Race, Genetics, and Law School Emails

Posted by Osagie Obasogie May 9, 2010
Biopolitical Times
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The blogosphere was recently set ablaze by a leaked email from a third year Harvard Law student who, after a dinner with friends, wrote to clarify his/her position on race, genetics, and intelligence. The person (whose identity I will not disclose, although others have) wrote, in part:
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. 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. 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.
Predictably, this statement has re-kindled the ever-so-tired, dead-horse kicking conversation on whether the achievement gap is attributable to nature or nurture. That's not an interesting conversation, nor is it the most interesting part of the student's email. What's fascinating is the assumption that genetic explanations, absent reliable scientific data to support them, remain most convincing unless and until there is specific data to disprove them:
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). I would just like some scientific data to disprove the genetic position, and it is often hard given difficult to quantify cultural aspects. [emphasis added]
Obviously, there are mountains of research challenging the idea that there are hard and fast linkages between race, genes, and intelligence. (See this, this, and this). The Harvard 3L's email highlights the recurring trend in which genetic explanations of racial disparities in aptitude - absent any credible supporting data - become the default explanation that cannot be taken off the table until there is convincing empirical evidence proving that culture or environment account for all differences.

This thought pattern is far from unique to the young mind of a third year law student; recall James Watson's diatribe from a few years back where he stated that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really" and that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically."

Similarly, recall Slate and Washington Post columnist William Saletan's three-part defense of Watson, where he concludes:
Tests do show an IQ deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for Europeans relative to Asians. Economic and cultural theories have failed to explain most of the pattern, and there's strong preliminary evidence that part of it is genetic. It's time to prepare for the possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial averages on tests, will turn out not to be true.
Saletan, an otherwise respected journalist, even goes so far as to suggest that genetic engineering should be used to correct these racial disparities.

Watson's gloom, Saletan's technophilla, and the Harvard 3L's email draw attention to the irony that genetic explanations of racial disparities remain resilient ten years after the Human Genome Project was supposed to have ended such conversations. It's a reminder that science alone cannot solve every social problem.