The Disgusting Harvard ‘Racist’ Email Controversy May 22
So awhile ago in an attempt to get even in a personal conflict one Harvard Law student (Yelena Shagall1) forwarded an email with controversial racial comments by her rival (Stephanie Grace2) to other parties likely to make sure it got published and ruined her rivals career. While I was stunned by the sheer Machiavellian evil of Yelena Shagall at first I just read a tiny snippet and some commentary and not really paying much attention assumed that the inference of racist motives was reasonable if too weak to justify the harsh reaction. After reading the full email my response has totally changed. Not only is the email not suggestive of racism it’s eminently reasonable and the absurd attempts to condemn the sentiment and the writer bear a disconcerting similarity to the methods employed to try witches in the middle ages. I mean when everyone insists they are taking the scientific and evidential high road but feel the claim is just too obvious and absurd to respond with evidence rather than outrage something is fishy. Now some of the accusations of racism are expected but even the moderate and sympathetic articles seem to take it for granted the email was racist. Worse rather than have the courage to step up and defend the claims in the email as eminently reasonable the Harvard leadership and the academic community more generally threw the student under the bus. That’s disgusting behavior and I think academics have a duty to stand up when this kind of crap happens and publicly admit that, while hardy a model of good communication, this is a completely reasonable way for an academic to express a eminently defensible position.
In fact while I have a few small quibbles I would certainly not be ashamed to have sent a similar email. Moreover, even if you thought she got the science radically wrong that hardly makes her stand out. Most members of congress are totally scientifically illiterate and a non-trivial fraction of the country believes in UFOs or rejects Darwinism so surely scientific error is not cause for public hanging. Obviously the problem was she dared to even consider the truth of the ‘wrong conclusion’ and people wonder why there isn’t an open honest dialog about race in this country.
Just to hammer the point home let me go through the email point by point. I’d hope that other academics will, regardless of how clear cut they think the scientific questions at issue are, at least publicly indicate their horror at this reaction to a mere request for compelling evidence before totally rejecting a potential explanation.
I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances.
While I could only be convinced that the genetic predispositions to intelligence (to the extent this makes sense) for the two racial groups was within a certain margin of error. Ultimately what is so deeply ironic about all the accusations that Stephanie Grace doesn’t understand the science it’s the people who are insisting that science has absolutely closed the book on the issue of statistical correlations between race and intelligence who don’t understand science. If there is one thing science has taught us about genetics it’s that it’s hugely complicated and there are likely to be a huge number of different gene variants that have some effect on ultimate intelligence3. Given this massive number of different variables, many of which correlate significantly with race4 it’s almost absurd to think all these different variables would perfectly balance out. That’s like betting that if you flip a coin 100 times and then flip it another 100 you will get the same number of heads both times. So it’s almost certain that, in a state of perfect racial equality, one race or another would have a slightly higher expected IQ as a result of genetic factors5.
Of course one might reasonably insist that the standard rules of conversational implicature make it clear that Stephanie Grace isn’t just allowing for the possibility that by pure chance there are a couple more blacks with some rare congenital mental defect than whites. Obviously what she means not to rule out is the existence of certain genetic variants that correlate reasonably strongly with racial categories that will ultimately be demonstrated to grant some kind of slight increase in intelligence/improvement in brain function. Moreover, implicitly one can take her also to be saying one can’t rule out the fact that some non-trivial amount of the observed intelligence differences between races, in particular the worse results of blacks in measures of IQ, are a result of these genetic variations.
Now there are some some good scientific reasons to think that the vast majority of the observed racial gap in IQ scores, even after controlling for as much as possible, would disappear in an equitable environment. For instance the size of the lead African-American girls have over African-American boys resembles that of past ethnic groups whose average IQ scores used to lag behind the national average. So I certainly wouldn’t bet on any non-trivial fraction of the observed IQ gap turning out to be deeply genetic6. But our continued failure to pinpoint the exact social or cultural factors responsible and the continued intractability of questions about the relation between gender and various intellectual skills makes it totally crazy to categorically rule out this possibility7.
The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders.
She isn’t pulling this out of her ass. There is some pretty suggestive evidence that testosterone does impact math/science ability (though these seem to indicate the optimal level is in the low male range). Note that all the trumpeted claims about women doing just as well on math tests as guys amount to squat since women actually do better on academic tests across the board then men.
This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.
Note that her phrasing here makes it pretty clear that she is simply refusing to rule out the possibility. Now I don’t know her so I have no idea if she’s a racist but this is a completely reasonable, if misunderstandable, way for someone to merely express the belief that the science hasn’t yet conclusively ruled out this possibility. Indeed it has not. It’s given us suggestive grounds to think the answer goes one way but it at this point we simply can’t hope to conclusively rule out this kind of possibility. There are just too many confounding variables and far too much complexity to achieve that level of certainty.
