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| Jason Richwine is a bigot who shows the pitfalls of partisan 'analysis' | Jason Richwine is a bigot who shows the pitfalls of partisan 'analysis' |
| (4 months later) | |
| Maybe the most surprising thing about what happened to Jason Richwine this week was that he didn't see it coming. Given that the newly resigned Heritage Institute analyst is an academic whose entire career had been spent in the cloistered confines of either academe or policy, Richwine had been toiling away on his pet projects for years, with little notice from the outside world. No one in Wonkland, least of all Richwine, thought to raise a red flag about the theory undergirding those projects: a link between race and IQ test scores. | Maybe the most surprising thing about what happened to Jason Richwine this week was that he didn't see it coming. Given that the newly resigned Heritage Institute analyst is an academic whose entire career had been spent in the cloistered confines of either academe or policy, Richwine had been toiling away on his pet projects for years, with little notice from the outside world. No one in Wonkland, least of all Richwine, thought to raise a red flag about the theory undergirding those projects: a link between race and IQ test scores. |
| "I have a pretty good educational background, I have a good background in doing very good quantitative work," he told the Washington Examiner's Byron York. "The idea that I am some sort of foaming-at-the-mouth extremist never even crossed my mind." | "I have a pretty good educational background, I have a good background in doing very good quantitative work," he told the Washington Examiner's Byron York. "The idea that I am some sort of foaming-at-the-mouth extremist never even crossed my mind." |
| The problem, of course, is that Richwine is not this kind of extremist, who is easily identified by all that foam at the mouth, and who rarely get thinktank appointments, or even invited out to dinner. Richwine is a more subtle and dangerous kind of extremist, the kind that hides out in cushy fellowships and perches on panels and whom politicians take seriously because of his "pretty good educational background" and, at least in appearance, for having done "very good quantitative work". | The problem, of course, is that Richwine is not this kind of extremist, who is easily identified by all that foam at the mouth, and who rarely get thinktank appointments, or even invited out to dinner. Richwine is a more subtle and dangerous kind of extremist, the kind that hides out in cushy fellowships and perches on panels and whom politicians take seriously because of his "pretty good educational background" and, at least in appearance, for having done "very good quantitative work". |
| I can't speak to whether Richwine has in fact produced "very good quantitative work", though his fetish for the fake certainty of IQ tests suggests some problems right from the start. More to the point, though, critics singled out the Heritage Institute's policy paper that led to the discovery of Richwine's IQ research precisely because of its preposterous quantitative assumptions – and conclusions. Purportedly a study of the immigration reform currently before the senate, Heritage blared its bottom line as yet another argument against reform: "The COST of Amnesty TO YOU > $6.3 trillion." | I can't speak to whether Richwine has in fact produced "very good quantitative work", though his fetish for the fake certainty of IQ tests suggests some problems right from the start. More to the point, though, critics singled out the Heritage Institute's policy paper that led to the discovery of Richwine's IQ research precisely because of its preposterous quantitative assumptions – and conclusions. Purportedly a study of the immigration reform currently before the senate, Heritage blared its bottom line as yet another argument against reform: "The COST of Amnesty TO YOU > $6.3 trillion." |
| Tim Kane, Richwine's fellow former Heritage fellow, found Richwine and the study's lead author, Robert Rector, had based their contention about the relatively the low cost of current policy on, among other things, the assumption that "under current law, most unlawful immigrants will return to their country of origin around age 55". | Tim Kane, Richwine's fellow former Heritage fellow, found Richwine and the study's lead author, Robert Rector, had based their contention about the relatively the low cost of current policy on, among other things, the assumption that "under current law, most unlawful immigrants will return to their country of origin around age 55". |
| Before the fact that Richwine had contributed to a white nationalist website was even a glimmer in Media Matters' eyes, Kane had already drolly noted: "No evidence suggests illegal immigrants have their 55th birthday party and, like it's Logan's Run or something, head across to Tijuana or Toronto." | Before the fact that Richwine had contributed to a white nationalist website was even a glimmer in Media Matters' eyes, Kane had already drolly noted: "No evidence suggests illegal immigrants have their 55th birthday party and, like it's Logan's Run or something, head across to Tijuana or Toronto." |
