1. I am grateful for this reply because it makes clear what is at stake. The hereditarian hypothesis is that a portion of the disadvantage faced by Black people is not the result of discrimination, but instead of their own innate characteristics.
2. Apparently the upside of this hypothesis is that it allows White people to feel better about the current “destructive and divisive culture war.”
3. tbc, I am *not* saying that it can’t be true because I don’t like the consequences. I am saying that it is an ugly thing to speculate about in the absence of meaningful evidence, and there isn’t any.
And I am *not* forbidding the very research that might show that it is true. The first requirement of a hereditarian hypothesis is a gene-neuro mechanism that explains differences in IQ, like lung capacity in divers. None exists.
5. It is possible to look for such mechanisms without reference to race, which is a badly defined biological construct anyway. Many honorable researchers do just that. If one is ever found within 24 yours the hereditarians will be comparing it in socially defined races.
6. And you know what? If a real scientific mechanism were ever found, people would just accept it. At the end of the day science is science. I oppose racist speculation, not valid science.
7. Meanwhile in the Quillette household, @primalpoly unblocked me just so he could show off his commitment to “good-faith disagreement” as they said in the Harpers letter. I’m not going to get into a shouting match with him.
8. But people might ask themselves who has been right about what behavior genetics was going to be like for the last 20 years or so. Start here: people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2…
9. I am no environmentalist, no heritability denier, and never have been. Geoffrey Miller may not know it, but a scientifically realistic, non-racist, non-deterministic view of BG is perfectly possible. /end
