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1. The point is very well taken. I think one of the things that has deeply damaged the discussion on this issue is to me a very important and overlooked aspect of our discourse: anything which goes against the grain of political correctness and appeals to our coarsest attributes is presumed to be true. I am utterly, utterly baffled by people—bright people, like Douthat— who continue to act as though political correctness is some sort of powerful cultural force in this country. It isn’t. Like feminism, the backlash against political correctness has always—always— been more powerful than the thing in question. It’s amazing to me when people like Steve Sailer talk about political correctness as though it is this all-powerful edifice, vulnerable only to the profound, courageous truth tellers such as himself willing to “tell it like it is.” What possible force could such an embattled, vilified set of ideas have in the face of literally millenia of racism, bigotry and hatred?

   Long story short— despite the constant whining about their oppression and marginalization, Sailer and the other “race realists” face a far lower burden of scientific proof than they should, both because of the reaction against “PC thinking” and because everyone, particularly Slate writers of limited talent, is so desperate to appear iconoclastic and provocative that they will endorse any view, no matter how ill-supported….

   — Freddie · Nov 28, 12:56 AM · #

2. The idea that Will Saletan is a writer of limited talent suggests a lack of familiarity with his work — e.g., his brilliant cover story on Phil Gramm for Mother Jones before the 1996 campaign is the first example I can think of, his coverage of the 2000 presidential race, his book Bearing Right. I don’t agree with Will Saletan all the time. But I certainly won’t characterize him as being “of limited talent” simply because I disagree with him. I find the idea that he is “desperate to appear iconoclastic and provocative” simply laughable. Considering that he was best known as a political commentator (celebrated for it, offered prominent jobs for it, etc.) and decided to cover a new and unfamiliar beat out of intellectual interest should give some indication of this.

   Also, who believes that Steve Sailer is a powerful force in US culture? Someone who spends too much time reading blogs, perhaps. As for the power of political correctness, it may well be exaggerated by some people who’ve been closely affiliated with elite universities and elite media, which are of course deeply unrepresentative. I agree that anti-PC hysteria is often misplaced.

   I also hope everyone keeps in mind that this is a forum like this one where most of us are willing to acknowledge our blind spots and our mistakes, and to accept (generally speaking) the decency and integrity of those with whom we disagree.

   — Reihan · Nov 28, 02:20 AM · #

3. When it comes to those who assert the inherent inferiority of races of people, I think I will keep my own counsel on matters of decency and integrity.

   Try this— I hold a different opinion on the merits of Will Saletan than you do. Do I not deserve the similar extension of an acceptance of decency and integrity that those who disagree with you on abortion, or crime, or race, or the new Bloc Party album? Or is that acceptance reserved only for those who disagree on matters of politics, and not those who criticize various members of the punditocracy? Saletan is a professional; he submits his work for public consumption; and he is a big boy.

   — Freddie · Nov 28, 04:19 AM · #

4. Actually, Freddie, you are making an ungenerous assumption about Saletan’s motives. Or perhaps I’ve misread your post. Not only that, you’re ascribing views to Saletan that he clearly doesn’t hold.

   Saletan is a big boy and the chances of him reading your remarks or mine are roughly zero. I (foolishly) feel obligated to stick up for someone when I feel they are being unfairly maligned. But I’ll do my best to stop.

   — Reihan · Nov 28, 06:54 AM · #

5. Thank you for this piece. I probably have too much disrespect for econometrics, but pieces like this remind me of how often it is abused.

   — M.Z. Forrest · Nov 28, 03:37 PM · #

6. Jim: Nothing wrong with your position in itself, though I believe the evidence of group differences is stronger than you say. From a policy point of view, however, you are wrong. Policy must often be made on incomplete or circumstantial evidence, if that’s the best evidence we have. Take, for example, proposition A: That a country is better off, the more smart people it has. And proposition B: That there are group differences in intelligence. And proposition C: That mean IQ in Mexico is, as Lynn & Vanhanen say, 89. And proposition D: That this is an intractable group difference. Then allowing the immigration of tens of millions of Mexicans, un-selected for IQ (or anything else) would be seriously bad policy for the U.S.A. If there is circumstantial evidence that A, B, C, and D are true, good policy would be to severely curtail Mexican immigration. Suppose we do that: and then suppose that when the day finally arrives that we know all the causal pathways from gene to brain function, it turns out that A, B, C, and D are false. What harm would we have done to the U.S.A. by our wrong policy? None that I can see. Contrariwise, if we follow your wait-and-see, and allow mass immigration from Mexico to continue, and when the day of understanding dawns, it turns out that A, B, C, and D are true, we would have done great harm to our nation by pursuing THAT wrong policy. From a strictly game-theoretic point of view, if there is any plausibility to A-B-C-D-type propositions—and I do think there is more than you say—even at quite a low probability level, policy prescriptions emerge. Don’t they?

   — John Derbyshire · Nov 28, 06:38 PM · #

7. “The first would be the more compelling: to specify the physical mechanism by which genes govern intelligence – what is often called the genotype-phenotype map – and then to demonstrate how this operates differently across races”. Sorry, but the view that one must have a mechanism to convincingly demonstrate a genetic basis for a trait is way off base. We don’t know why mutations in the gene which encodes superoxide disumutase, SOD1, cause 2% of familial ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) cases, and yet there’s no question that those cases have a genetic basis. And what about applying the same logic to height? We have very little idea — except at the far margins of dwarves and giants — how/what genes make people tall or short. But no one doubts the partly genetic basis of height. Moreover, I doubt the howls would be quite as loud if it were proposed that the reason Mexican-Americans are shorter, on average, than non-Hispanic whites and blacks could be partly genetic. One could even test such a proposition through, for example, patterns of admixture and genotype-phenotype association studies and more sophisticated genotyping studies (see http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0020041 for an interesting example). But you don’t need a mechanism to establish a genetic influence on IQ, any more than you need one for diabetes, heart disease, cancer or height. There is a middle ground to what Jim proposes.

   — omnivore · Nov 28, 08:17 PM · #

8. “At present, this question has no scientific answer.”

   The problem is that for the last 50 years, the educated population of the Western world has being informed by all official authorities that this question does have a “scientific answer.” And that answer is that there is no possibility that the cause of the differences is genetic.

   Clearly, this statement is fallacious. What do you do when you realize that your government has been systematically misinforming you for half a century? Not nothing, that’s for sure.

   The concept of a “scientific answer” is also philosophically questionable. There is no such thing as a “null hypothesis.” You are choosing between two mutually inconsistent explanations. You have no reason to distinguish either interpretation as “null” or “default.”

   Are the obvious differences between Haiti and Japan best explained by biological differences between Haitians and Japanese? Or does some other explanation seem more plausible? Again, when you are ruled by a government which bases an enormous policy infrastructure on the assumption that “education” can turn Haitians into Japanese (or, presumably, the reverse), you have a decision to make. We often find ourselves having to make decisions which are not determined by any “scientific answer.”

   — Mencius · Nov 28, 09:06 PM · #

9. Omnivore: the difference is in the complexity of the trait you are trying to measure. Height and having a serious disease(have it/don’t have it) are easy to measure (and have fewer possible causes – because they are ‘states’ which can be identified quickly. Even an IQ test with a single number score lasts several hours is a complex process where all kinds of mental and other inputs can influence its outcome.). The reason you need a physical causal mechanism is so you can break the “steps” of that mechanism down into a series of things as easy to measure as height or having LG disease, and check them off. Human behavior is not only complex but has this contingent and unpredicatble quality to it. There are so many more points in the process where it can non-deterministically change, even compared to something as complex as the formation of an embryo, which is still relatively deterministic. The dependent variable here, the test-taking peformance, is so complex that it has to be “gotten right” (I.e. the brain processes that govern it must be understood) before any correlation with genes can be reliably analyzed. That’s not the case with height, which is self-evident.

   — darrenbk · Nov 28, 09:07 PM · #

10. (I posted this on GNXP)

    In contrast to Jim Manzi, who looks for watertight confirmation, I take a Popperian approach to the hypothesis of hereditary IQ differences by asking: is there any good evidence refuting the theory?

    I know of many many strands of evidence consistent with the hypothesis of hereditary IQ differences, and I know of nothing against it.

    So I would suggest that – by ordinary scientific standards – we should assume that the theory is correct and move on to clarify, quantify and apply its implications.

    — Bruce G Charlton · Nov 28, 09:11 PM · #

11. Re: darrenbk on how IQ is too complex to be subjected to the same analyses as height or, say, blood pressure. Um, no. You are claiming that IQ measurements are unreliable. That is false; IQ measurements are not only highly reliable (meaning that the correlation between results for the same person on two independent tests/sessions are typically > 0.9), they are remarkably stable over lifetimes, and they are also valid (meaning they predict things like job performance and educational attainment, often better than most other measures). Once you accept that the tests are reliable and valid, and there is no substantive debate on these points in the field, it’s perfectly fine to do any association study you want. Moreover, height is not a perfectly reliable measure; if you believe otherwise, then you haven’t measured own height after waking up versus later in the day (the correlation between measurements of height, even given flawless measuring, is not 1.0), nor have you watched your grandmother develop a hunchback (e.g. it is not completely stable over a lifetime). But for a more practical example, take blood pressure — wild variations even throughout the day (e.g. http://www.abdn.ac.uk/medical/bhs/booklet/dipper.htm). And we have only the faintest idea of the genes involved in blood pressure; we have almost no idea of the molecular mechanisms involved (any more than for height, btw)! Must we nail down those molecular mechanisms before doing a genotype/phenotype study on hypertension? Must we wait until blood pressure can be measured with perfect accuracy? Hogwash. In any event, the genes/IQ studies are already being done; see http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4v46j012v011315/ (Association of CHRM2 with IQ: Converging Evidence for a Gene Influencing Intelligence). If you’re right, they’ll never find anything. Care to bet?

