Thoughts on The Bell Curve

A spirited discussion of The Bell Curve on Matt Yglesias' website.

There have been a lot of people over the years who have commented that even if there are innate racial IQ differences, it is not a goodthing to publicize because it would mean that racial inequality may be insurmountable, which we cannot accept.

It occurs to me that the reason that the issue of whether or not there are genetic differences in IQ between the races is so important is because of the alternate explanations for racial inequality.

That is, continuing racial inequality is currently blamed on "whiteness" and "institutional racism." That is, that all white people are racist by the very fact of their white skin, that they have unfair privileges that they must repudiate, and that whites alone among the races do not have the right to look out for their ethnic interests. Rather, it is the duty of white people to selflessly disregard the interests of people from their own race, and to always give advantages to people of other races in orderto make up for past racism. As "people of color" (a blanket term for all non-whites) are the oppressed, there is no recprocal duty; blacks have every right to put black interests first, Hispanics have the right to put Hispanic interests first, and so on.

Therefore, if it can be shown that there is a genetic factor or factors at work, it takes a lot of the burden off of white people (it would also mean that if we deny the existence of the factor and continue to blame institutional racism that we are in effect castigating whites for something that is not their fault).

Obviously, finding a genetic factor that explains the racial IQ gap is in the interest of whites (and ethnic groups with high average IQ test scores, such as Ashkenazi Jews and Asians) and against the interests of groups with low average IQ test scores (blacks and Hispanics). Seeing as the current conventional wisdom is that there is no such genetic factor, if no such research is done the results are the same as if the research confirms the lack of a genetic factor; therefore, the only way that research could change the status quo is by finding such a factor. Therefore, it is in the interest of groups that do well on IQ tests to do such research (they have nothing to lose and possibly something to gain) and against hte inteerests of groups that do poorly on IQ tests (they have nothing to gain and quite possibly somethign to lose). [It should be pointed out that if we were in a society where racial IQ differences were the conventional wisdom, then it would be the groups that scored lower on the tests whose interests would be served by more research].

In any case, I predict that the more that charges of "institutional racism" are levelled in our society and the more that calls to end "white privilege" or for whites to "reject whiteness" are heard, the more pressure there will be to do research on the sources of racial differences in IQ.

That is all.