Out of curiosity, what do readers think about Richard Posner’s Is the Conservative Movement Losing Steam? I am personally sympathetic to Posner-style technocrats, but lack a “long view” that older individuals might have in regards to the evolution of American conservatism’s style over the past two generations.
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Meta
Yawn. I don’t really care about the Posnervative movement. Austin Bramwell is right. The conservative movement should be officially retired.
That’s how it seems to me, as someone who’s never been involved in politics, conservative or otherwise.
I understand and sort of respect your support for technocracy and your sympathy for technocrats like Posner, but it ain’t for me. (And if I had to choose a technocrat, I’d prefer Heather Mac Donald to Posner. She’s cuter.) “Conservatism” can mean pretty much anything, but if it’s taken to mean something other than free-market liberalism or technocracy, how many Secular Right contributors and commenters are conservative? One? Two?
Posner’s wrong. What is the greatest political work of the past two decades? Have we seen some liberal intellectual renaissance? What contemporary geniuses is Obama following? Back to my first question: in my view, it’s Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve.
The only problem is that ordinary voters and elites as well aren’t ready to accept the message. Long term, conservatives need to wed their traditional ideas of limited government (Posner is right that Hayek and Friedman were serious thinkers) with what we’re learning about genes and brains. That’s where all the intellectual action is now.
Americans are optimistic people, so the message has to be put in positive terms. Murray does a good job here. Everyone is different. People have different talents, and it’s the government’s job to treat them as individuals and let them flourish in their own way. Individuals are what they are. Social engineering only gets in the way. Don’t expect equal outcomes–why would we want cookie cutter people? Let people in other countries be. They can’t be turned into Americans, and why would we want to do that if we could? Liberals want to remake everyone in their own image. It’s not right, and it can’t be done. We’re not clay for you to play with. Let’s get real and say you are who you are.
I liked the piece, and found it to be (for the most part) on target. I have two quibbles. In listing the major blows to conservatism Posner writes:
“…the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.”
First, the continued preoccupation with abortion was mostly talk. Except for tinkering around the margins (parental consent, etc.) Bush-Republicans benefit from the fact that they can say the right things to the base, but then shrug their shoulders when prodded to action, saying “it’s that damn Roe v Wade. What can you do?” And Americans ARE genuinely divided on this issue, at least with late-term abortions and parental consent.
Second, while denial of global warming may be foolhardy (I’m not qualified to say), there is certainly room for skepticism with regards to how and why global warming occurs; what is the actual damage; and what should we do about it (tanking the economy being a less-attractive option). I would think the Republican nut jobs screaming against Evolution would be a more embarrassing trend. Americans would be perfectly entitled to reject any candidate who thought the earth was five thousand years old, in my opinion.
American conservatism will come back because there’s always going to be a sympathetic audience for limited government philosophies. That is the biggest failure of the Bush Administration. Both in domestic and especially foreign policy it pushed for a larger role for government while posing as the small government party. Conservatives, to their shame, backed him when it counted, during elections, so now we have the worst of both worlds: expansive government and the blame for its failures.
But the Bush effect will wear off with time. Obama’s schtick will get old, and the opposition party will increase.
Both Conservatism and Liberalism seem to have a very serious problem, in light of the growing genetic evidence that we are all born with insurmountable limitations in any number of important areas. “Created equal” is simply false. And, life isn’t fair. Choose your phrase.
Liberalism’s problem is that it just will not accept that fact, and so will continue to act as if it is not true, to cronic harmful effect.
Conservatism’s problem is that “the level playing field” and “the personal freedom to be all you can be” works well if all are, indeed created equal (enough), but can easily be called immoral, unjust, or whatever, if the genetic science be true, as some form of “to each according to his need” is the only way I see to mitigate the effects of the starting gate genetic lottery.
In short, the facts coming out of genetic research are game changers. The two rival political systems are both currently inadequate to the task. Some sort of synthesis is needed.
Personally, I think we are doomed.
