I wouldn't mind the idea of not engaging so in the relevant research if our society weren't so race-centered. Racial ideology is crammed down our throats every single day, people are watched like hawks for potential wrongthink, demographics in companies are constantly monitored, we have to go through years of learning about racial grievances in school (especially if we go into the social sciences, but even if we don't)...
I bet Matt doesn't argue for putting the same level of taboo on critical race theory, arguments for affirmative action, arguments against freedom of association, and other racial narrative-building though. It's a one-sided taboo only towards the responsive argument (and to the question that is the most politically salient one of our time).
It's a cop-out meant to protect his political side from meaningful criticism about their poor reasoning and blood feud attempts.
I look at it this way. Supposed or real differences in statistical averages between arbitrarily defined "races" has in the past been used as a supposedly objective reason to make decisions about individual members of these "races." Although much less today, it is not unreasonable to suspect that some echoes of this remain in attitudes and decision-making of some people.
Consequently, when someone pops up insisting that that it is important to take note of these statistical differences without specifying why and to what purposed, you have to scratch your head. People usually do things for a reason. It the statistical differences noticers supply no other reason, one is left wondering if it is not to reinforce making decisions about individuals on the basis of their membership in "races."
If that is not one's reason and one has no other reason, a "Taboo" on idle talk about "race" differences makes sense.
Religion, ethnic group, nationality all work the same way.
This response entirely ignores the mirror image of this critique in minority groups advancing conspiratorial notions of white privilege and the like. Leaving that aside, let us not forget that conservatives averred the same position as ylesias and lost the cultural debate on this issue continually. Empirically, the debate falls into hereditarian and anti-hereditarian stances, suggesting this is the oppositional equilibrium of the debate in the current game. I suggest that the only way the yglesias strategy would work requires something like what happened in the 60s - everyone knows the group differences are real but agrees not to talk about them. Unfortunately, subsequent generations are not privy to this original info, and we get the oppositional debate once more. The "right" thing to do in this context is not so clear.
Honestly, I think the real politik justification would be that the client groups of the progressive coalition would make weaker class enemies for the center-left because they possess less human capital than the Right. Hence, yglesias and co prefer them. That's not to say that progressives think in such a machiavellian manner, but the constraints in the game keep them in that equilibrium.
It's already been justified at length imo, but if you don't think it has, you can see my other comments on this post. Basically the social sciences are overcome with racial narratives already. I don't know how long it's been since you've been in school/academia, or where you went, but in many places the narratives consume even tangetially related subjects.
They decline to talk about it because they know the answer already and they don't like it. If they really believed that better tests, a few computers, and having a positive attitude would fix things, they would do those themselves regardless of what other people did and it would happen. But they know that this won't work and dare not think through the consequences, because then they would no longer see themselves as rescuers. They need that belief about themselves.
I never bring the topic up myself, but practical consequences, like changes in curriculum or hiring, come up so often that I respond.
"...because then they would no longer see themselves as rescuers. They need that belief about themselves."
And this points clearly toward a central irony: those who see themselves as rescuers or protectors by logical inference must also see themselves as *superior*, since they are able to solve problems that the objects of their assistance cannot solve, themselves.
I largely agree with your conclusions. Matt’s argument is trying rationalize intellectual cowardice because he knows that he is wrong but admitting this will unravel his entire world view that makes him feel like a moral person.
What is often missed is how easily these “thoughtful” Center-Leftists can be manipulated by the Woke and Critical theorists. They know that the Center Left is being dishonest and this makes them open to being forced to choose between being called a racist and endorsing Leftist views on race, gender, etc. This social taboo against an honest discussion on the causes of inequality is central to making Cancel culture work.
Consider how absurd the current situation is: intellectuals, whose vocations are to increase knowledge and inform the public, are completely ok with taboos against thinking about a certain topic too much. This isn’t a topic that has no relevance, but instead is possibly the most important topic for many nations with rapidly changing racial demographics. People like Matthew Yglesias are actively negating the value they bring to society and also harming their own reputations as truth seekers by their deliberate ignorance.
Right. It's quite bizarre. He not only imposes ignorance on himself, but also he seems to brag about it, as if it were some manifestation of his sterling moral character. Of course, he would have nothing but contempt for a creationist who actively promoted a taboo against studying evolution.
As I once tweeted: I have more respect for people who claim hereditarians are "racist" than for those who claim the question "isn't interesting". Whether genes contribute to group differences in IQ is probably the most interesting question in the social sciences.
Reading about this reminded me of a documentary series that covered the concept of race several years ago, in which the producer also noticed that people's lack of interest seemed ideologically motivated. Worth watching.
Bo, excellent analysis of the taboo, espoused by Yglesias and his ilk. There should be no taboo on any question...all should be asked and pursued. Knowledge is the goal.
"At present, the best-supported answers suggest that differences in key traits—such as IQ and self-control—likely account for much of the observed racial disparities, while the role of racism appears comparatively limited. These differences are, in all probability, partly genetic in origin and resistant to meaningful intervention."
I would postulate that it is mostly 'genetic in origin'.
"All should be asked and pursued" is simply your own value judgement. A society has many goals, and it is perfectly understandable that a society would want to avoid certain questions if there are very real potential consequences.
Would you endorse research on the production of highly deadly viruses that could be produced in very low budget laboratories? Surely you must draw a line somewhere.
Endorsement denotes *favoring* the entity that you endorse. Condemnation is the opposite. But there is also simply toleration, which is neither endorsement or condemnation.
When you frame the question as you have, it seems like you're looking to align yourself on the "right" side.
For me: no lines drawn. I'd endorse little and condemn nothing.
I see your point about the false binary as valid. I would also agree that many people (perhaps even myself) frame the question in a way that announces to the world that we are "on the right side".
But if we frame this not as a moral issue about which "side" is right, and instead in purely utilitarian terms, would it not make sense for society to construct taboos on research where the cost-benefit analysis suggests we should?
Yes, I think it could be honestly examined from a utilitarian viewpoint. There might indeed be situations where external controls of some type might be imposed, but I get real nervous going down that path because it can be incrementally (and covertly) abused
I reacted against the wording, Patrick. It got to me.
"Would you endorse research on the production of highly deadly viruses that could be produced in very low budget laboratories? "
Absolutely! It is not the knowledge that is harmful, but what is done with it.
"Surely you must draw a line somewhere."
Now you are espousing your value judgment. Who is to decide what research is ok? There are two types of speech: free and controlled. You are either free or you're not.
I am espousing my value judgement. My value judgement just happens to align more with society's. That doesn't make it more correct, I admit.
Your free or not dichotomy is nothing but a false one. We will always have socially enforced norms and boundaries, no matter how hard we try to remove them. What is peer review, quality control, critical reviews other than a form of boundaries? It is natural. I see nothing wrong with society enforcing boundaries on research questions if the potential gains are minimal and the potential consequences are high.
