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Intellectual
Radioactivity:
Alex Kurtagic
November 7,
2009
When I learned that Channel 4 intended to air a documentary
program featuring Professors Richard Lynn and J. Philippe Rushton, I marked my
calendar. The program in question — Race and Intelligence: Science’s Last
Taboo — interested me, not so much because I was expecting it to be
educational in any scientific sense (I am familiar with Lynn’s and Rushton’s
work already), but because I was morbidly curious as to how Britain’s most
liberal television channel would once again pervert the course of science in
relation to race differences in IQ. This is, after all, the egalitarians’ least
favorite topic and one they do not ordinarily deign to discuss.
That the show was not exactly going to be a study in
journalistic balance and impartiality was anticipated not just from the fact
that it was to be spewed by Channel 4, but also from the fact that it was going
to be presented by Mogadishu-born Rageh Omaar, a Black man, who is in an
inter-racial marriage with three mixed race children. Omaar once referred to the
BBC as “a White man’s club,” despite the corporation having been for some time
in the hands of a virulently PC clique with an apoplectic hatred for its White
audience. Thus, the program was inevitably going to offer a perspective some
billions of light-years left of Trotsky, with a redshift value in the
quinquagintaquadringentillion range.
Rageh Omaar
On the appointed day, the program
began in line with expectations, with Omaar dumping several metric tons of
mind-bending verbiage, calculated to frighten, close, and hermetically seal any
open minds in the audience. Omaar’s initial remarks leave no question as to how
the audience is expected to feel (italics are Omaar’s emphases):
I am setting
out on a journey into dangerous territory — not a
physical place, but an idea. At its heart it’s a question so
radioactive, that it’s only usually raised
in public by political
extremists. And the question is: Is there a racial
pecking order in intelligence, in which black
people are less clever than white people. It seems
unbelievable to be asking it in the twenty-first century, and yet it is a
question that finds its way into lecture halls
and scientific literature. I have a vested interest in the answer, as a
black man with children growing up in a diverse
society. But as I’ve gone on this journey there’ve been many people that
have told me that I shouldn’t be asking this
question at all [frown]. Unfortunately, there’s a problem: there
is
some
research that points to what has been called a
race gap in some measures of intelligence.
Does this race gap really exist? I’d like to
reclaim this question from the wild
margins. To examine the actual
evidence, and discover… the truth about race and
intelligence.
Right from the start we are told that we ought to fear the
idea, because it is harmful to our health and socially unacceptable. Moreover,
instead of framing the idea in its proper scientific context, he immediately
moralizes and politicizes it by framing it in a political context, whereby the
idea is obliquely (but just as quickly) linked to Nazis. Not satisfied, Omaar
then polarizes the issue by making it about Whites versus Blacks, when anybody
who has read the research on race differences in IQ knows that there are several
other racial groups, with IQ averages raging from above the White norm to below
the Black norm, with several levels in between.
He then uses heavily loaded language, such as the
trivializing term ‘pecking order’ (instead of ‘hierarchy’), to imply that the
idea applies to lower species in the animal kingdom and not to humans; — and
such as the negative “finds its way” (instead of “is discussed”), to imply that
this idea is meant to be kept contained, and is equipped with an insidious life
or property of its own, like ants or mold, with a will to go to places where it
does not belong. (Notice the word ‘False’, taken from a multiple-choice IQ test,
zoomed in at this point in the film.)
He uses the tired old liberal cliché of referring to our
present century, to imply that the idea belongs to some century in the past —
that it is retarded and rubbish and we ought to have binned it a long time ago.
And he then drags his own offspring into the question, suggesting that the idea
is something we need to keep away from children, like rat poison, pedophiles, or
pornography. In so doing, he casts himself flatteringly in the persona of the
responsible parent and courageous journalist, plunging into the wild in search
of ‘the truth’ — a clear call for sympathy and goodwill, which is
calculatingly reinforced by his partial admission of bias.
