also, as far as I can tell, lots of the criticism of the Bell Curve is of the form ‘well, if it were true that ‘intelligence’ exists and affects life outcomes and that different groups had different average intelligence, then segregation and slavery and white supremacy would be justified; therefore, Murray, by arguing that intelligence exists and affects life outcomes and so on, supports segregation and slavery and white supremacy’.

Which.

Fuck that.

It is intensely dangerous to equate ‘more intelligence’ with ‘having more moral worth’. It is intensely dangerous to equate ‘more intelligence’ with ‘deserving of more political power’. But Murray doesn’t do that! Murray’s critics do that - and worse, they don’t even argue it, they just take it absolutely for granted, they just swallow it up as a starting assumption, always present, never acknowledged - ‘if it were true that ‘intelligence’ existed and predicted life outcomes and varied between groups, then we would all have to become white supremacists’, they say, ‘therefore Murray, who argued for that thesis, is a white supremacist’. They never dream of challenging the assumption that intelligence, if it existed, would justify treating some people as more morally worthy than others; they resort to insisting that it couldn’t exist.

I disagree with Murray on a bunch of stuff - I think his reasoning on welfare lacks compassion and isn’t very clearly considered - but he does not scare me, because none of his theses, if they are true, change the fact that everyone who has experiences deserves good experiences, that you do not need to earn moral worth by earning lots of money, and that everyone matters no matter what population statistics turn up about them.

My principles are not conditional on the results of IQ tests, and so I am not afraid of anyone doing IQ tests; yours probably aren’t either, if you actually think about it, and so while it’s reasonable to be afraid that other people’s principles are contingent on the results of IQ tests it is not reasonable to condemn the testing while you accept and even reinforce the contingentness.