I don’t see it becoming a ‘big issue soon’. Facts themselves may not be racist, but people who interpret and use them to develop social policy can be. And facts don’t dwell in some realm beyond the subjectivity, the flawed intepretations and the questionable motives of human beings.
I also wouldn’t hold my breath about this being ‘scientificaly proven’, there are just too many variables that would make such an interpretation subject to question. I don’t have a problem with scientists doing the research itself, as long as it’s conducted by people who know what they’re doing and know how to read their results and what those results do and DON’T mean. However, it never stops there, of course. There are always scabrous insects waiting under their rocks for opportunities to assuage their own feelings of insecurity or powerlessness, personal failures, hatred and frustrations by jumping all over researchers’ statements which they can construe to allege the ‘inferiority’ of others. Never mind that interpretations of study findings are always going to have some subjective element, always going to require a context, and that even really smart humans are still flawed in that way. You’d think someone of this guy’s stature and experience would get that…and would thus understand the importance of framing his remarks carefully, with consideration of the social and political implications. If there wasn’t so much evidence of racism in our history, then perhaps he could operate more as though he lived in a vacuum. But he should’ve known better. Who knows…prejudice is an emotional thing, and not only dependent on intellect. It’s possible that he’s always been prejudiced AND it’s possible that he isn’t, but just chose his words poorly.
As for the basis of the remarks, I’d be surprised that an entire race of people could be characterized so generally in terms of IQ. For that matter, there are relatively few people of pure African ancestry living outside of Africa (certainly that’s the case in the US) so of what use to a modern world is an analysis with implications regarding a racial construct? If he means specifically the people of Africa, then I wonder if what he ascribes to ‘genetic’ basis could also have to do with the perceived results of differences between cultures, including economics, education, etc. Also, IQ as an intelligence measure indicates superiority or inferiority in what way? There’s been a lot of criticism of the effectiveness of “IQ” measurements in determining particular abilities or as some sort of indicator of success in life. (And what is ‘intelligence’ anyway…how about ‘olfactory IQ’ which would place dogs above humans, lol) For that matter, ‘success’ is relative; different cultures view success in different ways. In any event, people with high IQ’s end up being jobless slackers or criminals; people with average IQ’s end up making great contributions to humanity.
One thing that this guy demonstrates…high intelligence of a particular type apparently doesn’t preclude either bias or poor judgment. But then again, maybe he was taken out of context by a media always eager to feed some hungry ghosts.