Motus Mentis

Yesterday I wrote, with regard to the Richwine affair, that “in their ardor to eliminate, for all time, every form of discrimination ”” which righteous Quest, infinite and unbounded, is the holiest sacrament of our new secular religion ”” it seems that many on the multiculturalist Left are more than willing to bring Truth itself to die on the altar.”

Here’s an example — from Scientific American, no less! — in which journalist John Horgan suggests an outright ban on research into race and IQ.

We read:

Institutional review boards (IRBs), which must approve research involving human subjects carried out by universities and other organizations, should reject proposed research that will promote racial theories of intelligence, because the harm of such research”“which fosters racism even if not motivated by racism”“far outweighs any alleged benefits.

And a bit further on (emphasis mine):

Scientific American has just published two excellent article [sic] on “stereotype threat,’ which is a kind of reverse placebo”“or “nocebo’”“effect; victims of negative stereotypes may underperform because they believe the stereotype. See here and here. Some clever critics of my post might accuse me of hypocrisy, because these articles present esearch on race and and should be subject to my proposed ban. Obviously I’m trying to eliminate research that reinforces rather than counteracting racism. I mean, Duh.

And obviously we’ll know in advance what the results of our research will be, I suppose, so we can foster the one sort and stifle the rest.

Elsewhere in the article, Horgan asks:

… Harvard researchers Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray argued in The Bell Curve that programs to boost black academic performance might be futile because blacks are innately less intelligent than whites; and in 2007 when geneticist and Nobel laureate James Watson ascribed Africa’s social problems to Africans’ genetic inferiority. (Watson is also a former Harvard professor. What is it with Harvard? Could there be something in the drinking water?)

The answer? Why, it’s right there in Harvard’s motto: Veritas.