I want to amplify the point about Professor Jerry Coyne in Steve’s post below. Coyne [send him mail] is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. In 2003, he wrote this about James Watson in the New York Times:

Watson is also keen about searching for genes that can cause differences in behavior or differences in personality among individuals and groups. As he sees it, ”Knowledge, even that which may unsettle us, is surely to be preferred to ignorance, however blissful in the short term the latter may be.” I am not so sanguine. What possible good, for example, could come from a study of genetic differences in I.Q. between ethnic groups?

A finding of ”no difference” may slightly reduce racism, but it would surely be disregarded by most bigots. The opposite finding would have disastrous consequences: institutionalized racism and odious social policies.

Doing Acid, By New York Times

Jason Malloy characterized this position as “I say unto you: A vote for the truth is a vote for Jim Crow!”

But we do have “institutionalized racism and odious social policies,” already, based on the idea that all groups have exactly the same average IQ. We have:

• The No Child Left Behind Act
• “Disparate Impact” Theory
• The EEOC, which persecutes employers for statistical imbalances in race.

So it would seem that ignorance isn’t bliss, where social policy is concerned.

Here’s a quote from a man defending science against obscurantism:

Whether he knows it or not, [his] forthright declarations, denying any possibility that empirical matters of fact might differ from those assumed by his creed, amount to nothing less than a rejection of the whole institution of science.

Was that Arthur Jensen, attacking Stephen Jay Gould? Or Charles Murray, attacking one of the mob of Bell Curve critics?

No, it was Professor Jerry Coyne, attacking Sam Brownback for raising his hand when asked if he “didn’t believe in evolution.” [DON'T KNOW MUCH BIOLOGY,, By Jerry Coyne, Edge 212,June 6, 2007] I might agree with him here, but I call it inconsistent.

Deep in the comments to his impressive GNXP post “James Watson Tells the Inconvenient Truth,” Jason Malloy states:

The political implications of genetic differences are far from obvious, and if negative political consequences DO end up stemming from these findings, you know what? The majority of the blame can lay squarely at the feet of the Jerry Coynes of the world who absurdly refused to predicate or defend their principles on anything less than (tacitly confessed) fairytale lies of total genetic human equality.

Jerry Coyne and the intellectual and scientific community always had the choice to argue “It is 100% irrelevant if there are genetic differences, social justice X and political policies Y and J are predicated on ethical values K and Q”

But they didn’t choose to make this argument. Instead they systematically cried and hollered and silenced and lied for 50 years. Like Coyne they just sulked and quietly dreaded and accepted that genetic differences would (and should) lead to a less just world. And then, accordingly, they turned their backs on every principle they should represent as humanists and scientists to try and bury and prevent any inconvenient revelations of such differences.

Coyne and company will switch gears abruptly and entirely in arguing the value system I suggest above, I fully assure you, but they will do so only too late, and they will only look like disingenuous fools to everyone in doing so.

So when the big news comes, if the American people make some dumb and illiberal choices about what to do about it, why don’t you lay a large portion of the blame at the feet of the intellectual classes who were too narrowly ideological and myopic to try and prepare the public (and themselves) for it ethically and intellectually?

Or you can just scapegoat the truth seekers and truth tellers for all our problems, like most people - right and left - in this profoundly anti-intellectual culture.

This story in from the Dallas Morning News actually mentions the ethnic factor in the teen birth rate if you scroll down.

Texas teens lead nation in birth rate
Experts questioning abstinence-only education approach

09:03 AM CST on Monday, November 5, 2007

By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News

While the national teen birth rate has slowed, Texas has made far less headway, alarming public health officials and child advocates.

Texas teens lead the nation in having babies. Last month, the nonprofit group Child Trends conferred another No. 1 ranking on Texas. In the latest statistics available, 24 percent of the state’s teen births in 2004 were not the girl’s first delivery.

If you scroll down a bit you get to this section:

Erandy Gonzalez, 17, of Oak Cliff, could almost be the poster girl for Texas’ challenges. She is Hispanic, and Hispanics by far have the highest teen birth rates of any ethnic group. She is the mother of a 15-month-old girl and is pregnant again.

In 2004, Hispanic girls ages 15 to 19 accounted for 61 percent of teen births even though only 39 percent of Texas adolescents were Hispanic, according to the federal National Center for Health Statistics.

Teen pregnancy is normal in Mexico, where the age of consent, throughout most of the country, is 12. In Mexico, however, it’s more likely to result in teen marriage, something that’s largely died out in the US. It’s coming back, though, fueled by Hispanic immigration.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, young girls of Latino descent are bucking a historic national downward trend in teen pregnancy.

One study released in March by the Mid-America Institute on Poverty in Illinois shows that the birthrate for Latinas age 10 to 19 in that state actually grew by 18 percent in the past decade, while birthrates for all other ethnic groups declined.

“We get a steady influx of people from Mexico, and they bring certain traditions with them,” says Maria Socorro Pesqueira, the executive director of Latina Women in Action, an outreach organization in Chicago. “There are quinceanera (coming-of-age) parties for 15-year-old girls that send the signal: Hey, you’re a lady now and ready to move on in life.”

[Early marriage survives in the U.S. Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune Dec. 29, 2004]

In the long run, limiting teen pregnancy in the US depends on limiting immigration from high “teen pregnancy” countries. It’s the same principle as not importing poverty or crime.