Well, let me play devil's advocate here and answer that question with another question: what good would talking about it do?
Suppose a study were published that said that Norwegians as a group have a much higher IQ than, say, New Zealanders. That study could be used as an excuse for a lot of mischief. But would good would come out of it?
Something like crime statistics are useful because something can be done about crime. But an IQ is what it is. On a more personal basis, if I were hiring a person, I would be very interested in that person's education, work history, and overall self-motivation.
Unless I were hiring theoretical physicists, the candidate's IQ score would be way down the list of things I looked at.
An honest evaluation of such things would facilitate the efficient use of educational resources. Not from the standpoint of "those people are as dumb as rocks, so don't spend any resources on them", but "if we're going to spend a certain amount of money on a person's education, what should we do to maximize the benefit that person receives".
To be sure, carelessness or dishonesty in the evaluation of people's intelligence, or in the use of such evaluations, is likely create self-fulfilling prophesies of low expectations. On the other hand, if attempts to teach a person advanced subjects are going to be futile, it's possible the person would receive more benefit if the resources were put toward teaching something they could usefully learn.
You're up!
Once one admits of stable group differences, the effort to close them seems somewhat less sensible.
Currently, when the results of academic achievement tests are made public, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth when it shows that various minority groups underperform other groups. Witness the headlines concerning standardized test results this week in New York.
So, then the search is on as to why specific groups underperform. And on the left, it's usually about racism, lack of resources, discrimination, poor schools foisted on minorities and poor folks, etc., etc.
But if one comes from an initial understanding that there are intergroup differences, and that these differences appear to be stable over time, and that honest research needs to ask questions about the total array of factors that might account for these differences, not just racism and poor environment, the approach to all these questions might change in a positive way.
Of course, the race hustling industry would be crippled, and guilty white liberals would lose their raison d’être, so it seems an unlikely path down which our society might travel.
sitetest
Well, we could use that information to pass a law providing that those of us having a New Zealand heritage could not vote. :-)
“what good would talking about it do? ... Unless I were hiring theoretical physicists, the candidate’s IQ score would be way down the list of things I looked at.”
Maybe if we talked about it, it wouldn’t be so low on your list.