My new VDARE.com column

will be up Monday night, instead of the usual Sunday night, due to Independence Day. I'm doing a long review of David Plotz's new book "The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. Here's a short preview:

Sperm banking sounds derisible, but a moment's reflection shows that it's an extremely serious matter to those who have the misfortune to need the industry's services. About one million Americans alive today were conceived with donor sperm, and another 30,000 are born every year.

For the rest of us, the history of sperm banking is worth thinking about in depth because it vividly illustrates two general principles that the American establishment doesn't want you to think about:

1. Humans differ strikingly, so selection -- whether choosing who will father a baby or which foreigners will be allowed to immigrate to the United States -- is important. Yet, in American public discourse we are all supposed to ignore the 800 pound gorilla of nature and talk instead as if the 10 pound poodle of nurture, whether education or assimilation, is all that matters.

2. Just because elites and other interest groups want to banish from polite society debate over human selection doesn't mean these questions don't matter. Somebody always has to do the selecting. What they are trying to do is keep you from doing it. [More]

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer