The political implications of genetic differences are far from obvious, and if negative political consequences DO end up stemming from these findings, you know what? The majority of the blame can lay squarely at the feet of the Jerry Coynes of the world who absurdly refused to predicate or defend their principles on anything less than (tacitly confessed) fairytale lies of total genetic human equality.
Jerry Coyne and the intellectual and scientific community always had the choice to argue "It is 100% irrelevant if there are genetic differences, social justice X and political policies Y and J are predicated on ethical values K and Q"
But they didn't choose to make this argument. Instead they systematically cried and hollered and silenced and lied for 50 years. Like Coyne they just sulked and quietly dreaded and accepted that genetic differences would (and should) lead to a less just world. And then, accordingly, they turned their backs on every principle they should represent as humanists and scientists to try and bury and prevent any inconvenient revelations of such differences.
Coyne and company will switch gears abruptly and entirely in arguing the value system I suggest above, I fully assure you, but they will do so only too late, and they will only look like disingenuous fools to everyone in doing so.
So when the big news comes, if the American people make some dumb and illiberal choices about what to do about it, why don't you lay a large portion of the blame at the feet of the intellectual classes who were too narrowly ideological and myopic to try and prepare the public (and themselves) for it ethically and intellectually?
Or you can just scapegoat the truth seekers and truth tellers for all our problems, like most people - right and left - in this profoundly anti-intellectual culture
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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23 comments:
Quite true, but they were never the only voices on the block.
Recognizing the high liklihood of genetic inequality between races has no effect on my interest in striving toward greater equality between people. In fact I see it no different whatsoever from the basic fact of there being varying levels of intelligence and ability between ANY two people (with the color of their skin tone irrelevant). Some people were lucky enough to be born with talents that will help them succeed in the modern world and others weren't, why should those lucky few be granted a blank check to live largely wheile the majority of their compatriots languish somewhere between tremendous pressure and mental anguish? I support more liberal economic policies than the current administration precisely BECAUSE I recognize that poor people didn't CHOOSE to be poor through mythical "bad decisions" but were largely led there by the circumstances of their lives and genes.
I wrote of this often and if it some point it becomes legal to admit that there are differences in intelligence and the brilliant people of this fine land "make some dumb and illiberal choices" it will be no fault of mine.
Proof.
Repeat after me: ALL - PEOPLE - ARE - ALL - THE - SAME .
Watson has apologized. The man who discovered the double helix is apparently an idiot. Somehow he managed not to know what everyone else knows: That All Races Of People Have The Same Average Intelligence. Hah! What a moron for not having realized that obvious truth. Y'know, that racist idiot was probably wrong about that whole 'DNA' thing too.
In any event, before the Thought Police attached the bucket of rats to Watson's face the good Libertarians over at Reason wondered aloud, "Is Nobelist James Watson, Co-Discoverer of the Structure of DNA, a Racist?" Ronald Bailey informs his Libertarian readers about Watson's unforgivable utterance (I think we call it "ignorance" these days, right?) and then goes on to quote himself saying that even if Africans aren't as smart as we are, we should still be nice to the smart ones.
Of course Watson's point was regarding how best to help Africa rather than how best to choose an employee but (unlike Darwin) Reason writers worship natural selection. They may or may not dislike people of different skin colors but "so long as he's the best man for the job, Sambo should be hired just as quick as Lawrence".
Anyhow, entering among the dog-piling wolves in the blog's echo chamber, I wrote -
The fault, dear Ronnie, is not in our stars but in ourselves. It is EXTRAORDINARILY obvious that the main factor, out of which most other factors flow, for black non-success in our society is genetic.
That being the case, you and all of your libertarian friends have the choice of either choosing to be Nazis or to cease being Free Marketers (capitalized as all religions are).
People don't suffer the ravages of Western Civilizations bottom rungs because they "choose" to live a life of worry, stress and struggle for survival. They live among the dregs because they aren't as "fit" as you to "survive" the Free Market that you worship.