Despite some of the accusations obviously Stephanie is merely using Nigeria as an example of a location where children receive insufficient resources and substandard care relative to what we have available in the United States. Bizarrely some critics seem to think Stephanie is suggesting no one in Nigeria is pretty or smart when this is plainly at complete odds with the claim being made (even with poor resources people can turn out well).
I also don’t think that there are no cultural differences or that cultural differences are not likely the most important sources of disparate test scores (statistically, the measurable ones like income do account for some raw differences).
Now she goes out of her way to emphasize she isn’t rejecting the idea that the observered differences in intelligence measurements are primarly the result of environmental factors. Exactly what one would do if you were trying to express the correct view that we simply don’t have the kind of scientific evidence that would let us totally rule out, as opposed to simply judge to be unlikely, a substantial genetic effect. For the love of god what else do you want this woman to say to make it clear that she is just reasonably refusing to regard a scientific possibility as foreclosed until she is handed conclusive evidence.
I would just like some scientific data to disprove the genetic position, and it is often hard given difficult to quantify cultural aspects. One example (courtesy of Randall Kennedy) is that some people, based on crime statistics, might think African Americans are genetically more likely to be violent, since income and other statistics cannot close the racial gap. In the slavery era, however, the stereotype was of a docile, childlike, African American, and they were, in fact, responsible for very little violence (which was why the handful of rebellions seriously shook white people up). Obviously group wide rates of violence could not fluctuate so dramatically in ten generations if the cause was genetic, and so although there are no quantifiable data currently available to “explain” away the racial discrepancy in violent crimes, it must be some nongenetic cultural shift. Of course, there are pro-genetic counterarguments, but if we assume we can control for all variables in the given time periods, the form of the argument is compelling.
Ok, maybe you want her to add this just to make it extra clear she understands that bias and stereotype can in fact cause observed differences in outcome. Clearly she is outlining here what she wants to see to be convinced that the genetic hypothesis for the observed underperformance of blacks on intelligence tests is untenable. I mean how can someone possibly be engaging in the transparent racist misunderstanding of the science alleged when they are simply asking you to provide the correct scientific argument.
It’s this that gives the outraged condemnations the air of a religious inquisition. If they actually had the kind of totally conclusive scientific arguments they insist exist then presumably they’d be happy to simply share them with people like Stephanie Grace so they too are on the right page. Suspiciously not one of the condemnations I’ve seen, for all they fault Stephanie Grace for insufficient science, cite a single relevant study to rebut her supposedly absurd view. Apparently we are supposed to divine citations to the relevant work through the sheer force of our outrage.
In conclusion, I think it is bad science to disagree with a conclusion in your heart, and then try (unsuccessfully, so far at least) to find data that will confirm what you want to be true. Everyone wants someone to take 100 white infants and 100 African American ones and raise them in Disney utopia and prove once and for all that we are all equal on every dimension, or at least the really important ones like intelligence. I am merely not 100% convinced that this is the case.
Very true Stephanie. Sadly you underestimated just how vicious people can be when you draw attention to what their doing. Unlike me most people haven’t actually read enough studies about genetics and intelligence to have any reason to bet that most of the observed differences are behavioral. However, it’s extremely important to people’s worldview that this be true and vital to their self-image that they believe it to be true. Thus when you challenge that view people’s natural response is to strike out to hide their underlying insecurity and lash out at the cause of the painful mental tension.
I wish there was a facebook group to offer Stephanie support but I suppose that’s not in her best interest.
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If there is anyone who deserves to have their career ruined it’s Yelena Shagall. While I tend to think no one deserves to have their life ruined her future associates probably deserve some kind of warning about the kind of person she is. ↩
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Her name is so thoroughly plastered over the internet using a pseudonym when I’m going to defend her would be counterproductive. ↩
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And these need not be brain/neuron related. Simple differences in how nutrients are processed or any number of other processes could have some effect on the expected adult intelligence. ↩
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The population constriction in our relatively recent evolutionary history means that most genetic variants still show noticeable affinity for the locations/groups in which they first appeared. ↩
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Once again it’s totally possible that which race has the higher expectation depends on what the particular environment happens to be. For instance a mutation that somehow slightly improved neuron function but increased the neuronal damage inflicted by Herpes might be a net positive in an environment where Herpes was uncommon and a negative in one like ours where it is very common. ↩
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As opposed to a genetic predisposition to respond to easily altered environmental factors differently, e.g., an increased incidence of allergies to certain chemicals resulting in missed school days. ↩
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Of course even if there was what one might sloppily call a genetic basis for differences in average intelligence it wouldn’t be any reason to question the ideals of racial equality. Even if they weren’t too small to warrant considering in an individual context once you condition on information like someone’s SAT scores these correlations tell you nothing and can even reverse (if can be that group X is on average smarter than group Y but that when you compare people with the same SAT score it’s actually group Y member that is likely to be smarter). ↩