    — omnivore · Nov 28, 11:41 PM · #

12. You know, I’ve tried and tried to force my mind to occupy the rhetorical space that is necessary to consider questioning someone’s talent a vicious ad hominem, but I just can’t do it. As far as accusing Saletan specifically and Slate in general of valuing contrarianism over accuracy or decency, I’m hardly the first to do so. In fact, just recently your boy Yglesias said on his blog “Given the source, the diagnosis of knee-jerk contrarianism run amok seems most appropriate but it’s pretty odd.” So I think you might need to reconsider your shock.

    And, by the way, you’ve now teased me for a) reading too many blogs and b) thinking that I was suggesting that Saletan will read this and be offended. Well, look, man, we’re all just out here in the discourse. Perhaps I don’t occupy that rarefied air of punditry that Saletan (may His works increase!) does, but that’s irrelevant to the argument. (Weren’t blogs supposed to be the great enabler of intellectual egalitarianism?)

    — Freddie · Nov 28, 11:41 PM · #

13. What an infantile piece of work is John Derbyshire`s response: one of the reasons for the immigration of Mexicans into the US is the desire of large corporations for workers who are willing to do jobs that do not require a lot of intelligence for a pittance. This is not to say that such immigrants are, individually or in mass, innately and incorrigibly unintelligent, as JD would like to suggest:a better standard of living and better education, among other things, do wonders for raising intelligence quotients. Intelligence is not a fixed quality, but depends in part on use. Not so long ago, Englishmen like Derbyshire were spluttering about the intellectual inferiority of `races` like the Irish, among others. Some still do, of course. As for standards of intelligence, you cannot help but wonder about the intelligence and honesty of people who cling, like Tennyson`s mother (in the poem),to a little hoard of maxims in order to disguise to others and perhaps to themselves the questionable nature of what they are proposing. One would respect a direct espousal of racism more.

    — Tim Harris · Nov 29, 12:16 AM · #

14. Not to pile on John Derbyshire (I don’t see anything ‘infantile’ in his comment), but his argument is, strictly speaking, fallacious. His proposition A states that “a country is better off, the more smart people it has”. He draws a policy prescription from this (and other propositions) that it would be good policy “to severely curtail Mexican immigration.” This doesn’t follow, since there may be other reasons to allow or even promote Mexican immigration, like the fact that they are willing to work difficult jobs for low pay. The proposition which would warrant Derbyshire’s conclusion is something like: “a country is better off, the fewer unintelligent people it has.” That claim is certainly much less plausible than Derbyshire’s proposition A.

    — Evan Keeling · Nov 29, 12:39 AM · #

15. John Derbyshire is not positing “policy” on “incomplete or circumstantial evidence” — he is justifying his prejudices with a tissue of faulty assumptions. The argument that Mexicans should be barred from immigrating to the US because their average IQs are lower than Americans’ is precisely the sort of pseudoscientific rationalization that Nativists have always used to argue against immigration by groups including eastern European Jews and Chinese, i.e. groups that now score highest on average on IQ tests. Among the facts and probabilities he ignores: a) people from poorer countries (leaving race aside for the moment) generally score lower on IQ tests on average than people from richer countries; b) those with the drive to emigrate are generally more able on average than the group they leave behind; and c) many factors other than IQ determine the success of immigrants.

    — asp · Nov 29, 12:46 AM · #

16. asp: Insults and innuendo are not arguments. Do you have any evidence that Derbyshire’s claims are based on a “pseudoscientific rationalization”? You make three points that he ‘ignores’. Among then, b) seems to me worth exploring. It might be that even if the mean IQ of Mexicans is 89, the mean IQ of emigrating Mexicans is much higher. c) is a point I made in the above. a), however, is useless. Derbyshire could very well agree that people from richer countries score higher on IQ tests. That’s why their countries are richer!

    — Evan Keeling · Nov 29, 01:16 AM · #

17. The concluding paragraphs of the new book “Avoid Boring People” by James Watson (remember him?) addresses precisely Mansi’s question of long we have until overwhelming evidence, one way or another, is available on the race, genes, IQ question. It’s worth quoting at length:

    “Before leaving [interim Harvard President Derek] Bok’s temporary office in Loeb House [in 2006], mindful of the Summers fiasco, I remarked to Derek that the time was not far off when academia would have no choice but to hand political correctness back to the politicians. Since 1978, when a pail of water had been dumped over E. O. Wilson for saying that genes influence the behavior of humans as well as of other animals, the assault against behavioral science by wishful thinking has remained vigorous. But as science is able to prove its hypotheses ever more indisputably, such irrationality must recede or betray itself as such. In showing that human genes do matter, behavioral biologists will no longer be limited to comparisons of fraternal and identical twins. Soon the cost of sequencing the As, Ts, Gs, and Cs of individual DNA molecules will drop to a thousandth of what it has been, thereby transposing our studies of behavioral differences to the much more revealing molecular level. DNA messages extracted from, say, many hundreds of psychopaths can then be compared to equivalent numbers of DNA messages from individuals prevented by their consciences from habitually lying, stealing, or killing. Specific DNA sequences consistently occurring only in psychopaths will allow us to pinpoint the genes likely malfunctioning to produce psychopathy. The thought that some people might be born to grow up wicked is inherently upsetting. But if we find such behavior to be innate, the integrity of science, no less than that of ethics, demands that we let the truth be known. “The relative extents to which genetic factors determine human intellectual abilities will also soon become much better known. At the etiological heart of much of schizophrenia and autism are learning defects resulting from the failure of key brain cells to link up properly to each other. As we find the human genes whose malfunctioning gives rise to such devastating developmental failures, we may well discover that sequence differences within many of them also lead to much of the observable variation in human IQs. A priori, 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 desire to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so. “Rather than face up to facts that will likely change the way we look at ourselves, many persons of good will may see only harm in our looking too closely at individual genetic essences. So I was not surprised when Derek, who had spent most of our meeting listening, asked apprehensively how many years would pass before the key genes affecting differences in human intelligence would be found. My back-of-the-envelope answer of “15 years” meant that Summers’ then undetermined successor would not necessarily need to handle this very hot potato. “Upon returning to the Yard, however, I wondered if even 10 years would pass. “

    — Steve Sailer · Nov 29, 01:41 AM · #

18. Since we are on the subject of innate intelligence, I do not recall that it was due to the strenuous efforts of Hispanic and African-American voters that George W. Bush was elected… twice. And rather than cheerfully and unthinkingly following in the racist footprfints of such as Watson (I doubt very much that a responsible thinker like E.O. Wilson would like his work drawn on in the manner Watson draws on it), it might be an idea for somebody like Sailer to look at the works of people like G.E.R. Lloyd (`Cognitive Variations: Reflections on the Unity & Diversity of the Human Mind`) and Richard Nisbett (`The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently’) and get some idea of the complexity of the issues involved as well as of what responsible thought consists in. Incidentally, if the USA wants to continue on its course of imperial adventure and people like Derbyshire want to maintain the comforts that derive from such adventures, then it might be as well for it to have a good stock of poor and poorly educated people of less than average intelligence who can serve as cannon fodder…

    — Tim Harris · Nov 29, 02:02 AM · #

19. With any empirical question, all you can do is play the odds.

    Personally, I’ve never been wholly convinced that the racial gaps in IQ have a genetic component (there’s always the Flynn Effect to complicate matters). But I’d definitely offer five to one odds that at least half of the one standard deviation (15 point) black-white gap will turn out to be hereditary. I’d probably go as high as offering ten to one, but not, at present, to one hundred to one.

    Still, the data is pouring in, especially from the HapMap project comparing Europeans, West Africans, and Northeast Asians. So it’s only a matter of time, as James Watson told the president of Harvard, before we have a significantly clearer picture.

    If Mr. Manzi wants to bet against me at these odds, I’d love to hear his proposition.

    — Steve Sailer · Nov 29, 02:19 AM · #

20. What do you advocate, though, Steve? You’re incredibly disciplined at this— for example, you have utterly removed the language of basic human compassion and human cost from your analysis— and are good at being oblique about certain things. So let me ask you directly— if you’re right about inherent racial inferiority, what do you advocate doing in light of that information? What, ideally, would you see America do with its black population? Separate schools? Registration of black people? Restrictions on inter-racial procreation? Forced migration of black Americans? I genuinely want to know. Because without that, what good is this conversation? What is its value?

    — Freddie · Nov 29, 03:38 AM · #

21. Evan Keeling: there was neither insult nor innuendo in my response to Derbyshire’s post. His “pseudoscientific rationalization” for barring Mexicans is that they are inferior based on average IQ. You accept the same rationalization with your simplistic assumption that richer countries are richer because of their higher avg.IQ. I seriously doubt that Koreans, for example, posted high average IQs when Korea was as poor as most of sub-Saharan Africa. And the Derbyshires of the early 20th century assumed that Eastern Europeans generally and Eastern European Jews specifically were less intelligent and therefore less genetically worthy than Northern Europeans, i.e. Aryans. While Saletan cited evidence that he felt might suggest that Africans’ lower avg IQs might not be entirely due to environment, he never suggested that there’s a simple correspondence between IQ and wealth country-by-country. If there were, then East Asia would be the richest region of the world.

    — asp · Nov 29, 03:50 AM · #

22. Freddie: I can assure you that political correctness is not only alive and well but it innundates society to such a level that it is almost indistinguishable from daily thought. When I was in business school some study group was giving a proposal for a company to build day-care centers for their workers to bring kids to the workplace. I noted that as a high-tech company it might actually be a good thing to use the absence of day-care centers to structurally discriminate against prospective employees with kids. If you look at the eastern venture capital companies they often take undergrads straight from the Ivy League and work them insane hours until they burn out after a few years. They then “retire” to a slower paced job where they can have a more normal life, but in the meantime they’ve made several million dollars. They would not be able to do this while married. I was shunned by the entire class for the rest of the quarter for that very practical suggestion, so, I assure you, PC is rampant in many parts of society.