Your claim that knowledge is not harmful is just semantics nonsense. "An easily detonated nuclear bomb placed in the center of a suicide ward is not harmful, it is the people who are going to detonate it that are harmful"! Thanks, how reassuring.
"I see nothing wrong with society enforcing boundaries on research questions if the potential gains are minimal and the potential consequences are high."
So, you will survey the ignorant public to determine what research is allowed?
"An easy easily detonated nuclear bomb placed in the center of a suicide ward is not harmful, it's the people who are going to detonate it that are harmful"!
We could survey the public, we could survey the experts, we could let the norms evolve naturally. Why shouldn't we survey the public? The Japanese "ignorant public" were the ones who faced the consequences of research on nuclear bombs. Should the "ignorant public" have no say in the elite funded research that could have serious consequences on their lives? If you do not trust directly surveying the ignorant public, then we can leave it to the well informed elites to act in the ignorant public's interest.
My nuclear bomb in a suicide ward is related to research because researchers are the ones part of the process that places the dangerous technology in the hands of an "ignorant public" full of people more than eager to abuse the technology.
Your claim that there is nothing wrong with research how to create a cheaply produced supervirus (or other clearly dangerous subjects) is either you being stubborn or you just not caring about the fate of humanity. We could either trust that every one of the billions of humans alive will follow the rules, or we can prevent the research. Which of these paths should a resource-limited society take?
You ignore the very real damage being done by avoiding the question. Is harm not harm if it's done to Europeans or Asians? People will continue with woke ideology, endlessly attributing disparaties to past or present discrimination if this is avoided.
We live in a society that already has racial ideologies, and which already hurts people. If you don't work in or study the social sciences, you may not know how bad it's gotten in terms of constant racial ideologies (and how poor a lot of their evidence is). It's just a question of whether people will allow themselves to be meaningfully countered.
This research is responsive, not proactive. If the research were on, say, IQ and eye color or nose shape, it would be a bit more pointless because demands aren't being made on those fronts. But society is already divided and studied among racial demographic groups. Refusing to address that is just kneecapping people's ability to defend themselves from potential harm to themselves, their children, and their societies.
So, to answer your question, if there already were a potentially deadly virus out and about (the real situation), and we'd have to work with it to create vaccines even though the research may have consequences... We should still, of course carefully, pursue that science.
Your "answer" does nothing to cure the "harm". You can throw as much science and evidence at the woke, and they won't care. As long as the disparities exist, they will want to tear everything down. This is also perfectly expected given human nature. Racial animosity is in our DNA, and disparities between ethnicities will always garner animosity. How could it not.
Knowing the scientific explanation is not an antidote. You have brushed off the potential harms, which is increased animosity and demoralization, based on an irrational belief that we can solve an age old problem with science and evidence when the real problem is ingrained in human psychology.
"Racial animosity is in our DNA, and disparities between ethnicities will always garner animosity. How could it not."
And yet very, very gradually this murderous genetically based animosity is attenuating. The direction is clear, to me at least. Besides being illiterate in their own language, none of my grandparents had ever *seen* a black person or Asian before coning to US in the early 1900s. Two generations later and I'm married to a woman of east Asian decent, we have a mixed race daughter, and her boyfriend is some kind of octaroon, I suppose.
It's not a linear process--there are many backward drifts, like right now--and it would be wrong, I think, to call it "progress". It is simply evolution at work in an increasingly cosmopolitan human population.
It's simple: we're either going to make it, or we won't. Suppression will only delay the ultimate outcome, if it even has that much effect.
I agree that it is attenuating. Your personal story (thank you for sharing), as well as the survey data on attitudes towards mixed race marriages, is a clear indicator.
You say you wouldn't call it progress, but rather evolution (avoiding adding any valence). But if such a trend were to decrease human conflict, and increase human happiness by increasing our community of potential friends and partners, is that not a positive human development?
"But if such a trend were to decrease human conflict, and increase human happiness by increasing our community of potential friends and partners, is that not a positive human development?"
Yes, but again I get nervous because agreeing invites the next step to be externally coerced policies to associate that basically shove the attenuation backward.
One last anecdotal observation. Take it or leave it...whatever.
I went to college in the late 60s. One of my roommates was black; we lived together 2 years. Thru him I met many other blacks, some in college, some not. To a moderate degree I socialized at mixed race gatherings back then.
It was very much more relaxed and to a degree more trusting. It was as if yep, we can see that we're similar in some ways ad different in some ways, and we'll accept that as basically unchangeable. Now, after that, if we still like each other enough, we'll continue to socialize. here was even good-natured racial joking. The important thing was that everything was natural and nothing was forced.
I voted for Obama in 2008, but did not vote in 2012. I was bitterly disappointed that he seemed, to me, to *identify and separate* by race/group. In my opinion, doing this set the attenuation process back at least 20 years, and likely more.
But these are just my opinions, so take them as that.
I think that there's a nuance to the perceived *cognitive* disparities between the races--and for this discussion I include sub-Saharan African, Caucasian, and E Asians. I view Dravidians and Ashkenazi Jews as subsets of the larger Caucasian phenotype. There are similar subsets associated with the other named races, and I include them in the main groupings, as well.
The measured cognitive ability as shown in various generally accepted intelligence tests used in the industrialized world show, e.g, that blacks score very much lower than whites. Generally the I.Q. difference shows blacks as having an average of 80-90, with whites 10 points higher.
And yet if I converse with a white who has an IQ of 85, it's very easy to discern this deficiency in basic intelligence, while in speaking to the average black (I.Q. 85), it is very hard to find this same evidence of cognitive deficiency.
I first was introduced to this idea less than 6 months ago, perhaps in this stack, by
a commenter who identified himself as a native Nigerian. He addressed this anomaly by postulating that the differences were more attributed to thought methodologies particular to sub-Saharans--he portrayed it as believe in magical thinking--which truncates the logical process that whites, e.g., and I'd postulate E Asians, as well, commonly use.
He also postulated that native intelligence in blacks was much more attached to the ego, and how best to enhance it, than it is to put ego aside so as to devote mental energies toward abstract problem solving. I don't wish to discuss this part now. It will destroy focus for the point I'm trying to make. I think it should be explored, but in another discussion.
If this is accurate, it basically means a sort of "short-circuited" thought process--one that stops after a certain point, reasoning that further thought is useless since the causes are magical, and out of human control. A sort of cognitive stoicism.
This actually explains the phenomenon I've personally encountered, which is talking to many assorted black people and coming away with the idea that they are not mentally deficient in the same way that a white person is who shares an I.Q. of 85.
By no means does this indicate that the cognitive abilities are not measurably different between races, but it does open an entire separate paradigm that needs much more testing and speculation.
Normally when people think of cognitive impairment they assume they're going to talk to a drooling moron, but with the different ways 85 IQ people present it seems that conversational abilities and day-to-day life are much different from processing abilities.
