IQ, Genes and the Bell Curve
Peter A. Jay's Oct. 20 column, "The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla in the Statistical Jungle," is about a controversial and politically incorrect book, "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," by Charles Murray and the late Richard Herrnstein.
Mr. Jay resurrects an insidious subject in an ingenuous fashion. "Could it truly be racist," asks the New Republic about the book, "even to discuss the possibility there might be genetic factors involved in IQ differences?"
Peter Jay not only quotes the New Republic, but also seems to be of the opinion that the connection between genetics, intelligence and race should be thrown wide open.
When no one as yet has isolated or exactly defined the chemicals or hormones or genes responsible for intelligence, it is presumptuous, as well as racist to explain IQ test scores based on genetics.
Any experiment has to have controls. Are the black Americans who score 15 points lower than whites in IQ tests being compared to whites of similar backgrounds and socio-economic opportunities? Mr. Jay fails to analyze this. And what does racism itself do to IQ?
Racism is a systemic problem in America, palpable and excruciating for the minorities who live here. Racism undermines the confidence and pride required to perform well in tests. Ubiquitous racism has its tentacles in education, health care, housing and employment opportunities.
How many black Americans have health insurance when compared to their white counterparts? Do good health and nutrition influence intelligence? Of course they do.
Although there is an upwardly mobile middle class black America, a large proportion of blacks (and Hispanics) live in abject poverty, assailed by crimes that are the off-shoot of rampant drug use. There is not time for scholarship in such environments, only time to figure out survival.
The ghettos do produce their share of scholars, but scholars lead fragile lives in the midst of violence. They often die young and frequently give up.
Environmental activists have recently cited the phenomenon of "ecological abuse" heaped on the minorities and the poor of this country by government and industry. Due to the callousness of big business and government, blacks are more likely than whites to live near toxic dumps and industrial effluents.
What do many toxins do? They injure genes. Very tantalizing is the possibility that racism can be the indirect cause of genetic damage in those who are subjected to racism.
Charles Murray and the late Richard Herrnstein make the apocalyptic prediction, in their book that "the U.S. is in serious danger of becoming a society polarized by intelligence, with a dysfunctional underclass from which few can ever escape." How immutable and frightening this sentence is on the "underclass".
Human beings do not live in genetic cages. Genes are merely chemicals that are constantly remodeled and redefined through the process of evolution, through environmental factors and today by bio-engineers.
Assuming there is a pool of genes responsible for intelligence and this pool is more superior and more refined in whites than in blacks, the next question is, "Why?"
Can racism weaken and undermine the genetic pool? If a group of people live in a polluted environment, deprived of good nutrition and health, assaulted by unrelenting physical and mental stress leading to widespread drug abuse and disease, and is exposed to environmental toxins, what happens to its genetic pool? Surely we don't expect the genes to stay robust and superior.
The genes were flexible enough to allow the evolution of men from apes, and birds from dinosaurs. Therefore, the "underclass" can be provided with the opportunities necessary to cultivate and refine their genetic pool.
Meanwhile, people like Peter Jay and Charles Murray must shut up about inherent unchangeable genetic factors which forever doom some races to an inferior status. That's the kind of thinking I call "bunk!"
Usha Nellore
Bel Air
The Duty to Vote
Tomorrow thousands of Americans will go to the polls to exercise their right to vote. This letter is addressed to the majority of citizens who choose not to.
Our nation was created by people who fought and gave their lives to establish self-government and the right to vote. It is appalling that less than 50 percent vote in presidential elections, and under 33 percent in off-year elections.
When candidates become so cynical they map out winning campaign strategies based on low voter turn-out, it is time for citizens to acknowledge their responsibility to vote. I believe citizens have an obligation to invest 20 minutes every two years to go to the polls and vote. Democracy only works if citizens participate.
If your vote is not important, why do candidates spend millions of dollars to get it?