    You asked Steve what he’d do, and insinuated that he’d like to “register black people” as if that had any practical policy implications. No, what you do is rearrange the entire public school system around educating kids to the maximum level that they are capable of achieving. Someone with an IQ of 90 is probably only capable of handling 6 or 7 years of formal education and anything after that is a pure waste of resources. You wouldn’t necessarily need to give IQ tests, since you would have real feedback based on classes with an actually meaningful grade system. What you’d see is a steady decline in a student’s grades as they approach their maximum potential. After this, you’d give them one additional year of schooling designed to give them practical skills such as balancing a checkbook, avoiding chemical dependency and assess them for vocational schools.

    Everyone Else: What’s this “inferior” crap? Darbyshire’s claim that Mexican’s have a lower mean IQ is just that: Mexicans have lower mean IQ. My brother is a firefighter, owns his own house and would tell you in an instant that I have a much higher IQ. In no way is he implying that he is “inferior” to me. So, knock off that stupid ad hom nonsense.

    — Asher · Nov 29, 04:55 AM · #

23. Asher, I don’t see how a policy proposal to keep Mexicans from ruining American DNA can be seen as anything but an assertion of Mexican inferiority.

    — Consumatopia · Nov 29, 05:23 AM · #

24. This is bizarre. Who’s talking about ruining DNA? Seriously, what’s up with the indiscriminate ad homs. For starters, if the current crop of Americans wanted to intermarry with people from Mexico there’d be precious little to stop us. Derb’s point is that it is possible that an influx of low-aptitude workers who have no civic identity in the US will adversely affect the social, political and economic environment. Now he may be incorrect about that assertion but your insinuation about “blood purity” or some other nonsense is pure ad hom.

    Hey guys, nice use of the ad hom. Are we trying for some internet record for most ad homs in one post’s comment section?

    — Asher · Nov 29, 05:49 AM · #

25. Freddie:

    I wrote a five part series on “How to Help the Left Half of the Bell Curve” back in 2000. You should read it:

    http://www.isteve.com/How_to_Help_the_Left_Half_of_the_Bell_Curve.htm

    — Steve Sailer · Nov 29, 08:12 AM · #

26. “Long story short— despite the constant whining about their oppression and marginalization, Sailer and the other “race realists” face a far lower burden of scientific proof than they should, both because of the reaction against “PC thinking” and because everyone, particularly Slate writers of limited talent, is so desperate to appear iconoclastic and provocative that they will endorse any view, no matter how ill-supported….”

    I’d offer a different view. If it seems that hereditarians have to meet a low threshold, it’s likely because social determinists have been so absolute in their denials of hereditarian view. I’m not aware of a single hereditarian who has ever asserted that IQ variation is 100% genetic. OTOH, quite a few egalitarians are willing to say that the genetic component is virtually nil. Apparently, allowing for even small estimates causes is met with disgust and fear. Which do you think is more difficult to defend scientifically?

    — BJ and the Bear · Nov 29, 10:31 AM · #

27. Re: Omnivore

    Fantastic post. I’m always amazed at how frequently the arguments of social determinists or IQ critics would, if applied broadly, require a kind of biological nihilism. Apply the criticisms of the concept of race to the concept of sub-species and see how quickly that must be discarded as well. Apply the criticism of IQ to many other diagnostic tests and we get something similar. But then you realize that only a fraction of the people saying these things have any dispassionate interest in the science and the rest are engaging in a political debate.

    — BJ and the Bear · Nov 29, 10:47 AM · #

28. “But then you realize that only a fraction of the people saying these things have any dispassionate interest in the science and the rest are engaging in a political debate.”

    If your movement is going to have legs, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to come up with a better rhetorical strategy that constantly asserting that you’re side is dispassionate and logical, and the other side is emotional and irrational. It’s unverifiable; it’s irrelevant, as it’s ad hominem; and, by the way, it’s not true. I would be so much more impressed with you all if at any time whatsoever you conceded that there is such a thing as racism, that it is noxious, that it has caused incredible pain to people based on things they can’t control, and— and this is the important part— that, yes, there are good old fashioned, hate-filled racists in your movement. Look, dig around. Your movement is not unpolluted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. And just as that fact in no way disqualifies what you are saying from the discourse, neither does any supposedly irrational person disqualify the other side. Stop asserting that you’re above your opponent and argue. Because even a freshman philosophy student can tell you that saying “I am rational, while my opponent is not” does not constitute argument.

    If you want to be taken seriously, I’m afraid your message has to be more than constant harping on how you and your compatriots are proud philosopher kings; and it has to acknowledge the fact that David Duke exists, likes what you have to say, and would enjoy using it to strip the rights of millions of people.

    — Freddie · Nov 29, 01:14 PM · #

29. Freddie, what do David Duke or nutjobs running around in the backwoods of Idaho have to do with an income gap between whites and blacks? Do these people hate black people? Sure, although what that has to do with the income gap is completely lost on me. “Racism” isn’t some mysterious meta-physical quality that moves through the world and whose effects can only be seen and understood. If/where racism exists it actually is simply nothing more than abstract manner of classifying concrete human actions and their effects. Currently, the reasoning goes like this “income gap therefore racism, racism therefore income gap”. It’s a perfectly tautological, non-testable assertion.

    Regardless of what you think of Steve Sailer, even if deep-down he hates black people, his assertions about the world are actually empirically testable. You can actually devise tests and analyze variables to come up with a pretty good idea of the whether or not there are genetic components creating innate human differences in ability. And with even more study you can ascertain the extent these innate differences affect different outcomes by social grouping.

    What currently happens is that various do-gooder political groups select a black/white grouping and look at statistical differences between these groupings. (Notice, I’m using the term groupings not group, active not passive). They then claim that observable differences between these groupings is attributable to some vague, mysterious force they call racism. However, any attempt to actually search for an underlying mechanism is met with cries of racism. As one of my professors stated, in seriousness, to question the pervading nature of racism in America is evidence of your investment in white supremacy. In other words, the only way I could avoid being invested in white supremacy was to admit that I was a product of a racist society. As someone over at GNXP put it “I can use race. You can’t. Therefore, your motives are suspect.”

    As long as the “antiracist” movement is nothing more than ad homs and red herrings the advance of the hereditarian explanation will advance apace. Such people are the only one’s actually attempting to provide a true explanatory model for the income gap between blacks and whites. “Racism” isn’t an explanatory model. It’s an assertion. And many people are quickly becoming inured to those types of accusations. Hell, if I’m racist and can’t do anything about it then why should I give a shit.

    — Asher · Nov 29, 06:03 PM · #

30. John:

    Believe it or not, I haven’t spent much time trying to think through the implications of one’s position on this question for policy. I’m sure this is complicated, and I’ve learned the hard way not to shoot from the hip on complex questions.

    I’ll think about it and email.

    — Jim Manzi · Nov 29, 06:09 PM · #

31. Freddie — I think you and BJ are in violent agreement. If I may presume that BJ and I share a common view…both sides of this debate harbor those who have no interest in (or even capability to evaluate) the science. Some are white supremacists who feel that IQ research validates their prejudices — which is truly amusing, since even the most cursory summary of the research reveals that whites are far from supreme. What irritates me (and presumably BJ) are the people on both sides, the neo-Nazis and the gene-deniers, who make claims that contradict the well-designed studies that have been done in the field. Linda Gottfredson has a very nice table on this in her recent post http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/11/26/linda-s-gottfredson/flynn-ceci-and-turkheimer-on-race-and-intelligence-opening-moves/ (sorry for the long URL). See Table 1.

    The point I’d like to make is that yes, you’re right, the presence of hateful or irrational people on either side doesn’t have any bearing on whether the results of the studies are true. What is important is properly stating what is known (e.g., there is stubbornly stable IQ gap between blacks and whites; IQ is a reliable, valid, heritable measure; modern IQ tests are not biased against American blacks — there are no substantive disagreements about these points in the field), what is theorized on the basis of evidence (the IQ gap is not 100% environmental), and what is pure horse-hockey (all IQ researchers are racists; IQ tests are biased; IQ only matters for school) or has no bearing on the accuracy of the science (David Duke uses IQ studies to whip up support for a return to slavery).

    Whether some of these studies should be done — now that’s a political question, and one that I think is very interesting. But please allow us to be dismissive of those cretins on both sides who mistake research results for political position statements, who don’t know what a reliability coefficient is or what a P-value means, and who couldn’t even describe to their rhetorical opponents what a gene actually is.

    — omnivore · Nov 29, 06:13 PM · #

32. And another thing Freddie. Claiming that your opponent is not rational is a worthless debate tactic, and one you seem to like using. However, pointing out the logically fallacious nature of an opponent’s position is a very worthwhile tactic. Logical fallaciousness and inherent irrationality are two different things. We’ve established your claims are largely based on logical fallacy, so the need to claim irrationality is moot.

    Even if “the movement”, whatever the hell that means, is riddled with neo-Nazis all that means is that inbred hicks in the backwoods of Idaho are less prone to logical fallacy than professors in the New York University system. Sucks to be you.

    Oh, and no one’s saying that they are dispassionate. What they are saying is that they are actually providing an explanatory model that is empirically testable. “Racism” is not such a model.

    Finally, your reference to philosopher kings is just more of your standard ad hom. As I queried before: are we trying to make some sort of world’s record in the number of logical fallacies contained in the comments section of one blog post?

    — Asher · Nov 29, 06:15 PM · #

33. Re: “ The key estimate developed from these studies is “heritability” of IQ. Heritability of 0.0 implies that 0% of individual IQ variation within a given population is genetically determined, and heritability of 1.0 implies that 100% of individual IQ variation within that population is genetically determined. “

    I thought “heritability” of IQ referred to how much of the child’s IQ variation can be predicted based on the parent’s IQ. I thought this term is agnostic as to whether the correlation between parent and child IQ is due to genetics or some other factor. Can anyone out there enlighten me?