The front-loading does not end there: as he states the
documentary’s putative research problem, Omaar chokes his sentence with
qualifiers designed to obliquely discredit, in advance, the existing data on
race and IQ: It is, “some research,” “some measures,” and what
“has been called” (obviously, by some people) a “race gap”; it is not
simply ‘research’, ‘IQ’, and ‘racial differences’. There is no need to put
‘some’ in front of ‘research’; and ‘some measures of intelligence’ means, in
fact, IQ, which is the crux of the matter, since the question has arisen from IQ
tests — from tests designed to measure a narrowly-defined property of the human
brain (e.g., cognitive ability) and not from tests designed to measure ‘social
intelligence’, ‘emotional intelligence’, or any other type of ‘intelligence’
from popular culture, let alone a person’s worth as a human being.
The implication that the likes of Lynn and Rushton bluntly
conflate intelligence and worth persists throughout the program, where neither
of the two scientists is invited, or given space, to pronounce themselves on the
issue. This is a grave omission, which betrays to what degree Omaar is not
really interested in discovering the truth: He is only interested in confirming
his own liberal prejudices and scaring people off from further investigation.
Potted History
All of the above takes place within the first 90 seconds —
and this is a 63-minute film! Omaar then pretends to give us a short history of
race and IQ. But what he does is name four different scientists and juxtapose
each of them to statements they once made that shock egalitarians (as is the
case with Lewis Terman) and / or which, in their day, resulted in noisy
controversy (as was the case with William Shockley, Charles Murray, and James
Watson). True to form, Omaar vacuum-packs his sentences with negative diction;
against old, black and white footage of segregated black schoolchildren, he sets
the scene:
Every decade
or so this toxic issue
rears its ugly
head, only to be swept under the carpet.
And it would be easy to leave it there and
dismiss it as bad
science, but some of it has come from brilliant scientists.
He then makes a factual error, telling us Lewis Terman
invented the term IQ in 1916, when the term was, in fact, invented by German
psychologist William Stern in 1912. What Lewis Terman invented was the Stanford-Binet
IQ test, based on the previous work of Alfred Binet.
We of course hear nothing of substance from Shockley and
Murray, who is not named: Murray is shown simply stating that there are racial
differences in IQ, and Shockley is shown juxtaposed to angry protestors and then
defending himself against charges of racism in front of a squirming journalist
before disappearing into the night inside a police car. Egregiously, Shockley is
said to have called for the sterilization of Black women, when, in reality, his
proposal was to pay people (of any race) with low IQ to undergo
voluntary sterilization. Omaar rounds up his ‘history’ with Watson’s
so-called ‘off-the-cuff remarks’ from 2007 about low Black IQs; quoting them
before stating that the fierce response compelled him to apologize.
Needless to say, Omaar omits to tell us how these scientists
arrived at their conclusions: he makes no mention of any study or body of data.
He sweeps that under the carpet, and leaves it there, having dismissed it in
advance as bad science.
Modern Heretic No. 1: Richard Lynn
Omaar tells us that James Watson initially agreed to appear on the program to provide frank answers about his “infamous” remarks, but that he subsequently declined after consulting with his advisors and academic patrons. This suggests that Watson’s apology was never sincere, for, if he had really changed his mind — if he had indeed realized that his stated conclusions were wrong, the interview would have gone ahead. It is telling that later on Omaar informs us that “many” scientists had refused to be interviewed, “fearing a backlash.” Obviously they also knew themselves to be heretics, and thought it better to remain hidden in the academic catacombs.
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
Watson apparently informed Omaar that his remarks had come
after reading a book by Professor Richard Lynn. Omaar is shown sitting in a
train on his way to meet the “highly controversial” academic — modern heretic #1
in the film. We see Omaar at a table with a copy of Lynn’s The Global Bell
Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality, energetically highlighting, circling, and
underlining passages from an interview granted by Lynn to The Occidental
Quarterly (TOQ). Neither Lynn’s book nor TOQ are named.
Omaar asks here a rhetorical question: “Is he just a
scientist brave enough to say something no one else will, or… is he just beyond
the pale?” One asks oneself what being beyond the pale has anything to do with
having solid data, making reasonable assumptions, and reaching logical,
reliable, and testable conclusions. Yet, as is clear in his remarks following,
Omaar is not really trying to discover the answer. Rather, he is confronting
Lynn and possibly trying to expose him as a forger with a racist agenda.