In my opinion therefore they have every natural right to rise up and take from you your status, class and goodies by the force of their brute fists. Your capitalism has resigned them to a world where they live constantly at the edge of despair and they have every right to upturn your applecart.
So, again, racial inequality May be an illusion of mine... but I don't think so.
Of course however race has nothing to do with it. The evil nature of the unregulated free market destroys the souls of less able Japanese people in a racially monolithic society as well. Pygmies are not the only people less able to become top-notch lawyers than is Alan Dershowitz. Lots of Ashkenazi Jews have low intelligence or other personality faults that keep them from attaining "the American dream" as well - and these people are just as likely to suffer the ill effects of the "greed is good" (or was it "God"?) doctrine as is a Birmingham black kid. But the issue of "race" may turn out to be the one that finally shows your type for who you are: people who are simply Lucky enough to be born with the right intellectual goods to succeed in the modern economic system and who justify their success through self-congratulatory claims that "anyone can do it!", meaning that you have what you have because you Deserve it rather than because of luck-of-the-genes.
And who supports you? who props you up? the very people who have the most to lose by it. The believers in the religious doctrine of Racial Tabula Rasa who keep up their laughable patter about how "racism" is what's "keeping the black man down". No doubt this constantly expressed belief improves some people's sense of self-worth by constantly telling them that "your brains are not inferior!" (Or Dumbo Diamond style, "Yali's people are SUPERIOR!") but it serves the one overriding goal of Genetic Meritocracy by allowing the capitalistic system to continue to function as it does.
Cheers Gentle Libertarians ~
mnuez
And I was gonna let this comment live out its brief life at the bottom of that comment section on a fast moving blog where the morning's news is stale by afternoon, but Watson's incessant, repeated and self-demeaning apologies for the gall of his inner demons having committed such a repugnant thoughtcrime rise before me now as a moral obligation to step into his corner as one small voice for the Defense.
So there it is.
Yah, there it is.
See also: Ayn Rand Was An Ugly Whore
Malloy is ten times the man that those next to him in the corridors of the "Truth Manufacturing-Industrial Complex" (by which I mean the socio-political practice of science) are. All the rest seem critically, perhaps entirely depleted off of the testosterone levels required to deal with Truth in its own terms.
Hail to him.
JD
The egalitarians may be wrong, but they wouldn't have been so successful for so many years if the racial "realists" of the early-mid 20th Century hadn't set the cause back for generations. Malloy doesn't note that one reason the egalitarians got so much traction for so many years is that the Nazi habit of exterminating untermenchen made the earlier American obsessions with eugenics and immigration policies restricting "less intelligent" Jews and Southern Europeans look evil and wrong in hindsight.
Mneuz also anticipates a likely response in another thread: Kevin MacDonald-like academics who will offer theories that explain white over-achievement versus blacks as a result of vast white conspiracies instead of inherent differences. Occam's Butterknife at work again, in the service of wounded racial pride.
As that quote demonstrates, they still think that they are right. Even when thay have to admit to systematic falsehood, misuse of authority, thuggish intimidation, they still think that they are just so superrior, that their goals are so much better than everyone else's; they just need to redeploy their tactics. Of course they never question their conclusions.
Steve, I think you're being naive about the consequences of society acknowledging racial reality. It would bring a swift end to multiculturalism, open borders and a lot other social engineering. The a**hole Marxists are very smart not to give an inch on this point. It is their linchpin. The whole Cultural Marxism house of cards will come down.
The entire Western world has been culturally conditioned through mass media for the current retro-fitting race-replacing scheme. Now people are going to be allowed to argue in public that the newcomers are indeed inferior? That the newcomers very thinking and therefore the newcomer’s culture is inferior? That their math & science skills are inferior and that that will lead eventually to a regression in American economic competitiveness? To an increasing lack of transparency in finance and law? To us being dragged down to Third World status by them? These discussions can take place out in the open? No way.