“Liberalism’s problem is that it just will not accept that fact, and so will continue to act as if it is not true, to cronic harmful effect.”
If liberals are smart, they’ll start to push medical as opposed to social therapies to achieve equality. They can say the science is revealing the limited role of the social environment. Yes, past programs did not work well, but the effectiveness of medical approaches can be relied on. The prestige of medicine is only going to grow.
@Ron Guhname
Not sure what you are referring to. A “smart pill”? Don’t hold breath.
Better that either Conservatism or Liberalism lead a revival in the prestige and pay ( which will intervention in the free market of wages ) in the (so-called) lesser trades. Enough with this “college for everyone” B.S.
I don’t know if this is what you mean by technocratic sympathy, but like Posner I miss the time when conservatives could engage around policy issues and offer plausible solutions based on conservative political philosophy. Reagan could do that. Bush I could do that. Nowadays we can’t, because we’re preoccupied with denying the version of reality that liberals insist on and therefore can’t move past to reasoned policy debates about how to best respond to reality. We just shout “you’re socialist!”, “abortion is murder!”, “gays are destroying all that is good and proper!”.
I think there’s a lot more consensus on values among the American people than these shouting matches suggest. And I think the American people are still reasonably open to different ideas about how to best protect and advance those values in society. If conservatives wanted to encourage more people to think about why conservative approaches to those ends are more likely to succeed, we’d have a good chance at winning over a majority opinion. But instead we treat people as if they are children, and get them worked up into emotional frenzies about things that probably can’t be helped anyway (like the eventual societal acceptance of homosexuality as a “normal” thing).
“Not sure what you are referring to. A ‘smart pill’? Don’t hold breath.”
You’re right, at least in the short term. But liberals are already beginning to make a move away from sociology and toward early childhood. There’s a lot of talk nowadays about early intervention and health issues, whether it be nurses visiting homes with small children or universal preschool. The attitude is shifting a bit away from changing circumstances for adults to changing children’s traits. Millions of kids on Ritalin is a good example. It seems that some liberals are beginning to see the writing on the wall.
Here is an example of what I mean when I say Conservatism has a problem with the genetic-based ability facts.
There is a strong correlation in our economy between the pay a job receives and the smarts/schooling it took to achieve that job/ability.
A Conservative believes that the free market should set wages.
A Conservative’s answer, then, to a citizen who complains that his job doesn’t pay enough, a living wage, etc, is, essentially, “Hey, nothing is stopping you from paying attention in school, doing your homework, getting school loans if you need them, graduating college, etc – in order to qualify for those higher paying jobs. If you choose not to do that, that’s on you.”
But if the genetic ability restrictions are true, huge portions of the citizenry, and disproportionately so from an ethnic viewpoint, are simply not capable of that option.
So what is Conservatism’s answer to this uncomfortable fact of life? Do we just say, “Tough.”? I think free market intervention is necessary, but of course that is anathema to Conservatism, and hence the “problem”.
Ivan: Right. Two points. First, science is likely refute the argument that failure is the system’s fault or the fault of successful people, so the guilt vote is eliminated. Second, conservatism pushes free will. We’ve done that against environmental determinism; I don’t see why we can’t do that against a recognition that biology matters. People have limitations, but you are still free to choose.
But if the genetic ability restrictions are true, huge portions of the citizenry, and disproportionately so from an ethnic viewpoint, are simply not capable of that option.
Science may be able to show that most people are incapable of hearing high salaries, but I don’t see it showing that people are incapable of making a comfortable living. Excepting those few suffering from obvious handicaps, the vast majority of people are capable of learning and earning enough to pay for their living and a bit of luxury–a bit that would be unheard of as little as fifty or sixty years ago.
Excepting those few suffering from obvious handicaps, the vast majority of people are capable of learning and earning enough to pay for their living and a bit of luxury–a bit that would be unheard of as little as fifty or sixty years ago.
But although they *produce* enough to do so, they don’t, in fact, *receive* enough to do so, thus our current plague of consumer debt. Productivity has exploded in the last forty years and income for the majority of the population has stagnated. Income distribution is a serious problem in this country and conservatives can’t simply close their eyes to it.
