Should scientists study race and IQ?
Genomic blogging superhero Daniel MacArthur of Genetic Future has baited the race debate once again. Fine, I’ll weigh in again in case my double speak post about how Race Does Not Exist a few weeks ago wasn’t obvious enough. Strike up the tinking music!
To claim that “race does not exist” or more precisely, that “race is a social construct” is isomorphic to the claim that racial identities are statistically independent from haplotype. This is a 2+2 = 5 debate, and if you choose to believe so, then I’m sure that a fine sinecure position exists for you at some prestigious institution and that you had ought not to bother any further with these ramblings of this slanderous prole lest you diminish your fine intellectual constitution with my inferior moral weaknesses. Or syphilis.
Next, the brain is an organ like all other organs in the human body. It would be a fantastic coincidence if its operation were statistically independent from haplotype —particularly since it’s not. As I may assume that you are still reading and have not yet contracted syphilis, you probably already believe that haplotypes are inherited and that the global graph of historic inheritance does not map to a recursive graph of each child descending from randomly selected parents from concurrent populations of Earth. If you believe otherwise, again, I’m sure that you could write a well-composed theme for your preferred institution of higher education about the equality of diversity, and everyone there will be duly impressed, though whatever criteria by which your theme is judged will shift to other matters including grammar and the imagined color and size of your nipples.
At this time, please allow yourself an intermission to dilute these facts (should you choose to believe them) with as much chalky “Stuff White People Like” blah blah blah you feel appropriate to settle your ladyballs to a dull disquiet. I can wait.
Ok? Ok.
Now, as to the specific question of “should scientists study race and IQ?” This question is the preskool coloring book outline of the question of “should we enforce an disjoint understanding of genetics and neurology?” I don’t know how this would be possible, but personally, I’d bet my intermediate medical and financial future on the pharmacogenomics of psychoactive prescription medications. Fortunately, in the meantime I trust that entire university departments could be conscripted to compose debate syllabi should the urgent need for further discussion in the minority community escalate. …Though, curiously, “minority” is always understood to mean “selected populations within the bounds of a modern Western nation” in literature regarding the Universal Ethical Axioms of Genetic Non-Discrimination. But, as I’m certainly not Japanese or anything absurd like that, I think we can all agree that everything in the world can be modeled by a bell curve with Vitruvian Man at the summit —including an infinite permutations of themes about why the Vitruvian Man should not be at the summit of not a bell curve. Submit your papers now!
Think Gene at Technorati
Add New Comment
Viewing 14 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks