The race and intelligence taboo: then and now

Eleven years ago, in response to then-editor Andrew Sullivan’s publication in The New Republic of an excerpt from The Bell Curve, the other editors and contributors of that magazine underwent perhaps the most amazing collective hysteria attack in the history of journalism: a symposium consisting of 18 articles, almost all of them denouncing in the most passionate and irrational terms the very idea that there could be any connection between race and intelligence. In the current TNR, in an article discussing a recent theory on the genetic basis for Jewish intelligence (also linked at Steve Sailer’s site), Steven Pinker wonders whether such a topic can be safely discussed:

What can be done? In recent decades, the standard response to claims of genetic differences has been to deny the existence of intelligence, to deny the existence of races and other genetic groupings, and to subject proponents to vilification, censorship, and at times physical intimidation. Aside from its effects on liberal discourse, the response is problematic. Reality is what refuses to go away when you do not believe in it, and progress in neuroscience and genomics has made these politically comforting shibboleths (such as the non-existence of intelligence and the non-existence of race) untenable.

Let’s hope that TNR’s publication of Pinker’s sensible comments represents a genuine change in liberals’ view of what is true and acceptable to say about race and intelligence, and not just a flash in the pan.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 18, 2006 01:28 PM | Send