Month: May 2010

A Harvard Law student, Stephanie Grace, wrote a private e-mail to fellow classmates about a discussion at a dinner party. Money quote:

I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders. This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.

Months later one of the recipients widely forwarded the e-mail without permission from the original student, spurring outrage and apologies from the school's dean and Grace. Eugene Volokh has a good summary. He adds:

Whether there are genetic differences among racial and ethnic groups in intelligence is a question of scientific fact. Either there are, or there aren’t (or, more precisely, either there are such differences under some plausible definitions of the relevant groups and of intelligence, or there aren’t). The question is not the moral question about what we should do about those differences, if they exist. It’s not a question about what we would like the facts to be. The facts are what they are, whether we like them or not.

Given this, it seems to me that the proper approach to this question is precisely the same as the proper approach to other questions of scientific fact. One absolutely should not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. Likewise, to give examples involving three groups I myself belong to, one absolutely should not rule out the possibility that Jews are (say), on average, genetically predisposed to be more acquisitive, or more loyal to their narrow ethnic group than to broader groups, or that whites are genetically predisposed to be more hostile to other racial groups, or that being nonreligious is genetically linked, and that people who have those genes are genetically predisposed to be more likely to commit crime or cheat on their spouses or what have you. One should also obviously be willing to be convinced by evidence that shows that, by controlling for the right variables, we would see that those groups are, in fact, identical to other groups under the same circumstances. 

One should not rule out possibilities in the absence of conclusive evidence, for the simple reason that one then has no factual basis to rule out those possibilities. And since on many things the evidence will rarely be conclusive, one shouldn’t rule out those possibilities categorically at all. And one should also be open to the evidence that exists, and to being convinced by it in one or the other direction (to the degree of conviction that is warranted by the evidence).

He follows up here and here. His final thought:

[T]he very attempt to suppress the openness to the possibility that there might be racial differences will make it impossible to disprove that possibility. Even if then the scientific community loudly says, “The evidence is clear: There are no racial differences in intelligence,” that statement should no longer be credible to us. Scientific consensus is trustworthy only to the extent that it’s the result of a process in which scientists — and others — are free to espouse all rival views. To the extent that espousing some views is too dangerous, the consensus that then emerges without the expression and discussion of those views stops being reliable.

So if you hope — as I do — that there are no racial differences in intelligence, and want to be able to reach that conclusion at some point with confidence based on science, not faith, you should be defending people who express an openness to the alternative scientific claim (that there are racial differences). It is only through such openness, and through allowing people to defend that claim, that the position that you hope is true can actually be demonstrated to be true.

Dennis Boyles posts this nonsense on stilts:

I'm sure all good Tories wish Cameron well. But one could argue that a Cameron win might be the worst of all outcomes for the Tories. Call it the sorrow of granted wishes, but if he wins, the Conservatives will run on visionless, unimaginative, timid platforms for years.

So Boyles prefers a fourth electoral defeat rather than abandon some of the doctrines that emboldened conservatism in the 1980s. You begin to see how deeply the American right suspects Cameron and what he has done for the right of center in Britain. Massie counters:

Sure, the next four or five years are going to be devilishly ticklish and the government will have to make many difficult, often unpopular decisions. But the Conservative party exists to win elections and advance its ideas from government. Without that it is nothing.  David Cameron and George Osborne recognise this; many of their critics appear not to, preferring to pine for a Fantasy World in which Tebbitism and Hefferism and so on would prevail.

On a related note, Ponnuru questions whether Republicans want to win back the House in November:

[D]o House Republicans actually want to take the majority?

I have asked that of nearly every House Republican I have met since January 2007. Life in the minority is just as satisfying if you're in it for the perks; more satisfying, actually, since you don't have to make appropriations bills go out on time, run committee hearings, etc. Only once, a few weeks ago, have I heard anyone say that more than half of the conference wants the majority. That congressman said that his colleagues do want to be in the majority but are not yet ready to do what it would take. But he thinks they're getting there.

Drum's mouth drops.

Robert Farley points out that no one "remembers disasters that don’t occur, or recalls waves of refugees that never show up":

Success and failure in crisis response, consequently, have asymmetric political effect. The Obama administration’s response to the Haiti earthquake, in my view, has been a resounding success for responsible, capable governance. No one will remember that in six months.

Bush’s response to Katrina will endure in the political memory for decades. On the one hand this is (politically) good for progressives, given that conservative efforts to gut governance tend to result in horrible disasters. On the other hand, because policy and execution failures stick in the mind longer than successes, it’s difficult to convince the general public of the importance of a responsible approach to government. In the rhetoric of anti-statist nutjobs, Katrina actually becomes an argument against adequate government, while success in Haiti fades from history.

Yglesias applies this dictum to the administration's economic policy. It can also be said to apply to successful anti-terror policy. The more it succeeds, the less useful it appears.

A simple but clever design:

The Rotterdam Zoo is giving away cardboard glasses that make it appear that you’re looking off to one side; these are gorilla-viewing glasses, meant to avoid incidents in which gorillas attack visitors for making eye contact with them. The glasses’ introduction follows an attack on a woman by an escaped gorilla.

It's also useful when visiting tea-party rallies, I'm told.

