is dead; long live the ubermensch!
Posted by Zippy | November 21, 2007 10:45 AM
some public schools that have tried to create a more disciplined atmosphere have been threatened with lawsuits if they were disciplining or expelling blacks (usually males) proportionately more frequently than whites. This is perhaps not surprising, but is the sort of self-defeating craziness you get from liberals. On the one hand, they claim education is the answer. But on the other hand, the conditions for education must not include any statistically different treatment, even well-deserved discipline, for different racial groups.
You assume, as a default, that liberal groups have in mind as a first priority interests of groups they allegedly lobby for. Feminists are for women, Gay lobby is for gays, etc.
It is a wrong assumption as those groups show time and time again.
Feminists did not have problems with Clinton and accusation of rape and abuse of young female subordinates, gay groups have large problem with Bush than with Little Hitler from Iran that executes gays.
First and foremost liberal groups work for distruction of Judeo-Christian Capitalist Democratic West. All other declared objectives are remote second.
Posted by mik_infidelos | November 21, 2007 12:23 PM
If Saletan actually understood what the Declaration of Independence means by human equality, he would not need to be quite so worried about racial variation in IQ scores (though genetic engineering might someday create a real ubermensch that seriously undermines the case for natural political equality).
Posted by Perseus | November 21, 2007 11:20 PM
I think the difference between whites and North Asians is a bit overstated. Most of the North Asians that have been tested were tested in the U.S., and they are the cream of the crop. If you look at actual IQ tests among the various populations in North Asia, the average is lower.
Regardless, there is a marked difference between whites and blacks/mestizos/south asians.
_IQ and the Wealth of Nations_
Average IQ by Nation
Nigeria 67
India: 81
UK: 100
China: 100
..
Posted by David | November 27, 2007 7:29 AM