Speaking the Unspeakable By John Derbyshire
The flap over geneticist Jim Watson’s remarks about race differences in I.Q. has generated some interesting mainstream comment. Some highly respectable outlets — the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Slate.com — have stepped away from the traditional “Shocked! Scandalized!” template to actually look at the science and say interesting things about it.
This dawning realism is all very cautious and qualified, of course, but at least mainstream science editors are no longer jumping up on chairs, shrieking and clutching their skirts. Thoughtful commentary is showing up. Good grief!
I’ve touched on these issues myself, in National Review and elsewhere, so I am familiar with the kinds of questions that come up in conversations and emails afterwards. Here are a few of them, with my answers. This is the take of a well-informed layman with a decent math-science background and no particular ax to grind, unless being one half of a mixed-race marriage counts.
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