Science and Racism

Andrew Sullivan links to an article that allows him to say something stupid without having to actually say it himself. Basically, that left-wing science goes soft and fundamentalist when faced with the issue of racial differences and always moves to attack anyone who brings up the issue. It's oh so un-scientific, says the right. Here's the relevant quote from Selwyn Duke:

Why, miracle of miracles, all these two-legged cosmic accidents, the product of a billions-of-years journey from the primordial soup to primacy among creatures, whose evolution was influenced by perhaps millions of factors, wound up being precisely the same. It's really the best argument for God I've ever heard, as such a statistical impossibility could only exist if it was ordained by the one with whom all things are possible.

No one in the scientific community would ever argue that every individual is the same as every other. We've all got our own unique genes and mutations that we're striving to pass on to the next generation. But the sorts of big group differences that most racists go for? No. The big differences between populations have never been shown to be meaningful and at a genetic level don't seem to actually exist.

We're not clones, but humanity is not made up of multiple species either.

A racist is someone who exploits superficial differences between groups as though they were real and meaningful for personal power and profit. A scientist is someone who identifies real differences between individuals in order to make predictions about likely outcomes (like susceptibility to certain diseases, etc.).

The problem with people like James Watson is that he's willing to write off an entire continent because he can't separate his scientific opinions from his racist views. Folks like Duke and Sullivan are in danger of doing the same if they can't see the difference.

The Right hates science when it challenges their preconceptions, but love it as a tool for re-enforcing the status quo. Biology is bad because it undermines Creation. But it might be good, if it can be used to prove racist stereotypes and support bell curve thinking. Physics is good when it gives you Nuclear Weapons, but its bad when it proves time to be "relativistic."

This sort of thinking is childish. Almost as childish as the bit about God and statistical impossibility in the quote. This sort of bargain basement ID creationism is an intellectual embarrassment, and just proves how soft in the head right wingers get anytime someone approvingly invokes God. Sullivan ought to know better, yet he rarely does.