Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Real racism means not liking Mexican food

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Further to “Real clear racism: Does it mean that as long as you front Darwin, you can be a racist?” (While claiming to “oppose racism”) , the UK Spectator describes the whole thing as “Darwin’s Unexploded Bomb” True, there hasn’t been an explosion.

Wade is critical of leading biologists, economists and psychologists who have simply dismissed possible non-cultural explanations as racist, or who pin their hopes in geographic determinism, or shy away from recent evolution because of the political implications. This, he says, has nothing to do with its scientific validity but the ‘political dangers’ that researchers face in ‘pursuing the truth too far’.

The political dangers are very real; various academics have lost their jobs or faced quite extreme harassment for voicing the belief that differences in group IQ scores are partly hereditary, despite there being solid evidence that intelligence is under genetic control.

And yet these ‘accusations of racism against anyone who suggests that cognitive capacities might differ between human populations groups… are shaped by leftist and Marxist political dogma, not by science.’ He says: ‘The common sense conclusion – that race is both a biological reality and a politically fraught idea with sometimes pernicious consequences – has also eluded’ much of academia.

This book’s ideas are indeed fraught but beyond carefully explaining the dangers of misusing science, the consequences are not for scientists to ponder, but rather lawmakers and others of influence; they can choose either to consider the evidence and make things work as best as they can, using what knowledge we have, or they can continue to ignore the ticking of Darwin’s unexploded bomb, punishing anyone who raises the subject.

So far, Wade has been highly lauded, actually.

But then, these days, racism means you don’t like Mexican food, not that some groups of human beings are less “evolved” than others. It’s so last century to see racism as being about race or something.

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments
@JesusTalks Ummm... I don't know about you, but there are certain 'Mexican foods' I don't like, though I admit, that's because I have a low tolerance for spicy food in general and it often has to do with how it's cooked.VunderGuy
May 8, 2014
May
05
May
8
08
2014
10:23 PM
10
10
23
PM
PDT
It's funny you say this because the only people I know who don't like Mexican food are racists.JesusTalks
May 8, 2014
May
05
May
8
08
2014
10:26 AM
10
10
26
AM
PDT
The political dangers are very real; various academics have lost their jobs or faced quite extreme harassment for voicing the belief that differences in group IQ scores are partly hereditary, despite there being solid evidence that intelligence is under genetic control.
One of the things that Wade brings up immediately is the policing by academia of anyone that voices something against the received wisdom. He goes on to say that grants must be approved by the thought police or else they will not get approved. We constantly get the nonsense here that there is no policing of ID people in academia or elsewhere but Wade says there are extremely strong pressures to conform. Also, the pressure to conform is part of the evolutionary social development and Wade thinks it is probably genetically controlled but they do not know how yet. This book so far is a evolutionary psychologist's wet dream as it is one example after the other on how our social behavior arose due to environmental factors that changed our genes (all speculative just so stories but told as if it actually happened.) He definitely worships at the shrine of Darwin so a lot of the material included may be to offset the race police which will inevitably come down on him. I am sure there is a lot of discussion going on at the NY Times this week. Let's see who reviews it there. He trashes Richard Lewontin so he cannot be the one. Probably too old too.jerry
May 8, 2014
May
05
May
8
08
2014
09:08 AM
9
09
08
AM
PDT
Denyse, If you read the book, there will be hundreds of OP's you could write based on it. Lot of research cited. I am about a third of the way through the book. My wife and I just got back from visiting our son in San Francisco and read it on the plane. It is not a page turner but very interesting. Wade is a committed Darwinist and uses natural selection and lauds Darwin constantly. So far, nothing anti-ID in the evidence and he uses "AD" and "BC" to designate the years. Nothing yet that is derogatory to any race or ethnic group except that there is a gene that highly correlated with violence that is more in Africans than in Caucasians. By the way found out why the term Caucasian is used. The person who invented the term thought that the people of Georgia were the most attractive of the European race. The term "sweep" will now be a common part of our discussions here. It means that traits are caused by a sweep of genes. Hardly mentions control mechanisms which means there is no research on it that is related to race. Discusses the movement to suppress the idea of race in our thoughts and dialogue yet it everywhere in our world. For example, forensics will identify skulls and teeth as to geographical origin of person's ancestors. DNA samples are used to identify geographical origin of ancestors. They knew most of my ancestors were from Ireland when I sent a sample into Ancestry dot com. They think Neanderthals left Africa 500,000 years ago and the main wave left 50,000 years ago. They went across the same latitude because this was an ice age and went to Australia eventually because there was a land bridge to it due to low oceans. All looks like speculation and not hard facts. Has a long section on how humans separated from chimps. Due to a 1.5 million year drought. Will probably finish book by the weekend.jerry
May 8, 2014
May
05
May
8
08
2014
07:56 AM
7
07
56
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply