The accumulation and interpretation of information derived from our increased ability to parse the genetic code contains within it a potential time bomb of epic proportions. The damage that the nuclear bomb of genetic knowledge threatens to produce is incalculable, potentially made far worse by our inability to think about, let alone talk about, the data.
It remains early in the science of genetics. Decoding the human genome is a recent advance; as with all forms of information science, the cost of decoding the human genome has been rapidly decreasing (following its own Moore's Law of exponential progress) and early indications are that some of the data is going to shatter a multitude of unspoken assumptions.
It has long been an article of faith among social scientists (and many geneticists) that there are no meaningful differences genetically between the various races of man. The usual dismissive comment is that we are all more alike than different (an obvious and relatively meaningless truth.) Although evolution is also accepted as an article of faith among the left leaning academic soft sciences, the usual covert assumption made is that evolution occurs very slowly and that since the beginning of culture, man has essentially been static in evolutionary terms. Thus, animals and plants couldshow remarkable phenotypic changes in the course of only a few generations, man was uniquely resistant to or insulated from evolutionary pressures. Again, this was almost always an unstated assumption, since if it were too baldly expressed, its lack of substantive supporting evidence would have been too obvious for comfort.
In light of these assumptions, unacceptable scientific data showing population differences on IQ (especially), were routinely rationalized away as reflecting culturally biased tests, secondary to persistent discrimination, or a result of a host of other inventive and poorly supported theories.
Of note, few identity groups question difference that are consideredpositive traits. For example, most Ashkenazi Jews take pride in their higher than average IQ; Chinese take pride in their facility with science and math, etc. The problem occurs when one group is determined to have less facility intellectually than other groups.
Of note, I am using IQ as a convenient shorthand; it is an extremely well studied and stable measure that has predictive power and a high association with success academically and financially when averaged over a population. Perhaps instead of IQ, we could develop a measure of "fitness for success in an information economy"; in other words, whatever it is that differentiates certain individuals/groups as better or worse able tosucceed in a modern economy. Up to now that measure (whether IQ or our as yet to be determined FFSIAIE) could be argued to be completely or primarily culturally (nurture) based. In fact, as used by our politiciansand social scientists, differences in IQ across populations have been reliably determined to be primarily the result of discrimination by the oppressivedominant culture. This has been extended to be determinative of all failed cultures around the world; to the left (and the social science academy is overwhelmingly left) all troubled and failed cultures are failed because of their legacy of colonialism and racism. It may be nonsense but it is persistent, and well documented, nonsense.
The as yet unexploded bomb shell in our midst is that modern genetic science is increasingly supportive of two important notions that directly refute the central tenets of the conventional and academic wisdom:
1) Evolution has, if anything, sped up for homo sapiens in the last 10,000 years, ie since we began to arrange ourselves in cultural groupings.
And:
2) It is increasingly clear that there are real, identifiable, consistent differences in gene incidence and expression that can reliably distinguish between populations.
The implications of these two points are profound. If some or many of the determinants of success or failure in a modern economy have genetic determinants, those populations who contain less of those beneficial genes will be at an irreducible disadvantagein competing in an increasingly globalized economy.
I have barely touched the surface of the danger that will arise from this. It is a risk to merely write about the possibilities. Yet, the tension and conflict, between the developing science and the cultural need to deny reality cannot escalate indefinitely. How we resolve the contradictions and tension will be of crucial importance for how our society, and in fact all societies, adapt and manage in the global economy.
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