Think about it, Steve. People would actually be able to defend the concept that Traditional Majority White America is superior to the forthcoming New Majority Non-White America. No way, Jose. The skunk Marxists will literally go down in a hail of bullets before conceding this point. It is their holy of holies. You are talking about kicking out the legs of their Trojan horse and that will not be allowed. Ever.
Your truth-telling appeals to the regime are a waste of time. The regime is completely invested in "race is a social construct". Why don't you ask them to stop breathing while you're at it?
I remember when Charles Murray published his article revisiting the Bell Curve, one well frequented "blue state" blog page had the owner saying that if IQ differences were real that it would justify slavery. That's very revealing of how leftists view the world: absolute sameness or absolute evil.
The willingness to acknowledge the relationship between genetics and race will come gradually. First, we'll have to admit the medicinal or physiological implications of race first.
Then, we'll worry about the bottom/top of the bell curve for whites.
Only however many years in the future will everything come together. At least I hope it happens somewhat gradually. There would be alot of hysteria if it happened too soon.
Jason is of course right about this. We will have to go back to the writings of Lincoln -- and to the Bible -- to get our footing back on these issues. But we live in a democracy, and eventually it will happen, I think, maybe sooner than we expect. The innate decency and common sense of the American people will ultimately prevail.
The egalitarians may be wrong, but they wouldn't have been so successful for so many years if the racial "realists" of the early-mid 20th Century hadn't set the cause back for generations. Malloy doesn't note that one reason the egalitarians got so much traction for so many years is that the Nazi habit of exterminating untermenchen made the earlier American obsessions with eugenics and immigration policies restricting "less intelligent" Jews and Southern Europeans look evil and wrong in hindsight.
UTTER NONSENSE.
The Commies killed waaaay more than the Nazis. The former killed their millions while spouting egalitarianism and race-obscurantism; the latter killed theirs while spouting racial hierarchy and supremacy.
The latter got all the press. The former got none, because their fellow-travelers ran the media.
Raw power. Raw Power. Raw Power. That's all there was (and is) to it - ideology and "the lessons of history" are squid ink.
Steve, I think that most white people, and many non-whites as well, instinctively and, to a lesser extent, intellectually understand that there are real racial differences besides those which are visible to the human eye, and that these differences probably include intelligence.
As you discussed in your recent article for Vdare, the private behavior of most white Americans contradicts what they say in public discourse and what they advocate for in public policy. I think the main reason for this is:
1) They believe modern egalitarianism is a Christian and American ideal.
2) They believe the only alternative to modern egalitarianism is some type of fascism.
On the first point, it is true that there are egalitarian principles in both the Declaration of Independents (We hold these truths to be self-evident... ) and the Bible (all humans are made in God's image, etc.). However, the version of egalitarianism found in these texts is much different from our modern version of egalitarianism.
Thomas Jefferson's version of egalitarianism, what I call "classical egalitarianism", was a central feature of classical liberalism. Classical egalitarianism basically said that every citizen has the same basic rights and is entitled to equal treatment under the law, which was originally intended to secure those rights. This was a radical concept in those days, as it sought to replace the old European class system, based largely on bloodlines, with a meritocracy.
Classical egalitarianism was partially based on the notion of egalitarianism found in the Bible, which basically said that all human souls are of equal value in the eyes of God (at least in Christianity).
Obviously, this notion of egalitarianism is quite different from our modern version, which is a central feature of modern liberalism, but has become, to one degree or another, an orthodoxy found across the political spectrum. Modern egalitarianism is based on the absurd notion that all humans are born with the same abilities and the same potential. Therefore, any disparity in results is automatically presumed to be caused be sexism, racism, or classism.
I'm sure Steve and many of the readers here already had some understanding of how the concept of egalitarianism has drastically changed over time, but most Americans do not, and this is why they view modern egalitarianism as a major tenent of both their nation and their religion.
This comment is turning into an essay paper, so I will end it here without getting into the false dichotomy between modern egalitarianism vs. fascism.
