Like Andrew Sullivan says:
The fact of human inequality and the subtle and complex differences between various manifestations of being human - gay, straight, male, female, black, Asian - is a subject worth exploring, period. Liberalism's commitment to political and moral equality for all citizens and human beings is not and should not be threatened by empirical research into human difference and varied inequality.Hateful actions have been justified by this kind of thinking. But if you believe that reason reigns supreme then you can't let that stop you in your pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
UPDATE: The "liberals" are responding. Atrios and Digby have some great points here. Matt thinks people who believe The Bell Curve holds up are fools, not bigots. Personally I don't have a strong opinion on this, although it seems clear that Bell Curve likely confuses levels of education with IQ.
All I know is this: Research shows strong parallels between "group psychology" (even for large groups like "society") and individual psychology. Thus, in the long term it does society no good to create taboos and suppress debate.
UPDATE II: I normally like Atrios, his writing is intelligent even though it's a little one-sided at times. But this is ridiculous:
The ignorance of Andrew Sullivan is shocking. A decade later, he still has no clue why the publication of racist pseudo-science reflects not a man who is "interested in the truth," but rather, as I said, a bigot, a fool, or both.Look, it may be that The Bell Curve is completely devoid of scientific merit. I really don't know. But please present some sensible arguments instead of resorting to name-calling. I read Atrios often and I find his "far-left" reputation to be much exaggerated. His grasp of economics and his ability to form coherent arguments makes him more of a moderate in my book. But like many liberals (and human beings in general I suppose) he completely undercuts his "moderate" credentials with occational posts like the one above that have no rational merits whatsoever.
3 comments:
Saw you post on intelligenc and gender and Charles Murray. You may want to know that today Charles Murray published a new commentary on race, gender and intelligence. I've got the links at my blog. www.intelligencetesting.blogspot.com
Kevin
Isn't that the same commentary I linked to above? I see you have many other interesting links though - thanks!
First,
Jewish people are the most intelligent. They win almost 40% of the Nobel Prize's and they have a small population of only 14 million. So by far they exceed the other races in intelligence. The other races having huge numbers and such small contributions.
Second,
IQ tests, test intellectual conformity, not creativity and originality. This would explain the Asian high IQ's. They as a people are the ultimate conformists.
In IQ tests there is typically only one answer to the problem. That problem being a social conformity to reason. But everyone knows that Genius's and all the greatest developments in the world are not the product of conformity. Conformity never breeds creativity. We can see this in the lack of influence the Asian population has had on Science. China used to be called the "sick man" of Asia. Their population is massive and their contribution to innovation is almost nil. We can see this lack of originality in their adoptation of European philosophies, I.e. Communism.
Friedrich Nietzsche and other Philosophers have made fun of Asian people as a race. Nietsche used the words "Pallid osification" to describe Orientals.
Pallid: lacking sparkle or liveliness : dull
Osification: Process of becoming inflexible: the process of becoming set and inflexible in behavior, attitudes, and actions.
5. Inflexible conformity: rigid, unthinking acceptance of social conventions.
The reality is Asian people have yet to understand that laws and rules are arbitrary. Europeans make the rules and Asian's follow them.
It also doesn't make sense that Asian's are considered smart because of the fact that they have destroyed their own countries. This is due to over-population and their basic lack of enviromental understanding.
It is also common scientific fact that women who have many children are ignorant, and those who have less children are more intelligent. This has already been proven in studies. So it seems strange to say that Asians are smart when the obviousness of their backwards countries, and medieval lifestyle makes them contrary to that premise.
Europeans have the most advanced civilizations and every other race has yet to meet these levels other than the Japanese. The Japanese only being good at copying other people's inventions and making them better. Other than that their original creativity is lacking as well. They took American cars and made them better. They took the German camera and made it better. And they took German steel and made it better. Otherwise the greatest advances still come from Europeans and Jews. Other than that the Orientals have yet to produce an Einstein or a Thomas Edison. One Thomas Edison who created 2000 or so patents is probably heads and tails over 100 million orientals in mental originality.
When it comes to Black people. It makes sense that they have low intellectual comformity, I.e. IQ tests. They are far too creative to be trapped in this unoriginal form of conditioning. You can tell their creative capacity in their athletics, music, dance, and the way they talk. They by far exceed the Asiatic races in these areas. Being better singers, musicians ect. I have yet to see an Asian person talk out of the norm. Blacks far exceed Asians in emotive expression. In all of North America there is only one or two famous high-paid Asian actors.
Reality, Europeans rule the world and they have allowed others to exist only out of desire for economic bennifet. They, (Europeans) are also the physically strongest, winning the Strongest Man competitions again and again. And they have become the most effective hunters due to their neccesity for animal food stuffs in a northern climate with lack of vegetables.
The greater the conformity, the weaker the race. Thus we see the races as they are today. The wild animal being bred out of man, and the physically impotent, dull conformist thriving.
Otherwise "Group psychology" is the most destructive thing in the world. All these stereotypes are false when it comes to the individual. Individualism is the most important thing for this time. All countries, Relgions, groups need to dissolve for man to live in peace.
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