Even leaving aside the issue of how individuals are placed along the spectrum of incomes (IMO largely due to heritable but *not* genetic factors such as childhood nutrition and health, quality of education, and enculturation by parents and peers), the mere fact that so many people are earning below their productivity is both a substantive failure of the political-economic system and a threat to the political stability of that system. (Especially in a democracy, but ultimately all political systems are answerable to the people, even if it has to take the form of Bastille storming.)
As for Posner, I think he’s a little late to the party. The degeneration he complains of has been going on for decades – John Dean is a good example of an earlier identifier of the phenomenon.
But although they *produce* enough to do so, they don’t, in fact, *receive* enough to do so, thus our current plague of consumer debt.
No, most people receive more than enough to live on quite comfortably. The problem is that they let their appetites get the better of their common sense, and they go into debt buying excessively expensive items. They buy overpriced high-end sedans or SUV’s instead of more modestly-priced models, for example.
But if the genetic ability restrictions are true, huge portions of the citizenry, and disproportionately so from an ethnic viewpoint, are simply not capable of that option.
So what is Conservatism’s answer to this uncomfortable fact of life?
Two-words: vo-tech. Conservatives have long been more positively disposed toward tracking and vocational training. Liberals dominate the education industry from top to bottom. This is likely to continue indefinitely as it is probably the result of self selection into the profession on the basis of ideological temperament. It is a pattern we see time after time, in country after country. As evidence of innate difference continues to flood in, it seems likely that liberal opposition to tracking will weaken. The default assumption currently seems to be that every child should be on track to be a tenured liberal arts professor. As the college-bound percentage has expanded, and standards have fallen, the humanities have increasingly become a vast dumping ground for the incompetent. A case could be made that genuine respect for the liberal arts entails greater selectivity — and the tracking of others into appropriately specialized vocations.
Posner says: “My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings.”
I read this as a critique of the narrow-field populism into which the conservative movement has locked itself, because policy depth is always at odds with populism. Obama is an exemplar of the fact that being both popular and intellectual are not mutually exclusive, and that being popular is not the same as being populist.
The mutual embrace of conservatism and Christian campaigners is surely at the heart of this problem, and it is historically new (post-Reagan), having been brought to full fruit by Rovian strategic thinking (the permanent majority!).
The proof is, of course, in the pudding, and the fact is that the Bush administration was surely on of the most incompetent in living memory. It will be long climb back, and ditching quiet pragmatists such as Colin Powell in favour of blowhards like Limbaugh or populists like Palin will make the road even longer.
The conservative movement isn’t “losing steam”; it’s a train wreck. It’s lost all intellectual respectability and all concern with limited government and individual rights. The Heritage Foundation campaigns for war and Real ID. Conservative leaders pander to religious authoritarians.
Asking if conservatism is losing steam is like examining a dead patient and saying he doesn’t look so good.
If the intellectual vacuum in the conservative parties were to be filled by people who believe The Bell Curve is “the greatest political work of the past two decades” (@Ron Guhname), then we are all in deep trouble.
Fortunately, I don’t believe that is the case, though this site does seem to attract a disproportionate number of people who can perhaps be best described as the intellectual descendents of the early 20th century eugenics movement.
It will be long climb back, and ditching quiet pragmatists such as Colin Powell…
Because Powell was sooooo effective at the State Department when it came to restraining Bush. LOL! And then once the Iraq invasion was shown to be a fraud and Powell a tool, he resigned out of his deep-seated principle. Remember that? Oh yeah, that didn’t happen. Powell was even sucking up to serve again in the second term.
Powell is an empty suit of a ticket-puncher. He had his chance to lead back in the mid-90s and he blanched. Take real responsibility? Oh, no, not him. He’s a weathervane, not a leader. His craven performance under Bush proved that he’s worse than Limbaugh, Coulter or any other conservative villain d’jour. Say what you will about them, they at least enunciate their positions and stand by them.
