As many of you already know, the NY Times science editor Nicholas Wade is coming out with a new book this May: A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. From Amazon’s book description:
Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than just a social construct can get a scholar run out of town, or at least off campus, on a rail. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory.
Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years—to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes. Race is not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart, the more they evolve their own distinct traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. For many thousands of years, most human populations stayed where they were and grew distinct, not just in outward appearance but in deeper senses as well.
Advanced copies of the book have already been sent out, and quite a bit of commotion is beginning to build.
Given Wade’s popularity in scientific journalism and that fact that his previous books (e.g. Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors) have been best-sellers, how will the Cathedral deal with this book? What strategies will the Cathedral utilize to address it?
I’ve been thinking about this question and I see five options:
A. Try to criticize the actual arguments of the book and discredit them. A few might try unsuccessfully to do this, but given the fact that the evidence for human biodiversity is becoming overwhelming, I doubt many will even try.
B. Try to ignore the book. The Cathedral is able to do this for lesser-known authors, but Wade is fairly mainstream and widely read. This strategy will probably prove futile.
C. Point and sputter “racist,” etc. I’m sure many journalists will utilize this tactic. Who knows, maybe some journalist will discover that Wade once stayed at the same hotel as some politically incorrect figure, and by association of whom journalists will attempt to smear Wade. They’ll grasp for whatever straws they can find.
D. As Gregory Clark recently advised, the Cathedral could admit there is genetic inequality and instead of focusing on inequality focus on poverty. The initial shock of publicly admitting HBD is real would be great, as it would invalidate all the lies told over the past 75 years, but people would get over it and the Cathedral could shift gears and find other justifications for its pet projects. Nonetheless, I don’t see the Cathedral taking this route, as any acknowledgement of HBD would undermine its legitimacy.
E. Be honest, admit HBD is true, and let the chips fall where they may. Yea right!
My prediction?
Except for E, probably a little of all the above, but mostly C, I predict.
Your thoughts?
Related:
Roundup of Book Reviews of Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance
Occam's Razor 
I vote B, Easiest course is to ignore the book. Without any interviews or buzz in the media, it won’t matter how many copies sell.
It works. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh (new kids book), and Glenn Beck have huge followings but the media pays them no mind unless there is something to attack. .
You’re probably right.
But you did seriously hedge your bets.
I wonder how much press it will get? That’s the primary determinant of the reaction.
It probably partly depends if the “crew” (Dawkins, Pinker, Dennett, et al) promotes and praises the book, as they did with Before the Dawn.
Good point. Dawkins and Pinker are both going to be in an interesting spot. If Wade does his homework, which I’m sure he was, neither Dawkins or Pinker will be able to weasel out of the situation by making it look like the case is possible, but look much less certain than it really is. And with that, they have to just not say anything at all.
That will be interesting…
(D) genetic inequality is real, and the government should do what it can to alleviate it. Affirmative Action is now expliticly the White Man’s Burden. There are enough non-Whites, and Whites involved in government programs like education, to keep the Democrats in power. Additionally, they will tell people that IQ proves there’s no difference between the average White and the average Black, much less the average Hispanic.
How do I know this is the reaction? Because it’s already what the smarter committed Cathedralites say off the record when pressed with the hypothetical.
Telling average people that average people of all races are essentially the same will suit them just fine, because these people are very conceited about their high IQs when they’re not sanctimoniously denouncing the concept as racist.
They ignored Kevin MacDonald’s trilogy. That seems to have worked.
There will be some initial tut-tutting and sad shaking of heads, quickly followed by the silent treatment. If it goes beyond that, the conversation will center around Wade himself–i.e., what went wrong to lead him to this dark and evil error.
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They will use A,B, and C. But one day you will wake up and they will use D. Remember that elitist regimes always fall, eventually. They are usually replaced by other elitist regimes, but a short intermission of meritocracy and freedom of ideas may occur in the interim.
You are never going to get the entire world to offer freedom of expression and action, so the best approach may be to create small islands of freedom and opportunity that you can defend effectively.
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I don’t hold with equality in all things, just equality before the law, nothing more.
–Thaddeus Stevens
The eggheads and their acolytes can debate all they want about this topic; the reality is that everyday Americans are going to definitively put into practice his statement.
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