    — Jim W · Nov 29, 07:49 PM · #

34. asp: I’m a little confused why you are attacking me now. I was simply pointing out that your initial post claimed that Derbyshire was making a ‘pseudoscientific rationalization’ while providing no evidence that he had done so. I then went on to show that your third point which Derbyshire ‘ignored’ could be easily explained away. And suddenly I “accept the same rationalization with [my] simplistic assumption”! I guess when you come to the rescue of someone who’s been deemed a racist, you’re automatically a racist too. Furthermore, what the Derbyshires in the early 20th century thought is irrelevant to this whole discussion. As is whether Saletan said there was a simple correspondence between IQ and wealth country-by-country. Can we tone down the rhetoric and get to the arguments?

    — Evan Keeling · Nov 29, 10:54 PM · #

35. Genetic understanding of IQ differences is limited. There is a growing understanding of statistical differences between population IQ means, but the genetic nuts and bolts behind the differences are largely undiscovered.

    But that will not remain true.

    So those who are basically hiding behind ignorance in declaring unequivocally that there are no genetic differences, will soon be stripped of cover. And those who claim that it is their “compassion” that declares that these issues should not be studied or spoken of, will soon find themselves speaking mainly to others who hear voices that are no longer there.

    — Al Fin · Nov 29, 11:04 PM · #

36. Oooooh I wish I could parlay, in France! with Guvnor Marlay, tru la loo, tru la la…

    If you’ll read, Asher, and read carefully, you’ll see that I never claimed that the other side was irrational. I said that the constant claims of the hereditarians that those opposed to them are irrational is not argument. Read again. If you can find where I claim that anyone is irrational, I’ll buy you an ice cream. (Since you’re so fond of logical fallacies, Asher, maybe you should stop with the straw men?) And, let me point out, I also never claimed that Steve Sailer was a racist.

    I’m reading your series now, Steve.

    — Freddie · Nov 30, 01:12 AM · #

37. Just a quick comment regarding this statement by Asher:

    “What they are saying is that they are actually providing an explanatory model that is empirically testable. “Racism” is not such a model.”

    I’m aware of many social science studies that attempt to measure discrimination (which admitedly may or not have anything to do with racism…for more on this check out the Sailer/Gladwell dust-up regarding car salesmen). I could imagine other sorts of analyses (e.g. using economic history to show the effect of racist legislation on Black wealth creation, etc.) that can at least be tested against the evidence. So while I’m sympathetic to Asher’s concern that there are too many goofy lefties running around ready to cry racism at every black/white difference they find (Exhibit 1 in my hometown is Jessie Jackson: http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/668174,CST-NWS-jesse27.article), it seems a stretch to argue that “racism” is not empirically testable.

    — Jeff Singer · Nov 30, 02:02 AM · #

38. Freddie, you’re the first person to mention either the term “rational” OR “irrational” anywhere on this page, so I suggest you re-read your own comments. No one implied a general irrationality to the anti-hereditarians, where you erroneously seem to think someone had. So, no I did not posit any strawman argument. What I think you are inferring is that the rabid anti-hereditarian position is premised on an ontological rejection of any possibility of hereditary involvement in a general factor(s) of intelligence. That is irrational, or at least extra-rational, since it rejects any possibility of rationally discussion the very concept. That is, indeed, irrational, and, I suspect you are inferring the same things as the rest of us and are too disturbed by the implications.

    Rejecting the mere possibility of any hereditary influence in a general factor(s) of intelligence is about as rational as believing in a 6000 year old earth and a 6 day creation period. Note, I said the mere possibility and not the actual fact.

    The other weird thing is that nowhere did I claim you called Steve Sailer a racist. I made some general comments about the misuse of racism charges in society but they were not directed at you. Dude, you need to work on your reading comprehension.

    Jeff, I am aware that there are studies establishing that race is a viable social variable in US society. In fact, race is a valid factor for analysis in any society. When I was in school I had a marketing professor who showed us two sequences of advertisements. He then selected an out of the middle of each sequence and asked us how we felt about the ad. Now one ad was <b>preceded</b> by an ad containing all Asian actors and the other was not. The ad following the “Asian” ad generally received lower scores from the students and my professor informed us that he’d found this pattern pretty consistent over many tests. Basically, he’d found that white people somewhat tend to prefer seeing white people on television.

    And, so what. We all know that people tend to be more socially comfortable on a subconscious level with people they tend to have more things with in common. However, what does this type of “racism” have to do with economic inequality? Hiring people is often a very high-level cognitive process and given the vigorous social anti-racism campaigns I’m quite certain people are very conscious about racial awareness in the hiring process. My first boss would use any pretext to hire black people she could and would perform contortions to keep on black employees even if they were wrecking havoc in the workplace (and often aggravating well-performing black employees). Simply demonstrating that white people have some tendency to prefer seeing white people on TV has little bearing on the income gap. Most of the empirical studies I’ve seen have this same flaw: they demonstrate that people tend to prefer the company of the own ethnicity, <b>provided they are not actively thinking about ethnic groupings</b>, but they show little causal linkage to the income gap.

    — Asher · Nov 30, 04:59 AM · #

39. It really is heart-warming to learn that Mr Sailer wrote a five-part series seven years ago about ways in which he and like-minded people might assist their less fortunate and intellectually challenged brethren. The blithely ingenuous pride and sincerity he displays in announcing this endeavour no doubt run through the series and have ensured that his condescension has been received with acclamation and gratitude from the proposed beneficiaries of that condescension.
    Regarding Asher`s brother and Derbyshire on Mexicans, Asher is being disingenuous on two counts: first, Derbyshire was not simply pointing out that a particular group of people had a lower mean intelligence, he was drawing dubious consequences from it; second, a little knowledge of history, and particularly American history, should demonstrate that there is a great difference between asserting that some particular individuals you know are less intelligent than you are and that a whole class of people is innately and incorrigibly less intelligent than the class of people to whom you belong, particularly when that class of people has until very recently been seriously discriminated against (and is of course still being discriminated against, though to a far lesser degree) and regarded as sub-human, little better than animals, unintelligent, etc., etc. Against that historical and present background, high-minded claims that one is merely interested in science and truth ring very dubious, and it is unsurprising if the motives of those who shout about these matters are questioned. Finally, there is the touching faith in `science` professed by such as Sailer: I suggest he and others look at the careers of the inventor of pre-frontal lobotomies and of Dr John Money at John Hopkins University; by the time that what they proposed and did was recognised as being far from scientific, and more importantly far from humane, a great deal of damage had been done in the way of ruined lives.

    — Tim Harris · Nov 30, 01:32 PM · #

40. Asher, obviously there was nothing about “civic identity” in Derbyshire’s comment. This whole thread is about DNA and genetics, and asserting that someone should be kept out of the country for their genetics is nothing but an assertion of inferiority. I’m not sure why you feel the need to whitewash what he said, but you’re going to the most ridiculous lengths to do so.

    — Consumatopia · Nov 30, 02:25 PM · #

41. Yep, nowhere did Derb actually mention “civic identity”. In the same way, nowhere did he mention DNA-mixing, so we’re stuck having to infer from other evidence. I used to be a conservative and subscribed to National Review, where Derbyshire writes (wrote?). Having read a significant amount of his work, maybe 50 columns as well as recent internet commnetary, it is clear that he’s had a consistent concern over the effect of mass immigration by low IQ people on US political and economic interests.

    Now Steve Sailer has commented on this very post and I’m quite sure that Derbyshire is fully aware of Sailer’s work. Sailer has written about, and provided significant evidence for, the fact that mass immigration depresses, or at least stagnates inter-marriage between more native ethnicities and recent immigrant groups. A steady stream of immigrants from one country tends to “ghettoize” the existing immigrants from that country and keeps them from integrating and intermarrying. Whether you think intermarriage is a good thing is not germane. The point is that preventing immigration is a very poor policy method to prevent “DNA pollution”.

    Also, Derbyshire is married to a Thai woman. Having developed an recent interest in genetics I inevitably found a couple of the more emotionally-balanced white separatist websites who, believe it or not, say occasionally interesting things. Sometimes they’re just amusing. Now before anyone gets their panties in a bunch I spent my senior year in college debating British commies over at mcspotlight.org, where, believe it or not, they sometimes offered me interesting insights that I would not have had without interacting with commies. Anyways if you actually bothered to inform yourself about white nationalism you’d be aware that they are just as incensed over “DNA pollution” by Japanese, Chinese and Koreans as they are by “DNA pollution” from Hispanics and Africans. I invite you to go over to one of their websites, I’d rather not advertise them here, and taunt them over the fact that Japanese have higher average IQs than American whites. You’ll just get shrugs. Why? Because their concern is not about creating some hybrid master-race from the various intelligent ethnys of the world. They just want to keep their communities white. They just want to completely end what they call race-mixing and are not concerned over the different races that are mixing (their terms). So the particular configuration of racial beliefs that you contend Derbyshire holds would be an array only held by him, since we actually see that racial separatists hold a different configuration of beliefs. Derbyshire would probably be the only one of his kind in holding that particular configuration of beliefs.

    Could Derbyshire be concerned about “DNA pollution” with lower IQ ethnics? I suppose anything’s possible. But what is, by far, the better explanation is that he is concerned that waves of low IQ people will severely damage the political, social and economic fabric of the US. It’s sort of like saying “you oppose affirmative action, therefore you want to keep the black man down”. Now undoubtedly every person who wants to keep the black man down would oppose affirmative action. I am quite certain that many KKK members actually vote Republican. Yet that says as much about the Democrat Party as it does about the GOP. Imagine you were a white separatist would you vote for a party that you think hates whites (the GOP) or the party that really, really hates whites (the Dems). The answer is obvious. It is axiomatic that whites who hate blacks oppose affirmative action, but the converse is absolutely not the case. Most whites who oppose affirmative action do not hate blacks and oppose the policies because they consider them poor policy.

