Foreign Dispatches

What Became of all those "IQ" Genes?

Once upon a time, I used to get into online arguments about genetics with certain self-proclaimed "race realist" types, according to whom the scientific "reality" of racial differences in intelligence, which was supposedly being denied by "politically correct" types, would soon be established incontrovertibly. It is now coming on 9 years since I explained on here at length why I regarded all such claims as pseudo-scientific rubbish, borne of a simple-minded understanding of how genes work, and disregarding entirely wrinkles such as pleiotropy and epistasis. I was ever so sagely informed at the time by a certain commenter that these phenomena were unimportant, and the day of reckoning was upon hand for I and others of my ilk who were too timid to grasp the harsh realities that only the "hbd" [sic] advocates were bold enough to embrace wie es eigentlich gewesen war, so to speak. How, then, have matters transpired over this near-decade? Have the "hbd realists" been proven right, and the "PC police" been put in their place?

Right Wing Hypocrisy in Action

Right on the heels of whining about how Brendan Eich's resignation represents the triumph of "bullying" over free speech - as if those who disagreed with him had no right to voice their own disapproval of his actions - comes news that the very same propagators of the "Brendan Eich is the real victim" nonsense are now pushing to boycott Firefox! So boycotting is bad and anti free-speech when it's directed against bigots, but good when carried out in defense of the prejudiced?

The utter lack of even the slightest pretence at consistency is simply astonishing, and I am now more convinced than ever that the real motivation behind all the nonsensical "Brendan Eich was bullied" rhetoric is raw homophobia, or in the case of people like Andrew Sullivan, cheap contrarianism aimed at eliciting attention and page views. In any case, principle has nothing to do with it.

As an addendum, let me add here that the argument that Brendan Eich's political activities didn't matter as long as he was able to do his job effectively is simply stupid. How could he have possibly been able to do his job effectively when knowledge of his bigotry would have alienated not only users of Mozilla software, but also many of the very people the CEO was supposed to be leading? How many people would argue with a straight face that an active Klansman or Holocaust denier should be allowed to lead a major corporation unchallenged? The only real difference in Eich's case is that, again, those defending him don't really believe in the rights of gays to begin with, which is why they can't see any serious harm in Eich's activities.

Freedom of Speech is not Freedom from Consequences

Nor is it freedom from criticism, as Mark Joseph Stern so eloquently elucidates in this Slate article. It is disheartening to see so many supposedly intelligent people failing to appreciate that it is the very same freedoms which allow Brendan Eich to donate the likes of Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul and the Proposition 8 movement which allows others to express their disgust at his actions.

The idea seems to be that one ought to be free to express whatever prejudices one may harbour without having to worry about any negative feedback whatsoever - an absurdity if ever there was one. Either all of these supposedly reasonable supporters of free speech are more stupid than they appear (which, admittedly, cannot be ruled out), or, more likely, they simply don't believe that Brendan Eich's views are at all abhorrent, as they don't think gays really have any rights worth protecting anyway.

On the Resignation of Brendan Eich

Upon hearing that Mozilla's new CEO, Brendan Eich, had decided to relinquish his position in the face of heated criticism for his bigoted politics, I felt stirred up enough for a change to step out of my semi-retirement from blogging.

What stirred me from my state of inactivity was not the fact of Eich's resignation, but much of the rhetoric it has given rise to, especially amongst the Hacker News set. To hear some of the commenters on there say it, Brendan Eich is a victim of "bullying", and has somehow been deprived of his "right" to earn a living by an internet "lynch mob": we are supposed to feel pity for him for having had the "audacity" to support a viewpoint which was backed by the majority of California's voters. Such opinions are not only nonsensical, but serve to invert the moral roles of victims and victimizers, which I find particularly appalling.