Outsmarting Ourselves | Gates of Vienna
Early in May there was a minor firestorm over Jason Richwine, at that time a researcher and scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington D.C. think tank. Mr. Richwine had committed one of the cardinal sins guaranteed to end a career, even for those who work for “conservative” organizations: he had discussed the scientific evidence for a correlation between race and intelligence, as measured by IQ.
In a sane world, of course, what he said would be unexceptionable. He simply cited the numerous studies that demonstrate the differential distribution of mean IQ as correlated with what are commonly known as “racial differences”. If the same level of evidence were to indicate, say, the correlation between smoking and the incidence of lung cancer, or CO2 emissions and global temperature increases, there would be no problem. The general consensus would be: “The science is settled.”