| Still, it's possible that if Richwine's previous comments and writings and associations had not proven to be so explicitly racist, Heritage's study would have just gone the way of so many other ideologically-motivated papers: cited out of a desire to show "balance" – "progressive think tank says X, conservative think tank says Y" – and itself rarely examined. | Still, it's possible that if Richwine's previous comments and writings and associations had not proven to be so explicitly racist, Heritage's study would have just gone the way of so many other ideologically-motivated papers: cited out of a desire to show "balance" – "progressive think tank says X, conservative think tank says Y" – and itself rarely examined. |
| As mystified as Richwine claims to be, the larger question is how come no one said anything earlier? Indeed, as more details came to light, the more Richwine started to look like an earnest dupe – just a simple racist caught in a world he didn't create and couldn't understand. | As mystified as Richwine claims to be, the larger question is how come no one said anything earlier? Indeed, as more details came to light, the more Richwine started to look like an earnest dupe – just a simple racist caught in a world he didn't create and couldn't understand. |
| The real criminals here would seem to be Harvard, whose faculty is busy trying to avoid a conversation about whether they actually read Richwine's dissertation, and the insular world of Washington wonks, where you're not considered an "extremist" unless you disrupt lunch. | The real criminals here would seem to be Harvard, whose faculty is busy trying to avoid a conversation about whether they actually read Richwine's dissertation, and the insular world of Washington wonks, where you're not considered an "extremist" unless you disrupt lunch. |
| I mean, it's not like he was being subtle. From the abstract of his Harvard University dissertation: | I mean, it's not like he was being subtle. From the abstract of his Harvard University dissertation: |
| The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries. | The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries. |
| Where to begin? That an IQ test actually does not, as Richwine says, "reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence"? Maybe, even if you believe IQ is a thing, he's comparing apples and … some fruit no one's ever heard of? Which is to say, OK, "native white" is a thing, I guess, but who are these "low-IQ immigrant groups"? If we take him at face value, surely there must be some white people in that group – but, seriously, does he even mean us to take him at face value? He's talking about brown people from Latin America. | Where to begin? That an IQ test actually does not, as Richwine says, "reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence"? Maybe, even if you believe IQ is a thing, he's comparing apples and … some fruit no one's ever heard of? Which is to say, OK, "native white" is a thing, I guess, but who are these "low-IQ immigrant groups"? If we take him at face value, surely there must be some white people in that group – but, seriously, does he even mean us to take him at face value? He's talking about brown people from Latin America. |
| That's not fair; there are other times when he also talked about blacks and Jews. And Asians. From a panel discussion in 2008: | That's not fair; there are other times when he also talked about blacks and Jews. And Asians. From a panel discussion in 2008: |
| "Decades of psychometric testing has indicated that at least in America, you have Jews with the highest average IQ, usually followed by East Asians, then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics, and then blacks. These are real differences, and they're not going to go away tomorrow, and for that reason we have to address them in our immigration discussions and our debates." | "Decades of psychometric testing has indicated that at least in America, you have Jews with the highest average IQ, usually followed by East Asians, then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics, and then blacks. These are real differences, and they're not going to go away tomorrow, and for that reason we have to address them in our immigration discussions and our debates." |
| The Examiner's York excused that comment with "at best [it] could be called incomplete," by which I assume he means that Richwine didn't say anything about women. | The Examiner's York excused that comment with "at best [it] could be called incomplete," by which I assume he means that Richwine didn't say anything about women. |
| Richwine's work does not directly address gender, actually, and one has to wonder why. He has a blanket justification for saying just about all his reductive statements: "The Left can go on with the comfortable assumption that everyone has the same cognitive potential," he's written. "But biological differences cannot be wished away." | Richwine's work does not directly address gender, actually, and one has to wonder why. He has a blanket justification for saying just about all his reductive statements: "The Left can go on with the comfortable assumption that everyone has the same cognitive potential," he's written. "But biological differences cannot be wished away." |
