How Very White
In Slate, William Saletan says we should all get used to developing scientific evidence of variations in average intelligence among the races. The new research offers a familiar hierarchy of smarts, with Africans at the bottom and Asians at the top. But what Saletan is really talking about is a variation in average IQs, but he conflates the two ideas with abandon. And while he vaguely acknowledges the possibility that the new research might be proved wrong - he seems pretty darn convinced. And he doesn't mention any of the many theories that argue against a real connection between IQ and intelligence. (Thanks David Brooks?) Some people think IQ tests just measure how white you are.
I agree that this new "evidence" should be discussed, but flippantly putting it out there is a pretty idiotic thing to do in a world were people like this exist. The Slate discussion board is already atwitter over Saletan's post.
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2:42 pm
a typical rant, what is your idea, how should one put it out there?
11:39 am
"Some people think IQ tests just measure how white you are."
So I guess ashkenazic jews are the whitest, and asians the second whitest.
2:39 pm
How dare Mr. Saletan expose this scandalous issue to the general public! How dare Herrnstein and Murray publish their findings in a format fit for general readership! What idiots! What monsters! My jowels are wobbling with indignation...
12:27 am
"in a world were people like this exist."
Oh come on! It's amazing how moderate Charles Murray is, when so many know-nothing sheeple in the educated liberal classes think he must be a Grand Wizard.
Most people now agree that Welfare Reform was a success, even though many liberals at the time predicted it would result in a catastrophe for blacks and the poor (with of course copious accusations of racism back then as well). Murray's Losing Ground was its impetus. The Bell Curve was a scientifically solid and politically moderate book on the science of IQ and possible policy implications of IQ differences (most of which are between individuals in the same family). It drove the petty, and race obsessed intelligentsia nuts only because it, in the context of a much larger discussion, argued that achievement gaps were probably partially genetic. Which is still a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. And Murray's latest book even calls for a radical kind of redistributionism which is miles from the current Republican or libertarian viewpoints.
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare-State/dp/0844742236