When Academics Deny Reality

You’ve no doubt heard the expression, “That’s an idea so ridiculous only an academic could believe it.” It kept coming to mind as I read Professor John Staddon’s new book Inevitable Differences: An Inquiry into Human Variation. That individuals vary enormously in their talents and desires is an obvious fact, and yet many academics have become famous by declaring that individuals and especially groups must be treated as though they were equal. 

Staddon, an emeritus professor of biology at Duke University, takes a critical look at the obsession among “progressives” for engineering equality, particularly with regard to race. Why, he wonders, are academic writings about race and “diversity” so filled with factual errors, logical fallacies, and animosity? The reason, he maintains, is that few scholars are willing to subject the work of leftists to rigorous analysis—especially black writers who claim that America’s past racism calls for a national transformation. Toxic ideas that ought to have withered on the vine have therefore spread widely and influenced policy.

The first issue Staddon takes up is that in his title—inevitable differences. He observes that some writers contend that, at least as far as racial groups are concerned, there are no differences. That camp is headed by Ibram X. Kendi, now a professor at Howard University, whose book How to be Antiracist declares that all racial groups are equal in talent and therefore any differences in income, health, education or other measures must be due to racism. And racism can only be eradicated through deliberate efforts to bring about group equality.

But there is another camp, with prominent spokesmen such as Harvard’s Michael Sandel, who admit that there are group differences, but argue that no one deserves the good fortune of having talents that lead to prosperity. We therefore must radically transform society to make it fair for all. As Staddon sums up their philosophy, “social justice requires compensatory changes: all must be made equal.”

Staddon finds both positions to be risible. Humans vary greatly and all efforts at forcible equalization will have undesirable consequences. Rather than trying to bring about group equality, we ought to allow individuals to develop their talents, which will benefit all.

A phrase that recurs endlessly in discussions about academic and economic policy is “systemic racism.” Supposedly, our institutions are completely infected with it, calling for measures to overcome the inequalities it causes. In science, for example, the fact that a relatively small percentage of scientists are black has led to demands for programs to ensure the hiring and promotion of more “underrepresented minorities.” Staddon quotes a sociology professor who states that systemic racism is the only explanation for the racial disparities in science, then replies, “This claim is especially ludicrous in STEM, which, in my experience, is rigidly meritocratic.” Blaming disparities in science (and other fields) on “institutional racism” is, he argues, a distraction from dealing with the actual reasons (such as poor basic education) why relatively few blacks make it into academic positions in science.  “Systemic racism” is just a feeble excuse.

Similarly, systemic racism is said to be the reason for the worse (on average) health outcomes among blacks. The influential medical journal The Lancet published an article stating this as a fact. Again, alternative explanations were not explored—and to suggest that they should be explored is to risk being accused of racism. Staddon finds it disturbing that the authors of such “scientific” papers get away with making wild and untestable claims. He writes, “The beauty of ‘systemic racism’ is its air of permanence. Racism’s after-effects may wither away, but systemic racism is here forever, and its victims must be compensated in perpetuity.”

Staddon is right, and his point explains why this whole line of “scholarship” has been given sacred cow status by “progressives’—it provides a justification for never ending government programs of favoritism and redistribution.

Are American blacks owed reparations for slavery? A number of academics have argued for such a policy, perhaps most notably Ta-Nehesi Coates of Howard University. Staddon examines his books and finds them entirely unpersuasive, resting on nothing more than his personal experiences and animosities. Coates insists that the country is obligated to pay reparations for slavery, never responds to obvious counter-arguments, and blames everything bad for black America on the persistence of white supremacy. He has made quite a name for himself by trading on white guilt but his work collapses under scrutiny.

Another target of race-obsessed academics is “whiteness.” Professor Michael Eric Dyson, for example, states, “whiteness is at once the means of dominance, the end to which dominance points, and the point of dominance, which in its purest form never ends.” Just exactly what does that heated rhetoric mean, though? Staddon responds, “What Dyson seems to mean by ‘whiteness’ is just science, logic, and other products of the European Enlightenment.” Everyone would be far worse off without the Enlightenment, but people like Dyson only care about casting a spell over clueless readers.

Because capitalism is one of the by-products of the Enlightenment, it must also be denounced.  Kendi declares that racism and capitalism are “conjoined twins.” Leftists are apt to nod in agreement with that, but Staddon replies that his position is “crypto-Marxist nonsense.” Rejecting capitalism would have the same disastrous results as did the rejection of traditional farming in the Soviet Union in favor of Trofim Lysenko’s crackpot beliefs rooted in Marxist theory. Again, thinking through the consequences of their demands is not part of the mental toolkit of academics like Kendi, nor is it expected of them by the educational establishment. 

Nearly all Americans have been raised in the belief that individuals should be treated fairly and judged on the basis of their actions, not their race. Nevertheless, large numbers of them still harbor racist thoughts. That, at least, is the contention of numerous academics who declare that whites suffer from “color-blind racism.” They may think of themselves as good people who “don’t see color,” but they’re mistaken. How do we know? Because of a test devised at Harvard that supposedly reveals their “implicit bias.” Based on the dubious results of this strange “test,” the notion that many Americans harbor racial bias took hold. Staddon points out that although this test has been debunked, scholars persist in repeating that America is still awash in racism and that we need lots of education and training programs to combat it.

One of the hallmarks of the “thinking” of the academics Staddon surveys is that they refuse to consider non-racist explanations for social phenomena. A good example is the newly invented sub-field of economics called “Stratification Economics.” That’s the brain-child of Duke professor William Darity, who says that it studies why different racial groups have unequal incomes. Astoundingly, he forthrightly declares that he explicitly excludes any factors relating to the abilities of individuals. Ruling out a class of explanations is flagrantly unscientific, but Darity’s unintellectual approach is meant to support the “progressive” agenda of economic transformation and thus gets a pass.

The book has much more heavy-duty analysis of the toxic ideas being spread by academic propagandists intent on depicting the United States as a uniquely horrible, racist country. They favor egalitarianism brought about through governmental edicts, claiming that equality will cure us of racism. Staddon forcefully disagrees, arguing that the nation needs more freedom, not less.

Let me close by quoting Staddon: “If SATs and advanced math courses are abolished, disparities will indeed be reduced, but at what cost? The solution is not to trash math education because some groups are bad at math. The solution is to recognize that different people are good at different things and arrange the education system accordingly…Contra Kendi, Darity et al, we should ignore diversity of race but recognize and celebrate diversity of talent.”

If you are looking for arguments against the DEI mania and think that America needs liberty rather than mandated group equality, John Staddon’s book will be of great help.