    Yep, your insinuation is not logically untenable nor is it rationally implausible. However, given the significant circumstantial evidence it is ridiculously unlikely that Derbyshire actually believes anything regarding “DNA pollution”. Any further such belief on your part, barring further evidence, would require significant intellectual contortions.

    Cons, your assertion is a strawman, as you are saying that the only possible explanation is a concern over “DNA pollution”. I am actually familiar with the context of Derb’s comments having read the corpus of his work as well as read the writings of the types of intellectual company Derb keeps. I am admitting that it is possible, yet ridiculously unlikely, that your assertion is correct. However, I am not saying that my explanation is the only logical possibility. Do you see the difference between our positions?

    Man, the logical fallacies are just piling up.

    — Asher · Nov 30, 06:18 PM · #

42. Oh I guess I missed Tim Harris there. Basically, Tim, your claim is that since science in this area has been misused in the past, by now dead people, it will be misused in the future in the same way by other people. Whether or not science is good is based on the actual validity of the claims and not the manner in which people use the science to promote policies.

    That’s simply another logical fallacy. And you’re confused about the use of the term “consequence”. Let me give you an example: bleeding is the consequence of getting cut. It’s a cause and effect thing. Derbyshire is offering a policy prescription based on what he considers different consequences from different policy initiatives. One does not draw consequences, one draws conclusions. C’mon that’s a simple little distinction that demonstrates your basic lack of reading comprehension and linguistic ability.

    You then taunt Sailer by mocking the fact that his particular policy prescriptions to help the left-side of the bell curve would likely be unappreciated by that demographic. Well, that may be true, but is neither here nor there. Either the policies would be beneficial or not. The fact that their future potential is not appreciated now is simply an appeal to popularity. Yet ANOTHER logical fallacy. Holy shit, these things are just piling up.

    So, Tim, what is your personal set of prescriptions? Do you have any? Do you simply want to ramp up current polices of redistribution? When I talk to people like you I end up eliciting the opinion that either I agree with their policies or I am a racist (which is the inference I draw from your comments). In other words, the charge of “racism” is just another ploy by socialists to advance more of their social engineering agenda. In fact, I cannot think of more than a couple of leftist policies regarding blacks that you could actually demonstrate, using empirical evidence, have benefited black people. Yes, race-based political pandering has benefited people like Jesse Jackson but I would argue they have severely damaged the average black person.

    So, white people, like me, have limited options. We can give up the fight against a huge bureaucratic welfare state, and ignore what we consider good evidence for the eventual failure of such welfare states. We can offer alternative policy solutions, such as Sailer’s propositions. We can simply cut our losses and give up on black people altogether, which is what most white non-leftists have actually done. You tell me which of those is most beneficial to blacks and other minorities. Here’s a hint: it ain’t A or C.

    When democrats talk about compromise what they mean is agree with me or else be tarred and feathered. Let me demonstrate: Steve Sailer advocates national healthcare funded by tax dollars, and I think he makes a good case for it. This is something that leftists have been pushing for years. But do people such as yourself give people like Sailer and myself credit for considering this option? Of course not. You are only happy with total capitulation to every single one of your policy preferences, and any disagreement will be met with moral outrage, such as that demonstrated here.

    I am becoming more and more convinced that there is a conspiracy here to break the world’s record for the most logical fallacies in comments to an online post.

    — Asher · Nov 30, 07:17 PM · #

43. One more thing. he claim about how since past “science based” takes on racial gaps was racist therefore all future attempts to apply science to the income gap probably comprise (not compose, Tim) multiple logical fallacies. I believe that it is a convoluted combination of the composition fallacy as well as the slippery slope fallacy.

    Hey, here’s an idea. Maybe we can not only make a record for the number of fallacies but we can run the gamut all existing fallacies.

    Red herring, anyone?

    — Asher · Nov 30, 07:24 PM · #

44. I’m late to the party, but I have a question:

    “scholars have come to the consensus viewpoint that individual heritability of IQ is about 0.5 in childhood, and (somewhat counter-intuitively) rises to more like 0.75 by late adolescence.”

    Isn’t the heritability (and likewise, the “environmentability” TM) of IQ
    situation-dependent? For instance, let’s hypothesize metaphysically identical environments for two individuals whose IQ’s are then measured. If follows that the heritability of their IQ difference is 100%, all other variables controlled.

    Now consider the differences in measured IQ between pre-Industrial Korea and Ireland vs, say, Japan and England. I have no knowledge of what these differences are, but earlier commenters sound really sure that the differences were (1) statistically and operationally significant and (2) close to 0% heritable, i.e. entirely attributable to the relatively impoverished environments of Ireland and Korea vs. Japan and England. I am prepared to stipulate this, given the subsequent demonstration of ample capability on the part of Irish and Korean peoples in more hospitable environments.

    Similiarly, I would speculate that the difference between the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africa (70) and the average IQ of African-Americans (85) is MOSTLY a function of their different environments, given the utter environmental deprivation of the former. I would speculate that sub-Saharan Africans have a great deal of unlocked potential, much as Koreans and Irishmen once did.

    But . . . it does not follow that ALL such measured differences will prove to be so environmentally malleable. On the contrary, we have decades of experience with various ethny in a common environment (the U.S.), and we have dedicated ourselves to all manner of intervention to make the environment as truly common as possible. About the observed result, I would argue:

    (1) the consensus view, stated above, correctly reflects the AVERAGE heritability of the measured IQ differences within the U.S.; and

    (2) such environmentally-determined differences that remain, whatever they may be, are beyond the reach of a free-society to affect.

    — Ф · Nov 30, 08:00 PM · #

45. Brilliant analysis. Kudos.

    I would add one off-topic implication: If there is a significant degree of heritability in IQ… And if there is significant correlation between IQ and incomes… And if people mate with their economic peers… And if low-income folks breed more than higher-income folks… Then the “Idiocracy” thesis may prove correct. A higher-IQ elite will shrink as a share of population.

    Note: The Idiocracy thesis is race-neutral. (i.e., if racial groups would test identically after holding environmental factors constant, then future generations of lower-scoring races would test identically after those factors are resolved in due course.)

    — Stephen Stanton · Nov 30, 08:30 PM · #

46. Asher,

    Good response to my comments. I was struck by this statement: “Hiring people is often a very high-level cognitive process and given the vigorous social anti-racism campaigns I’m quite certain people are very conscious about racial awareness in the hiring process.” First of all, I’m not so sure this is true for more menial jobs but assuming it is true, the second part of your statement is interesting. Why bother with “social anti-racism campaigns” if you don’t think racism was at one time a problem or could in fact contribute to differential economic outcomes for black/white folks?

    Also, Derbyshire’s wife is Chinese.

    This is a great discussion.

    — Jeff Singer · Nov 30, 09:54 PM · #

47. `conspiracy`… the `limited options` available to `white people, like me`; the hysteria, self-delusion and self-pity apparent in Asher`s remarks are surely remarkable. Is really life so bad for an educated and self-professedly intelligent white American male in the USA? And if it is that bad, is it really due to the influx of less intelligent people who are not white? If Asher is an intelligent and competent person, why should he feel so threatened? Has he been done out of a job at Walmart? Might not the predicament that Asher seems to suggest that he is in have something to do with some deficiencies of his own?

    — Tim Harris · Dec 1, 12:09 AM · #

48. Tim, I’m genuinely curious. Is your reading comprehension really that bad? Or are you just deliberately attempting to misread my comments? Here’s what the average non-leftist white person has to choose from:

    A) Giving into whatever policies offered by white leftists
    B) Offering alternative policies of own (which Steve Sailer has done and has been ridiculed for in this comment section, and which I have done here).
    C) Say “fuck it” and give up on even attempting a political dialog with Black Americans

    Those are the ONLY options white non-leftists have. That is acknowledging reality. It is not a pity-party. Hell, at some point I’m perfectly content to go with C, although I’d personally prefer B.

    Um, nowhere am I threatened by anything, and “white people like me” is a reference to the fact that I am a white non-leftist. (Remember white leftists are positively giddy at the prospect of finding racism and injustice in every nook and cranny of society.) But politics is about attempting to work with others to achieve common goals and sometimes compromising over diverse goals. But if that is not possible then people take their toys and go home. Who do you think is hurt most by the impossiblity of dialogue between white non-leftists and black Americans? Hint, it ain’t the white non-leftists. What happens is that virtually all the white leftist programs for black people are demonstrable failures, but since black people overwhelming vote leftist there is no good reason for non-leftist whites to go out of their way and try to solve the issues facing black Americans. What’s in it for them?

    Back when Michael Jordan won the first Bull’s World Championship he refused to go to the White House and be congratulated by GHW Bush. Now what he said was “I’m a Democrat, he’s not my President”. But given that black Americans overwhelmingly vote Democrat what he really meant was “I’m a black man, he’s not my President”. Unfortunately, that sh*t cuts both ways. If the attitude of black voters for white non-leftist politicians is “fuck you” then the proper response is “eh, fuck you too, buddy”. When asked about my take on reparations/affirmative action my response is “What’s in it for me?” because that’s what politics is always about. And since no consideration is forthcoming I simply shrug and walk away. I just don’t care. Blacks asking for reparations without offering any consideration in return fundamentally undercuts the basic nature of politics which is reciprocal consideration.

    Also, you referenced the term “conspiracy”, which was a mocking reference to the fact that everyone debating me seemed addicted to logical fallacies. It was a clearly ironical reference to a clearly non-existent “conspiracy” to create a world’s record for logical fallacies. The fact that you took such obvious mockery in earnest is simply more evidence for your absolutely abysmal reading comprehension. It’s a level of sarcasm that would have probably been picked up on by most 8th graders. Not too difficult there, big guy.