@Polichinello I was not suggesting a Powell fan club, but a Republican Party that has no room for someone of his political temperament is doomed to permanent minority status.
I assume that quote issued directly from your lower orifice.
Speaking for myself, nearly every time I mention my opinion that the genetic-based abilities evidence appears to be true, I follow it with a “now what is a just society going to do to help those folks achieve a fair result”-type of statement. No resemblence whatever to the ” 20th century eugenics movement.” In fact, the opposite.
Your comment was mean-spirited and ignorant. I guess that is what someone like you does when out of rebuttal facts.
“[T]his site does seem to attract a disproportionate number of people who can perhaps be best described as the intellectual descendents of the early 20th century eugenics movement..”
The conservative position on biological differences is that we all learn to live with them. I am a conservative.
The impulse to use the government to fix all social problems is a liberal/progressive one. If they begin to apply the same approach to biological differences, they are the eugenicists.
I don’t agree with Posner 100% but he is right about conservatism’s intellectual deterioration from circumspect Buckleyism to Joe the Plumber angry populism.
The problem with the conservative movement is that it has moved away from the issue of limited government. Everyone I know personally (not through the internet) who are not liberal-left are into the following exclusively:
1) Lower taxes
2) Less regulation
3) Less government intrusion into one’s life (both personal and economic) in general
That’s it, folk. Everything else is mental masturbation.
People I know personally really do not care much about any other issue. They just want to be free to create and live their own lives. The people I know consider the social conservatives to be as bossy and paternalistically offensive as the liberal left, and they do not like it, not one bit.
Once the GOP has its civil war and becomes the party of limited government, the conservative movement has a chance of coming back. Otherwise, its as dead as a doornail.
To kurt9.
I have not read the rest of the discussion. But why in the world “masturbation” is considered as something bad?
@Ivan Karamazov The resemblance to the eugenics movement starts with the glib assertions about what the “science says”, inevitably based on popular presentations of which The Bell Curve is the most notorious example in recent history. These tracts may dazzle with statistical manipulation, but they are not science. And certainly there is insufficient consensus among researchers on these issues to validate any social policy choices, liberal or conservative.
Does the fact that Irish Catholics have a 15-point lower mean score than Irish Protestants on a standardised IQ mean they are genetically dumber? What about Serbs and Germans, where the difference is even larger?
The fact such an argument can be run in relation to African Americans (which is what this is really about), shows both the insularity and stupidty of, one hopes, a small section of the American Right.
I’ll just repeat that you are quite ignorant on this issue, and so I’ll not waste any more keystrokes on you.
I was not suggesting a Powell fan club, but a Republican Party that has no room for someone of his political temperament is doomed to permanent minority status.
Nobody kicked Powell out because of his ‘political temperament,’ his whining notwithstanding. In 2008, the GOP nominated the moderates’ favorite maverick, and the conservatives sucked up their disappointment and got in line. Did it do any good? No. Why? Because the so-called moderates are a bunch of self-interested crapweasels. They read the polls and decided to bail, sticking a shiv in ol’ John’s back as they left. This isn’t about ‘political temperament.’ This is about self-serving headline grabbing. Powell’s making a to-do about how the GOP moved to the far right when it’s actually been moving leftward for over decade, because the usual suspects in the press love to hear that crap. And then we have the chorus of useful idiots on the web who parrot that line because it’s lets them beat up on their favorite political enemies.
@Ivan A good deal of recent research suggests that to the extent cognitive ability is fixed, epigenetics are far more important than genetics. (eg, see http://discovermagazine.com/2006/nov/cover/article_view?b_start:int=3&-C )
But even if genes do matter with respect to intelligence, that’s still a far different matter than advocating policies having anything to do with race, as Guhname implies, since racial differences are not consistent with genetic differences. So, how would you sort those pre-disposed to be intelligent than those not so blessed?
I wouldn’t. I propose market intervention to make jobs that the less intelligent can hold, pay more, and I propose a cultural change that would recongnize the dignity and importance of those jobs.
