Re: Created Equal?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Alberti <alberti () sanction net>
Date: November 19, 2007 10:34:21 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Created Equal?
Reply-To: alberti () sanction net

On Mon, 2007-11-19 at 02:44 -0500, David Farber wrote:
> <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
We see immediately that his is not intended to be an reasoned,
apolitical viewpoint. Saletan's articles on this topic return again and
again to the liberal/conservative dichotomy. I'm not exactly sure what
point he thinks he's making in arguing quasi-scientific theories from a
partisan point of view, but it doesn't lend his position any scientific
credence. And as a persuasive argument it's a failure, since he
routinely insults the liberal half of his audience, to say nothing of
the various racial groups he so casually categorizes by intelligence.

> 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.

Poisoning the well, Saletan attempts to thwart objections by comparing
skeptics of the Racial IQ theory with Christian skeptics of the Theory
of Evolution. By suggesting that Racial IQ, like Evolution, will
eventually gain broad acceptance, he suggests that those who refuse to
embrace RIQ will someday find themselves rubbing elbows with the
Intelligent Design theorists.

Yet like Creationism's cousin Intelligent Design, the Racial IQ theory
is simple Racism dressed in a lab coat. And whether arguing for or
against Racial IQ, or arguing liberal versus conservative, Saletan seems
fixated on dichotomy, down to his self-described "liberal Republican"
label.

And dichotomy is the downfall of Saletan's analysis.  He explores
argument by argument whether each particular factor serves to adequately
explain the perceived racial differences in IQ. And by process of
elimination he determines that only genetic racial heritage is
sufficient to explain the phenomenon.

What his black and white thinking seems to miss is that rather than each
factor alone being inadequate to the whole, the factors COMBINE to
describe a complex environment that COULD explain any perceived racial
disparities in a non-racial fashion.  Culture AND socioeconomic factors
AND environment AND testing bias AND a host of other factors can
theoretically COMBINE to in ways that no analysis of single factors can
explain.

In other words, reality does not lend itself to simple explanations.

Finally, I am left to question the motive behind Mr. Saletan's article.
Let's pretend for a minute that it's all true - Asians are smarter than
everybody, and those of African descent are not.

So?  And then what?  Shall we segregate students and educate them by
race?  Select only Asian presidential candidates?  Categorize our
neighbors into Alphas, Betas, and Deltas? Were RIQ to be true there does
not seem to be any particular use to which the information could be put
that would not be divisive and inhumane in application.

While scientific analysis is a worthwhile pursuit, pseudoscientific
articles with racist conclusions are controversial enough that one has
to wonder at the motivation for publishing such a thing.

For myself, I don't believe any single measurement of intelligence is
adequate to measure the mind, any more than one's inseam is an adequate
single dimension for tailoring one's clothes.  Compassion, aesthetics,
critical thinking, a sense of humor, and even fashion sense are among an
infinite collection of other measures against which to evaluate the
mind, and only the collected results of this infinite series can serve
to "measure" intelligence.

Mr. Saletan's analysis seems simplistic, and sensationalistic. He seems
to believe that he is challenging liberal political correctness by
exploring the perceived links between race and IQ.  He is welcome to
write what he likes, but I don't consider his analysis scientific, his
conclusions useful, or his motivations academic or altruistic. He is at
best being deliberately contrarian and abrasive in order to generate
controversy for its own sake, or else he strikes me as a man wrestling
with his own racism within the safe sterile medium of pseudoscientific
claptrap.

Whatever his motivations, I doubt that his racial genetics alone are a
sufficient single means of explaining this disappointing series of
articles.

--
Robert Alberti, CISSP, ISSMP                       (612) 961-0507 cell
President, Sanction, Inc.                          (612) 486-5000 x211
http://sanction.net                                (612) 486-5000 fax
"Security solutions are cultural solutions facilitated by technology."



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