Race and IQ: Liberalism's great exception

Many "liberal" intellectuals are all about free speech and inquiry until the topic of race differences arises.

Written by Bo Winegard.

Do not think it worth while to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
—Bertrand Russell, 1951

If we are to accept John Stuart Mill’s argument, liberalism is more than just a commitment to individualism and the rule of law. It is also a cultural embrace of free speech and free inquiry. A spirit of open debate. A rejection of anti-intellectual taboos. A part of the Enlightenment project, whose goal is to free men from both arbitrary rule and debilitating ignorance. Its chief threats are not just overweening government, lawless Presidents or overzealous policing — but also stultifying superstitions, censorious intellectuals and stifling monocultures.

By this standard, many so-called liberals, even those who have otherwise resisted or pushed back against the worst excesses of progressivism, have retreated from their own principles. They have retreated by promoting silence, or even censorship, about one of the most consequential topics in the human sciences today: race differences in IQ.

Almost certainly they believe that their advocacy of stifling scientific inquiry is a necessary compromise with human frailty. Were IQ disparities between blacks and whites widely known, they worry, pernicious stereotypes might lead to disadvantages for blacks; or worse, might ignite a recrudescence of Jim-Crow style racism. But they are wrong. And the arguments they forward to support the suppression of open inquiry are underwhelming.

One might call the topic of race and IQ the great exception because many people who claim to champion freedom of speech and inquiry resort to the waffling qualification “but not for that” when ever it arises. For example, the science writer John Horgan wrote:

But another part of me wonders whether research on race and intelligence—given the persistence of racism in the U.S. and elsewhere--should simply be banned. I don’t say this lightly. For the most part, I am a hard-core defender of freedom of speech and science. But research on race and intelligence—no matter what its conclusions are—seems to me to have no redeeming value.

Far from it. The claims of researchers like Murray, Herrnstein and Richwine could easily become self-fulfilling, by bolstering the confirmation bias of racists and by convincing minority children, their parents and teachers that the children are innately, immutably inferior.

In that same piece, Horgan forwarded this illiberal idea for dealing with research on race and IQ:

Institutional review boards (IRBs), which must approve research involving human subjects carried out by universities and other organizations, should reject proposed research that will promote racial theories of intelligence, because the harm of such research--which fosters racism even if not motivated by racism--far outweighs any alleged benefits.

The argument is that research on race and IQ is so uniquely dangerous, so likely to encourage racism, that scholars should be actively prevented by institutional fiat from pursuing any line of inquiry that might “promote racial theories of intelligence.” This is not merely an urge for caution or circumspection; this is a demand for prior restraint.

Consider how we would judge a similar prohibition elsewhere. Suppose research into the causes of HIV and AIDS were barred by an institutional review board on the grounds that such inquiry might encourage promiscuous behavior or reinforce invidious stereotypes about those deemed promiscuous. Few of the same people who endorse silencing research on race and IQ would hesitate to describe such a ban as illiberal, coercive and even authoritarian.

Indeed, in a recent editorial about the Trump administration’s response to the killing of Alex Pretti, the New York Times asserted, “Truth is a line of demarcation between a democratic government and an authoritarian regime.” This is a provocative but defensible claim, one the New York Times does not have the courage to apply to itself or to the Democratic party. (Both institutions routinely reject incontrovertible truths about race differences in violent crime and IQ.)

For the debate about race and IQ is not about the existence of a significant gap between blacks and whites, which is found in every data set and accepted by mainstream textbooks on the topic. The debate is only about the causes. Thus the typical slander that race and IQ is “pseudoscience” is irrelevant here. That there are large disparities in cognitive ability among races is an undisputed truth among relevant experts.

Here, for example, are some quotes from textbooks on intelligence:

It should be acknowledged, then, without further ado that there is a difference in average IQ between blacks and whites in the USA and Britain …

There is a 1-standard deviation [15 point] difference in IQ between the black and white population of the U.S. The black population of the U.S. scores 1 standard deviation lower than the white population on various tests of intelligence …

There is some variation in the results, but not a great deal. The African American means [on intelligence tests] are about 1 standard deviation unit …below the White means.

Therefore, democratic advocates of the truth should support the honest discussion of race differences in IQ, unless they want to be, by the New York Times’ own assessment, authoritarian liars.

Sources: here, here, here, and here.