Neither of those things are likely to happen, which is why I say we are doomed ( to a permanent culture war, permanent charges of racism, permanent resentment of those charges, increasing anger and violence, etc. ). Natural selection leaves us with a world-class mess. But denying the truth is no remedy.
But Ivan, how would you decide how many of these jobs for the less intelligent we need? And how many different types we need? Who gets to plan this out, and using which criteria? (even in your utopian fantasy which you admit is unlikely to happen)
“A good deal of recent research suggests that to the extent cognitive ability is fixed, epigenetics are far more important than genetics.”
The article linked to cites studies of sperm counts, diabetes, and mortality rates. The researchers’ talk of cognitive ability is pure speculation. Perhaps you know of a better link.
@Polichinello It’s fine being part of the “purity” wing of the conservative movement, as long as you don’t mind losing elections. If you don’t have a big tent, then you just end up talking to each other, and a tent that doesn’t embrace moderates is hardly big enough for a Limbaugh loin cloth.
The demography is relentlessly working against the current GOP, and unless it confronts that sobering fact head-on its time in the political wilderness will indeed be protracted. The alternative is hoping that the current administration will fail or implode, but that’s no strategy, and I wouldn’t be holding my breath.
“The demography is relentlessly working against the current GOP…”
Right, and the right-wingers are the only ones offering a solution: reduce illegal and legal immigration. The largest group–Hispanics–vote 2-to-1 Democrat. As a group, they are big government people. Republicans simply cannot out big-government the Dems. Impossible. Our only long-term hope is to reduce the number of new folks who find limited government unappealing. The other long-term choice appears to be that we become liberals as liberals become socialists.
It’s fine being part of the “purity” wing of the conservative movement, as long as you don’t mind losing elections.
Classic concern troll behavior. I’m not pushing any “purity” agenda. That’s simply a false claim on your part. I’ve been at odd with the GOP on a number of issues, mainly interventionism. However, this doesn’t mean that I have to buy into the line being peddled by a bunch of self-serving hacks who ran out on THEIR OWN candidate this past year.
If you don’t have a big tent, then you just end up talking to each other, and a tent that doesn’t embrace moderates…
Well, exactly what are these mythical moderates moderate about? What distinguishes them from the liberals? What makes them worth wooing? Many of these creatures claim to be “socially liberal and fiscally conservative”, but the fact is they’re going along with most of Obama’s spending programs. I give you Arlen and the Maine sisters as an example, along Crist and Schwarzenegger. There’s really nothing “moderate” about this crowd. They’re just slower-paced liberals, and if that’s the choice we have in politics, between liberals and hestitant liberals, why not go with the genuine article? What does it matter if they put an “R” or a “D” behind their name?
@Ron Guhname Draconian immigration policies will hardly draw Hispanics towards the GOP. The reason Dems are picking up more Hispanic votes is precisely because of the unpleasant rhetoric coming from Republicans. Why not work with Obama on constructing a sensible set of policies to deal with current illegals and future immigration controls. The kind of revolting bile that has been spewed on talkback during the recent swine flu scare is ample demonstration of why conservatives should distance themselves from hate politics, unless they want the voting ratio to be 4-1.
But reducing the issue to Hispanics is also silly. Republicans are losing the suburbs everywhere, and their standing among young, college educated voters is poor and getting worse. And in these cases the main culprit is unquestionably the religion factor, and all the litmus test issues that send social conservatives crazy.
The reason Dems are picking up more Hispanic votes is precisely because of the unpleasant rhetoric coming from Republicans.
Dems are getting the same amount of Hispanic votes they always have. They are a natural constituency of the big government party. If you followed any of the above discussion, you’d understand that this will always be the case. The only way the GOP can win a large share of that vote is through pandering, but the Dems will ALWAYS outpander the GOP. That being the case, the GOP’s interest is in limiting the size of this group and appealing to law-and-order types among white, black and native Hispanics.
Why not work with Obama on constructing a sensible set of policies to deal with current illegals and future immigration controls.
