The problem with this line of reasoning is that it is an unfalsifiable claim that can be used to justify any line of reasoning without on shred of evidence.
People claim that doctors know that vaccines cause autism but are too afraid to speak out. People claim that climate scientist know that global warming is a hoax but are too afraid to speak out. People claim that that the holocaust was a hoax but that historians are too afraid to speak out. People claim that geologists know that the world was created 5,000 years ago but are too afraid to speak out.
The truth is, as the OP showed, that the claims made by Wade and others have been evaluated by scientists and have been found to be total garbage. Of course it is possible that the SNP that produces also has a side effect that happens to result in having a great fadeaway jump shot and a fondness for gangsta rap, but as it stands now there is no evidence that this is the case. And science without isn’t science it’s just BSing.
Having recently read the book, IMO, this is an inaccurate and unfair summary.
The book is divided into 2 parts.
The first is an attempt to survey the recent findings of the relevant sciences, Mainly, he contends:
Human evolution has been more “recent, copious and regional” than we had previously thought/than the general public still thinks,
That there are distinct population clusters that generally correspond to the traditional Caucasion/African/Asian/Aboriginal racial identifications.
Those population clusters all carry multiple genetic variations - more or less proneness to this or that disease, differing muscle and bone structures, etc. He argues that the idea that the popular conception of biological differnces among populations being only about exterior observables (i.e. “only skin deep”) is a myth.
We know that, in general, lots of behavioral traits are based in genetic predispositions; metal illnesses such as schizophrenia, but even personality traits like introversion, propensity to violence, risk tolerance, time preference, etc. Not *determined *-- predisposed, or more or less likely.
This part is pretty heavily documented, and Wade freely acknowledges that that’s as far as the facts take him. I’ve been looking for any criticisms that focus on the first part of the book, and disputes that those are the facts, but I haven’t seen any; I will read the links in the OP with some interest (though I doubt I will participate in any debate here).
The second part of the book is Wade’s speculative conjectures about what implications those findings might have – to wit, if we know that there are population clusters that are largely genetically distinct, and if we know that personality traits have genetic components, it’s plausible that different population clusters might have a more or less greater tendency to this or that behavioral traits, whether due to direct selection (living in a cold climate selects for low time preference, as those disinclined to save will starve), or merely becuase of the founder effect, bottlenecking, and/or genetic drift. And if all that’s true, he argues, maybe it explains a lot about the way the world is and what we can/should do about it.
Personally, I’d wish he’d kept the second part out and just expanded on the first; if his summary of the research is accurate, it seems controversial enough, and confining himself to the science would be a good thing. Most of the criticism I’ve seen levelled at the book aims at the second part of the book, not the first (I’ll be looking for this in the OP’s links). The speculative parts are, given the premises of the first, plausible enough, but after awhile he’s building speculation on top of speculation, and I kind of lost track of how far we’d moved from the foundation.
To address a couple things the OP mischaracterizes:
Wade makes no claim of any"conspiracy," in fact he explictly dismisses the idea. He simply says that these are controversial ideas, that have at times been used as justification for all sorts of horrible acts (hence the title), and that scientists, especially post-holocaust, have been exceptionally wary of saying anything that goes against the “only skin deep/we are all the same” ideas as they exist in the popular mind, whether out of a desire to avoid controversy or for fear of what people might do with their findings. No conspiracy.
Wade does not really address intelligence. In fact, in a couple of places, he goes out of his way to imply that is IQ somehow exempt from the other genetic pressures and effects he talks about.
Wade also repeatedly and explicitly dismisses the idea that anyone, anywhere is “wired” for anything. He is talking about genetically-based tendencies as they occur in populations, not individuals. – IOW, the idea that if we were to take two groups of 1000 people and send them off to two isolated landmasses for a fifty generations of isolation, at the end the two groups would likely develop very distinct cultures based on both 1) the environments they were living in and had to adapt to, and 2) the characteristics of the initial groups of 1,000. e.g. perhaps in one group 25% had a combination of genes associated with higher desire for dopamine, which would entail more risk-taking, and the other population only had 10%. That kind of difference would be invisible to casual observation, and says nothing at all about how any one person is “wired,” but would, over time, affect the shape of the culture those two groups created.
I think that’s a fuller and fairer summary of the book. Thanks to the OP for compiling some of the responses.