    Seriously, dude, I used to tutor at a tutoring service and I’m sure my ex-boss could recommend a top-notch remedial reading service.

    Have I been done out of a job? Eh, not likely. I run my own business detailing yachts, doing minor cosmetic repairs and smaller woodworking jobs.

    Tim, if you want me to accept a policy then you need to tell me what is in it for me. Earlier I gave such a policy recommendation regarding education. Steve left a link to his policy guidelines to help the less-abled. I invited anyone else to suggest how to help those demographics. None were forthcoming. Again, Tim, “what’s in it for me”. That is the essence of politics.

    — Asher · Dec 1, 04:28 AM · #

49. Jeff, I appreciate your reasoned questions. I have explicitly admitted that people, in general, tend to orient themselves toward people that share common features. Democrats hang with democrats, pot smokers hang with pot smokers, white people hang with white people. This is probably genetic as well, as similar interests and worldviews breed economic efficiencies. It’s rational to prefer people more like you to those less like you.

    My question is how do some of these observable tendencies lead to the income gap, if in fact they are causal, and how do we address those mechanisms. I am wholly unconvinced that the somewhat trivial tendencies measured are capable of anything close to the observed income gap. If there is a “racism” mechanism then it is well-hidden, because the evidentiary racism, if you can even call it that, cannot plausibly cause what we see. So, while there is what some people call “racism” I do not see it causing the income gap.

    As to discrimination in menial jobs I’m pretty incredulous about that idea. My other brother does bingo and other activities at a nursing home and the one time I visited him every single Nursing Assistant and half the support staff were black. Any fast food drive-thru in Seattle is stocked full of young black kids, and I hope they move on to even bigger and better things. I’d be flabbergasted to learn there is discrimination in that segment of the job market, since so many middle-class white kids would seemingly turn up their nose at such menial jobs. It almost doesn’t pass the smell test.

    Also, your comment about anti-racism campaigns raises a very good issue. The average black matriculant at Harvard med school has a lower MCAT than the average Asian applicant at the same school. I think those anti-racism campaigns do close the wage gap. However, what it does it favor lower-IQ blacks over higher-IQ whites and asians. In fact, if it weren’t for such anti-racism campaigns IQ would be an even better predictor of income than it already is. BTW, I am not axiomatically opposed to anti-racism campaigns or even affirmative action programs. However, the compensation for such programs is rightfully that America is a wonderful place that is trying to make room for everyone and not this “they’re trying to keep the black man down” idiocy.

    In summary, anti-racism campaigns affect the distribution of wealth only to the extent that without them you’d return to a more “natural” direct income-IQ correlation.

    — Asher · Dec 1, 05:03 AM · #

50. ‘What`s in it for me?’ Perhaps a society that is not riven with injustice, and that is not growing more unjust and compounding already existing social problems, might be a better place not only for those who are now discriminated against but for such as Asher. I find telling Asher`s earlier recommendation that it would be advantageous for companies to `discriminate` against employees with children by hiring unmarried or childless young people from good universities, working them until they were `burnt-out`, and then turfing them out so that they can lead what Asher describes without a hint of irony as `normal` lives for the rest of their days. And then there are the maidenly squeals about `socialism` and the pitiful stuff about the desideratum of a `more “natural” direct income-IQ correlation` – what makes it desirable? And why this obsession with IQ? Why worry about immigrants not because too great and uncontrolled an influx might well be harmful to American society, but because those immigrants are allegedly unintelligent? What strikes me, as an outsider (I am English, have lived in Japan for over 30 years and am married to a Japanese), is the extraordinary incoherence of much of the American right`s position. They cling to a fistfull of little dogmas, epitomised by Reagan`s remark that government is the problem, by some of Ayn Rand`s supposedly `hard-headed` vapourings and by the neo-liberal delusion that the market is sacrosanct and if left alone will inevitably bring about a better future, and believe on the one hand that the convenience of corporations should be put above any concern for the fabric of American society (a belief that is clearly manifested in the recommendation of Asher`s that I have quoted)and at the same time protest vociferously against an influx of `less intelligent` and non-white people, an influx that has been encouraged precisely by those corporations whose convenience they have been so anxious to genuflect before and whose interests they are so anxious to protect. Meanwhile, because government is the problem, bridges are allowed to collapse, cities are destroyed, torture is outsourced, mercenaries take over the American army`s duties and murder innocents, the American health system is largely a joke, and it is only the penal side of things that seems to be favoured… and people like Asher and Sailer worry themselves sick about other (non-white) people`s IQs and feel resentful because of the suspicion that somebody who in Asher`s and Sailer`s eyes is undeserving might benefit a little. It is a rather pathetic and, as Asher himself makes clear with a self-congratulatory flourish, self-serving spectacle:‘What`s in it for me?’

    — Tim Harris · Dec 1, 02:14 PM · #

51. I love this blog and I love the internet!

    Who would guess that a small businessman who runs a yacht detailing business would run intellectual circles around the other posters. When Tim is reduced to calling the American right’s public policy positions “a fistful of little dogmas”, the debate is over (I also liked his comment that “the American health system is largely a joke”…let’s just say that for that statement to approach anything resembling the truth, the word “largely” has to do a lot of work).

    I look forward to reading you again Mr. Asher and I thank you for your delightful responses to my queries.

    — Jeff Singer · Dec 1, 02:56 PM · #

52. Tim, no one said that a more direct IQ-income correlation was more desirable that a looser correlation. My point was that anti-racism campaigns have likely had the effect of closing aggregate income gaps between “blacks” and “whites”. As I previously noted I have no a priori opposition to policies resembling affirmative action or even reparations. Remember, we are discussing the nature and causes of phenomena like the income gap between different ethnic groupings.

    And what’s all this about your indication over my “what’s in it for me?” question. Tim, you may not be aware but that question is the basis of politics. When the Israelis ask the Palestinians to stop blowing themselves up in shopping malls the Palestinian response is “what’s in it for us?”. When the Palestinians ask for a contiguous homeland that includes some territories now occupied by Israel the Israeli response is “what’s in it for us?”. Politics is fundamentally a reciprocal interaction; you scratch my back, I scratch yours.

    What’s amusing is that you begin your comment by asserting that ending injustice would be my compensation. The problem is that you are asserting what I deny exists in the first place. If differences in outcomes between individuals are not inherently unjust then differences in outcomes between groups are not inherently unjust. Differences are only unjust if you can demonstrate a causal mechanism of injustice that results in those differences. Since I already hold that the US is overall a fundamentally just society I simply reject the notion that your version of ending “injustice” is compensation at all. We do agree though that ending injustice could be considered some form compensation, if it actually existed in the systematic way you are implying.

    Finally, you make some claim that Steve Sailer and I are neo-liberals. Are you serious? Have you read Sailer? In no way is Sailer even remotely neo-liberal. Myself, I have held to the notion that neo-liberal theorists have a lot to offer to good political theory. But I am no thorough-going liberal. You assume way too much.

    — Asher · Dec 2, 02:56 AM · #

53. Wonderful discussions about a somewhat taboo topic. The implications of a genetic component to IQ, and other medical conditions such as sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and Tay-Sachs disease, are worth understanding and developing policy accordingly. I have observed that discussions over IQ distribution are much more sensitive than ones over other genetic traits such as the racial variations in the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis (carried almost exclusively by whites). In graduate school some people were uncomfortable talking about ACE inhibitors not working as well in black africans as other races, but when it comes right down to it, it would be medical malpractice to treat everyone identically when I know that certain medications are more likely to work for one race (or at least work better) than another. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that a given treatment regimen will work better for most whites than most blacks, and that an alternative regimen will work better for most blacks than most everybody else, and then treating them accordingly. This is not to say that some blacks won’t respond to treatment A like most whites, but rather to point out that B is a better place to start for blacks and that if I don’t see as much response as I would like I can move on to C, D, or even A to see what works. Just because ACE inhibitors don’t work as well for blacks as they do for whites ~85% of the time doesn’t mean that someone who points this out is a racist or thinks blacks are in some way inferior. The various races adapted to best meet the demands of their different environments, what works best in one doesn’t necessarily work best in all situations. The idea that any one trait is “superior” to all others is somewhat simplistic.

    Bringing me to the idea that one group (or individual for that matter) is superior to another because it has a higher mean IQ. I have a significantly higher IQ than one of my brothers and my sister, this doesn’t make me superior to them, but it does help explain why I’m so much better at math and make more money than all of my siblings combined. Similarly, just because blacks are genetically predisposed to maturing earlier, earlier first tooth eruption, earlier age to walk and dress themselves, and average 21% more muscle mass than whites (this is the amount of muscle mass we have to allow for so that blacks renal function can be estimated as accurately as whites) doesn’t make them superior to other races. It doesn’t even allow us to generalize that they’re better athletes. While many blacks could outrun me over 100M, I doubt there are many at all that could do the same in a swimming pool or go against my sister in gymnastics or diving. So while it is quite easy to turn on ESPN and observe many racial differences in sports this doesn’t mean that you can conclude that one race is superior.

    IQ is a more sensitive subject, I believe, because it is so predictive of economic success among other things. So while group differences in IQ doesn’t mean NE asians are superior to the rest of the world and blacks are hopelessly inferior, it does explain why many professions have the racial composition that they do. Importantly, a black mean IQ of 85 doesn’t preclude the possibility of Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams, etc. However it is just as important to keep in mind that for policies such as NCLB group averages do have meaning. Just because remedial reading classes are composed of overwhelmingly black boys, at the same school where the advanced reading classes white girls and the sciences full of asian boys, while half the hispanics have dropped out, doesn’t mean the administration is racist or favoring one group over another. Wishing reality to be other than it is won’t make it so.