John Horgan’s desire to quash research and discussion about race differences in intelligence is not anomalous. Many self-identified liberals have adopted similar positions, though perhaps without his explicit endorsement of institutional censorship. In a piece about the rise of Hitler revisionism on the Right, Matt Yglesias observed that blacks are massively disproportionately represented in the National Basketball Association (NBA), but proceeded to note that he was perfectly happy not knowing the causes of this disparity:

I am also not sure why Black Americans outperform white ones. You could imagine these dual outperformances having similar underlying causes or very different ones. I have not looked into it, and frankly I don’t intend to, because I am happy living in a society where it is considered unseemly and inappropriate to preoccupy oneself with such questions.

Whereas the ideal philosopher prides himself on the intrepid pursuit of the truth, Matt prides himself on not knowing and not wanting to know the causes of an important and interesting puzzle: that of race differences in athletic and intellectual achievement. The owl of minerva drinks from the river of oblivion. This attitude is not new. It echoes an older theological tradition that treated curiosity not as a virtue but as a moral danger, something to be restrained lest it lead men into error or sin.

The rhetoric in Yglesias’s piece is characteristic of those who advocate silence about race and IQ. The topic is frequently described in terms more commonly associated with obscenity than empirical inquiry. The study of race differences is cast as an unseemly or indecent pursuit, and those who express interest in it are portrayed as motivated not by curiosity but by something akin to a perverse fixation. “Knowledge is power” becomes “knowledge is a fetish”.

So what, according to Yglesias, is the terrible danger that justifies self-imposed ignorance about such a crucial and fascinating topic? Stereotypes. Yes, stereotypes.

But I also think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to worry that stereotyping will lead to discrimination. And parsing the difference between “taste-based” and “statistical” discrimination doesn’t really change the fact that people are individuals, and they reasonably do not want to be discriminated against. Conversely, I think there is a broadly accurate stereotype that people who roam around the world articulating unflattering statistical observations about ethnic groups they don’t belong to mostly are, in fact, bigots with bad intentions.

His argument is that exploring the causal processes that lead to group differences in social outcomes might promote invidious stereotypes — and that such stereotypes, being articulated by “bigots with bad intentions” are, well, bad. But this is a flimsy reason to encourage self-censorship, resting, as it does, upon a dubious premise: that invidious stereotypes are caused or strengthened by the study of race differences in IQ and not simply by casual observation of the world.

I call this dubious because the human brain is a pattern detecting device. And stereotypes are simply concepts that refer to the patterns we have detected. We have them about everything from age groups to breeds of dog. Refraining from talking about disproportionate representation in the NBA will not stop people from noticing patterns. Nor will refraining from talking about race and IQ. After all, it does not require a prestigious degree or a piercing intellect to observe that blacks are underrepresented in cognitively challenging jobs.

Yglesias’s worries are shared by the Harvard professor, Steven Pinker, usually a reliable advocate of freedom of speech and inquiry. In his recent book When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows, he forwarded what he called “the best case” he could for “limiting intellectual expression.” And although he kept some distance from the argument, it seemed to persuade The Skeptic’s Michael Shermer, another self-identified liberal and advocate of free inquiry, who said he was “pretty convinced”.

Pinker, unlike Horgan, is clear that he “cannot muster an argument for censorship or punishment.” But defends, instead, a different policy: “don’t go there.” Why? He is troubled by the prospect that “people might be tempted to use [such findings] as Bayesian priors in their treatment of individual African Americans, unjustly putting them at a disadvantage.”

As far as I can tell, the argument is this. Under conditions of uncertainty, rational agents using group-level statistical priors might make decisions that systematically disadvantage certain groups (in this case, blacks). Such decisions might be epistemically defensible while remaining morally troubling, which highlights a tension between Bayesian rationality and principles of individual fairness. A CEO, might, for example, hire a white applicant over a black applicant with a slightly superior resume, reasoning that the white applicant will make a better employee. Thus, his hiring of the white applicant might be rational and yet seem unjust.

From the perspective of Pinker’s argument for silence, making irrational and ignorant decisions is better than making fully informed decisions if those fully informed decisions disfavor blacks.

It is surprising, to say the least, that Pinker, a tireless champion of the Enlightenment, would imply such a thing! Perhaps recognizing this, Pinker attempts to comfort the reader by claiming that such a norm would not be anti-intellectual: “Deciding to leave certain questions unanswered is not anti-intellectual, because it would itself be justified by reasoned argument.”

