The title is flippant... but I have a nasty confession... after reading the original Slate Human Nature articles I found them popping into my head when dealing with people of different racial groups. Seriously.

It's like they sort of insidiously burrowed down into my subconscious waiting to leap up into my thoughts... all this despite being well aware that the articles themselves made clear that there was no predictive power for subgroups or between individuals etc... and the differences were irrelevantly small anyway... but still it would keep popping up. I'd even find myself repeating that last part about the lack of predictive power to myself.

Now I'm a neurotic person. But jesus. I'm also attracted to unpopular contrarian ideas... but who isn't. I'm ALSO apparently some sort of latent racist... but again - I figure much less so than others.

Anyway I've shaken it off... although it's still no doubt still in there somewhere. My point... if there is one in all this... is that despite all the caveats the bit people may be more or less programmed to take on board and run with is the bit that says that some groups are dummer than others or smarter than others. I suspect we have cognitive systems that latch on to that sort of thing and build it up.

If there is something problematic with this sort of research, aside from methodological flaws, then it is probably this: that for no especially useful gain in our knowledge it puts into circulation a particularly virulent meme... one that will tend to leave behind all the "although remember that this is only" 's and "of course between any two" 's and drill into your psyche the simple message that here is a juicy bit of prejudgement to apply to meetings with strangers.

Does anyone else have an experience similar to this?

Also please don't post too many "fuck you're a racist creep" posts... I'm just being honest and obviously I'm less than impressed with myself.

I'm Black.

I started out reading this series expecting the worst, but not really thinking that Saletan and "race realists" were racist per se.

At first (last week?) as I read the comments I could kind of see both sides of the argument objectively and I didn't feel good or bad about it. But, at this point, I feel something similar to what you've articulated.

I feel a lot more animosity towards white people at this point than I did when I started reading this series. I see people on the subway or on the street and I think "he probably thinks Blacks are inferior." The feeling is what you've described; a slow, creeping, insidious, kind of cloud of hatred. I usually smile at people during my morning and evening commute when I make eye contact, but this week I've been giving more of the "angry black man don't fuck with me" look.

After having read similar articles and discussions I know that this feeling is temporary. I'll feel hateful for a few days, then I'll think about my best friend from college or my co-workers or whatever, and I come back to reality. But, yes, right now, after having read this series, I'm not feeling particularly amicable toward white people.

That said, I don't think these topics should be censored, if for no other reason than to allow a free exchange of ideas.

Thanks for posting this robbo.mc

Did that work too?

Seriously, I get your point, and agree. Suggestion is a powerful thing. Bad enough how it works on adults, but children are the most vulnerable, too young to mediate the message that they, and everyone who is raising and teaching them, are stupid and unworthy, and unlikely to amount to anything much.

For me, though, Saletan's article caused an immediate reaction of anger, not subconscious acceptance. It doesn't make me a liberal creationist, and your reaction doesn't make you a racist. It's human nature to categorize and judge quickly-- that characteristic must have been adaptive, in a world where you had to order friends from enemies, edible from poisonous, and prey from predator almost instantaneously in order to survive. Calling that instinct racism may or may not be helpful to the overall cause here, which is to acknowledge and mediate unfounded beliefs and feelings in a healthy way, examine them and put them to rest. Labeling yourself as a racist for being suggestible is just as bad as labeling another race stupid for not jumping through hoops set up for their failure. It doesn't help, it doesn't address the real issues, and it only serves to further racism and failure.

I don't think the real conversation should be about which race is smartest, any more than I think it should be about blaming all whites for lynching and slavery. I think the real conversation should be about who we are as people now, and where we should be going from here on, together.

Don't get racist. Race is not relevant to intelligence. There is more genetic diversity in Africa than the rest of the world combined. Remember that.

robbo.mc:

Does anyone else have an experience similar to this?

When I lived in Australia, I was suprised that liberal people would use the term "wog" to refer to Greek Australians. This is because some Greek comedians "reappropriated" the word in some plays and TV shows, in that rough style of Aussie humor. So it became acceptable.

One day at work, I was introduced to a guy who (from his name etc.) was obviously Greek Australian. The thought popped up unbidden in my mind "he's a wog". This made me feel quite sick, since I don't usually have much consciousness of what race people are. "Reappropriation" can be a bit dangerous that way - labels like that are never a good thing, really.