    — Mark · Dec 3, 12:08 AM · #

54. Further confounding the ability to disentangle genetic and environmental influences is the pretty significant problem of even defining intelligence and then measuring it. IQ tests are designed by Western academics who implicitly define the relevant metrics, by their own cultural and economic norms. It is therefore not entirely surprising that IQ tends to correlate with markers of social and economic success. It was not so long ago that people thought that women were inherently inferior in IQ, and this could be proven by such things as lower spatial intelligence, and lower mathematical ability. Of course, if intelligence is defined by linguistic skills, then you would find that the men come out looking worse.
    I would like to see IQ tests developed independently by different cultures and then applied to a sampling of people internationally.

    I say all this as someone with a PhD in molecular biology who very much believes that there is a heritable component to the way that the mind works. I just think that only seeing it “intelligence” ignores the neurodiversity we see in the human species.

    — SJE · Dec 3, 11:59 PM · #

55. SJE, the validity of most testing, as least as this layperson understands, is the ability to predict outcomes. If “white academia” devises a test that accurately predicts intra-group outcomes in completely black populations in African countries, then that test has some sort of validity. Further, if it has similar prediction-value for two separate groups then it likely has the same value for inter-group comparisons. I could concede that the current battery of tests does not exhaust the possibilities for more precision when you measure and assess factor(s) of intelligence. But that concession simply means that we have more work to do in developing proper diagnostic tools and does not question the premise of heritable intelligence.

    Your comment about earlier biases against women bring up something interesting. Depending on how you interpret the comment it is not entirely unjustified to claim that “men are inherently smarter than women”. Although it is certainly not a claim I’d make. What that would mean is that men have a higher variability for heritable intelligence than do women. This means that you have a bunch of really smart men and a bunch of really dumb men. I read a post over at gnxp.com that had an analysis of IQ tests showing that at an IQ of 160 there were 5.5 times more men than women. Conversely, at that same negative SD score on the bell curve you’d also have 5.5 times more men than women. Also, if you place more weight onto the math and less on the verbal this ratio goes up even further.

    One favorite past time of mine is devising seemingly innocent questions that lead people to conclusions that I know they intensely oppose. I do this with all sorts of people from libertarians to creationists to feminists. For awhile I would insert “I would say that generally women and men are about the same smarts-wise”; note the hokey, man on the street language. I would then start talking about really stupid people and some of the really stupid behaviors you’d see in them. I’d then insert something to the effect that “gosh, it really seems to me that the vast majority of really stupid people we know are men”. Usually, the combination of the two premises were lost on people, even on really smart people. I’d pause and then follow that up with “well, if men and women are about equal and most stupid people are men, what do you think that implies?” All of a sudden you’d see this small spark of recognition as the wheels began turning. For added effect, I am a really good actor and all of a sudden I’d radically change my posture and facial expression to let them know they’d been cornered.

    Heh, the looks on people’s faces when they realized the implications were priceless. Usually, they wouldn’t even answer and would simply look down because they knew, THEY KNEW, exactly what I was saying.

    BTW, I now rarely do this sort of thing, to any group, as it left me feeling sort of queasy. The only thing that will bring it out is when I encounter an extremely brazenly obnoxious example of feminism or Marxism.

    — Asher · Dec 4, 02:31 AM · #

56. Asher:

    I agree that IQ tests have predictive value, irrespective of who designed them, as it has been objectively shown that IQ score is highly predictive of socioeconomic success. It is a useful metric, but it is a mistake to assume that it is the same as “intelligence,” since we dont have an agreed definition of what we are measuring.

    If IQ accurately measures the raw processing power of the brain, then we can say that IQ would be a strong predictor of success in a modern economy, and probably in all economies. If so, then all that we need to do is calibrate the rate of teaching to the IQ.

    Lets say, however, IQ only measures the ability of a brain to possess useful attributes that correlate with socioeconomic success. If so, then what is relevant in an IQ test would need to change as the economy changes (depending on the requirements of the society). Moreover, if IQ is NOT a good measure of brain processing power, but some other test IS, then the failure of some people is due not to their ability to think, but HOW they think. If so, then such people might be better tracked for certain careers, or taught in a certain way.

    Remember: his teachers thought Einstein was a dunce.

    — SJE · Dec 4, 05:04 AM · #

57. Which way would you bet , today,

    if your life depended on being right ?

    — E D Maner · Dec 4, 05:20 AM · #

58. SJE, I agree that psychometric testing is not a completed field, and I would offer that the abstraction of “intelligence” may be somewhat misleading. The tests simply measure whatever factor or factors they measure that predict the range of possible outcomes for an individual. We use the shorthand “intelligence” as a placeholder for that concrete description. And I certainly don’t want to give mandated IQ tests and then “place” everyone in jobs “suited” to their aptitude on some proctored test. What a hideous future there! That being said, it’s back-asswards that we approach everything with a pulse as if they were a potential nuclear physicist at MIT.

    That’s all I’m saying.

    — Asher · Dec 4, 07:40 AM · #

59. ‘In Africa, in an area far from town, in a bush school, which did not expect to educate its pupils for more than half a dozen years, a boy of ten was found with a stolen book under his bed. It was a tome of advanced physics, of which he could not have understood one word. “Why did you steal this book?” “But I want a book. I have no books. I wanted my own book,” said he. “But why did you steal this difficult book?” “I want to be a doctor,” he said, most passionately weeping, and clutching the book to him.` From an essay by Doris Lessing included in ‘Time Bites’(Harper & Collins). Words which one would hope might move some of the crippled, ungenerous souls who have contributed to this thread (and I am not referring to you, Asher, since your last post post redeems much – though certainly not all – of what you said earlier), and some unthoughtful ones, such as Andrew Sullivan in one of his worse moments, who perhaps uncognizant of the poverty that afflicts much of Africa, recently professed himself surprised, in what seemed a rather gloating way, that the internet was not widely available and used there.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 4, 01:06 PM · #

60. ‘In Africa, in an area far from a town, in a bush school, which did not expect to educate its pupils for more than half a dozen years, a boy of ten was found with a stolen book under his bed. It was a tome of advanced physics, of which he could not have understood a one word. “Why did you steal this book?” “ But I want a book. I have no books. I wanted my own book,” said he. “But why did you steal this book?” “I want to be a doctor,” he said, most passionately weeping, and clutching the book to him.’ From the book of essays ‘Time Bites’ by Doris Lessing ( Harper & Collins). Words that one hopes might move some of those narrow, crippled souls, imbued with the cliches of their time, who have contributed to this thread (amongst whom I do not include you, Asher, who have redeemed yourself to a degree with your last post – although I hope that it is also people of your own colour who are included among those who are not necessarily potential nuclear phycists at MIT), as well as the unthinking and ignorant, such as Andrew Sullivan in one of his worse moments, who, perhaps uncognizant of the poverty that afflicts much of sub-Saharan Africa, recently drew attention, in what seemed a gleefully gloating tone, to the fact that the internet is little available and little used in Africa.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 4, 02:11 PM · #

61. Sorry about the reduplication – I thought the first version had been lost so re-did it from memory.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 4, 02:14 PM · #

62. Tim,

    Allow this “narrow, crippled soul” to offer a couple of opinions. Based on the excerpt you quote, Doris Lessing seems like a hack who did not deserve the Nobel Prize. Two, the causes of African poverty are complex and recognizing the tragic consequences of that poverty and figuring out what to do about it are two very different things. You might want to start with this guy for some ideas on what might help that sad place: http://www.nyu.edu/fas/institute/dri/Easterly/bio.htm

    Finally, while I certainly have my disagreements with Andrew Sullivan’s writing, it can hardly be characterized as “unthinking and ignorant”. Why all the name calling?!

    — Jeff Singer · Dec 4, 04:45 PM · #

63. Asher: I completely agree.

    — SJE · Dec 4, 05:43 PM · #

64. Am delighted to learn that people like Mr Singer are interested in recognising problems in a responsible way and trying to find ways of dealing with them. Sometimes,I am afraid, Andrew Sullivan`s writing can be described as unthinking and ignorant – perhaps you missed, among other things, his cheer-leading for the invasion of Iraq; he has been mostly much better of late. Finally, perhaps you might explain why, on the basis of a single quotation, you feel qualified to describe Doris Lessing as a hack. Is it because she shows compassion and actually describes a particular individual as opposed to assuming that everything has to be approached in the abstract terms of a high-school debate?

    — Tim Harris · Dec 4, 11:42 PM · #

65. Doris Lessing may not be a hack. However, it is entirely inappropriate to use novels for this type of discussion. If you are citing a novelist to infer the self-perception of a particular class in history then that may have some value. So, while Doris Lessing may not be a hack, it is certainly hackery to cite her fiction as a basis for arguing social and economic policy.

    I’m not interested in some white, high-society, radical leftist imagining the tears of some poor boy in Africa who wants to be a doctor. What percentage of young boys in Africa want to enter Harvard Medical School? What percentage even comprehend what it means to be a doctor? It’s probably one in a million. And the few that do probably score quite highly on IQ tests. If you’re talking about helping Africa it is necessary to account for the fact that the thinking organ of about half the population limits them, biologically, to probably nothing beyond herding, rudimentary farming and supervised menial labor. This is not disrespectful. It is brute reality. The little boy Lessing describes would almost certainly end up as a doctor in the United States anyway, so what possibly relevance does that tear-jerking story have for the average little boy in Africa?

    — Asher · Dec 5, 04:56 AM · #

66. But, as I wrote (perhaps, Asher, you, too, should learn to read more carefully) it is not from one of Doris Lessing`s novels: it is a description, from one of her essays, of an actual African boy, of his actual situation, and of his actual behaviour… and I take back my conciliatory words about Asher now that he has finally been goaded into coming out and giving clear expression to the unpleasing racism that lies beneath his little exercises in chop-logic and the high-school debating skills he keeps so carefully honed.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 5, 08:33 AM · #

67. It is an anecdote made by a white, utopian leftist about some poor child wishing for a way out of the poverty that is his reality. Such anecdotal tear-jerking is worthless for reasonable and worthwhile social policy.