What happens is that when I start talking to some people I quickly realize that I'm going to have to dumb down my vocabulary and stay away from conveying ideas by implication.
I'm not real smart, myself, but am college educated and worked in SW development for about 30 year.
These are only my speculations, but the article that I referred to (without linking to it) really opened my eyes to the possibility that there may be a measurable difference in mental processing between a white person and a black person who both score about 85 IQ.
A similar phenomenon is observed for individuals with iqs on the order of 70. A white individual is usually more obviously mentally challenged than a black individual at the same intellectual level. The difference is usually attributed to rare mutations driving the disability in the white individual. I'd posit that this mechanism could in part underly the difference you cite in the 80-90 iq range. I make that assumption based on the "roughly" continuous nature of additive genetics. I.e. 80-90 iq black individuals have fewer rare mutations.
To be clear, your point is well-taken, but genetic equivocations are possible.
I don't. It's anecdotal, but the volume of conversations with black people in various lines of work probably hovers near the mean for their race.
It's true that I could be talking to the most intelligent, but my gut feeling is that I've spoken to a broad spectrum.
All of this is in the nature of a broad speculation that is nowhere ready to inform hypothetical public policy. It's a suggested starting point for exploration, with the possibility that it might be discarded entirely as invalid. It is meant to invite thought, not to suggest policy.
Our society is willing to allow and examine almost any taboo imaginable-the nuance of killing unborn children, incest porn, sex change procedures, nuclear weapons, gain of function research, etc, except, except do not dare ask questions about possible genetic explanations for group differences!
One has to wonder why this situation has come to be. That’s a taboo the writers at Aporia should consider examining in depth.
Hanania argues we should shut up about race/IQ. I assume he thinks we can eventually outrun the more fanatical woke who, instead of just talking about “privilege” right before planning their European vacations, actually want to do something really crazy about disparities. Maybe Hanania thinks we can dilute the political power of blacks (and crazy woke whites) with non-white immigrants who won’t care that blacks were slaves.
Yes, I absolutely agree. Hard for me to imagine a smart, curious person thinking, "Nah, it's not interesting that black quarterbacks are better scramblers than white quarterbacks (on average)." Or thinking, "Nah, I don't care why there are so few white running backs." Or "Nah, it's not interesting that the white players who are great, e.g. Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, play in a different style from the black players who are great, e.g., Lebron James, giannis Antetokounmpo."
Right. For example, I recently discovered that among strong-armed baseball sluggers, there's a big racial difference in which position they wind up playing, with African-Americans tending to specialize in right field, and white Americans at third base. (E.g., Frank Robinson vs. Brooks Robinson on the 1966 Baltimore Orioles). It's probably due to higher maximum footspeed for blacks, but it raises interesting questions about why some whites have outstanding first steps for lunging at hot corner smashes.
I wonder how much of defense at third (or even at short) is reaction time. While Ozzie Smith may have been the best defensive shortstop in history and was of course an astonishing athlete, Cal Ripken Jr. was also an excellent defensive shortstop (35.7 dWAR), and he was not a great or explosive athlete. (He stole 36 bases in his career, and was -4 runs below average as a runner.)
That 66 team also had Aparicio at short who was a phenomenal defender. I'm guessing he was hispanic, so some real diversity.
The focus on racial disparities derives from not focusing on individuals. How much do group differences matter if we don’t view everyone as representative of his or her race?
There is no doubt in my mind that genetic differences exist between groups, much like the *potential* for stature. You can improve the nutrition of an average Japanese but in few, if any cases, will their stature even match a similarly nurtured Dinaric individual of the same sex. Stature will max out at a genetically pre-determined limit.
So given that there are these sorts of differences, the *values* of these same individuals determine if you can live with them, or you seek to avoid them. It's all on an individual basis, and I favor at least giving individual of different groups (races) a chance for me to get to find if we share many values, or not.
However, if the mere appearance of the individual is for some reason threatening to you, it's understandable that you'll probably pass.
If wokeism is the result of an overly narrow gaze on racial differences, surely the antidote cannot be an overly narrow gaze on racial differences as the author suggests.
I don't think we should "obsess" over race differences, but I do think the appropriate response to complaints that America is racist is a careful examination of the underlying data on group differences. We don't have quite so strong of a taboo on sex differences, and consequently nobody thinks its sexist that the NBA is without women players. It would be bizarre, to say the least, if Matt said that he had noticed that men are stronger than women but thinks it is unseemly to explore the topic in more detail.
It would certainly be bizarre if the research had no consequences, like demoralization and racial animosity.
While I do not have hard evidence that those consequences are real, their intuitive plausibility is enough for me to favor other strategies towards countering irrational anti-Western complaints.
Perhaps that is a misguided strategy, but many mainstream thinkers appear to believe it regardless, although they may just be protecting their reputations.
But I don't think you persuade people by tepidly asking them to compromise. I think you persuade people by firmly asking them to live up to their own values.
If you force people to answer: “Do you believe in science or do you think we should teach noble lies” most of the best people will say “I believe in science.”
I see your point and my deepest-held values agree, but what I've found over the last 10-15 years--essentially the ascendance of the Millennial and Zoom demo cohorts--is that they do not seem to have any aversion to hypocrisy if they see it in themselves. They are remarkably willing to forgive it in themselves, but not if they perceive it in those who may disagree with them.
...and you know what: that tendency is yet another level of hypocrisy.
You can never make logical headway against heartfelt hypocrite, since they'll change the goalposts as often as is needed to avoid commitment.
Let's get one thing straight. Matt Yglesias is Jewish. His insidious behavior is oftentimes stereotypical of subversive Jews. He's also the ✡️ guy who authored a book about bringing in non-western peoples to the point of one billion. All allegedly in the name of muh economics. Personally, I wish Jews like Matt didn't behave in this way. I suppose that is asking too much.
Nearly twenty years ago, the Watson affair raised the same issues. My attempt to address them in an op-ed, below, never saw the light of day. I recently posted it as a comment to Steve Sailer's take on the Yglesias argument.
THOUGHTS ON WATSON'S EGREGIOUSNESS
Whenever we open our mouth, we can say the expected, acceptable, polite thing or we can say what we really think. Both graciousness and candor are virtues, but they seldom walk hand in hand. Nor are they equally appreciated. Candor, in particular, is always praised except when it's put into practice. Neither is a guarantee of truth. Many banal remarks are false; so are many shockers. And lots of people very sincerely believe all sorts of absolute poppycock.
James Watson, who shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the discovery of DNA's structure, said recently apropos of Africans: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really." Watson certainly knew what had happened to Lawrence Summers, once president of Harvard, merely for musing aloud on women's capacity for higher mathematics. Still, we know Watson meant what he said, because in his new book, "Avoid Boring People," he wrote: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
Watson was widely criticized for his remarks. His speeches were cancelled, he was suspended from his job as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and soon thereafter he apologized and resigned.
