I am moving my reviews over to this temporary blog, which I'll redevelop into a new blog.
Anyway, I just finished reading Nicholas Wade's A Troublesome Inheritance and I want to offer up a short review.
In short, I agree with the first half of the book, disagree with the second half.
Regarding the second half, I find many parts to be compelling, but I'm not sure it's the whole story. For example, IQ certainly matters and there seem to be strong differences in average IQs between the races, but I'm not sure this is the final word. For instance, in what I call "general mental robustness" blacks seem to perform just as well as other races and also a black with an IQ of 70 seems much more functional than a white with an IQ of 70. Whites with IQs of 70 seem retarded while blacks do not. Something odd is going on here, which might well turn out to be genetic.
Regarding the first half of the book, it's completely sound. Biological race is real, there are real genetic differences between the races, and only complete fools deny biological race and call it a "social construct".
I'd like to address some of the fools maintaining "race is a social construct", in particular Jonathan Marks, AgustÃn Fuentes, Jennifer Raff, and Alan Goodman.
While I consider myself a good liberal and I voted for Obama, these nuts make me look like a rabid right-winger. What are these people? Well, they're what I call Boas-Lewontin-Gould Marxists (so-called academics who put Marxist politics before scientific truth), and their #1 ideological axe to grind is to promote propaganda that "race is a social construct". Of course, science isn't on their side here, but they're all politically motivated so it doesn't matter.
Science shows race is biologically real, but we also know that racism is morally wrong. Science and morals are two different domains. Our motto should be: "race and racial differences are biologically real, but racism is morally wrong".
As a black man myself, it's personally insulting for me to hear Cultural Marxists say that "race is a social construct". The biological reality of race is something I feel and experience everyday and it's really laughable to hear these Marxists spread their lies. In fact, as a black man, I'd rather be called "nigger" than to have some Ashkenazi or white academic Marxist try to tell me race is a "social construct". The latter is more insulting.
The irony of these Marxists is that they say they're against racism but by insisting that race is a "social construct" they are in fact committing a soft form of genocide against black people. Many pharmaceutical drugs vary in their effectiveness based upon someone's race. Race is a good indicator how a drug will work and how it should be taken. But most drugs have been tested on whites so we don't know how they will perform on blacks. By denying the biological reality of race, these Marxists want to keep things this way --- slowly genociding the black race --- where their quest for Marxist purity is actually killing black people every single day. These people are sick in the head.
That said, I'd recommend the first half of Wade's book but I'd be a little more skeptical of the second half.
Good post, BA. What happened to your old blog? Why is it down?
ReplyDeletePretty good review. Kudos.
ReplyDeleteFrom one Black avenger to another:
JayMan’s Race, Inheritance, and IQ F.A.Q. (F.R.B.) | JayMan's Blog
My friend,
ReplyDeleteYou need to follow the money.
Look at Jon Marks and Allen Goodman. Both are rabid Cultural Marxists and rabid Zionists.
And both are obsessed with trashing the goy Nicholas Wade. Yet, for their perspective, only the white goy is capable of racism.
Both Marks and Goodman are completely silent on Israel recently sterilizing Africans and deporting African immigrants back to Africa.
Why aren’t Marks & Goodman writing dozens of articles condemning Israel?
Hmmm, makes you wonder what their true agenda is.
Damn, now ain't that the Truth! What I find especially brazen (delusional) is that these Gouldians are not hedging at all, in fact they're doubling down, on the notion that their opposition to racism is based on the science. But I supposed from a strict game theory perspective (sunken costs), they have nothing to lose at this point (intellectual integrity? scientific standing?). Might as well go down with the ship.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I look forward to the day when we will ALL have the luxury of guiding the genetic destiny of our progeny. For those whose gums are already flapping with "eugenics" what, exactly, is amniocentesis or genetic counseling if not eugenics? And who, exactly, is the recipient of your moralizing? Children with cystic fibrosis? Mental retardation? To afford you the luxury of casting your bread crumbs of empathy? Do you think they care for that?
Fortunately for the world, the Chinese do not share these disease of the Left. They improving our genetic lot as a moral imperative. Not to mention all the recipients of increasingly personalized medicine (currently only developed to the coarse, but still useful level, resolution of race).
Bravo, BA, for driving that stake through the heart of this beast and giving it a good twist. Bravo.
Sorry, but your pointing out that you are black as if that should give your opinion added weight illustrates why your claim to have science on your side is amusing at best. If you did, you would not have to point at your ethnicity for some additional leverage. For science, it is patently irrelevant what ethnic group someone belongs to, what matters is the data. Your use of "Marxist" is in the same vein - rather than refuting people, you try to discredit them by sticking labels on them.
ReplyDeleteThe true irony here is thus that you use the very means you accuse others of and make a case that's not just unscientific but plain antiscientific. You haven't delivered a review but merely a frothing-at-the-mouth rant and even where you believe you have made a scientific argument, all you have done is committed a fallacy that every freshman should have learned to avoid. Speak after me: correlation is not evidence for a causative relationship.
I do find it ironic that all the zionists bashing Wade for "racism" also support the sterilization of blacks in Israel.
ReplyDelete