I'm glad somebody's around to counter Will Saletan.

I'm rather sorry it is necessary to address Saletan's argument seriously. Just the same, Kudo's to Metcalf for exposing either bad journalism or pernicious fraud.

which is sometimes tough when you're dealing with a nitwit (so many distractions).

I didn't like the good news ~ 50 year scenario, not at the pace you're going. At least two things going the wrong way for that level of optimism (and it ain't just Bush): the wealth disparity and the hardening of the ghettoization of most of your major cities ("American Apartheid" type stuff). A quibble though, I know his was a bit of a throwaway comment.

Saletan has touched on this topic a couple of times, and one can detect more than a little bit of smugness when he outlines the black-hispanic-white-east asian-Ashkenazi Jew progression of IQs, as outlined by the research he chooses to write about. Why smug? Take a guess.

On the other hand, look at what happened to enrollment in the California state schools after they ditched racial quotas. (Best story of unanticipated consequences (before Iraq anyway) going. White guy sues because he doesn't get into law school when two blacks who scored less than he did, did get in. School's defense? Sure, but there were 10 East Asians who scored better than you that also were not admitted. Result? Courts ditch racial quotas, White, black, and hispanic admissions fall -- East Asians' go up astronomically.

Yeah, but you East Asians shouldn't get too smug either. It's the second generation immigrant cultural drive to be a Lawyer or a Doctor thing going, not the phrenologists wet dream of actual confirmation of their "theories"...

Yep, just like those second generation Mexicans.

bookladen said it was cultural influence, not that all immigrant cultures provide the same influence.