I just want to point out, once again, the importantance of these two misunderstandings. Most of the resistance of fence-sitters is based on one or both of these misunderstandings. This has been true not only in my own personal experience, but it also appears to be underlying the resistence found in a handfull of Vdare readers to Steve's column as well.
Malloy doesn't note that one reason the egalitarians got so much traction for so many years is that the Nazi habit of exterminating untermenchen made the earlier American obsessions with eugenics and immigration policies restricting "less intelligent" Jews and Southern Europeans look evil and wrong in hindsight.
You've got to be kidding. Calling Nazis "race-realists" is quite absurd. They were race fanatics. Race lunatics. Their ideological fixation on race as the alpha and omega of society was even more ludicrous than current egalitarians' fervent urge to deny race's existence.
Trying to make present-day race realists share blame for the Nazis is entirely unfair. A better target of criticism are the egalitarians who try to link reasonable discussion on the realities of race to the Nazis.
I agree with Cabrolet - The multi-culti advocates are in waayyy too deep to reverse course and re-evaluate their position - They have too much to lose and will just scream "RACIST" even louder if their feet are held to the fire...And kudos to Malloy btw!
And consider that Nazis banned IQ tests.
"UTTER NONSENSE.
The Commies killed waaaay more than the Nazis."
And Malaria-bearing mosquitoes have killed more than both. Both facts are irrelevant to the point I made.
"You've got to be kidding. Calling Nazis "race-realists" is quite absurd."
I wasn't calling the Nazis "race realists"; I was calling the American eugenics/racial-origin immigration movement that.
::They have too much to lose and will just scream "RACIST" even louder if their feet are held to the fire::
Yeah, I mean, while I was critiquing multiculti in and after University, I made a huge point, in my mind, of dissociating all that from the "Bell Curve" outlook(call it the Jared Diamond POV). I was nonetheless slandered by various people as a "Bell Curve" guy, mainly because the multicultists had no comprehension of what I was arguing, they just knew it sounded science-y. Their reflexive rejection of the scientific outlook, now that I think of it, might just be, on a macro level, strategic. I assume some wise old Pomod may have looked at all this stuff, and seen if you start accepting rational and cogent arguments about some stuff...well...it's a slippery slope to obliterating their worldview utterly. I mean some pomods actually come out and say reasonable argument is the devil. Such stuff transcends satire, but was there a kind of method?
The taboo-culture there is incomprehensible to me now, but even for myself, the taboo-ness of the Bell Curve outlook was pretty strong...sort of a point of pride, since the sociobiologists had strategically retreated, and I was always mainly interested in aspects of general human nature, and whooping that up, since I thought it was so interesting. I remember being a little disturbed by a forgotten 1981 E.O. Wilson book sort of implying Bell Curve-like beliefs, or Bertrand Russell tossing off -- in 1926! mind you -- that "negroes would probably do simpler labor" or some such thing, in the future...and I mean that was me, scientific-outlook contrarian, anti-Pomo crusader, as I functioned. I was genuinely unsettled by Bertrand Russell having that passing thought...this taboo's industrial-strength. The only cure is spending some time with the data. Who spends time with data? And who wants to be instantly the reflexively reviled by people who share 99.9% of their outlook with you, i.e., everybody and everybody else, too?
And as everybody knows, the innately-identical outlook's so unquestionable, so entrenched, even the scientists and conservatives, the racist bogeymen who said one thing, and secretly thought another, don't allow themselves to secretly think what's more empirically suggested than ever before.
That's some taboo.
Jeez.
You can have your multiculturalism. You can have your egalitarianism. But then go all the way. No more black basketballers please. Give out wives by lottery. Hell, give out sexual favours by lottery. But until you do that, and myriad other similar things - you dont have egalitarianism - you have a societally entrenched black/women/hispanic/etc etc fetish.
And prepare for a backlash.
Steven Pinker, who apparently failed to show up for defending Watson (even though he agrees 100%, pretty doubtlessly) said something interesting, which was...these people love complex films, for instance, no happy ending, no simple solution...no condescending nonsense about the goodness of reality...on one level. But when it comes to actual reality, they're gone before-the-fact. Intellectuals like sappy garbage about reality, I wonder what he was referring to?
I was going to mention Steve Pinker, too, because he brings up something like this in The Blank Slate, saying that ust because humans have certain innate qualities (such as abilities to acquire language, certain instinctual emotional reactions, etc.) that differ doesn't mean that therefore morality goes out the window. Indeed, I believe he says something to the extent that ignoring what science has to say about human nature brings about some really nasty results (cf Marxism).
However, as another commenter pointed out, once it becomes evident that there are statistical distinctions, then the whole affirmative action quota system comes falling down about the ears of those who look upon it as their sinecures. If there are differences, then it makes no sense just to look at the stats of hires/promotions/whatever and say "It must be discrimination!" No, it would require actual =work= to dig into where there really are injustices as opposed to the natural filtering of interests and abilities. Yes, there is actual discrimination out there, but nowhere near the endemic they claim, and if anything AA policies make it worse.
They couldn't bitch about so few women being in physics because so few women are interested or can do physics (never mind the same is true of men, it's just that more men are interested and can do it.) But most importantly, they couldn't make the claim that their educational attainment is from pure effort alone as opposed to having that genetic advantage to begin with (heck, what if they find out they squandered their true potential, while those of lesser aptitudes accomplish so much more comparatively?)
Bah. I am a supposed beneficiary of these policies, and I don't see them ending any time soon.
munez: why should those lucky few be granted a blank check to live largely wheile the majority of their compatriots languish somewhere between tremendous pressure and mental anguish?
Productive people are not granted (by whom) a check to live large. They are capable of producing things/services that other people value. By serving to produce values for other people they earn money (claims on the services of yet other people). doing my own taxes is tedious and I would probably make errors. I pay my accountant because he dedicates his skill and time to meeting my needs. I could not care less that he does not deserve his brains. I want to watch attractive actresses in movies. I don't care whether she deserved the lucky genes which make her attractive.
What you are proposing is either everyone get the same check from the government no matter what they contribute to their fellow man, or some sort of central equity board which allocates all of society's production to people according to what they deserve. And why limit it to compensation. We can't make the dumb smart but we can make the smart dumber. A little bit of denied oxygen while in the womb; maybe some watered down bleach . . .
They didn't restrict Jews and southern Europeans because they were "less intelligent".
Representative William N. Vaile of Colorado, one of the most prominent restrictionists:
“Let me emphasize here that the restrictionists of Congress do not claim that the ‘Nordic’ race, or even the Anglo-Saxon race, is the best race in the world. Let us concede, in all fairness that the Czech is a more sturdy laborer…that the Jew is the best businessman in the world, and that the Italian has…a spiritual exaltation and an artistic creative sense which the Nordic rarely attains. Nordics need not be vain about their own qualifications. It well behooves them to be humble.
“What we do claim is that the northern European and particularly Anglo-Saxons made this country. Oh, yes; the others helped. But… [t]hey came to this country because it was already made as an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth. They added to it, they often enriched it, but they did not make it, and they have not yet greatly changed it.
“We are determined that they shall not...It is a good country. It suits us. And what we assert is that we are not going to surrender it to somebody else or allow other people, no matter what their merits, to make it something different. If there is any changing to be done, we will do it ourselves.” [Cong. Rec., April 8, 1924, 5922]
Clearly it had nothing to do with untermenchen.
Desmond Jones
"And why limit it to compensation. We can't make the dumb smart but we can make the smart dumber. A little bit of denied oxygen while in the womb..."
That was the premise of A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.
I'm in favor of making the "smart" more dumb. Everybody will be too dumb to complain about the problems of the dumber. Problem solved for Steve Sailer.
does it take dr.watson to receive the nobel peace prize to apologize?
albert howard
alberthoward.org
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