I have finished @charlesmurray's Human Diversity which gave me considerable food for thought. It causes me some problems as a liberal leftie individualist whose main focus has always been improving social conditions for those currently disadvantaged by them, although it needn't.

I find it easy to accept psychological differences between men & women that show up in different distributions of traits and different patterns of life choices both because they're so observably real & because they don't indicate either sex to be superior or inferior.

I myself tend to believe women have the better deal psychologically (despite greater inclination to rumination & depression) because we're more likely to be verbally & socially skilled & seek a more balanced work/life balance. I am probably biased by being female though.

I have far greater unease with anything suggesting that different distributions of abilities & character traits can exist on average between populations defined by social class or by what we (mostly erroneously) call race.

Murray says in the book that the term 'race' is probably unhelpful, btw, & should be replaced, when relevant, with something more biologically accurate.

I also think Murray gets a bit utopian at the end where he advocates for us recognising a greater variety of 'valued places' in society which need not correlate with highly esteemed professions. I mean, I agree, in principle but in practice...

...I think this probably made sense in times where societies were simpler & made up mostly of small communities with members doing mostly practical things the value of which were unmissable.

In large interconnected societies, I think we're bound to have a culture that esteems those at the top of professions which require much brainpower & learning most of all although individuals may be valued & loved for all kinds of abilities & personality traits.

Let's face it. If the Earth were about to implode & we'd found a planet that would support us, but could only take so many people, it'd be the farmers, builders, engineers, doctors etc who would get places. Most academics would not be terribly useful.

Given the society we actually live in, however, intellectual ability does matter quite a lot & I understand & share the unease of those who have concerns about science looking at IQ generally, but particularly with regards to demographic groups.

I think I'm going to have to write something about liberal ethics in relation to this. I'd defend the value of such research to be done & the non-evilness of the vast majority of scientists excited to be doing it,but also talk about how rarely this should matter to the rest of us

There are certainly times when it is relevant & necessary to speak in statistical terms about demographics but also times when these statistics are used for bigoted purposes.

eg, criminologists need to be able to acknowledge that the vast majority of violent criminals are men & that this has a biological basis when they look at what home environments & social factors contribute to some men becoming violent criminals while the vast majority do not.

But when these statistics are brought out by a certain kind of feminist to demonise men as a group, this is very rarely helpful & generally a way to rationalise sexism.

Murray is right to say that for liberals who are generally defined by wanting to reform societies in order to produce better outcomes for demographics currently experiencing poorer outcomes in various ways, blank slatism is something that is bound to be appealing.

However, I don't think we need to be blank-slatists to recognise that social factors do have significant impact on people's life opportunities & that these can be related to classism, sexism & racism & to focus on societal injustices which are the things we can actually fix.

Also, @charlesmurray, I request a new note if you write a second edition of this book. When discussing the tea-drinking of British & French people thought experiment, you seem to have forgotten to note that Brits are the ones who do tea correctly while the French are a disaster.