published in the Guardian

This racist undercurrent in the tide of genetic research

As taboos fall away, there's a danger that denial of racial difference
will be replaced with uncritical acceptance

Marek Kohn
Tuesday January 17, 2006
The Guardian

Racial science has discovered the art, and the power, of flattery. Last
year, three scholars published a paper, Natural History of Ashkenazi
Intelligence, in which they argued that Ashkenazi Jews were considerably
more intelligent than other Europeans, because their history of
moneylending and other financial occupations favoured genes associated
with cleverness.

The principle at stake was essentially the same as the one underlying
The Bell Curve, a provocative tome in which Charles Murray and Richard
Herrnstein suggested that black people might be innately less
intelligent than white people, that race is biologically real and that
some races are intellectually superior to others. But the public
reaction was strikingly different. There was none of the outrage that
followed The Bell Curve's appearance in 1994. Instead there were
thoughtful commentaries on the paper's arguments, and an undertone of
complacency.

Article continues
At a meeting in New York at which the psychologist Steven Pinker spoke
about the Ashkenazi paper, though, one writer was troubled. Maggie
Wittlin, reporting for Seed magazine, said: "People will hear what they
want to hear. And many in attendance were there to hear that Jews are
naturally smarter than everyone else." Seduction is more powerful than
provocation - and more insidious.

And it is not directed at one ethnic group. As Pinker has noted, race
has raised its head in public several times in the past year, and the
reaction - or lack of it - has been notable. Murray restated his case,
more magisterially than ever, in the magazine Commentary. The British
biologist Armand Marie Leroi argued in the New York Times that race was
a scientifically meaningful and medically valuable concept. His case has
the implicit support of the US Food and Drug Administration, which has
approved a heart drug, BiDil, that is intended specifically for black
people. Discredited by association with the Third Reich, and discarded
by mainstream science thereafter, racial science is pushing for
rehabilitation on a range of fronts.

Last month, Pinker told the Edge website that "the dangerous idea of the
next decade" will be the notion that "groups of people may differ
genetically in their average talents and temperaments". It is all the
more dangerous for being bound up with ideas about how populations vary
in their susceptibility to disease. The implication is that we must take
these ideas as a package. Health must come first, of course - and the
dangerous elements must follow in its wake. We are ill-prepared to
respond to the complex challenges posed by racial arguments bobbing in
the unstoppable tide of genetic research.

In the past it was easy: an ominous reference to the Nazis and a snippet
of scientific reassurance - such as the observation that there is more
variation within so-called races than between them - would do the trick.
But the hardcore advocates of race science have spent years working out
answers to the standard rebuttals. And you cannot refute a scientific
claim by referring to its historical baggage.

Over the years, the denial of race became almost absolute. Differences
were only skin-deep, it was said - despite the common knowledge that
certain groups had higher incidences of genetically influenced diseases.
It became a taboo, and as the taboo starts to appear outdated or
untenable, the danger is that unreflective denial will be replaced by
equally uncritical acceptance.

We don't need to take it as a package, though. In particular, we should
not be misled into thinking that sexes and races are the same kind of
thing. Evolutionary theory affirms that in general, male and female
behaviour will differ. On race, however, it has little or nothing to
say. Whereas there is a fundamental asymmetry between the genetic
interests of men and women, because women are obliged to invest more
resources in their offspring than men are, different peoples are much
the same. Although hardcore race theorists talk about the bracing
effects of cold open spaces upon East Asian mental abilities (which they
consider to be greater than those of any other group), they are pushed
to explain why such environments should promote intelligence any more
than, say, the Australian outback. If life in groups of clever primates
was the main driving force behind human intelligence, as many scientists
nowadays consider, it's harder still to see why intelligence should vary
with the landscape.

For most people these are unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable
arguments. Critical and frank discussion from publicly engaged
scientists on current racial issues would be welcome. But perhaps the
most constructive thing to do is to reflect on our own attitudes. Our
ideas about race are a mishmash of received opinions, partly remembered
facts and subjective impressions. They probably include more
old-fashioned racial notions than we would like to think, but clever
approaches such as the Ashkenazi paper may lure them to the surface. We
have gone beyond the stage where the question of racial science could be
seen as a straightforward contest between decent values and sinister
pseudoscience. It's no longer black and white.

· Marek Kohn is the author of The Race Gallery and A Reason for Everything

www.marekkohn.tk

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