But that would be like claiming that a democratically elected dictatorship would not be a dictatorship because it was democratically elected. A world of self-imposed ignorance, even if it were created by consenting rational agents, is still a world of ignorance. And praising the legacy of the Enlightenment while trampling one of its most cherished values is like celebrating George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four while banning it from the public library.

What all these arguments about suppressing research and discussion about race differences share is that they were forwarded by otherwise liberal intellectuals who support free speech and who castigate the Trump administration for lying and behaving in an authoritarian manner.

Thus they make the “this is the great exception” claim, basing it on the anticipation of harms caused by being honest about race differences. The plausibility of these putative harms is difficult to assess, but the feared causal link works like this: conversation about race differences leads to stereotypes about race, which leads to disadvantages for blacks.

In the case of Pinker, the argument for suppression is more troubling because, unlike Yglesias, he does not claim to be ignorant of the differences in question. In fact, he is clearly aware of the overwhelming evidence. Thus, he must believe that while he can handle such knowledge without becoming a Bayesian bigot, other people can’t. I am not an absolutist about anything (save the greatness of Hitchcock’s Vertigo) but I am enough of an advocate of freedom of speech to find such a noble lie, even if by omission only, disconcerting.

My commitment to (classical) liberalism is ultimately guided by my judgment that it produces more human flourishing than any alternative sociopolitical order. In that sense, my commitment is consequentialist: I value liberalism for its fruits. Yet the core principles of liberalism—freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry and related liberties—function largely as deontological commitments. One does not, and should not, attempt to assess the cost–benefit ratio of each individual speech act before determining whether it may be expressed. Rather, one commits to freedom of speech as a general rule, justified by the fact that, over time and on average, it yields better outcomes for society as a whole.

Still, Horgan and Yglesias and Pinker and many others present a challenge: Defend the honest exploration and discussion of race differences. So it is worth being explicit here without appealing to slogans, even if those slogans are useful norms to inculcate. Below are the three best reasons, I think, for being honest about race differences. (One might add that simple human curiosity is a perfectly valid reason, truth being a good we ought to pursue for its own sake.)

1. Silence favors a default environment-only hypothesis, which distorts our understanding of the world.

2. Silence prevents progress on interesting research relevant to human evolution and social inequality.

3. Silence threatens liberalism by leaving a vacuum for progressive narratives about “systemic racism” to fill.

Of these, the third is the most germane to the arguments in this piece and thus will be my focus for the remainder of this essay.

Because races differ in traits such as intelligence that are reliably related to important outcomes, free societies will be characterized by large and salient racial disparities. Whites (and Asians) will be overrepresented in cognitively demanding professions; they will score better on cognitive tests; they will obtain better grades; they will graduate with more impressive resumes; and they will earn more money. People will notice these disparities because race is a conspicuous feature of humanity; it is not accidental and it is not something that can be ignored or disregarded.

Curious people will ask obvious questions: Why are there persistent disparities between whites and blacks in the West, especially the United States? This natural curiosity has been heightened by the left’s intense focus on race disparities, which are said to prove the U.S. is pervaded by racism. Maybe not explicit racism. But structural racism. Systemic racism. Symbolic racism. The ether that shapes racial destinies.

And although the most prominent advocate of this view, Ibram X. Kendi, has fallen out of grace, his arguments remain popular. The left continues to contend that most social disparities are caused by injustice, not innate differences in talents. At the extreme, the left even argues that liberalism itself is complicit in racism, and that its lofty principles are a rhetorical veil disguising an ugly world of racial exploitation. The essence of America is not freedom, but racial hierarchy.

This creates a problem for the advocate of silence about race and IQ. How does a person committed to silence about race differences respond to an assault on liberalism?

Suppose, for example, that an activist points to persistent differences in income and argues, as the Department of the Treasury did, that “racial inequality in the United States today is rooted in longstanding behaviors, beliefs, and public and private policies that resulted in the appropriation of the physical, financial, labor, and other resources of non-white people”. What is the response to this erroneous but widespread belief?

I can think of a few possibilities:

1. A person can respond that talking about such disparities is unseemly and dismiss the question altogether.

2. A person can respond that races have different cultures and these cultures lead to different habits of study and self-control.

3. A person can be honest and point to differences in intelligence and other traits that lead to differences in education and job performance.

