Oh dear, oh dear! Americans do have a problem, don't they. Even Saletan's opponents in these comments mostly seem to believe in 'race' (with one or two honorable exceptions), and that is too ludicrous for words - there is no such thing. I don't mean there are no genetic differences between groups of people - I am from a tall family, so of course there are, but human populations are so mixed up that there is no correlation between one characteristic, like skin colour, and any other, like having a flat nose or large lips (with a very few, very isolated exceptions), still less 'intelligence'. This is particularly true in the US - try looking a photographs of Elvis Presley and seeing if you can spot the stereotypical West African characteristics (the shoulders, and that mouth). That, which is an example of the common occurance of 'negro' characteristics in southern US whites, is because part of the melanin producing gene package is recessive. That is also the reason US 'blacks' are, generally, a lot paler skinned than West Africans (who in turn are a paler skinned than many East Africans and South Indians (who also usually have thin mouths).

There is a lot more to say - like the way in which West Indians are just about as close to the world's genetic average population as it is possible to get, being descended from a witches brew of West and East Africans, Europeans, Indians, Native Americans, Chinese, and who knows what else - so an intelligence test which purports to show 'racial' differences between brown skinned West Indians and anybody else has just got to be wrong (and don't you think the selection pressure for intelligence in a population of slaves and indentured labourers is going to be ferociously high).

Oh never mind. I will leave rubishing the equally stupid idea of 'intelligence tests' for another time.