(Hat tip: Geekologie)

Henry Farrell makes a prediction:

My best guess – as discussed before – is that the initial boost for the Liberal Democrats from the first debate was less a simple result of Clegg having done well, than of Clegg suddenly appearing to be a viable candidate, voters (who might have preferred to have voted Lib Dem if they didn’t think their vote was going to be wasted) seeing that others perceived Clegg as a possible winner and revising their own voting tactics etc. In other words – the debate didn’t pick winners or losers based on the strength or weakness of their performance so much as it revealed possibilities that voters had hitherto discounted.

If this is right, we will not see a major boost for Cameron in the final vote. Instead, we’ll see a continuation of the trendline – Labor doing badly, the Liberal Democrats doing well, but bleeding some support, and the Conservatives doing fine, but not fine enough to win a majority in Parliament.

Dan Berman and Renard Sexton have a slightly different read:

It seems that Clegg’s vacillation over the weekend as to who he would back in a hung parliament was at least part of his undoing. In the second debate he had been able to pretend that he was a serious contender for the big chair, confidently stating that the Liberal Democrats in power would do this or change that. The coalition discussions ended that. By the time of the third debate, it was clear that though one man on the stage would end up Prime Minister, it would not be Clegg.

Pablo Paster looks at the science of turning the oil spill into air pollution – the "lesser evil". Dream on.

This is how my colleague, Jeffrey Goldberg, describes John Mearsheimer's recent speech on the Israel/Palestine question:

"a forgettable death-to-Israel speech."

If Mearsheimer's speech, which coolly explained why the two-state solution he favors is highly unlikely to occur and that Israel faces a demographic or moral suicide as a Jewish state as a result, then Jeffrey Goldberg's own gesammelte Schriften, making many of the same points over the years, should also be considered "death-to-Israel" doggerel.

The obvious and serious flaw in Mearsheimer's argument, as I noted, is the absence of a deep analysis of Palestinian rejection of a two-state solution and the Palestinian support of those forces that seek to end Israel altogether. He does mention it, but, to my mind, in far too cursory a fashion:

The Palestinians are badly divided among themselves and not in a good position to make a deal with Israel and then stick to it. That problem is fixable with time and help from Israel and the United States. But time has run out and neither Jerusalem nor Washington is likely to provide a helping hand.

His best point here is surely that almost all of the power belongs to Israel and the US at this point, and that Israel's intransigence (and America's long enabling of it) is a more pressing reason behind the impending long-term collapse of the Zionist experiment than Palestinian rejectionism. Agree with this or not, but it seems perfectly plausible to me. Noah Pollak also loses his shit. Take this sentence:

John Mearsheimer gave a speech at the Palestine Center in Washington yesterday and called Israel an apartheid state that has practiced ethnic cleansing and will likely practice it in the future.

In fact, Mearsheimer is clear (read the speech) that the apartheid state he fears is in the future, not now (many Israelis believe the same); and Mearsheimer specifically writes that, contra Pollak, he believes Israel is unlikely to engage in mass deportation any time soon:

That murderous strategy seems unlikely, because it would do enormous damage to Israel's moral fabric, its relationship with Jews in the Diaspora, and its international standing.  Israel and its supporters would be treated harshly by history, and it would poison relations with Israel's neighbors for years to come.  No genuine friend of Israel could support this policy, which would clearly be a crime against humanity.  It also seems unlikely, because most of the 5.5 million Palestinians living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean would put up fierce resistance if Israel tried to expel them from their homes.

My italics. Yes, he thinks that in a future war, such a thing is not inconceivable. But Pollak is unfair to state this as Mearsheimer's main prediction (when, in fact, it is the opposite).

Then there is the hysteria about Mearsheimer's (deliberately?) provocative categorization of three broad camps in the American Jewish community.

Goldblog and others equate this to Father Coughlin's rants in the 1930s. The only problem with this analogy is that Mearsheimer's point is that the hardline neocons are misguided because they are hastening the moral and demographic collapse of Israel, rather than stopping it. So he is not criticizing American Jews for being Jewish or for supporting Israel over America (the "dual loyalty" red herring) but for being, in his view, mistaken in how they believe Israel should be saved. He is criticizing them for blind support, rather than intelligent support, and believes this blind support is actually consigning Israel to a bloody endless war that it cannot fully ever win. And he notes, for good measure, how many leading American Jews dissent from this AIPAC "Israel Is Always Right" line, and how the bulk of American Jews feel ambivalent and conflicted about all of it.

If this is the analysis of an anti-Semite, then which critic of Israel's current trajectory isn't one? David Bernstein, in the middle of another emotional harrumph, even concedes, to his credit, that "Mearsheimer describes the obvious solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in terms I (more or less) agree with." 

I suspect the virulence and extreme rhetoric of those criticizing Mearsheimer's challenging and provocative address is directly related to the brutal truth of the analysis he presents. If Israel does not get out of the West Bank soon, if it does not remove every single settlement, if it does not act decisively to escape the death trap of Greater Israel, no Israel will survive as a morally defensible or democratic or Jewish state.

Far from being, as Goldblog asserts, an abandonment of foreign policy realism, Mearsheimer's speech is a pellucid, if flawed, example of it. I suspect that's why it wounds. The truth usually does.

Aditya Mandayam creates "laptopograms," which are "images made by pressing photosensitive paper onto a laptop screen and flashing an image in a manner not unlike contact printing or photograms." More here.

A nice little vignette from a Tennessee Republican Congressional candidate, describing his days in the military:

“I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can’t describe to you.”