We may not be so presumptuous as to disagree with a Nobel scientist, but on the other hand we aren't suicidal enough to agree with him. Yet there must be something one can say. Let's start with this:
Language serves more than one purpose. Sometimes it's a tool for sharpening our understanding of the world; at others, it's a sort of social music, used to assure others of our peaceful intentions and so forth. A good way to distinguish situations where people are seeking the truth from those where they are seeking comity is to ask: what would happen if someone asserted the opposite? or some other position in the middle? For instance, if Watson had said that Africans are as smart as anybody else, would there have been an uproar? Of course not. No one would have been offended, and few would have been so impertinent as to demand his reasoning and evidence. Or suppose that he had said something positive. Suppose he had said that Africans are particularly hard-working or creative. Would there have been an uproar? Again, of course not. One hears statements like these, about various ethnic groups, all the time.
Yet such statements are just like what he said, except they're not negative. But if only positive statements are acceptable, then clearly the speech is not serving a truth-seeking function. If one is free to assert something but not free to assert its opposite, then one isn't free at all. Secondly, was the point of Watson's denouncers that all men are created equally intelligent, Einstein and I for example? Of course not. Was it their point that there are differences between groups but that specifically Watson's black vs. white comparison was erroneous? Doubtful. It seems that what is left, then, is a position which admits that individuals have widely different capacities but holds that in any large group these differences somehow even out and disappear. Perhaps that can be proved, but on its face it doesn't seem necessarily so.
Third and last point: People almost never get into hot arguments over easily demonstrable facts. Announce that the sun rises in the west and you'll be laughed at, perhaps, but no one is likely to condemn you. Today, like it or not, the intellectual accomplishments of some groups are relatively scarce -- try counting Nobel Prizes, for example -- so that their equality with other groups is not easily demonstrable. The very fact that Watson was condemned, rather than simply rebutted or laughed off, suggests this. Many people passionately believe that the causes of ethnic discrepancies are historic -- social, political, economic -- and not innate. But there is only one way to bury the issue once and for all: conspicuous, incontestable achievement.
Taking for granted your position is correct one, why not write an article about ways to stifle the stereotyping and bigotry that comes along with this?
Everyone I’ve ever met (young white men) that espouses your position unfailingly couples it with constant disparagement and verbal degradation of anyone & everyone that isn’t “of their kind”.
It’s nasty and dehumanizing and seems much more societally corrosive than Yglesias’s tack.
I’ve never met anyone who can successfully thread the needle in the way you describe.
Have you read The Bell Curve? It's incredibly thoughtful and judicious. Obviously, some boorish people use group difference to belittle others, but I don't think that's the norm, even if it is more common than one might wish.
I've tried to combat this personally. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that the people who know about this research at such an early stage are more likely to be edgelord types.
A big way to change the discourae IMO is talking more about how the research can be used for good. Another is vehemently opposing racism, and not just after the other side has done it.
The more pertinent question is whether center-left elites could maintain power in the case of the acceptance of the position. Implicit in your question is whether center-leftists can maintain the non-discrimination of the current left if group differences in traits are accepted. That means them retaining power necessary to exert this control. I express skepticism that the Right has the human capital to supplant the Left because the Right would need to offer a palatable ideology to those with the personality profile of high human capital. This profile has an open, non-parochial bent that the localist bent of the current Right has little to offer. As such, the capability of the Right to enact your worst fears is low. Instead, the point that the Right should make is that it is a superior client of the center-left as opposed to the third-worldist and hard left factions. The Right could offer guarantees of regional stability in return for non-intervention in left-leaning cities. Such an arrangement could allow for continued center-left control of the narrative and elite institutions in return for a stable center-left and center-Right governing coalition. This should be more than enough to assuage center-left fears of apartheid. I admit that relinquishing regional control could lead to sporadic bouts of discrimination, but these small eruptions would be tempered by integration of the neglected white and Asian human capital into institutions, which could function more meritoriously and efficiently.
TL;DR the right should position itself as a client that does not contest the class interests of the center-left. This allows center-left dominance while gaining the center-left a more reliable client group. The center-left can then prevent the worst of any possible discrimination.
None of the commenters in support of the author's conclusions has answered this question. They either don't think it's a real consequence (which they haven't provided evidence for), or they just don't care. Either way, they should specify.
I don't care because any attempts to suppress animosity based in genetic predisposition--and by this I'm postulating that these abrasive comments by whites are likely genetically ingrained, and can only be alleviated by culling out these individuals, or waiting until their sort is evolved out of the breeding population.
One thing for sure: it is NOT an issue for "education". I think it's in the blood, really.
Matt Yglesias is right. Such research should be explored but not be discussed in public. This discussion will only lead blacks to direct aggression at whites based on their proclivity to engage in abusive behaviour. Telling a group with lower iq and higher psychopathy that these traits have a genetic underpinning expedites social discord. Henry Garrett said that blacks are the type of people who will destroy a city because somebody said burn baby burn. So can you imagine how they are going to react if they think people are implying that they are genetically inferior.
I actually wrote a comment below in part due to a conversation you had with Ed Dutton regarding cold personalities as a possible precondition for discussing group differences. Thank you for that and your work in general. In light of your comment above, do you think largely white obeisance to blank slate norms is, in part, a strategy for accommodating black aggression? Before the Great Migration, the friction of black-white coexistence was limited to the American South, which involved a herder-descended white ethnic group interacting with the black population. This is different than the largely urban-descended white population of the American North, who were not exposed to blacks until the Great Migration. It seems to me that the ultra-protestant ways of the American North changed in response to this migration. Thoughts?
I wouldn't mind the idea of not engaging so in the relevant research if our society weren't so race-centered. Racial ideology is crammed down our throats every single day, people are watched like hawks for potential wrongthink, demographics in companies are constantly monitored, we have to go through years of learning about racial grievances in school (especially if we go into the social sciences, but even if we don't)...
I bet Matt doesn't argue for putting the same level of taboo on critical race theory, arguments for affirmative action, arguments against freedom of association, and other racial narrative-building though. It's a one-sided taboo only towards the responsive argument (and to the question that is the most politically salient one of our time).
It's a cop-out meant to protect his political side from meaningful criticism about their poor reasoning and blood feud attempts.
Good point
—NC
It could be all those things and still be the right thing not to do.
Why?
I look at it this way. Supposed or real differences in statistical averages between arbitrarily defined "races" has in the past been used as a supposedly objective reason to make decisions about individual members of these "races." Although much less today, it is not unreasonable to suspect that some echoes of this remain in attitudes and decision-making of some people.
Consequently, when someone pops up insisting that that it is important to take note of these statistical differences without specifying why and to what purposed, you have to scratch your head. People usually do things for a reason. It the statistical differences noticers supply no other reason, one is left wondering if it is not to reinforce making decisions about individuals on the basis of their membership in "races."
