printI said in the interview I gave our friend the Bad Eagle that
“Broad statements about aggregate group characteristics, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence, not hunches, are not incorrect. Science relies on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decision in their daily lives as to where to invest scarce and precious resources—to wit, one’s life and property—based on probabilities and generalities.”
Although most professional (read safe) individualists have yet to figure this out, individualism, ultimately, doesn’t mean denying aggregate group differences, but, rather, treating every individual on his merit.
Steve Sailer’s thoughts on James Watson underscore the same incongruity. On the one, hand most people refuse to acknowledge the less laudable aspects of diversity. On the other hand, the decisions people take to protect their prized possessions and promote their precious children demonstrate they are more than aware of these unacknowledged differences:
“In reality, American homebuyers (most of whom, I’m sorry to say, are not VDARE.com readers) are obsessively interested in the ethnic make-up of local public schools. Without my help, they appear to accept the “stereotype” that white and Asian students will provide a more studious peer group for their children than blacks and Latinos.
Thus, houses in districts with mostly white and Asian students often sell for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars more than in districts populated mostly by black and Hispanic students.
Moreover, many middle class parents are obsessed with getting their children into exclusive gifted and magnet public schools…
So, even though any MSM mention of average racial IQ differences is ferociously punished, as demonstrated yet again the forced retirement of Dr. Watson, home prices nevertheless show that the average American has somehow come to a rough but reasonably accurate understanding of the statistical realities.
How did he ever learn this without reading it in the newspaper? Apparently, as Yogi Berra once said, ‘You can observe a lot just by watching.’”
Also via Sailer is this comprehensive “exposition of the present state of scientific understanding concerning IQ and race,” courtesy of “Gene Expression.” It’s pretty unremarkable stuff. What’s remarkable is that these statistically significant intergroup differences (a standard deviation or more) are denied, downgraded in significance, or put down to a methodological artifact of the tests—their validity and reliability. Also buried in the denunciations is the correlation between intelligence and various socio-economic indicators.