The science of bigotry: how only dead white males did it all

The Australian ^ | February 04, 2004 | EMMA TOM

[presidio9]

AMERICAN academic Charles Murray is a real trooper. It doesn't matter how many people call him a racist, Nazi-esque brain-weigher.

He keeps churning out books that aren't afraid to call a spade a spade and a nigger a nigger.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I just say nigger? How scientifically incorrect of me. What I meant to say was "biologically inferior".

This was the thesis of The Bell Curve, which was co-written by Murray in 1994. In it he scientifically "proved" that African Americans were dumber than whites or Asians for genetic reasons.

So what if the IQ testing he used to measure intrinsic intelligence included questions on trigonometry? Knowing about computational geometry is something you're either born with or you aren't. It has absolutely nothing to do with your level of education. In fact the word on the street is that Murray's first words as a little white infant were "cosine ratio".

Back in 1984, meanwhile, the academic shock jock caused a similar outcry with Losing Ground, in which he argued that the US government should abolish social security payments to poor adults because it encouraged intellectually inferior single mothers to reproduce.

Welfare schmelfare. Let them eat crack.

Chuck's new book, catchily entitled Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800BC to 1950, unites his low opinion of women and non-whites into a single mighty raspberry.

In it, he proves – once again completely scientifically – that the only people to have ever achieved anything of significant artistic and scientific worth are dead white males.

While it's a bold (and no doubt unit moving) thesis, critics who have accused Murray of repeatedly parading ugly old prejudices in pseudo-scientific drag will have a field day with this one. Human Accomplishment relies on a geriatric 19th century statistical method known as historiometry, which involves counting words in reference books to see who gets the most mentions.

As a result, 97 per cent of Murray's Top 4002 are male Europeans and North Americans.

What he refuses to acknowledge is that history tends to be written by the victors: as long as deadish white males rule the world, their lives will be over-recorded at the expense of their underlings.

An SBS documentary on the clitoris that screened last Friday night offered a fascinating insight into the political exclusion of the clitoris from medical and scientific manuals right up until 1948 when it was excised from Gray's Anatomy, the surgeon's bible.

Anyone for a textual clitorectomy? Given our combined interest in competitive events and extreme prejudice, it's not surprising people are pitting genders and races against each other in order to make a quick buck.

But even the tackiest reality TV programs offer a level-ish playing field. In Bumfights, for instance, desperate hobos are only filmed fighting other desperate hobos.

Murray, however, doesn't care that some sectors of society might have had trouble curing diseases, inventing polyphonic music or writing Macbeth because they weren't allowed out of their kitchens or their leg-irons.

White men are the winners, he trumpets, followed closely by a cackled "na na na na na naa".

It's telling that his survey stops at 1950 – just before feminism and civil rights gave non-dead, white males more room to flex their scientific and creative muscle.

Also intriguing is the notion that coverage automatically equals accomplishment.

While coverage might mean you are genuinely accomplished, it could also mean you have a good spin merchant, own the publishing company or happen to be Kylie Minogue's bum. As Iraq's gigantic stockpile of WMD shows, column inches are not necessarily the best indicator of substance.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to use historiometry to prove that Charles Murray doesn't exist. I'm only going to use resource material written by Pakistani separatist lesbians, but I will make sure they're all familiar with the sine rule.

[Porterville]

I thought their is a 13 tribe of Jews found in SA that are genetically proven to be decendants to Israelis... and they are black....look it up

[FreedomCalls]

Take the test! I urge anyone commenting on racial matters to take the test to see how good of a judge of these things they are. Click on the pencil at the top left of the page.

[Porterville]

Let me try that again,

I know there is a 13th tribe of Jews found in S Africa that are genetically proven to be decendants to Israelis... and they are black....look it up

[mrustow]

Back in 1984, meanwhile, the academic shock jock caused a similar outcry with Losing Ground, in which he argued that the US government should abolish social security payments to poor adults because it encouraged intellectually inferior single mothers to reproduce.

I've read Losing Ground; what she is describing is not Losing Ground, which I'm sure she's never read. And although I didn't finish The Bell Curve, it doesn't sound as though she read so much as page one of it. (And as for her demagoguing about Murray's supposed "sexism," I'm not aware of his having written anything on the sexes.) Indeed, I suspect this woman has never read a single thing that Charles Murray wrote. When she charges Murray, one of the most meticulous researchers in the world today, with being a "shock jock," she's just projecting.

[neutrino]

just before feminism and civil rights gave non-dead, white males more room to flex their scientific and creative muscle.

Um-hmm. Sure. That's why Africa leads the world in scientific accomplishments. My, what a productive half-century they've had!

[muawiyah]

There's no 13th tribe. There are Jewish descendants throughout Africa. Jewish tradesmen and refugees have settled extensively all along the shore of the Indian Ocean. No doubt successful and intelligent men, whether Jewish or otherwise, have always found a way to make a very, very large genetic, cultural and historic imprint on any area in which they have settled.

Recently it was reported that in the area held by the Mongols in the Middle Ages 10% of all the men have the same "y" chromosome as did Ghengis Khan.