If that is not one's reason and one has no other reason, a "Taboo" on idle talk about "race" differences makes sense.
Religion, ethnic group, nationality all work the same way.
This response entirely ignores the mirror image of this critique in minority groups advancing conspiratorial notions of white privilege and the like. Leaving that aside, let us not forget that conservatives averred the same position as ylesias and lost the cultural debate on this issue continually. Empirically, the debate falls into hereditarian and anti-hereditarian stances, suggesting this is the oppositional equilibrium of the debate in the current game. I suggest that the only way the yglesias strategy would work requires something like what happened in the 60s - everyone knows the group differences are real but agrees not to talk about them. Unfortunately, subsequent generations are not privy to this original info, and we get the oppositional debate once more. The "right" thing to do in this context is not so clear.
Honestly, I think the real politik justification would be that the client groups of the progressive coalition would make weaker class enemies for the center-left because they possess less human capital than the Right. Hence, yglesias and co prefer them. That's not to say that progressives think in such a machiavellian manner, but the constraints in the game keep them in that equilibrium.
It's already been justified at length imo, but if you don't think it has, you can see my other comments on this post. Basically the social sciences are overcome with racial narratives already. I don't know how long it's been since you've been in school/academia, or where you went, but in many places the narratives consume even tangetially related subjects.
They decline to talk about it because they know the answer already and they don't like it. If they really believed that better tests, a few computers, and having a positive attitude would fix things, they would do those themselves regardless of what other people did and it would happen. But they know that this won't work and dare not think through the consequences, because then they would no longer see themselves as rescuers. They need that belief about themselves.
I never bring the topic up myself, but practical consequences, like changes in curriculum or hiring, come up so often that I respond.
This must be true of some, yes.
—NC
I may overestimate, but my impression after forty years is if you get a few drinks into people this leaks out.
"...because then they would no longer see themselves as rescuers. They need that belief about themselves."
And this points clearly toward a central irony: those who see themselves as rescuers or protectors by logical inference must also see themselves as *superior*, since they are able to solve problems that the objects of their assistance cannot solve, themselves.
Yep, crypto-supremacists...
I largely agree with your conclusions. Matt’s argument is trying rationalize intellectual cowardice because he knows that he is wrong but admitting this will unravel his entire world view that makes him feel like a moral person.
What is often missed is how easily these “thoughtful” Center-Leftists can be manipulated by the Woke and Critical theorists. They know that the Center Left is being dishonest and this makes them open to being forced to choose between being called a racist and endorsing Leftist views on race, gender, etc. This social taboo against an honest discussion on the causes of inequality is central to making Cancel culture work.
I write more about it in this article:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/how-the-woke-manipulate-the-center
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/how-the-center-left-paved-the-way
Consider how absurd the current situation is: intellectuals, whose vocations are to increase knowledge and inform the public, are completely ok with taboos against thinking about a certain topic too much. This isn’t a topic that has no relevance, but instead is possibly the most important topic for many nations with rapidly changing racial demographics. People like Matthew Yglesias are actively negating the value they bring to society and also harming their own reputations as truth seekers by their deliberate ignorance.
Right. It's quite bizarre. He not only imposes ignorance on himself, but also he seems to brag about it, as if it were some manifestation of his sterling moral character. Of course, he would have nothing but contempt for a creationist who actively promoted a taboo against studying evolution.
Bo
As I once tweeted: I have more respect for people who claim hereditarians are "racist" than for those who claim the question "isn't interesting". Whether genes contribute to group differences in IQ is probably the most interesting question in the social sciences.
—NC
Reading about this reminded me of a documentary series that covered the concept of race several years ago, in which the producer also noticed that people's lack of interest seemed ideologically motivated. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Fx6gpl2gI
Like those that are for free speech as long as it is speech they agree with.
I humbly recommend David Epstein's book, The Sports Gene, by David Epstein. I found it interesting and it is applicable to this Aporia article.
Great book
—NC
President Obama became obsessed with the book "The Sports Gene" and late in his second term tended to lecture people about human diversity.
It is this one at Amazon: https://amzn.to/42Uj1uo
Bo, excellent analysis of the taboo, espoused by Yglesias and his ilk. There should be no taboo on any question...all should be asked and pursued. Knowledge is the goal.
"At present, the best-supported answers suggest that differences in key traits—such as IQ and self-control—likely account for much of the observed racial disparities, while the role of racism appears comparatively limited. These differences are, in all probability, partly genetic in origin and resistant to meaningful intervention."
I would postulate that it is mostly 'genetic in origin'.
I agree that "mostly" is more accurate. I try to be charitable to environmentalism when writing these kinds of articles though !
Bo
"I try to be charitable to environmentalism when writing these kinds of articles though !"
I understand, but they will not return the favor.
"All should be asked and pursued" is simply your own value judgement. A society has many goals, and it is perfectly understandable that a society would want to avoid certain questions if there are very real potential consequences.
Would you endorse research on the production of highly deadly viruses that could be produced in very low budget laboratories? Surely you must draw a line somewhere.
It's not a simple binary, though.
Endorsement denotes *favoring* the entity that you endorse. Condemnation is the opposite. But there is also simply toleration, which is neither endorsement or condemnation.
When you frame the question as you have, it seems like you're looking to align yourself on the "right" side.
For me: no lines drawn. I'd endorse little and condemn nothing.
It's evolution, Patrick. Simple as that.
I see your point about the false binary as valid. I would also agree that many people (perhaps even myself) frame the question in a way that announces to the world that we are "on the right side".
But if we frame this not as a moral issue about which "side" is right, and instead in purely utilitarian terms, would it not make sense for society to construct taboos on research where the cost-benefit analysis suggests we should?
Yes, I think it could be honestly examined from a utilitarian viewpoint. There might indeed be situations where external controls of some type might be imposed, but I get real nervous going down that path because it can be incrementally (and covertly) abused
I reacted against the wording, Patrick. It got to me.
Good discussion.
"Would you endorse research on the production of highly deadly viruses that could be produced in very low budget laboratories? "
Absolutely! It is not the knowledge that is harmful, but what is done with it.
"Surely you must draw a line somewhere."
Now you are espousing your value judgment. Who is to decide what research is ok? There are two types of speech: free and controlled. You are either free or you're not.
I am espousing my value judgement. My value judgement just happens to align more with society's. That doesn't make it more correct, I admit.
Your free or not dichotomy is nothing but a false one. We will always have socially enforced norms and boundaries, no matter how hard we try to remove them. What is peer review, quality control, critical reviews other than a form of boundaries? It is natural. I see nothing wrong with society enforcing boundaries on research questions if the potential gains are minimal and the potential consequences are high.
Your claim that knowledge is not harmful is just semantics nonsense. "An easily detonated nuclear bomb placed in the center of a suicide ward is not harmful, it is the people who are going to detonate it that are harmful"! Thanks, how reassuring.
"I see nothing wrong with society enforcing boundaries on research questions if the potential gains are minimal and the potential consequences are high."
So, you will survey the ignorant public to determine what research is allowed?
"An easy easily detonated nuclear bomb placed in the center of a suicide ward is not harmful, it's the people who are going to detonate it that are harmful"!
How does that relate to research?
We could survey the public, we could survey the experts, we could let the norms evolve naturally. Why shouldn't we survey the public? The Japanese "ignorant public" were the ones who faced the consequences of research on nuclear bombs. Should the "ignorant public" have no say in the elite funded research that could have serious consequences on their lives? If you do not trust directly surveying the ignorant public, then we can leave it to the well informed elites to act in the ignorant public's interest.
My nuclear bomb in a suicide ward is related to research because researchers are the ones part of the process that places the dangerous technology in the hands of an "ignorant public" full of people more than eager to abuse the technology.
Your claim that there is nothing wrong with research how to create a cheaply produced supervirus (or other clearly dangerous subjects) is either you being stubborn or you just not caring about the fate of humanity. We could either trust that every one of the billions of humans alive will follow the rules, or we can prevent the research. Which of these paths should a resource-limited society take?
"Should the "ignorant public" have no say in the elite funded research that could have serious consequences on their lives?"
You are advocating for research to be decided by those who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground!
We disagree. You want a world with no chance of pitfalls or hazards. My stand is that Knowledge is the goal.
Let's leave it at that.
You ignore the very real damage being done by avoiding the question. Is harm not harm if it's done to Europeans or Asians? People will continue with woke ideology, endlessly attributing disparaties to past or present discrimination if this is avoided.
We live in a society that already has racial ideologies, and which already hurts people. If you don't work in or study the social sciences, you may not know how bad it's gotten in terms of constant racial ideologies (and how poor a lot of their evidence is). It's just a question of whether people will allow themselves to be meaningfully countered.
This research is responsive, not proactive. If the research were on, say, IQ and eye color or nose shape, it would be a bit more pointless because demands aren't being made on those fronts. But society is already divided and studied among racial demographic groups. Refusing to address that is just kneecapping people's ability to defend themselves from potential harm to themselves, their children, and their societies.
So, to answer your question, if there already were a potentially deadly virus out and about (the real situation), and we'd have to work with it to create vaccines even though the research may have consequences... We should still, of course carefully, pursue that science.
Your "answer" does nothing to cure the "harm". You can throw as much science and evidence at the woke, and they won't care. As long as the disparities exist, they will want to tear everything down. This is also perfectly expected given human nature. Racial animosity is in our DNA, and disparities between ethnicities will always garner animosity. How could it not.
Knowing the scientific explanation is not an antidote. You have brushed off the potential harms, which is increased animosity and demoralization, based on an irrational belief that we can solve an age old problem with science and evidence when the real problem is ingrained in human psychology.
Patrick, I agree with this:
"Racial animosity is in our DNA, and disparities between ethnicities will always garner animosity. How could it not."
And yet very, very gradually this murderous genetically based animosity is attenuating. The direction is clear, to me at least. Besides being illiterate in their own language, none of my grandparents had ever *seen* a black person or Asian before coning to US in the early 1900s. Two generations later and I'm married to a woman of east Asian decent, we have a mixed race daughter, and her boyfriend is some kind of octaroon, I suppose.
It's not a linear process--there are many backward drifts, like right now--and it would be wrong, I think, to call it "progress". It is simply evolution at work in an increasingly cosmopolitan human population.
It's simple: we're either going to make it, or we won't. Suppression will only delay the ultimate outcome, if it even has that much effect.
I agree that it is attenuating. Your personal story (thank you for sharing), as well as the survey data on attitudes towards mixed race marriages, is a clear indicator.
You say you wouldn't call it progress, but rather evolution (avoiding adding any valence). But if such a trend were to decrease human conflict, and increase human happiness by increasing our community of potential friends and partners, is that not a positive human development?
"But if such a trend were to decrease human conflict, and increase human happiness by increasing our community of potential friends and partners, is that not a positive human development?"
Yes, but again I get nervous because agreeing invites the next step to be externally coerced policies to associate that basically shove the attenuation backward.
One last anecdotal observation. Take it or leave it...whatever.
I went to college in the late 60s. One of my roommates was black; we lived together 2 years. Thru him I met many other blacks, some in college, some not. To a moderate degree I socialized at mixed race gatherings back then.
It was very much more relaxed and to a degree more trusting. It was as if yep, we can see that we're similar in some ways ad different in some ways, and we'll accept that as basically unchangeable. Now, after that, if we still like each other enough, we'll continue to socialize. here was even good-natured racial joking. The important thing was that everything was natural and nothing was forced.
I voted for Obama in 2008, but did not vote in 2012. I was bitterly disappointed that he seemed, to me, to *identify and separate* by race/group. In my opinion, doing this set the attenuation process back at least 20 years, and likely more.
But these are just my opinions, so take them as that.
I think that there's a nuance to the perceived *cognitive* disparities between the races--and for this discussion I include sub-Saharan African, Caucasian, and E Asians. I view Dravidians and Ashkenazi Jews as subsets of the larger Caucasian phenotype. There are similar subsets associated with the other named races, and I include them in the main groupings, as well.
The measured cognitive ability as shown in various generally accepted intelligence tests used in the industrialized world show, e.g, that blacks score very much lower than whites. Generally the I.Q. difference shows blacks as having an average of 80-90, with whites 10 points higher.
And yet if I converse with a white who has an IQ of 85, it's very easy to discern this deficiency in basic intelligence, while in speaking to the average black (I.Q. 85), it is very hard to find this same evidence of cognitive deficiency.
I first was introduced to this idea less than 6 months ago, perhaps in this stack, by
a commenter who identified himself as a native Nigerian. He addressed this anomaly by postulating that the differences were more attributed to thought methodologies particular to sub-Saharans--he portrayed it as believe in magical thinking--which truncates the logical process that whites, e.g., and I'd postulate E Asians, as well, commonly use.
He also postulated that native intelligence in blacks was much more attached to the ego, and how best to enhance it, than it is to put ego aside so as to devote mental energies toward abstract problem solving. I don't wish to discuss this part now. It will destroy focus for the point I'm trying to make. I think it should be explored, but in another discussion.
If this is accurate, it basically means a sort of "short-circuited" thought process--one that stops after a certain point, reasoning that further thought is useless since the causes are magical, and out of human control. A sort of cognitive stoicism.
This actually explains the phenomenon I've personally encountered, which is talking to many assorted black people and coming away with the idea that they are not mentally deficient in the same way that a white person is who shares an I.Q. of 85.
By no means does this indicate that the cognitive abilities are not measurably different between races, but it does open an entire separate paradigm that needs much more testing and speculation.
