1. Introduction
2. Relevant Statistical Concepts
2.1 Aggregates and Individuals
2.2 Mean and Variance
2.3 Samples, Populations, Confidence Intervals
2.4 Statistical Tests
2.5 Effect Size
2.6 Correlation Coefficients
2.7 Factor Analysis
3. Individual Variability in Human Abilities and Aptitudes
3.1 Physiological Abilities
3.2 Cognitive Abilities
3.3 Behavior and Personality
4. Heritability of Human Abilities and Aptitudes
4.1 Measuring Heritability
4.2 Heritability of Physical Abilities
4.3 Heritability of Cognitive Abilities
4.4 Heritability of Behavioral Psychology
5. Measured Inequalities between Sexes
5.1 Biological Reality of Sexual Dimorphism
5.2 Intersex and Transgender Individuals
5.3 Physiological Differences between Sexes
5.4 Neurological, Cognitive and Perceptual Differences between Sexes
5.5 Sexual Differences in Behavior and Personality
6. Measured Inequalities among Races
6.1 Definability and Utility of Race as Construct
6.2 Physiological Differences among Races
6.3 Cognitive Differences among Races
6.4 Racial Differences in Behavioral Psychology
7. Conclusion
In recent decades, modern sociopolitical culture has made ever more strident claims about human equality, to the point that any assertion of inequality among humans is perceived as a monstrous evil or bigotry. These claims are in tension with our ostensibly scientific view of reality. Empirically, equality can be real only if it is measurable, yet what we actually measure includes many inequalities of physical abilities, aptitudes, and behavioral tendencies among individuals and groups. These inequalities are ideologically explained away by supposed social or political injustices, but sound studies already control for socioeconomic disparities.
What has happened is that modern liberals, led by journalists and entertainers acting as moral philosophers, have conflated an equality of moral value with equality in objective measures. If this were not so, it would be senseless to infer from human equality that all demographic groups must have equal fitness for all functions and roles, and so should be equally represented in every area of human endeavor. In such moral judgments, scientists do not lead, but merely follow the aimless crowd. Today if you do not advocate X, a scientist will say you are a bigot, even though that same scientist did not espouse X only twenty years ago. Either he had no moral sense then, or he has none now. It is evident in either case that such a scientist, like the mass of humanity, receives his values from the crowd. Those of us who follow only the state of the evidence find no scientific justification for these sudden shifts in values, which in fact often run contrary to scientific developments.[1]
It is not our task here to challenge egalitarianism as a moral doctrine; i.e., that all humans are of equal moral worth. For the sake of argument, we will also assume political egalitarianism as a desideratum, without offering any philosophical critique.[2] This is to separate our analysis of facts from any desire to assert the political or moral supremacy of one or another group. Hopefully that will forestall unhelpful accusations of racism, sexism, and other epithets designed to pathologize opposition[3] to egalitarian doctrine. Our goal is to examine the scientific basis of factual claims implied by the misapplication of identity politics onto biology and physics, where it does not belong.
First, abstracting from any controversial categories (e.g., race, gender), we will examine evidence of inter-individual disparities in physiology, cognitive abilities, skills, aptitudes and behavioral tendencies (e.g., aggression, assertiveness, risk-taking, consideration for others, rule-abiding). We will especially focus on those physiological, cognitive and behavioral domains that are correlated to socioeconomic success in modern society, taking care to demonstrate these correlations.
Second, for each of the domains discussed, we will examine what proportion of the variance is attributable to genetic factors. Recognizing the difficulty of exact quantification of heritability, we may at least establish that such a component exists. Having contraverted egalitarianism as a factual claim in the domains discussed, it follows that political or moral equality is either based on a falsehood, or it does not imply or entail equality in the domains discussed.
Granting arguendo that persons of two or more demographic groups are to be moral or political equals (or at least that they are not to be judged unequal on account of their group identity), it does not follow that members of both groups must be, on average or absolutely, equal with respect to physiology, cognition, skills, aptitudes, or behavioral tendencies. It is already established by inter-individual differences that there is no universal human equality in these domains, so moral or political equality,[4] if it exists, cannot be understood as implying what is false, viz., that there must be a corresponding equality in measurable domains of performance and ability.