| The only people who believe that achievement is determined by biology are people born at the finish line. The reason why Richwine survived for so long in the conservative thinktank world is that he's not exactly espousing fringe theories: that some things just can't be changed – like the definition of family, any stage of pregnancy, the climate's fluctuations – is a foundational truth that still undergirds much of Republican social and economic policy. | The only people who believe that achievement is determined by biology are people born at the finish line. The reason why Richwine survived for so long in the conservative thinktank world is that he's not exactly espousing fringe theories: that some things just can't be changed – like the definition of family, any stage of pregnancy, the climate's fluctuations – is a foundational truth that still undergirds much of Republican social and economic policy. |
| Richwine has said he thinks the brouhaha stemmed from people who did not understand the point he was trying to make: "I didn't think more about how the average lay person would perceive these things, as opposed to an academic audience," as though "IQ", "white native population" or "low-IQ immigrant groups" were jargon or high abstractions. The only ambiguity in Richwine's work is his persistent use of the term "Hispanic" (a linguistic designation) to describe "immigrant groups". | Richwine has said he thinks the brouhaha stemmed from people who did not understand the point he was trying to make: "I didn't think more about how the average lay person would perceive these things, as opposed to an academic audience," as though "IQ", "white native population" or "low-IQ immigrant groups" were jargon or high abstractions. The only ambiguity in Richwine's work is his persistent use of the term "Hispanic" (a linguistic designation) to describe "immigrant groups". |
| But OK, let's put aside that Richwine's thesis and subsequent writings sound suspiciously like racism. After all, I'm just an average lay person! His theories should still have been suspect, because, like so much bigotry, his conclusions are founded on bad science. Many of the criticisms of Richwine's fraudulent research focus on his Strangelovian obsession with IQ tests – IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore. You don't have to be up on the latest pedagogical techniques to understand that intelligence is incredibly difficult to measure. But there's an even more preposterous assumption hidden in his research: that you can measure race. | But OK, let's put aside that Richwine's thesis and subsequent writings sound suspiciously like racism. After all, I'm just an average lay person! His theories should still have been suspect, because, like so much bigotry, his conclusions are founded on bad science. Many of the criticisms of Richwine's fraudulent research focus on his Strangelovian obsession with IQ tests – IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore. You don't have to be up on the latest pedagogical techniques to understand that intelligence is incredibly difficult to measure. But there's an even more preposterous assumption hidden in his research: that you can measure race. |
| For over a decade, anthropologists and biologists have backed away from the idea that race is a useful way to talk about human differences. As the American Anthropological Association put it 1998: | For over a decade, anthropologists and biologists have backed away from the idea that race is a useful way to talk about human differences. As the American Anthropological Association put it 1998: |
| Evidence from the analysis of genetics indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. | Evidence from the analysis of genetics indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. |
| The physical differences among people from different parts of the world are minute variations on the complex machine that is human body. We are all the same under the hood, and it's not even that we're different colors, we're variations on the same shade and equipped with the same standard details. If we were cars, we'd all be Ford Crown Victorias; if we were songs we'd be Muzak; if we were television shows we'd be re-runs. | The physical differences among people from different parts of the world are minute variations on the complex machine that is human body. We are all the same under the hood, and it's not even that we're different colors, we're variations on the same shade and equipped with the same standard details. If we were cars, we'd all be Ford Crown Victorias; if we were songs we'd be Muzak; if we were television shows we'd be re-runs. |
| When the real aliens come, we're all going to look alike to them. | When the real aliens come, we're all going to look alike to them. |
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