Normally when people think of cognitive impairment they assume they're going to talk to a drooling moron, but with the different ways 85 IQ people present it seems that conversational abilities and day-to-day life are much different from processing abilities.
There's certainly that.
What happens is that when I start talking to some people I quickly realize that I'm going to have to dumb down my vocabulary and stay away from conveying ideas by implication.
I'm not real smart, myself, but am college educated and worked in SW development for about 30 year.
These are only my speculations, but the article that I referred to (without linking to it) really opened my eyes to the possibility that there may be a measurable difference in mental processing between a white person and a black person who both score about 85 IQ.
A similar phenomenon is observed for individuals with iqs on the order of 70. A white individual is usually more obviously mentally challenged than a black individual at the same intellectual level. The difference is usually attributed to rare mutations driving the disability in the white individual. I'd posit that this mechanism could in part underly the difference you cite in the 80-90 iq range. I make that assumption based on the "roughly" continuous nature of additive genetics. I.e. 80-90 iq black individuals have fewer rare mutations.
To be clear, your point is well-taken, but genetic equivocations are possible.
How do you know the IQ of these people you meet and converse with???
I don't. It's anecdotal, but the volume of conversations with black people in various lines of work probably hovers near the mean for their race.
It's true that I could be talking to the most intelligent, but my gut feeling is that I've spoken to a broad spectrum.
All of this is in the nature of a broad speculation that is nowhere ready to inform hypothetical public policy. It's a suggested starting point for exploration, with the possibility that it might be discarded entirely as invalid. It is meant to invite thought, not to suggest policy.
So, bottom line you don't know. Therefore I take your comment with a grain of salt.
Our society is willing to allow and examine almost any taboo imaginable-the nuance of killing unborn children, incest porn, sex change procedures, nuclear weapons, gain of function research, etc, except, except do not dare ask questions about possible genetic explanations for group differences!
One has to wonder why this situation has come to be. That’s a taboo the writers at Aporia should consider examining in depth.
It is the last clinging remnant of a popular, deeply held, belief in original sin.
Those most affected are using the moral high ground to seek redemption, as they see it.
I was not raised in the practice of religion. Things look different from here.
Hanania argues we should shut up about race/IQ. I assume he thinks we can eventually outrun the more fanatical woke who, instead of just talking about “privilege” right before planning their European vacations, actually want to do something really crazy about disparities. Maybe Hanania thinks we can dilute the political power of blacks (and crazy woke whites) with non-white immigrants who won’t care that blacks were slaves.
Racial differences in average potential at different sports is an interesting topic in and of itself.
Yes, I absolutely agree. Hard for me to imagine a smart, curious person thinking, "Nah, it's not interesting that black quarterbacks are better scramblers than white quarterbacks (on average)." Or thinking, "Nah, I don't care why there are so few white running backs." Or "Nah, it's not interesting that the white players who are great, e.g. Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, play in a different style from the black players who are great, e.g., Lebron James, giannis Antetokounmpo."
Bo
Right. For example, I recently discovered that among strong-armed baseball sluggers, there's a big racial difference in which position they wind up playing, with African-Americans tending to specialize in right field, and white Americans at third base. (E.g., Frank Robinson vs. Brooks Robinson on the 1966 Baltimore Orioles). It's probably due to higher maximum footspeed for blacks, but it raises interesting questions about why some whites have outstanding first steps for lunging at hot corner smashes.
I wonder how much of defense at third (or even at short) is reaction time. While Ozzie Smith may have been the best defensive shortstop in history and was of course an astonishing athlete, Cal Ripken Jr. was also an excellent defensive shortstop (35.7 dWAR), and he was not a great or explosive athlete. (He stole 36 bases in his career, and was -4 runs below average as a runner.)
That 66 team also had Aparicio at short who was a phenomenal defender. I'm guessing he was hispanic, so some real diversity.
The focus on racial disparities derives from not focusing on individuals. How much do group differences matter if we don’t view everyone as representative of his or her race?
Yes, exactly.
Here's what I'm finding...
There is no doubt in my mind that genetic differences exist between groups, much like the *potential* for stature. You can improve the nutrition of an average Japanese but in few, if any cases, will their stature even match a similarly nurtured Dinaric individual of the same sex. Stature will max out at a genetically pre-determined limit.
So given that there are these sorts of differences, the *values* of these same individuals determine if you can live with them, or you seek to avoid them. It's all on an individual basis, and I favor at least giving individual of different groups (races) a chance for me to get to find if we share many values, or not.
However, if the mere appearance of the individual is for some reason threatening to you, it's understandable that you'll probably pass.
If wokeism is the result of an overly narrow gaze on racial differences, surely the antidote cannot be an overly narrow gaze on racial differences as the author suggests.
I don't think we should "obsess" over race differences, but I do think the appropriate response to complaints that America is racist is a careful examination of the underlying data on group differences. We don't have quite so strong of a taboo on sex differences, and consequently nobody thinks its sexist that the NBA is without women players. It would be bizarre, to say the least, if Matt said that he had noticed that men are stronger than women but thinks it is unseemly to explore the topic in more detail.
Bo
It would certainly be bizarre if the research had no consequences, like demoralization and racial animosity.
While I do not have hard evidence that those consequences are real, their intuitive plausibility is enough for me to favor other strategies towards countering irrational anti-Western complaints.
Perhaps that is a misguided strategy, but many mainstream thinkers appear to believe it regardless, although they may just be protecting their reputations.
I don't think Yglesias and his ilk deserve a response.
Knowledge of race differences has become widespread enough that it's now time to go on the offensive.
Anti-science buffoons like Matt Yglesias should be publicly ridiculed.
Creationism isn't science.
Plenty of decent people agree with him, though, and the goal must be to persuade the persuadable.
Bo
Agreed, persuasion should be the goal.
But I don't think you persuade people by tepidly asking them to compromise. I think you persuade people by firmly asking them to live up to their own values.
If you force people to answer: “Do you believe in science or do you think we should teach noble lies” most of the best people will say “I believe in science.”
I see your point and my deepest-held values agree, but what I've found over the last 10-15 years--essentially the ascendance of the Millennial and Zoom demo cohorts--is that they do not seem to have any aversion to hypocrisy if they see it in themselves. They are remarkably willing to forgive it in themselves, but not if they perceive it in those who may disagree with them.
...and you know what: that tendency is yet another level of hypocrisy.
You can never make logical headway against heartfelt hypocrite, since they'll change the goalposts as often as is needed to avoid commitment.
Let's get one thing straight. Matt Yglesias is Jewish. His insidious behavior is oftentimes stereotypical of subversive Jews. He's also the ✡️ guy who authored a book about bringing in non-western peoples to the point of one billion. All allegedly in the name of muh economics. Personally, I wish Jews like Matt didn't behave in this way. I suppose that is asking too much.
