The Truth Is Often a Minority Opinion

Democracies, being run by the majority, often can't handle the truth. For example, we have a panel of experts on Fox in 2006 laughing at Peter Schiff's arguing that, on the cusp of the housing collapse, we were, ahem, on the cusp of a housing collapse. Watch the rest of the panel members just laugh at him.

Now who's laughing?

I think we have a similar situation involving IQ, which is largely genetically inherited. And, yes, some groups like blacks don't perform as well as whites or Asians because they're not as smart on average. Asians outperform whites, though the difference isn't as great. See this article of a conservative Senate hopeful in Wisconsin having to defend himself for permitting Charles Murray, the co-author of _The Bell Curve_, to speak at a local forum. I love Murray's email response on page 4 of the newspaper article:

Murray told The Northwestern his theory is backed by IQ test data showing Japanese and Chinese students score higher on visual-spatial components of IQ tests than whites of European origin. He said that pattern is observed in both Chinese raised in China and Chinese Americans whose families have lived in the U.S. for multiple generations.

"Can you think of any explanation of this pattern that does not involve genes?" he wrote in an e-mail to The Northwestern. "The hand-wringing reaction of the council member, and of everyone who gets upset by any mention of ethnic differences is, in my view, childish."

That would be you, Larry.