Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
Chomsky wrote the definitive progressive answer to all this 50 years ago:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;libcom.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;chomsky - iq building blocks new class system.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;libcom.org&#x2F;files&#x2F;chomsky - iq building block...</a><p>Still timely and fresh, especially considering that he was critiquing Herrnstein 20 years before The Bell Curve.<p>Because he&#x27;s smart and unafraid, either of science or the truth, Chomsky never denies the possibility of a genetic component to IQ, even IQ&#x2F;race. What he denies are the ideological assumptions people make about the social consequences that must follow if those findings are true - assumptions which he brilliantly lays bare and then demolishes. He also questions the <i>scientific</i> significance of the research - even if it is true (a phrase he uses a lot).<p>Since not one of his arguments depends on Herrnstein&#x27;s scientific claims being false, the issue of science denialism never comes up with Chomsky. He lets his opponents have everything they &quot;ask&quot; for empirically (&quot;even if it is true&quot;) and refutes them on other grounds.<p>This must partly be because (ironically?) he&#x27;s smarter than most people (including most other progressives) and therefore wasn&#x27;t about to walk into the trap the left finds itself in 50 years later - a trap which must be tightening, if an article like the OP appears in the New Yorker of all places. But there must be more to it than this. I think the progressives who find themselves having to challenge this research as <i>false</i> (rather than inconsequential and insignificant, as Chomsky does), actually share many of the ideological and meritocratic assumptions that Chomsky writes about - for example the assumption that wealth and power must necessarily flow to those with higher IQ. They don&#x27;t want to give up this assumption because they belong to the meritocracy themselves (or are part of the class that identifies that way). Because of this, they can&#x27;t accept Chomsky&#x27;s argument much more than the Herrnsteins can.