Here's an article guaranteed to drive the politically correct into a frenzy. It raises the question of whether intelligence might be genetically based not just in individuals but in entire ethnic groups. If it is, the article suggests, might the history of the Jews allowed intelligence to be selected for to a greater extent than in the rest of us?
If social security is the third rail of politics this question is the third rail of academic careers. It takes enormous audacity to ask this question in the current socio-academic climate. Recall how Harvard's president Larry Summers was practically burned at the stake a few months ago for suggesting that the sexes differ in their intellectual aptitudes. Recall, too, how Charles Murray back in the late eighties was excoriated for pointing out that some racial groups fare more poorly on IQ tests than others and are probably cognitively less well-endowed.
Any hint that there may be a genetic component to intelligence that is a function of race or ethnicity is almost certain to bring down the wrath of a thousand furies upon the head of a hapless scholar. This is unfortunate because in a free society no intellectual question should be considered taboo, even if it may have unpleasant or unwanted consequences. Free people should not fear truth, nor should there be questions that one dare not ask, nor ideas one dare not discuss. Free men and women should not allow themselves to be shackled by the sociological orthodoxies of a dogmatic, closed-minded elite.
We'll watch with interest the trajectory of this story.