I mean, just
reading through some of my notes on him is startling
and shocking… For example, when asked what
was the biggest problem facing Western societies he said “The single most
important issue is the increase in immigration of low-IQ Third World people into
the United States, Canada, and Europe.”
I am gonna go and talk to him and ask him
if he really, genuinely believes that and why.
Omaar cannot believe that an honest scientist could possibly
reach Lynn’s conclusions.
The original interview with Lynn ran for two to three hours,
but the footage that made it into the program lasts approximately two minutes,
and focuses on what Omaar calls the racial IQ “league tables.” Lynn appears calm
and understated, but Omaar is clearly uncomfortable: his body language is
defensive, he squirms, he sighs, and his visage is creased and suspicious;
moreover, he gesticulates rather aggressively, and stares at Lynn with obvious
incredulity.
The experience so rattles Omaar that afterwards he repairs
to a café to reflect on his emotions. He tells us that he found Lynn’s replies
“shocking” and “scarcely believable,” and then goes on to compare the experience
to those he has had as a BBC foreign correspondent facing “militia leaders,
dictators, and war criminals” who had said “far more
outrageous and
unspeakable things.” He confesses to finding Lynn particularly
troublesome because when Lynn and other scientists “say the things they say,”
they are talking about him. Yet Omaar also feels compelled to listen to
Lynn in order to understand why they ‘believe’ as they do.
Notice how Lynn is misrepresented as a scientist who holds beliefs,
rather than defends conclusions; and as someone who is comparable to violent
murderers and oppressors of people, who says outrageous and unspeakable things,
even if militia leaders, dictators, and war criminals have said things to Omaar
that are more outrageous and unspeakable. While one can understand that Omaar
may not like Lynn's data, it is shocking for him as a supposedly objective
journalist so obviously to make the issue not about the data but about Lynn. The
low IQ scores found in sub-Saharan populations is not something that Lynn did to
them, and neither is it something about which Lynn finds reason to rejoice:
Lynn's thesis is that IQ impacts on ability to generate wealth and maintain a
technological civilization, so the growth of low IQ populations is a matter of
concern. Rather than blame the messenger, however, Omaar should applaud him for
bringing the issue to light, as, without knowledge of it, the issue cannot be
properly addressed.
White Supremacy
The segment with Lynn and ensuing reflections is followed by
another link to Nazis. Omaar states that he feels it necessary to confront the
data, lest they be hijacked by political extremists. Meanwhile, we are treated
to scenes of riots and BNP parades from decades ago, held by tattooed skinheads.
This is akin to interviewing John Webster (Professor Emeritus of Animal
Husbandry) and juxtaposing a discussion of the implications of his findings on
cow psychology with footage of violent Animal Liberation Front terrorists. The
fact that groups of fanatical activists may use scientific findings to bolster a
particular political position does not invalidate the findings themselves. This
is a non sequitur — and a veiled form
of slander.
Seeking solace, Omaar runs to William ‘Lez’ Henry, a
Jamaican-descended Black anthropologist, musician, and educator, who opines
for me,
people never challenge these “intellectuals” [notice the pejorative quotation
marks] on the merits of their own science. Why are we having these arguments?
Probably because the stuff that can counter it, the information that can
counter, this pernicious way of thinking
is always hidden. [grins]
Always hidden? Hidden where? How? The allegation goes
without challenge or further investigation.
As to Henry’s credentials, he is not an expert in IQ, and therefore lacks qualifications to evaluate Lynn’s data. His contribution to the debate consists of speculation on possible scientific incompetence or self-serving motives. As the author of Whiteness Made Simple: Stepping into the Grey Zone, an Afrocentric monograph that links whiteness with privilege and attempts to analyze how what he regards as the white supremacy of white societies is normalized into invisibility, his function in the program is to further foment skepticism in the minds of the viewers, and encourage them to think the worst.
Go to Part 2 of this article.
Alex Kurtagic
(
Permanent link:
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Kurtagic-LynnRushtonI.html