The problem with the first option should be obvious. Dismissing the topic is not a plausible counter to the charge of racism. “We do not talk about such things in America” sounds an awful lot like “Yes, America is racist, but it is indecent to converse about it.” And certainly it would not stop progressives from fulminating against the United States. Thus, while it may seem polite, it ends by advocating surrender to a hostile political ideology.

The second option has more to recommend it. One can respond to progressive calumnies without agreeing that the immediate cause of racial disparities is racism. However, there are a couple problems.

First, the culture theory still violates the genteel call for silence about race differences since culture can only cause differences in group outcomes by causing race differences in the traits that lead to those outcomes. Culture may be the ultimate explanation of racial variation according to this model, but the proximate cause of social disparities is still human diversity in intelligence, self-control and the like. Thus, the intellectual who talks about culture also inevitably talks about race differences in IQ.

And second, pointing to culture inevitably raises uncomfortable questions about the origins of the cultural differences, which are generally answered either by appealing to racism or appealing to innate differences. If the appeal is to racism, then the cultural model does not in fact refute the charge that racial disparities are caused by racism; it simply pushes it back a few hundred years. And if the appeal is to innate differences, then, well, the culture theory is just a form of hereditarianism. Consider a potential dialogue:

Robert: Yes, there are persistent differences between blacks and whites in violent crime rates, grades, graduation rates, test scores and income, among other things. But these differences are not caused by anything inherent. Instead they are caused by longstanding cultural differences.

Tiffany: What then is the cause of these cultural differences?

Robert: Well, ultimately slavery and segregation. The institution of slavery discouraged long-term planning and education. And segregation damaged self-esteem and engendered a hatred of the white status quo—of punctuality and learning and anything that savored of whiteness.

Tiffany: Ok, but if this is true, then the racism of whites is ultimately to blame for black underperformance, right?

Robert: Well of course not. It’s black culture that is to blame.

Tiffany: Sure, but you said that this stultifying black culture comes from slavery and segregation, right?

Robert: Yes.

Tiffany: Well, those were racist policies. So, ultimately the current state of blacks in the United States—the lower grades, lower test scores, lower incomes, and higher incarceration rates—was caused by the racism of whites.

Robert: Sure, but black people could change their culture! They are not hapless victims of it.

Tiffany: So why don’t they? Why don’t they imitate the more successful ‘white’ culture around them?

Robert: Because, as I said, they developed a deep loathing of the white status quo during segregation.

Tiffany: So they do not change their own culture because they despise white culture. And they despise white culture because of the lasting pernicious effects of segregation?

Robert: Yes.

Tiffany: In other words, they don’t change their culture because of a legacy of racism.

One can make Robert a more eloquent and more sophisticated proponent of the cultural theory, but the dilemma remains: Either the cultural differences were caused by racism or they were caused by innate differences. For if they were arbitrary, the result of social accidents, then one would expect modern blacks to imitate the more successful cultures that surround them.

This leaves the liberal position, the pro-Enlightenment position, the pro-freedom position: People should, in the appropriate setting, talk about and study race differences in IQ (and other traits).

This does not meant that the President should talk haphazardly about such things, nor does it mean that we should ridicule other races. Freedom of science and speech does not entail promoting crude, rude, boorish or otherwise offensive speech¹. And it does not entail ignoring social decorum. I think that the study and discussion of the evolution of sex differences is fascinating and appropriate. It should be encouraged. But that does not mean one should casually joke about the female figure at a work meeting. Being honest about the world does not entail being a vulgarian.

For too long now, both major parties and their intellectual tribes have strayed from liberal principles and practices. The progressive left has championed an identitarian ideology, obsessed by putative racial injustices. Many centrists, like Yglesias and Pinker, have commendably criticized the excesses of this ideology, but have deviated from Enlightenment liberalism by advocating the purposeful promulgation of ignorance. Race and IQ—that is just too dangerous! But freedom of science and speech is always dangerous.

When Voltaire was railing against the Church, it was dangerous. When Thomas Jefferson was advocating religious liberty, it was dangerous. When Kant was extolling his reader sapere aude, it was dangerous. When Darwin was forwarding the theory of natural selection, it was dangerous. Liberalism does not promise safety from dangerous ideas; it promises the freedom to confront them.

Race differences will exist whether we talk about them or not. And so will racial disparities. The path of silence is surrender to the enemies of liberalism. Liberalism might not survive anyway—but while it is here, we might as well adhere to its principles while fighting to preserve it.

Bo Winegard is an Editor of Aporia.

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1. Of course, it does entail defending the legality of such speech!