Nearly twenty years ago, the Watson affair raised the same issues. My attempt to address them in an op-ed, below, never saw the light of day. I recently posted it as a comment to Steve Sailer's take on the Yglesias argument.
THOUGHTS ON WATSON'S EGREGIOUSNESS
Whenever we open our mouth, we can say the expected, acceptable, polite thing or we can say what we really think. Both graciousness and candor are virtues, but they seldom walk hand in hand. Nor are they equally appreciated. Candor, in particular, is always praised except when it's put into practice. Neither is a guarantee of truth. Many banal remarks are false; so are many shockers. And lots of people very sincerely believe all sorts of absolute poppycock.
James Watson, who shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the discovery of DNA's structure, said recently apropos of Africans: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really." Watson certainly knew what had happened to Lawrence Summers, once president of Harvard, merely for musing aloud on women's capacity for higher mathematics. Still, we know Watson meant what he said, because in his new book, "Avoid Boring People," he wrote: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
Watson was widely criticized for his remarks. His speeches were cancelled, he was suspended from his job as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and soon thereafter he apologized and resigned.
We may not be so presumptuous as to disagree with a Nobel scientist, but on the other hand we aren't suicidal enough to agree with him. Yet there must be something one can say. Let's start with this:
Language serves more than one purpose. Sometimes it's a tool for sharpening our understanding of the world; at others, it's a sort of social music, used to assure others of our peaceful intentions and so forth. A good way to distinguish situations where people are seeking the truth from those where they are seeking comity is to ask: what would happen if someone asserted the opposite? or some other position in the middle? For instance, if Watson had said that Africans are as smart as anybody else, would there have been an uproar? Of course not. No one would have been offended, and few would have been so impertinent as to demand his reasoning and evidence. Or suppose that he had said something positive. Suppose he had said that Africans are particularly hard-working or creative. Would there have been an uproar? Again, of course not. One hears statements like these, about various ethnic groups, all the time.
Yet such statements are just like what he said, except they're not negative. But if only positive statements are acceptable, then clearly the speech is not serving a truth-seeking function. If one is free to assert something but not free to assert its opposite, then one isn't free at all. Secondly, was the point of Watson's denouncers that all men are created equally intelligent, Einstein and I for example? Of course not. Was it their point that there are differences between groups but that specifically Watson's black vs. white comparison was erroneous? Doubtful. It seems that what is left, then, is a position which admits that individuals have widely different capacities but holds that in any large group these differences somehow even out and disappear. Perhaps that can be proved, but on its face it doesn't seem necessarily so.
Third and last point: People almost never get into hot arguments over easily demonstrable facts. Announce that the sun rises in the west and you'll be laughed at, perhaps, but no one is likely to condemn you. Today, like it or not, the intellectual accomplishments of some groups are relatively scarce -- try counting Nobel Prizes, for example -- so that their equality with other groups is not easily demonstrable. The very fact that Watson was condemned, rather than simply rebutted or laughed off, suggests this. Many people passionately believe that the causes of ethnic discrepancies are historic -- social, political, economic -- and not innate. But there is only one way to bury the issue once and for all: conspicuous, incontestable achievement.
Taking for granted your position is correct one, why not write an article about ways to stifle the stereotyping and bigotry that comes along with this?
Everyone I’ve ever met (young white men) that espouses your position unfailingly couples it with constant disparagement and verbal degradation of anyone & everyone that isn’t “of their kind”.
It’s nasty and dehumanizing and seems much more societally corrosive than Yglesias’s tack.
I’ve never met anyone who can successfully thread the needle in the way you describe.
Have you read The Bell Curve? It's incredibly thoughtful and judicious. Obviously, some boorish people use group difference to belittle others, but I don't think that's the norm, even if it is more common than one might wish.
Bo
I've tried to combat this personally. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that the people who know about this research at such an early stage are more likely to be edgelord types.
A big way to change the discourae IMO is talking more about how the research can be used for good. Another is vehemently opposing racism, and not just after the other side has done it.
Ahh, yes, the Chicken Little approach. Or avoid the elephant in the room.
How is it a chicken little approach or avoiding the elephant in the room?
It sounds like in order to deny rhetorical ammunition to immature boors, you'd suppress research into genetic characteristic of groups.
The more pertinent question is whether center-left elites could maintain power in the case of the acceptance of the position. Implicit in your question is whether center-leftists can maintain the non-discrimination of the current left if group differences in traits are accepted. That means them retaining power necessary to exert this control. I express skepticism that the Right has the human capital to supplant the Left because the Right would need to offer a palatable ideology to those with the personality profile of high human capital. This profile has an open, non-parochial bent that the localist bent of the current Right has little to offer. As such, the capability of the Right to enact your worst fears is low. Instead, the point that the Right should make is that it is a superior client of the center-left as opposed to the third-worldist and hard left factions. The Right could offer guarantees of regional stability in return for non-intervention in left-leaning cities. Such an arrangement could allow for continued center-left control of the narrative and elite institutions in return for a stable center-left and center-Right governing coalition. This should be more than enough to assuage center-left fears of apartheid. I admit that relinquishing regional control could lead to sporadic bouts of discrimination, but these small eruptions would be tempered by integration of the neglected white and Asian human capital into institutions, which could function more meritoriously and efficiently.
TL;DR the right should position itself as a client that does not contest the class interests of the center-left. This allows center-left dominance while gaining the center-left a more reliable client group. The center-left can then prevent the worst of any possible discrimination.
None of the commenters in support of the author's conclusions has answered this question. They either don't think it's a real consequence (which they haven't provided evidence for), or they just don't care. Either way, they should specify.
I don't care because any attempts to suppress animosity based in genetic predisposition--and by this I'm postulating that these abrasive comments by whites are likely genetically ingrained, and can only be alleviated by culling out these individuals, or waiting until their sort is evolved out of the breeding population.
One thing for sure: it is NOT an issue for "education". I think it's in the blood, really.
Matt Yglesias is right. Such research should be explored but not be discussed in public. This discussion will only lead blacks to direct aggression at whites based on their proclivity to engage in abusive behaviour. Telling a group with lower iq and higher psychopathy that these traits have a genetic underpinning expedites social discord. Henry Garrett said that blacks are the type of people who will destroy a city because somebody said burn baby burn. So can you imagine how they are going to react if they think people are implying that they are genetically inferior.
I actually wrote a comment below in part due to a conversation you had with Ed Dutton regarding cold personalities as a possible precondition for discussing group differences. Thank you for that and your work in general. In light of your comment above, do you think largely white obeisance to blank slate norms is, in part, a strategy for accommodating black aggression? Before the Great Migration, the friction of black-white coexistence was limited to the American South, which involved a herder-descended white ethnic group interacting with the black population. This is different than the largely urban-descended white population of the American North, who were not exposed to blacks until the Great Migration. It seems to me that the ultra-protestant ways of the American North changed in response to this migration. Thoughts?