This one has popped up again, the result this time of an e-mail sent by a law student relating a dinner conversation. Sullivan's commentary (or lack of it -- he passes the ball to Eugene Volokh) is the one that has the most room for dissection.
The best take on the circumstances is here. First, the "money quote," via Sullivan:
I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders. This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.
For starters, this is horribly flawed and betrays a deep lack of understanding of the role of genetics in human behavior, and I think we have to take intelligence as behavior: our idea of "intelligence" is intimately tied to the expression of it. First misstatement: "Some things are genetic." Not as much as you might think, and her initial examples are correct, but the extrapolation starts going astray. The math performance already starts to bring in factors that are, strictly speaking, not necessarily genetic. (I can't quite fight off the idea that these sorts of arguments are framed by a world view of people as some sort of little black boxes that operate like wind-up toys -- it's simplistic in the extreme,and unfortunately, it pervades our culture. Or maybe it's just sloppy thinking -- not that the two are mutually exclusive.) And quite frankly, her children, whatever they may have inherited in the way of brains from their parents, are going to have the same chance of developing their genius as any other kid in that orphanage. If the environment is not conducive, that aspect of their heritage is going to be stunted.
Can I say one thing? The genetic basis of intelligence is a set of potentials. That's all. Potentials. (It's like the search for the "gay gene." There isn't one. Human behaviors, including the potentials for those behaviors, is not that simple.)
OK -- we've got a good example of sloppy thinking from a law student. She does redeem herself in the next paragraph, somewhat:
I also don’t think that there are no cultural differences or that cultural differences are not likely the most important sources of disparate test scores (statistically, the measurable ones like income do account for some raw differences). I would just like some scientific data to disprove the genetic position, and it is often hard given difficult to quantify cultural aspects. One example (courtesy of Randall Kennedy) is that some people, based on crime statistics, might think African Americans are genetically more likely to be violent, since income and other statistics cannot close the racial gap. In the slavery era, however, the stereotype was of a docile, childlike, African American, and they were, in fact, responsible for very little violence (which was why the handful of rebellions seriously shook white people up). Obviously group wide rates of violence could not fluctuate so dramatically in ten generations if the cause was genetic, and so although there are no quantifiable data currently available to “explain” away the racial discrepancy in violent crimes, it must be some nongenetic cultural shift. Of course, there are pro-genetic counterarguments, but if we assume we can control for all variables in the given time periods, the form of the argument is compelling.
Somewhat, because she hasn't defined the "genetic position." I don't think you're going to disprove it until someone can identify the genes involved in the potential for high intelligence and then do broad studies to identify the incidence of those genes in various populations. Good luck. At least she admits the relevance of environmental factors, but she doesn't quite manage to use that to clarify her thinking about the genetic basis -- nor does the idea of "potential" in relation to "expression" ever seem to enter her head.
On to Volokh. (His full post is here.) Sullivan quotes his conclusion:
[T]he very attempt to suppress the openness to the possibility that there might be racial differences will make it impossible to disprove that possibility. Even if then the scientific community loudly says, “The evidence is clear: There are no racial differences in intelligence,” that statement should no longer be credible to us. Scientific consensus is trustworthy only to the extent that it’s the result of a process in which scientists — and others — are free to espouse all rival views. To the extent that espousing some views is too dangerous, the consensus that then emerges without the expression and discussion of those views stops being reliable.
OK -- gnashing of teeth, rending of garments. I'd expected better of Volokh, but I take it as illustrative of the degree of ignorance about the operations of science in this country. My response to the first sentence: how? How does suppression of an unpopular viewpoint make it impossible to refute it? First, I agree that it's pointless to try to suppress unpopular views. But the correct response in this context is further inquiry. Nevertheless, I fail to understand how suppressing an unpopular view is supposed to cause us to ignore the evidence against it. There's a conflation here that leaves Volokh's whole argument dangling. He's correct about the trustworthiness of scientific consensus, but he's ignoring the fact that the consensus is based on evidence -- it's not the espousal of rival views that's important, but the investigation of those views. It's whether the views are supported by evidence that makes them credible, not whether we've allowed the expression of all viewpoints. He's conflating two different realms of inquiry here -- call them the lab and the symposium. The symposium is believable to the degree that its content is based on evidence, not to the degree that its content is based on controversy.
And as for the underlying issue, which is still the "genetic" basis of intelligence in different races: "Race" as a biological concept is useful for taxonomists, but otherwise pretty much meaningless, particularly when applied to human beings. The genetic differences between human races are so small as to be unmeasurable. And any discussion of intelligence has to take into account not only genetic heritage but pre-birth environmental differences, differences in upbringing, self-fulfilling prophecies (which, regrettably, have been demonstrated in classroom environments), access to resources, differences in such basic things as nutrition and the attitudes and practices of parents toward learning and child-rearing in general. When you can describe all those factors fully, you can talk to me about innate differences in intelligence in different races.
As for the larger issue, why is this still a question? The moral and legal response has to be "so what?" but I suspect that there's more involved. It may be something as innocent as contrarianism. And it may not. (I'm running headlong into the fact that those genetic differences that express themselves in skin and hair color and the like are tiny; how small must the differences be in anything as complex as intelligence?)
And if we're going to discuss questions like this, we really need to start by defining our terms.
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