Michael Levin's Lecture on "Why Race Matters"

MICHAEL LEVIN claims to expose fallacies of arguments for IQ-EQUALITY between “whites” & “afro-americans”. LEVIN focuses on the inconclusiveness of various arguments …… ending in agreement with Charles Murray’s 1994 reading of evidence for a genetic basis for the black-white IQ differences. 

LEVIN reports that Murray concluded the IQ-gap can not be got rid of …… so, might as well simply accept it.

{{ Zarathustra objects to LEVIN’s unexamined assumptions starting with (1) there exist different races …… as well as skimming over other assumptions …… (2) that IQ exists  (3) that it predicts many life outcomes  (4) that there is a gap between black IQ scores and white IQ scores  (5) that IQ is at least partly heritable (as is almost every human trait )}}

STRIKE TWO against LEVIN are his commission of fallacies of his own while attacking his opponents’ fallacies. For example, re the argument that there is a wider gap in traits within a group, than there is between groups. LEVIN introduces his own counter-example of the group ‘dogs’ and the group ‘giraffes’.  LEVIN would have been better off selecting creatures sharing the same genus.  Since the dog is of the Canis genus and the giraffe belongs to the Giraffe genus, LEVIN’s example fails to prop up his intended point.

LEVIN also commits an omission when he fails to follow-up on a topic that would seem to be optimally positioned for LEVIN. He mentions in passing the fact that genes can behave differently in different loci resulting from gene-interactivity.

The listener is primed to learn more about the effects of gene interactivity. 

LEVIN skips past, saying that the explanation is too complex for this lecture. 

If LEVIN wants to answer the question why “race matters” it would make sense to offer some detail on the import of epistatic genes that inhibit hypostatic genes at another locus. 

The lecture begins to feel like a “grab the trophy …… never mind the small stuff“ momentum event. 

In the Q & A afterward, LEVIN is asked whether he believes it would be better if the government stayed out of it:

LEVIN’s response reveals that his concern is mainly political, rather than philosophical or scientific. LEVIN says YES  - it would be better if each organization or business were free to hire according to their own preferred criteria.  

He offers medical training as an exception: a political policy like “affirmative action” would be a bad thing to apply to selection of med school candidates. 

LEVIN’s lecture would be better named “WHY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS A BAD IDEA IF IT RESULTS IN MEDICAL DOCTORS WHOSE IQ SCORE IS 15 POINTS LOWER THAN THE HIGHER IQ DOCTORS?