We don’t know the student’s name, but we
do know that he hit a nerve — in fact, he hit a whole bunch of them. Identified
only as a boy of Asian descent at C.K. McClatchy High School in
California, the teen’s recent science-fair project, “Race and IQ,” propounded
the thesis that differences in groups’ average intelligence influence their
academic performance. He couldn’t win, though, because his project was removed
after parents, staff and other students became “upset” and one girl said she
felt “unsafe and uneasy.” The irony?
A project on evolution would no doubt have been well received —
even though an assumption of racial differences is implicit in
evolutionary theory.
In fact, The Sacramento Bee, which hasn’t yet
evolved out of the progressive primordial soup, mentioned that
the student’s thesis is associated with eugenics (which the Bee casts
negatively), the science of improving the human race via selective breeding.
The paper is likely unaware, however, that the term “eugenics” itself was
coined by Sir Francis Galton — a cousin of famed evolutionist Charles
Darwin — and that Galton made clear that in his eugenicist endeavors,
he was merely building on his cousin’s work.
Philosopher G.K. Chesterton once noted that if people “were not
created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal.” This is easy to
understand: What are the chances that different groups could have “evolved” isolated
from one another for eons — subject to different environments, stresses,
procreation-influencing cultural imperatives and adaptive realities — and ended
up identical in every worldly measure? Why, even if the peoples evolved
isolated in identical environments, the separation alone would make the
prospects of winding up completely “equal” a virtual statistical impossibility.
Whatever you believe about evolution, it’s clear that equality is
not a thing of this world. Do we see it in nature? Some species can dominate
others or are more adaptable, which is why the rat is a pest and the dodo is
extinct (and, in fact, the rat helped
drive the dodo to extinction). Even within species, some members are
hardier, smarter, faster or stronger than others. There are alphas and betas,
with a silverback gorilla running his troop and a dominant lion leading his
pride. And different breeds of dogs have different characteristic traits, with
some being more intelligent than others.
As for people, how is it that we can even characterize different
groups as “groups”? Since we don’t do it based purely on location (e.g.,
dividing 10 boys into two groups of five, each on opposite sides of a room), we
can only do so because there are differences among them. We can only speak of
“men” and “women” because sex differences actually exist. Regarding the races,
we know there are distinctions relating to skin color and hair, for example.
It’s differences that make groups “groups.”
But are the differences only skin deep? Tay-Sachs disease is most
common among Ashkenazi Jews, while sickle cell anemia is almost exclusive to
people of Middle Eastern, Indian, Mediterranean and African heritage. Relative
to American whites, American blacks generally have longer limbs, more sweat
glands (and thus dissipate heat better), narrower pelvises and greater bone
density; and black men have higher free
testosterone levels than white men do. Not that it’s the focus of this article,
but all these characteristics bring advantages and disadvantages.
Now, next question: Are the differences only neck high? If
evolution is a reality, would its principles be operational with the body but,
somehow, some way, be suspended with the brain? My, believing that would truly
take faith.
Of course, whether nature, nurture or both — whether the tests are
valid or not — the fact remains that we do see marked IQ differences among
groups. Ashkenazi Jews score the highest of all, at 115 (the world average is currently
about 88); this may explain why Jews are only 0.2 percent of the world’s
population but were 22
percent of the 20th century’s Nobel Prize winners.
Hong Kong and Singapore lead the country list with
average IQs of 108, while many nations register far, far lower. Note that while
good scientists may debate why these differences exist and how meaningful they
are, that they exist is not in dispute.
Of course, some may quibble with the numbers I provided or the
group differences I cited, but the details aren’t really the point. The point
is, again, that evolution and Equality Dogma contradict one another. Embracing
both is akin to believing it likely that on two different occasions, you could
spin a giant bin with one million numbers in it, remove them randomly and put
them in a row, and they would end up in the precise same order each time.
Random processes yield variable results.
That is, unless you believe that God
guided evolution. Even this belief, however, allows for the inequality that
is the world’s apparent norm. How could this be? It’s simple: Equality is our
hang-up — not God’s.
Is “equality” emphasized in any great, time-tested religious
canon? It’s certainly only mentioned in the Bible in reference to weights and
measures. In fact, Christian theology holds that in that perfect, sinless realm
of happiness — Heaven — we will not all have equal glory, as St
Thérèse of Liseaux once explained.
As for this fold, Hell on Earth is what Equality Dogma helps
create. It has spawned perverted scientific priorities that deny Truth and
demand ideological determinations. We’ve seen this before. The Soviet equality
dogmatists did it with Lysenkoism, insisting that acquired traits could be
inherited because Marxist ideology demanded a malleable human nature. The Nazi
superiority dogmatists did it with their racial theories, believing in a
“master race” that could become all the more masterful through selective
breeding. And we’ve combined elements of both, demanding an unnatural and
unattainable equality and measuring it by racial, ethnic and sexual representation
in worldly endeavor.
In a saner time, Equality Dogma would be considered a vile heresy.
The truth here isn’t hard to grasp: There are differences within groups, but
there are also differences among groups. We know we mustn’t paint every
individual with the same brush. Why would we paint every individual group with
the same one?
One group we should paint over with the label “Rejected” is
equality dogmatists. The McClatchy student’s scientific methods might very
well have
been shoddy, but this wasn’t what got his project scuttled. Rather, The
Sacramento Bee article quoted individuals who said the it was
“shocking” and its creator “closed-minded”; it spoke of how people felt “upset”
and “unsafe and uneasy.” What’s notable is that no one quoted said the
project’s conclusion was wrong or untrue.
Oh, if asked, the critics would surely bellow, “Well, of course
it’s untrue!” But it’s no accident that they didn’t think to say it; in fact,
this failure is typical today when fashionable emoters react to unfashionable
science. These critics don’t think to call it untrue because the truth
of the matter isn’t their focus. Ideology is.
It’s feelings over facts, emotion over education. But science
doesn’t exist to make us feel good or bad; its purpose is the discovery of
Truth via the scientific method. People who reject this, who subordinate Truth
to agenda-driven lies, are dangerous to civilization. They also are hardly
progressive — except insofar as they’re progressing toward ignorance.
Contact
Selwyn Duke, follow him on
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