Because this only means more Democratic voters. Period.
And in these cases the main culprit is unquestionably the religion factor…
No, the main issue was a failed war and perceived incompetence on issues like Katrina. The polls still favor the social conservatives on most issues, and one Obamanomics kicks in with either inflation or higher taxes, the swipples will have a re-think.
@Polichinello It is simply a fact that in successful democracies the right of the main left party and the left of the main right party are on many issues indistinguishable, their affiliation being more a matter of personal history than principle.
However, when a party through ideological hubris embarks on a purge of its moderates, for precisely the kind of reasons you outlined, it will be punished eventually until it returns to its senses. Electorates are naturally centrist, and a party cannot be centrist without strong voices emanating from the center.
However, when a party through ideological hubris embarks on a purge of its moderates…
Where exactly is this mythical purge? The best you can point to is someone like Arlen Specter, but he was in trouble for backing a stimulus plan, not because of his stand on the social issues that have you all hot and bothered. The same goes for the other Club for Growth targets. Otherwise the GOP is full of so-called moderates. The Senate Election Bigwigs are backing Crist. Ridge, Schwarzenegger still have their GOP cards. Michael Steele–no hardliner he–is still party chairman, despite his obvious lack of qualification, I might add. The party’s presidential candidate was MR. EFFING MODERATE himself. Enough with the cries of persecution already.
You can try to pull the blending shuffle, but the fact is, the bulk of the moderates need to show some reason to be supported if they want support. Simply saying they have an “R” after their name won’t bring people out to knock on doors and man telephone banks, nor will it open many checkbooks. Perhaps you should stop blaming the people who know what the want and tell the moderates to come up with real program that might appeal to their own effing party.
“The reason Dems are picking up more Hispanic votes is precisely because of the unpleasant rhetoric coming from Republicans.”
Completely false talking point. In 1980, long before right-wingers were howling about illegal immigration, what percent of Mexican Americans voted for Reagan who beat Carter in a landslide? TWENTY-FIVE percent.
http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda3
@Ron Guhname The link doesn’t work, but in any case Mexican is a subset of Hispanic — so what was the breakdown of the Hispanic vote in 1980, and subsequent elections. Let’s at least try to compare apples with apples. I don’t know, but would be interested if someone has the information.
The General Social Survey (GSS) did not ask about Hispanicity in 1980. The second largest Hispanic group–Puerto Ricans–are more liberal than Mexican Americans. Their sample size is too small: according to the GSS, 7 percent of them voted for Reagan. Cubans–the next group–have traditionally been majority Republican, but that is slipping. Their small immigrant numbers make them unimportant in this context. You’re quibbling.
Try this link. You have to do your own analysis. Use variables, PRES80 and ETHNIC.
http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+gss08
Mex-Am vote–percent
1984, 39% for Reagan
1988, 35% for Bush I
1992, 19% for Bush I
1996, 18% for Dole
2000, 45% for Bush II
2004, 36% for Bush II
The Mexican American vote varies from bad to awful.
HISPANIC variable only goes back to the 1996 election.
Hispanic–percent (GSS)
2004, 39% for Bush
2000, 43% for Bush
1996, 16% for Dole
Very similar to the Mex-Am numbers; namely, horrible.
We don’t have to worry about intellectual decline on the Right. We still have moderate, open borders geniuses like Tamar Jacoby. Take heart, folks.
@Polichinello
Here, here.
@Ron Guhname Thanks for the data. There is clearly considerable variation, most dramatically represented by the difference between 1996 and 2000. This suggests to me that the Hispanic vote really is up for grabs and that alienating that vote is a indeed a poor idea.
The American Right MUST be the party of individual liberty. This means allowing queer people to marry and giving up the abortion argument. It also means stopping this ridiculous talk about “privatizing” social security and medicare. The Right needs to champion the right to free speech, right to own guns, free markets, and most important: FREEDOM OF ASSICATION (its the only way a diverse America will work). The Right should oppose affirmative action and unregulated immigration.
However, regardless of what policy shifts are made or what new political philosophies come about, THE RIGHT NEEDS LEADERS WHO CAN MOTIVATE PEOPLE. This is what the Left has (in Obama) but the Right doesn’t have. Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh have a place in the party but are not what I’m talking about.
These leaders must be able to take on and defeat political correctness in its current weaponized form. They need to expose the left as the true racialists. These new leaders must be the light to the masses who are sick and tired of political correctness and race hustling. People like Limbaugh attempt to do this but then play “Magic Negro” songs which causes a loss in credibility.
The man or woman who can remove the curse of political correctness from the American people can achieve anything. People live in constant fear of saying something wrong or “offending” someone even when speaking the obvious truth.
The person who can remove this fear can and will change world.
The problem I personally have with all of these anti-racist crusaders is that they seem disinclined to actually check the expansive literature, and rather merely assert their positions, constantly repeating the same objections and calling for citations to tire out the knowledgeable who could refute them at a glance.
Like this: “But even if genes do matter with respect to intelligence, that’s still a far different matter than advocating policies having anything to do with race, as Guhname implies, since racial differences are not consistent with genetic differences. So, how would you sort those pre-disposed to be intelligent than those not so blessed?”
No, racial differences are largely consistent with lots of genetic differences. See this study here on Dienekes’ Anthropology blog, a good one to read if you want to really be informed about human differences. What do they find in particular in that last study?
“Accurate characterization of ancestry is possible using small numbers of randomly selected SNPs. The results presented here show how investigators conducting genetic association studies can use small numbers of arbitrarily chosen SNPs to identify stratification in study subjects and avoid false positive genotype-phenotype associations. Our findings also demonstrate the extent of variation between continentally defined groups and argue strongly against the contention that genetic differences between groups are too small to have biomedical significance.”
Continental differences map pretty neatly to the popular perceptions of race, Negroid –> Africa, Caucasoid —> Europe, etc. There are some special areas of the world where things are much fuzzier, like the crossroads of the Middle East, the Eurasian confluence of peoples in Afghanistan, but these are the exceptions, not the rule. The only problem I have with some of the conservative commentators I read is that they do not yet realize that general Africans (not African-Americans), are much more genetically diverse than they speculate, consistent with the predictions of the out-of-Africa hypothesis. In short, if you want your opinions respected, GET EDUCATED OR SHUT UP.
IQ is one of the most salient social variables humanity has yet uncovered, the best predictor we have of educational attainment, income, health, etc., and in this country, there is is an entire standard deviation gap of it between two of the most ideologically distant demographics in the country! Dreadfully important principles are at stake in this debate; average IQ correlating at the ~0.6 level with economic growth at the national level is an issue any political ideology, and especially a growth-oriented one, should be concerned with, no?
JohnC et. al, once you’ve read the archives of Gene Expression, read the writings of the statistician La Griffe Du Lion (who demolishes weak cultural arguments), looked up some of the most popular posts of Dienekes’ blog, maybe then you can convince some of us that you aren’t just ignorant creationists under another guise.
@Soul Searcher I have no problem whatsoever with the science showing measurable genetic variation between primary racial groups, and the evidence favours the view that these are sufficiently consistent to have some biomedical significance (this is hardly news).
My argument is with behavioural genetics, which is hybrid of genetic science and psychology/sociology, because behavioural disciplines are not scientific (though they may be empirical) and the phenonemon they are purporting to explain are a function of the assumptions and methodology used. There are many, very different interpretations of IQ distribution data, and it is deeply unwise to use such contentious and ideological “conclusions” as a basis for social policy, as I also said in the previous thread @JohnC.
This will continue to be the case until we can ground our definitions of specific cognitive abilities and behavioural characteristics to precise neurophysiology and meaningfully link that biology to gene expression. The fact the we not even close for a relatively straightforward pathology such as schizophrenia, indicates how far off we are with behavioural questions, that are substantially (and in many cases entirely) affected by the social matrix.