I've not jumped into the latest round of "are black people stupid" because, well, what is there to say? I'd sort of hoped that if this ever came around again, I'd actually have a lot to say, because earlier this year, I read a history of the concept of IQ (which, let's be clear, is all IQ is -- a constructed, mutable, oft-changed concept), but aside from leaving me with a generalized distaste for an opaque metric often used to advantage certain subgroups at the expense of others, it didn't leave me with tons of insightful paragraphs to write. The moral of the story is that reading books is a waste of time. That said, a couple disconnected points:
• I'm not down with the Atrios view that anyone who enters this discussion is a racist. I'm pretty sure Saletan isn't a racist. Rather, this whole discussion, as it so often is, seems motivated by the desire to be a Brave Truthteller, not by a hatred of black people. Read Saletan's first article in the series, which is about how liberals are too scared to face the evidence in this matter, not about the actual evidence in this matter. You can learn a lot from a lede. In this case, the studies about IQ and "g" are secondary to demonstrating that Saletan, though a liberal, isn't a herd animal, and is willing to courageously stride into intellectual thickets where ideologues fear to tread. "Race, genes, and intelligence" isn't a particularly descriptive title for the series. "How I, William Saletan, am Willing to Engage the Touchy Subject of Race, Genes, and Intelligence," is.