That would include China, India, vast portions of the Middle East, and Russia!

[Coeur de Lion]

Ptolemy himself was Greek (actually Macedonian to be more specific). The whole Ptolemaic line which ruled Egypt descended from Ptolemy (surprise) who happened to be one of the three generals who partitioned Alexamder the Great's empire. It's obvious you're really up on Egyptian history.

[mrustow]

It's telling that his survey stops at 1950 – just before feminism and civil rights gave non-dead, white males more room to flex their scientific and creative muscle.

She also has serious problems with the English language: she just wrote that feminism and civil rights gave living white males "more room to flex their scientific and creative muscle," which somehow I doubt she meant to say.

[mrustow]

Have you bothered reading the book?

[newgeezer]

Uh-huh. Just wondered. And, I got what I expected. Whenever I someone challenges another to be a "good Christian," it makes me wonder how he measures up to his own definition of "good."

Regardless, in the future, maybe the "ignore-him-and-he-will-go-away" approach would work better. (He didn't hijack the thread, either, as I suspect you might have anticipated. Most if not all of what cluttered your thread -- this post included -- would've been avoided if you'd simply practiced some Christ-like meekness and let it slide. No offense, mind you. I'm not being judgmental. Just trying to help, for what it's worth. I don't care whether you take it or leave it.)

Because, knowing him as I do, it's extremely unlikely that he even noticed your FR name when he posted the question about Jesus. (I thought it was a relevant question, by the way.) Even if he did notice your name, it didn't remind him of your past exchanges. That's just the way he is with names.

Therefore, before you posted your reply, I'm confident he wasn't looking to offend what are obviously your "delicate sensitivities, sir."

[cyborg]

Wayne Brady has his own show on ABC. He may be referring to Chapelle but I could be wrong. I think his wife is Hawaiian. They were on the front cover of Parenting or Pregnancy Magazine I think.

[redhead]

Ouch! Man, I wouldn't slam an outhose door that hard...

[puroresu]

If white "oppression" is responsible for non-whites' relative lack of inventiveness, please explain the following:


Why was it whites who "oppressed" non-whites, and not the other way around? Why didn't black Africans build ships, colonize France, and enslave the inhabitants?

Why is it that blacks do better when they live around whites, and not the other way around? If white "oppression" held them down, we should expect the poorest blacks to be the ones living in white lands, and the richest being the ones most removed from the white race. Black tribes in Sub-Sahara Africa, which for millennia had never once encountered a white person, let alone been "oppressed" by them, had no written languages and had not invented the wheel when white explorers first encountered them. How far those blacks subsequently advanced depended on how much white presence there was in their territory. South African blacks, for example, became the wealthiest blacks on the continent because whites moved there in large numbers. More whites meant more prosperity and opportunity for blacks.

[GOPcapitalist]

You are correct that Judaism is not a race. But neither is British nor Italian nor Russian nor French, though persons from each of these countries do share certain ethnic characteristics (the French for example have a genetic predisposition to being rude). I am simply noting that the region of Israel that Jesus was from (i.e. the north) produced a blending of semitic/Jewish people with Roman people. As such it is known that the people who were his contemporaries and neighbors tended to have brown and black hair with caucasian, though not pale white norwegian, skin. Thus it stands to reason that Jesus' image was not unlike this and certainly closer to it than black, or nordic for that matter.

[altura]

You forgot

Walter
Williams

But the point is, those icons are not respected by their peers--they give the respect to the worst among them.

[dwd1]

I wonder if they would have been better off if the less warlike and more intellectual tribes that were more into education and less into warfare would have made a difference... Truth is, the lack of unity has placed Africa way behind... I was speaking to a friend of mine from Kenya asking her if she could envision a United States of Africa (saw it in a Star Trek book)... She looked at me as if I had lost my mind...

If you think about why nations have survived and tribes have not, you have to remember that most great nations had been divided and came to be united.... This has never happened in Africa... It may have happened with Shaka Zulu but if before that, very tribes or leaders on the continent of Africa have had the will and means to unite the continent... You would have to go back to Hannibal... If you think about this, this has allowed Africa to be divided... Tribal loyalties have always taken precedence...

There has never been a Bismarck, Garibaldi, Washington, Red Cloud, Peter the Great, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Ghengis Khan that has been able to unite the people of Africa... If there had been, I doubt if you and I would be having this conversation... :-)

[muawiyah]

That "pale white Norwegian" skin tone is more likely "pale white Saami" skin tone, or maybe even "Eskimo" skin tone.

No doubt the Norse folks in Norway have acquired many of their best genes from the Saami.

I can get sunburned through my clothing, for example. This characteristic was bequeathed to me by a GGGrandmother who was about 4'6", almond eyes, straight black hair, transluscent skin. So were some other things.

[cyborg]

very interesting

[neutrino]

Perhaps. But the Greek city-states had some notable accomplishments in art, mathematics, and literature. They weren't unified...

[dwd1]

I can not say I have. I can say that the conclusions that are attributed to him seem to have a lot of exceptions in the real world out here..