Richard L. Ottenheimer
Baltimore
Grain Needs
The Sun's Sept. 30 editorial, "Food and Fairness," based upon the Worldwatch Institute's claim that China's grain needs in 2030 will lead to global starvation, was replete with error and falsehood.
* According to The Sun, "In 1990 China produced 329 million [metric] tons of grain and consumed 335 million tons, importing the 6-million ton difference." But why cite 1990's out-of-date grain statistics when figures for the years 1991, 1992 and 1993 are readily available?
* The Sun projected China's future grain needs in 2030 at "479 million tons," which, the paper stated, would be "a shortfall of 150 million tons." That alleged shortfall is predicated upon China's grain production in 2030 being no greater than that achieved in 1990, an extremely pessimistic and unwarranted assumption.
* The Sun erred when it wrote that China's "grain imports have averaged . . . about 200 million [metric] tons a year." That 200 million ton figure is actually the total grain trade of the entire world, not just China.
The real facts regarding the grain situation in China are as follows:
* According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), China's 1993 harvest of the three principal grains -- wheat, corn, and rice -- totaled 389 million metric tons, 60 million tons more than the 1990 figure cited by The Sun.
* China is a large net exporter of grains and soybeans. In 1993 China exported 12 million metric tons (MMT) of corn, 500,000 metric tons of sorghum, 1.4 MMT of rice, and 1 MMT of soybeans.
Although China did import 6 MMT of wheat there was no necessity to do so, as China's year-ending wheat stocks have exceeded 20 MMT every year for at least the past 12 years.
* An important 1993 study of the World Bank, "The World Food Outlook," authored by Donald Mitchell, conservatively forecast that China's grain production in 2010 would total more than 483 MMT -- a number greater than the 479 MMT which The Sun predicted China would require, but would not be able to produce, in 2030.
* The USDA recently disclosed the astounding fact that China has secretly amassed a grain stockpile of some 500 MMT, a figure nearly twice that of all the rest of the world combined.
* China is currently the world's largest producer of both wheat and rice, ranks second in corn production, and is fourth in soybean production.
China is self-sufficient in grain and food production, and there is every indication it will remain so, despite Worldwatch's alarmist propaganda and The Sun's silly editorial.
James A. Miller
Gaithersburg
Pedestrians Arise
As a recent transplant to Baltimore from out west, I have come to appreciate the myriad differences between East and West: The seasons, the landscape, the electric excitement of Eastern living. But one thing may send me back home: I cannot cross the streets on foot.
At crosswalks (the pedestrian free zone), I have waited long minutes for a break in the whizzing traffic. I have been cursed by drivers unaware of my rights as a pedestrian.
Demon drivers on their way to important engagements swerve rather than allow me 30 seconds to complete my journey from curb to curb.
Back home, pedestrians cross streets at their leisure, unscathed verbally and unharmed physically. This phenomenon appears to be limited to the West.
Perplexed and disturbed, I mounted an informal survey of Baltimoreans: Do you routinely stop for pedestrians? The results were staggering.
A full 50 percent of respondents said they never, ever, stop for pedestrians. Thirty percent stop for the aged or pregnant. Only 20 percent stop all the time (were they raised in the West?).
The reasons given for not relinquishing the right-of-way to pedestrians is as alarming as the results themselves: Being in a hurry ranked first, ignorance of the law second and lack of motivation third.
The fact is: Pedestrians have the right of way. It's the law.
Signs are posted throughout the city. Drivers must allow pedestrians to cross the street unmolested. All pedestrians, not just the pregnant ones.
What will it take to change the behavior of walker and driver alike? A pedestrian revolution. Step out, fellows of the foot!
No more cowering on the curb side. Assume your right to cross. No one will hit you. That would be illegal and expensive.
Only when pedestrians exercise their rights will drivers be forced to stop. And after a driver has stopped 20 times, he has developed a habit. A habit we pedestrians can count on.
Desiree Godchaux
Towson