Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

Subpopulation Differences in Educability 39
instead of the analysis of causality, is a form of primitive thinking.
Its effectiveness in debate depends not only on its primitive
simplicity, evoking images of the ‘good guys’ versus the ‘bad guys’,
but on feelings of guilt and sympathy for the underdog. The
argument goes that if one does not blame the schools, then one must
rind that the children themselves are to blame. And who could be
so mean as to place the blame all on innocent little children
Racism itself is a major hindrance and threat to the scientific
study and understanding of racial differences.4 An abhorrence of
racism can understandably create in researchers a reluctance to
pursue inquiries that might be ignorantly misconstrued as ‘racist’.
And if one should engage in such investigation, no matter how
objective one’s approach, there are those who would claim that
curiosity along these lines is possible only in one whose abhorrence
of racism is not strong enough. Such thinking can be countered
best by distinguishing clearly between research on racial differences
and racism. Racism usually implies hate or aversion and is aimed
at the denial of equal rights and opportunities to persons on the
basis of their racial origin. Racism should be attacked in the
spheres in which it operates, by enacting and enforcing laws and
arrangements that help to insure equality of civil and political
rights and to guard against discrimination with respect to educational
and occupational opportunities on the basis of racial membership.
To fear research on genetic racial differences, or the discovery
of evidence of a biological basis for differences in abilities, is, in a
sense, to grant the racist’s assumption - that if it should be
established beyond reasonable doubt that there are biological or
genetically conditioned differences in mental abilities among
individuals or groups, then we are justified in oppressing or
exploiting those who are most limited in genetic endowment. This
is, of course, a perfect non sequitur.
In a free society, one which permits freedom of speech and of
the press, both to express and to criticize diverse views, the social
responsibility of the scientist is perfectly clear. It is simply to do
his research as competently and carefully as he can, and to report
his methods, results, and conclusions as fully and as accurately as
possible. The scientist, when speaking as a scientist about his
research, should not make it subordinate to his non-scientifically
attained personal, social, religious, or political ideologies. We have
seen clear examples of what happens when science is corrupted