[lemmsjid]

The history of standardized testing and the history of statistics 'proving' that minorities are innately different in some way are inextricably linked. The original intelligence tests 'proved' to the American populace that Italian and Irish immigrants were intellectually inferior to Anglo Saxons because of their lower IQ scores. Magically, as those populations integrated, their IQ scores normalized. Oops.

This article reads like those (thankfully) classic evolutionary biology texts. Statistics bookend arguments that draw wild inferences. I feel sorry for the numbers, they're crying out, "Wait a second, I'm just a standardized test score, I can't tell you that it's because men always fashioned weapons! Weapons didn't even factor into my study!" How does it follow that standardized test scores can prove anything about nature vs. nurture, especially when they have a history of not doing so?

It's a hallmark of that area of modern evolutionary biology to say, "I'm saying what everyone else is afraid to." Well, people are afraid to say it because they're afraid to say wrong things! One should not ignore statistics that show differences between populations, but one should certainly not use them to confirm one's own essentialist beliefs.

Especially in this environment. The burden of proof should be squarely and severely on the one arguing that differences are innate, not on those arguing that differences are malleable/cultural. Why? Because once society has concluded that differences are innate, then glass ceilings turn into concrete ceilings, and discrimination becomes institutionalized.

[streptomycin]

This article reads like those (thankfully) classic evolutionary biology texts.

Or those unthankfully modern evolutionary psychology texts.