    Doris Lessing can make whatever tear-jerking references she likes, and they are heart-breaking. But that has no place in this sort of discussion. As for the charge of racism when I hear it I simply assume that the person being insulted has recently disagreed with a leftist.

    You can call me racist Tim. I’m simply far too cynical and hardened to it to care.

    — Asher · Dec 5, 10:02 AM · #

68. Yes, Asher, I suspect that regrettably you are too hardened and cynical to care.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 5, 10:52 AM · #

69. Tim, you can make me care by telling me . . . what’s in it for me.

    — Asher · Dec 5, 11:01 AM · #

70. I see now, Asher, where you got your idea about the ‘brute reality’ of half the population of Africa being suitable only for being ordered about by such as yourself; I suggest you read Stephen Medcalf’s take-down of Saletan in Slate and consider carefully Dr Nisbett’s contemptuous dismissal of precisely the idea you so dutifully parrot. Another matter is that this debate is in the end about actual living individuals, in case you hadn’t realised, about people like that African boy (which is why I brought him in), and if you are a man you should bloody well recognise this and stop protecting yourself with your pathetic abstractions, the high-school debating rules you pontificate about, your whining about ‘leftists’, your cant about what is allowable in ‘this sort of discussion’ and about ‘reasonable and worthwhile social policy’. The matter has nothing whatsoever to do with being on the left or the right, or with your self-congratulatory chat about how good an actor you are and about such trivial feats as tricking people into having to agree to a proposition they would not ordinarily accept: what it has to do with is simple humanity and finding ways to better a sad situation, and if you are genuinely unable to see that, I pity you. You may claim that you, too, want to better a sad situation, but if you are going to be so credulous and prejudiced as to accept such dubious assertions as the one about the mental standards of fifty percent of the population of Africa, then you clearly have nothing useful to contribute to the bettering of that situation, and will almost certainly, if listened to, help to make it worse. I do not want to call you a hypocrite, because it seems to me, I hope not wrongly, that there is a fair element of decency in you, but I would suggest that you need to beware of crossing over into hypocrisy.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 5, 12:22 PM · #

71. And as for your silly little ‘knock-down’ question, ‘What’s in it for me?’, I suggested above what might be in it for you, but whether through carelessness, intentional misreading or, since we are speaking of IQs, innate obtuseness, you misunderstood what I said: what I suggested was that a fairer society, one less pulled apart by the forces that seem to be pulling apart American society today, might be a better, happier and generally more prosperous place both for people who have been, and in some important respects are still being, discriminated against, as well as for more fortunate people like yourself, and, I might add, for your children. That is the sense in which there would be something in it ‘for you’. There is an old and not foolish concept of the ‘common weal’that goes back long before such terms as ‘conservatism’ and ‘liberalism’ were invented (and incidentally I suggest you find out what neo-liberalism in economics is, since your suggestion about how companies should ‘burn out’ young employees and then turf them out is a perfect neo-liberal idea). But if you prefer the unhappiness, violence, crime etc, that attends on and results from division and poverty, then there is of course nothing more to be said, and certainly nothing more to be expected from you in the way of constructive suggestions.

    — Tim Harris · Dec 5, 02:08 PM · #

72. Tim, a “commonweal” assumes a commonality to begin with. Is there any such commonality? I see none. I’m willing to hope that one could exist. All I see today is black LEADERS and white leftists saying “gimme, gimme, gimme” and my response is “eh, f*ck off”. Politics is all about reciprocity: you do for me and I do for you. What occurs at present is an absolute “you come over to us” mentality by black LEADERS and white leftists, which a majority of white Americans consider fundamentally illegitimate. If you don’t believe me then look at the figures that the percentage of white Americans who vote Republican are in the high 50s and rising. Personally, I haven’t voted Republican since since 1994 and am only using these statistics as a proxy to demonstrate my point of the complete ambivalence of white America to these topics. Do you really want to help black people? Then devise a set of policy prescriptions that help American minorities and that also advanced the interests of the majority of white Americans.

    We have been doing this dance for five days and you’ve yet to advance any policy prescriptions, despite repeated challenges.

    You mention unhappiness, violence, poverty and crime. Well, who do you think those phenomena impact most? Yeah, blacks and hispanics. Yet over the course of the past several days all you’ve managed to do is throw insults at me. Do you think that insulting me is going to make me any more inclined to your point of view? Hell, I haven’t even the faintest what that view might be. All I hear is you bleating about a just society, but what that might be is left completely un-communicated. You talk about a “fairer society” but I have no idea what the hell that even means. Fair? I have female friends born with very large bodies and unattractive faces. Is that fair? What do you intend to do about that? I have no idea what the hell you mean by fair.

    And when you talk about Africa I see absolutely no evidence that you actually have any actual concern for what happens to individual Africans on the ground. Africa is a concept you promote so that you can feel superior to people such as myself. Frankly, I doubt you give two sh*ts about the average African person on the ground. I have not seen you give any indication of positive policy prescriptions that would provide any benefits to the average person living in Africa. On the other hand, I , and many of the people I admire, have actually devised policies that would benefit the average African on the ground, and not the statistical anomaly that wants to go to Harvard Medical School.

    Tim, since your wife is Japanese and lives in Japans I have another question for you. Would the Japanese tolerate a huge influx of people, say 30 million, into Japan on a permanent basis? Let’s say that the Japanese government were forced at the point of a gun to accept 30 million: would they prefer 30 million from West Africa? Or 30 million from Northern Europe? We both know the answer.

    One more thing, Tim: I spoke about becoming hardened and cynical. Well, it’s people, such as yourself, whose repeated bloviations have developed this hardened cynicism. The more times you imply racism the more cynical and hardened I become, and it is in your power to stop the vicious cycle of cynicism.

    Tim, “what’s in it for me” is not a throw away line, in fact, it is the basis for all politics.

    — Asher · Dec 6, 09:11 AM · #

73. I agree with Asher. “Fair” isn’t the same as reality. Wishing things to be a certain way won’t make it so. Making decisions, such as NCLB, while ignoring reality is a recipe for disaster. Why should we waste time and money trying to prepare all children for college when they aren’t all capable of college level work? Seems to me that for many kids with low IQs the time spent on college prep classes would have been better spent on auto maintenance or some other useful skill. Mechanics, plumbers, etc. can make decent money and are useful occupations that are likely to remain around for a career doing them. There is nothing wrong with trying to help the left half of the bell curve reach their potential, just realize that not everyone has the same potential. Trying to convince people that all groups are capable of producing physicians, physicists, and engineers, not only leads to resentment on their part when it turns out not to be the case (and of course then they have to point to racism or some other cause for their failure) but it prevents them from focusing their efforts in areas where they could be successful.

    — Mark · Dec 7, 05:56 AM · #

74. Right Mark, I tutored the SATs, one on one, for 4 years. I had some kids who simply were functionally incapable of progressing past about 2/5ths of the way through the math section. We could literally spend 2 hours going over the exact same type of problem and they still wouldn’t even know how to approach it. We’re talking about kids from well-off families, in expensive private schools. So education is obviously not the answer.

    — Asher · Dec 7, 06:37 AM · #

75. I wholly agree with not forcing or encouraging children who do not have academic aptitudes to waste time and effort (and others’ time and effort) on intellectual work when they would be happier and more successful doing more practical things, and have myself advised a number of young people accordingly. But this is not the point at issue. The point at issue is not the fact that many individuals are unsuited to intellectual work, but the assertion that people who belong to certain races are congenitally unintelligent. When I was at an agricultural college in Wales, there were a number of students from Africa – from Nigeria, Botswana, Basutoland, etc. – with some of whom I became very friendly, since, unlike Asher (judging from his remarks), I do not feel discomfort in the presence of people of other races. Despite the fact that English was not their native language, their performance was not notably inferior to that of the Welsh and English students there, and some of those students did very well indeed, better than many of the ‘white’ students. I also worked in my youth on building sites and factories, as a labourer, with West Indians, knew West Indian musicians, had friends among them and was invited to their homes, and I can assure Asher that they were all intelligent, competent people. Perhaps he should get to know some black people instead of sitting behind the fence of his white discomfort, and reciting contemptible lies about fifty percent of the population of Africa being suitable only for supervised menial labour. I can only find amusing his complaints about being insulted, when he has no compunction about insulting in the most disgusting way whole groups of the human race.

    With his little thought-experiment about Japan, Asher is either being dishonest or foolish. Of course the Japanese would prefer North Europeans, but certainly not for the (false) reason that Asher so lovingly cherishes; and as to the real reasons (there are more than one) I shall leave Asher to apply his mind and try to work out what they might be. I should add that the Japanese, too, have encouraged an influx of ‘guest workers’ from the poorer parts of Asia to work in the building trade, etc. Similarly, there is considerable immigration into Britain from Eastern Europe as well as Africa and Asia.
    As for the policy proposals I haven’t made, I have noticed few, if any, from Asher amongst the complaints about ‘blacks’ and the defensive and hypocritical uses of dubious claims and high-school logic to ward off reality and to avoid recognising the real people who are affected by his attitudes, but from his remarks about ‘blacks’ one can imagine what they would be.
    I can see little difference between the ‘What’s in it for me?’ he clings to like a child to its comforter and the ‘gimme, gimme, gimme’ he complains about in the case of people he dislikes, and would suggest that he should learn that reality is not simply ‘brutal’ but often quite complicated and subtle. Society, too, is complicated, and not, as he believes, a mere collection of individuals out only for their own ends: if he seriously believes that, then he has no cause for complaint.

    Finally, I am as bored with Asher as he must be with me, and I imagine the other contributors to the thread (if any are still looking at it) are bored stiff with both of us. So I am going to call it a day. If I have sounded contemptuous, I make no apology for it: ‘As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible’ (William Blake, ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ – quoted from memory).

    — Tim Harris · Dec 8, 01:30 AM · #

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