On topic, you are right that it's a risky issue, and there is a lot of responsibility of popular writers who are transmitting the science to the general public to get things right. Saletan screwed this one up. However, I don't think my perceptions were changed by his articles, because I know a wee bit about genetics, enough to make the idea of strong differences in selection pressure for intelligence between the vast and vague groups we define as "races" rather hard to swallow.

Saletan had one "just-so story" about dumb Jews leaving for Christianity because it didn't value literacy so highly. I find this doubtful. Literacy tends to require membership of the more leisured classes. Poor Jews, both smart and dumb, would equally be turned off by literacy requirements, and so defect (if it worked that way). So the differential intelligence drain would be in the area of leisured but dumb people, who had the opportunity to become literate but failed. But why would people who were already successful (since they had leisure) want to quit and start at the bottom of the pole in Christianity? And would such a small number of defections, over such a short period (a hundred generations) really provide strong selection pressure in the area of intelligence, which is less than 50% heritable? (It's hard to work out how much, since identical twins separated at birth, who provide a way to study this inheritance, are few in number, and share the same pre-birth and pre-separation environmental influences, etc.)

It's all very vague and prone to manipulation, especially since we have little idea of the genetic basis of intelligence, and it seems fantastic that it could overlap neatly with the genetic basis of "race" (which is pretty much a cultural concept, not a genetic one). It's also hard to quantify how selection for intelligence works, because it's not necessarily the case that very high intelligence is going to result in very high numbers of descendants. Being kind of smart might be helpful in getting your genes passed on, but being super smart might be a handicap!

My Asian wife and mixed kids seem exactly as smart to me as they did before I read the article.

Maybe I just do not read closely enough. After I read Taboo white people seemed no slower to me than before I read it.

I cannot imagine any reason why general facts about groups (even if true) should drive our reactions to individuals. Years ago when I took the LSAT (scored percentile 99.3) I beat every single demographic predictor of score by a huge margin. Should the admissions people have said, great score, but since he is white trash its obviously a grading error. Last time Notre Dame won a football championship the kicker was ethnic Chinese; I am pretty sure his field goals still counted for three points.

I personally do not think that Saletan is that far off base. The only significant error being that treating intelligence as one thing, quality, characteristic, etc. seems to me to be a mistake. What I take to be the opposing theory seems more ridiculous: that there are no interesting genetic variations at all among races.

Just while this is rolling along I want to make clear that I've got no interest at all in suggesting that people shouldn't be able to conduct and publish any sort of research at all... even explicitly racist stuff... certainly awkward and controversial stuff. Also I find the idea of hounding people out of their jobs or out of public life for holding nasty views a bit... well it just feels wrong. I see why it is probably necessary sometimes to do so to maintain the credibility of institutions... but I'd always try and err on the side of letting poisonous crank X keep his chair.

Also... a quick reply to hatfieldlaw: Agree that there are average genetic variations between all sorts of populations. That's a plain fact as the differences in physiology upon which racism-itself plays (ie. skin colour) are obviously genetic differences tied to historical-geographic populations. Whether there are important variations... well that depends on your goals.

For instance I understand that if you are a medical researcher then some are very important. What are you if you are conducting the racial-IQ research? That questions been popping into my head right from the start: what is the interest in drawing circles around these particular populations and testing their IQs?

Anyway that's all besides the point... the key here is: "I cannot imagine any reason why general facts about groups (even if true) should drive our reactions to individuals"

Well I'd call that a failure of imagination. It would be nice if they didn't... or if they did so in exactly whatever manner happens in this or that case to offer up the most true inferences from class to particular.... However the fact is that when most people hear properties attributed to groups they then attribute these properties to individual members of the group, at least until the encounter possibly refutes the attribution. I'm pretty sure this is a basic cognitive thing. I could go look up stereotyping and groups and such in a 100 level psychology textbook and there'd be a whole lot of citations on this (probably much more credible work than the IQ research).

Anyway I reckon you probably know all this anyway. Which is why I bristle slightly at your post... you know that I was well aware of the silliness of making judgements about individuals from group averages. Etc etc etc you know what I was getting at.... saying "well what you were thinking was silly and I don't think like that" is quite besides the point... and I suspect intellectually dishonest.