Created Equal?

[David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: November 18, 2007 5:50:39 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Created Equal?

[Note:  This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis.  DLH]

From: Mike Cheponis <mac () wireless com>
Date: November 18, 2007 12:05:52 PM PST
To: interesting3 () wireless com
Subject: created equal?

<http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/0/>

Created Equal
Race, genes, and intelligence.
By William Saletan
Updated Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007, at 11:10 AM ET
From: William Saletan
Subject: Liberal creationism
Posted Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007, at 7:57 AM ET
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created  
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable  
Rights …

-- Declaration of Independence

Last month, James Watson, the legendary biologist, was condemned and  
forced intoretirement after claiming that African intelligence wasn't  
"the same as ours." "Racist, vicious and unsupported by science," said  
the Federation of American Scientists. "Utterly unsupported by  
scientific evidence," declared the U.S. government's supervisor of  
genetic research. The New York Times told readers that when Watson  
implied "that black Africans are less intelligent than whites, he  
hadn't a scientific leg to stand on."

I wish these assurances were true. They aren't. Tests do show an IQ  
deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for  
Europeans relative to Asians. Economic and cultural theories have  
failed to explain most of the pattern, and there's strong preliminary  
evidence that part of it is genetic. It's time to prepare for the  
possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial  
averages on tests, will turn out not to be true.

If this suggestion makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic  
racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable— 
you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going  
through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human  
dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't  
just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. As  
William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant  
elevating "supposedly superior intellects," "eliminating the weak,"  
"paralyzing the hope of reform," jeopardizing "the doctrine of  
brotherhood," and undermining "the sympathetic activities of a  
civilized society."

[snip]

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