Lastly, since political or moral egalitarianism offers no substantive objection to the possible existence of measurable group inequalities, we are free to examine the reality of such inequality even on the supposition of politico-moral egalitarianism. In particular, we may examine objectively measurable inequalities on the basis of (a) biological sex and (b) haplotype, ancestral subgroup, or race. We must establish workable definitions for each group in these categories, while recognizing that biological reality often implies continuity of variation rather than sharp distinctions. Groups need not be defined by a single characteristic or differentia, but by criteria that enable determination of an individual’s group identity to a high probability.
In the case of sex, there are hard physiological criteria to use as a basis for distinction, yet there is a small minority of physically intersexual individuals. When we quantify this physiological distribution, we can perceive how irrational it is to pretend that the reality of sexual dimorphism is refuted by the presence of a few exceptions.
The social and cultural manifestations of sex, a.k.a. gender,
are more elastic than physiological criteria, but not completely. There are still hardwired tendencies from infancy, and the hormonal legacy of gestation and early childhood continues into adulthood, even after so-called gender transitions. A quantitative analysis will enable us to distinguish changeable and more or less fixed aspects of gender. While sexual orientation overlaps with issues of gender dysphoria, this will be treated separately.
Race
is a much more ambiguous concept, and it is at least questionable whether it can be defined biologically. Historically, the term has simply meant people (or animals) of shared ancestry, but even this concept is meaningful only in contexts of relative reproductive isolation, as groups are separated by geography or culture, with infrequent intermarriage. It seems to fall somewhere between the biological concepts of population
and haplogroup.
A population is simply any group of organisms that is reproductively interactive, or more broadly, any group within a species. A haplogroup is rigidly defined by a single genomic feature that gives proof of recent common ancestry. While this might seem like a surrogate for race, in fact haplogroups do not always correspond to geographically or genetically isolated populations. The question of the definability of race needs to be examined carefully. There certainly is no such thing as race in the sense of groups defined by single-trait differentiae. Still, there are groups of traits that can define broad racial categories to a high degree of accuracy, and a host of biomedical research has found statistically significant differences among these groups (e.g., disease prevalence and vulnerability), suggesting that they are more than arbitrary constructs.
For each of these demographic groups, we can apply the same objective measures used to identify individual differences in various domains. Each of these objective measures may show statistical inequality or equality between groups, after controlling for education, socioeconomic condition, and other confounding factors. When practical, we will quantify and graph distributions of values, to get a sense of the relative magnitude of the disparities discussed.
Most importantly, to avoid misunderstanding, we will expound the practical implications of such statistical disparities, taking care to distinguish statements about groups from statements about individuals. While objectively measurable group differences are no grounds for stereotyping, much less presumptively discriminating against individuals, at the same time the recognition of these differences can lead to more accurate measures of equitable representation in various fields of endeavor. The mindless doctrine of equal representation in all domains of activity is not sustainable in practice, at least not without promoting a perversely anti-meritocratic situation that generates its own injustices and resentments. It is high time that we do more than pay lip service to human diversity (while expecting all to conform to the same ideology), and recognize it as a measurable reality.
[1] A notable example is the recent revival of the idea that gender differences in behavior are purely cultural constructs, though modern neuroscience and psychology have been refuting this relic of 1970s psychology for decades. Scientists themselves are not immune to egalitarian ideology, and strain to reinterpret the data in its light.
[2] For samples of such critiques, see Max Stirner versus Morality, esp. Ch. 8, Ch. 9., and Ch. 14, and Nietzsche’s Challenge to the Idea of Moral Good, esp. Part VII.
[3] All of these terms are designed to persuade rather than describe. Racism
became a term of opprobrium in the 1930s, in understandable reaction to the racialist theories of the Nazis and similar groups. This was a contraction of scope, since previously racialists
included mainstream American and English scientists. Sexist,
as a term and concept, was invented in 1968 by feminists to demonize anyone who opposed their understanding of sexual equality. Male chauvinist
was invented at the same time, signifying that anyone who believed in sexual inequality was a hopeless revanchist defending an outdated cause. These and other more recent terms have the rhetorical aim of characterizing opponents as enemies of progress, without making substantive arguments. This echoes the Marxist tactic of characterizing all enemies as counterrevolutionary.
[4] Under modern democratic ideology, moral and political equality are assumed to be coextensive; i.e., the equal moral worth of all humans is assumed to imply an equality of political rights. Thus moral and political equality apply to all members of the polity. We adopt this position without criticism, in order to make an argumentum ad hominem in the classical sense.
© 2021 Daniel J. Castellano. All rights reserved. http://www.arcaneknowledge.org
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