No one, especially not John Derbyshire said anything about IQ points being correlated to how good a person is. There are in fact, and have been throughout history, many smart, yet evil people in our world. (Have you never heard the term “evil genius?”) He is not insulting anyone, he is merely stating facts. So if you find the piece insulting, it’s a perception problem on your part.
It’s just like when someone says “women are, on average, physically weaker than men,” and some women react with outrage, as if someone just said something derogatory about them. It’s not a criticism, it’s just an observed fact, and it doesn’t make women less valuable in our society.
“He is not insulting anyone, he is merely stating facts.”
Well what’s the point about saying no black person has ever won the Fields Medal?
He had a post on NRO once, when everyone was jumping on Larry Summers about what he said about women and math/science.
I can’t remember it precisely and I’m not going to even try and look it up, but I don’t think the details are that important.
Derb basically said there have only been a few great female mathematicians. I think he said (obviously I don’t remember any names) Woman A. was definitely great, Woman B. maybe and maybe there was a C and D mentioned.
So, you know that didn’t bother me. LOL, maybe because I’m a woman, I’m pretty bad at math, and yet some brilliant man invented the calculator and enabled me to earn a very nice living as a bookkeeper (true story!).
I don’t remember if the Field Medal was mentioned in that post. But I don’t get the relevance of the Fields Medal to telling your children to be careful about black people.
Checking wikepedia just now I see that only 50 people have won the Fields Medal since 1936! I don’t think any are women, but in truth with the foreign names I’m not entirely sure.
So, what was the point of that aside in the article?
I don’t see how it can be construed as other than an insult.
At best, at very best, it was just more cheap snark.