William Saletan: “Tests do show an IQ deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for Europeans relative to Asians. Economic and cultural theories have failed to explain most of the pattern, and there’s strong preliminary evidence that part of it is genetic. It’s time to prepare for the possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial averages on tests, will turn out not to be true. If this suggestion makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you’re not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn’t just another fact; it’s a threat to their whole value system. As William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant elevating ‘supposedly superior intellects,’ ‘eliminating the weak,’ ‘paralyzing the hope of reform,’ jeopardizing ‘the doctrine of brotherhood,’ and undermining ‘the sympathetic activities of a civilized society.’ The same values—equality, hope, and brotherhood—are under scientific threat today. But this time, the threat is racial genetics, and the people struggling with it are liberals…” (Slate)
Daily Archives: 22 Nov 07
Art Pepper’s ‘Straight Life’ Goes Straight to YouTube
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“His career was interrupted by 10 years in prison on narcotics charges, and he died in 1982 at the age of 56. Now his widow, Laurie Pepper, is trying to tell his story on film, doing it one chapter at a time and posting it on YouTube.” (NPR)
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CNN: ‘…bold and frightening…"
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I haven’t seen Stephen King’s The Mist (and I don’t plan to). I don’t even really know why I stopped to read the review (CNN). But it ends up sounding strikingly derivative of one of my favorite ‘B’ movies, The Crawling Eye (1958). |
Doctors untangle strange case…
Don’t read this unappetizing story until after you’ve digested your Thanksgiving meal. (CNN)
Happy Thanksgiving…
In Some Households, Every Day Is Turkey Day
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Not like adopting a kitten or a puppy: “It is one thing for the president of the United States to pardon a pair of turkeys every year and then send them off to live out their days in Florida. It’s quite another to save a turkey from the Thanksgiving table by inviting it to live with you. Two weeks ago, Karen Oeh and her husband, Mike Balistreri, who live not far from Santa Cruz, Calif., adopted two turkeys that had been rescued after an airline shipping misfortune in Las Vegas. “I am like a new parent,” said Ms. Oeh, 39. “I instantly, totally fell in love, and now I just want to stay home with them.” Ms. Oeh and Mr. Balistreri will not be among the 92 percent of Americans who will eat turkey today, as estimated by the National Turkey Federation, a trade group. Instead, they have given the birds a softer, easier path that bypasses the oven and leads to the backyard.” (New York Times )
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