Here’s a deal. How about you answer the questions I asked Marley in post #27? If you dispute this or are even genuinely uncertain I’ll dig up a scientist or two.
[I mean, I wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re JAQ :)]
That the conclusion of the OP does not follow from the evidence in it.
Nothing.
There’s nothing that might conceivably change your mind.
Of course.
But the issue here is not whether Wade has come up with some incredible new research in his lab. He is assessing the state of scientific studies done by others. Which is exactly what he’s been paid to do by Nature and the NYT for several decades. IMO if he was incapable of understanding and assessing scientific research it’s unlikely that he could have held these positions.
I agree that it’s a problem.
But although from the standpoint of logical process these may be similar, that doesn’t mean that they’re all comparable. You need to assess the likelihood of each on an individual level.
This sounds suspiciously like the defense some Dopers (unfortunately) use to defend the assertion that black people have inferior genes for intelligence. ‘We’re not saying all black people are less intelligent,’ they say, ‘we’re just saying that black people are more likely, genetically speaking, to have genes for lower intelligence’.
No. And this goes for pretty much every issue for every topic ever. Most things have political overtones.
Probably not, but I think these repercussions (if they even have occurred) have been very minor. And considering that there hasn’t yet actually been any good science for the “blacks are genetically dumber” crowd, there’s no way to really determine if any of these repercussions have been due to poor science or political concerns.
Considering the fame and fortune that would await anyone with actual good science to upend the accepted views on this subject, I’m not concerned that the ‘possible repercussions’ dissuade anyone from doing good science. Principally, this is because the ‘possible repercussions’ discussed so far have been very, very minor, when they even exist at all; and that historically, in the long-term, science and society has adapted very positively to good science and good data.
Wade admitted that his 5 race grouping was for the sake of convenience. The actual research he references came up with anywhere from 14 to 20 “races”. He conveniently omits this fact.
In general, the more tightly you specify the parameters of the population you’re studying, the more useful genetic data you’re going to get. Ascertaining that someone is “white” or European doesn’t tell you much.
OTOH, ascertaining that this person is Sicilian let’s you know to be on the lookout for sickle cell anemia, caused by the same genetic mutation that causes sickle cell in West Africans and black Americans. Alternatively, ascertaining that this person is French Canadian would tell you to be on the lookout for the genetics that can lead to Tay Sachs disease.
This seems to presuppose that “good science” will produce an answer that will settle the issue once and for all, bringing fame and glory to whoever produced it. But that’s not how science works. For the most part, change is incremental, resulting from many studies, most of which have critics who claim they don’t prove their case, and only get “settled” many many years later. (It’s been said that new theories don’t win acceptance by convincing their detractors, but only by having the detractors die out and winning over the next generation.)
In the case of this issue, most of your detractors are not just guys who are unconvinced you’ve made your case, but they’re guys who think you’re an evil racist. Safer to try to make your mark elsewhere.
But anyway, I said I would dig up a scientist or two. Here you go.
So “one of the 50 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century”, whose paper in question became one of the most cited in history, suffered significantly because of PC criticism? How did he suffer? It seems to me like he greatly benefited from all this controversy! As Wade probably is, as well! The Pioneer Fund gave Jensen over a million dollars for further research!
Hell, writing a book that concludes “black people have inferior genes for intelligence” sounds like a pretty good profit-plan to me, based on the history of such books!
What’s the name, again, of the posting-style in which your own cite pretty much demolishes the point you were trying to make?
Any “suffering” by Jensen due to the controversial nature of his conclusions seems to be massively outweighed by the fiscal benefits, fame, and even notoriety he enjoyed, which were precisely due to the same controversial conclusions.
While the OP is a truly impressive compendium of information, I must take issue with one point. It’s not a statement about how racialism is perceived by the scientific community; it’s a statement about how Wade’s particular racialist views are perceived by the scientific community. There are some racialist ideas, like Wade’s, which are patently false and recognized as such. There are other ideas which could be described as “racialist” which are accepted by almost everyone, such as the fact that there’s a correlation between dark skin color and sickle-cell anemia. And then there are a wide range of ideas in between: For instance, the hypothesis that different sorts of muscle fibers are better suited for sprinting and marathons, and that genetic differences in the preponderance of those fibers account for the dominance of those sports by different ethnic groups. Is that true? I don’t know, and the information in the OP would not help me determine its truth, but it could still fit under the label of “racialism”.