On right and left, theology and ideology trump empirical reality. That has to end.

Andrew Sullivan

Sep 20, 2024

“There’s been no biological change in humans in 40,000 or 50,000 years. Everything we call culture and civilization we’ve built with the same body and brain,” – Stephen Jay Gould, 2000.

Over six years ago, a remarkable thing happened at the New York Times. Arguably the most respected geneticist in the country, Harvard’s David Reich, committed intellectual heresy. He wrote:

It is true that race is a social construct. It is also true … that human populations “are remarkably similar to each other” from a genetic point of view. I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism. But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among ‘races.’

To the obvious objection that race is a social construct — it obviously is — Reich rightly agreed. Crude racial classification is as dumb as it is usually malign. But the fact remains, in Reich’s words, that “while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real.”

The human recognition that other humans from very different environments are intrinsically different in some respects … is therefore not mere xenophobia or bigotry. It is reality. Of course it is. The human eye (and, through DNA analysis, human spittle) will instantly recognize the difference between someone whose ancestry comes from Italy and someone whose ancestry is primarily from Japan. Humans have never stopped evolving. We are still evolving, like everything else.

But how have human sub-populations changed in the last, say, 10,000 years? A new paper, using new techniques, co-authored by David Reich, among many others, shows major genetic evolution in a single human population — West Eurasians — in the last 14,000 years alone. The changes include: “increases in celiac disease, blood type B, and a decline in body fat percentage, as farming made it less necessary for people to store fat for periods without any food.” Among other traits affected: “lighter skin color, lower risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disease, slower health decline, and increased measures related to cognitive performance.” Guess which trait is the controversial one.

The study was able, for the first time, to show

a consistent trend in allele frequency change over time. By applying this to 8,433 West Eurasians who lived over the past 14,000 years and 6,510 contemporary people, we find an order of magnitude more genome-wide significant signals than previous studies: 347 independent loci with >99% probability of selection.

Not just evolutionary change in the last 14,000 years — but “an order of magnitude” more than any previous studies had been able to show. Gould was not only wrong that human natural selection ended 50,000 years ago — but grotesquely so. Humans have never stopped evolving since we left Africa and clustered in several discrete, continental, genetic sub-populations. That means that some of the differences in these sub-populations can be attributed to genetics. And among the traits affected is intelligence.

The new study is just of “West Eurasians” — just one of those sub-populations, which means it has no relevance to the debate about differences between groups. But it is dramatic proof of principle that human sub-populations — roughly in line with what humans have called “races” — can experience genetic shifts in a remarkably short amount of time. And that West Eurasians got suddenly smarter between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago and then more gradually smarter since.

I recall a conversation I had with the media journalist Ben Smith when he told me that the idea that there could be small differences in mean intelligence (as well as massive overlap) between races was literally “insane”. To even keep an open mind about it was, in his mind, proof either of madness or deep bigotry. That’s why he found me indefensible as a writer. For Smith, and for his NYT editors, an open mind on an unsettled scientific topic is an unforgivable trait for a public intellectual.

The good news is that, even under intense ideological pressure, research into human evolution is continuing in the academy at the highest levels. The new tools available are amazing and will no doubt show us more and more, some surprising us. The even better news is that, as humans massively increase travel, intermingle across the globe, and merrily miscegenate, the differences formed through 10,000 years and more of separation will attenuate over time. Mean group differences may well fade in the long term until the overlaps are all we see.

Why do I care about this? It’s not because I’m some white supremacist, or Ashkenazi supremacist, or East Asian supremacist. It’s because I deeply believe that recognizing empirical reality as revealed by rigorous scientific methods is essential to liberal democracy. We need common facts to have different opinions about. Deliberately stigmatizing and demonizing scientific research because its results may not conform to your priors is profoundly illiberal. And, in this case, it runs the risk of empowering racists. As Reich wrote in his 2018 op-ed:

I am worried that well-meaning people who deny the possibility of substantial biological differences among human populations are digging themselves into an indefensible position, one that will not survive the onslaught of science. I am also worried that whatever discoveries are made — and we truly have no idea yet what they will be — will be cited as “scientific proof” that racist prejudices and agendas have been correct all along, and that those well-meaning people will not understand the science well enough to push back against these claims.

Scientific illiberalism is on both sides. The denial of natural selection by creationists and the denial of carbon-created climate change by some libertarians is damaging to any sane public discourse, but so too is the denial of any human evolution for 50,000 years by critical race theorists and their Neo-Marxist and liberal champions.

You see this also in the left’s defense of “no questions asked” gender reassignment for autistic, trans, and mainly gay children on the verge of puberty. The best scientific systematic studies find no measurable health or psychological benefit for the children — and a huge cost for the thousands of gay or autistic or depressed kids who later regret destroying their natural, functioning, sexed bodies. And a new German-American study has just “found that the majority of gender dysphoria-related diagnoses, including so-called gender incongruence, recorded in a minor or young adult’s medical chart were gone within within five or six years.” Yet the entire US medical establishment refuses to budge.

I should say that my own priors might also need checking. Maybe some, well-screened kids would be better off with pre-pubertal transition. Right now, we just don’t know. That’s why I favor broad clinical trials to test these experiments, before they are applied universally, and why I believe kids should have comprehensive mental health evaluations before being assigned as trans. And yet, as I write, such evaluations are being made illegal in some states, and gay kids are being mutilated for life before puberty, based on debunked science — and Tim Walz and the entire transqueer movement is adamant that no more rigorous research is needed.

Woke pseudoscience recently included the claim — widely disseminated in the MSM — that black women have worse outcomes than white women in pregnancy because their doctors are white. As Ketanji Brown Jackson argued in defending race discrimination against whites, Jews, men and Asians in medical school: “For high-risk black newborns, having a black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live and not die.” But according to a new study, nothing in the original study controlled for the fact that black babies are more likely to have lower weight than white ones … and the higher-risk ones were the ones directed mainly to white doctors. Control for that and the linkage collapses. So much for the “science” of “systemic racism.”

Both right and left commit these very human defenses against scientific reality. In many ways, denial of carbon-based climate change is the worst example out there, alongside creationism, because of the damage done to the entire planet. But the woke left denies science on a number of fronts: on small, but resilient differences between human sub-populations; on the huge differences, in brains and bodies, between men and women; and on the critical distinction between being gay and being trans — a distinction impossible to determine with any surety before puberty, and a distinction deliberately erased by the meaningless, oxymoronic acronym: “LGBTQIA+” people.

The damage done here is great as well. The irreversible medical experiments now being performed on gay, autistic, and trans children are rooted in critical gender and queer theory, and not science or medicine. Programs of systematic race and sex discrimination — and the abolition of color-blindness, meritocracy, and non-discrimination — are all rooted in the delusions and falsehoods of Gould et al.

Let science go forward; may it test controversial ideas; may it keep an open mind; may it be allowed to flourish and tell us the empirical truth, which we can then use as a common basis for legitimate disagreements. I think that’s what most Americans want. It’s time we stood up to the bullies and ideologues and politicians who don’t.

New On The Dishcast: Michelle Goldberg

Michelle is an opinion columnist at the New York Times, and before that she was a columnist for Slate. She has written three books: Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, The Means of Reproduction, and The Goddess Pose. She’s also an on-air contributor at MSNBC.

Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — debating who the real Kamala is, and how much BLM is responsible for lost black lives in the years after 2020. That link also takes you to commentary on last week’s episode with Rod Dreher. The page also features more reader dissent and other debate over the presidential race, including the flashpoint of Springfield, Ohio. Plus, a story of gay pushback against transqueers in San Francisco.

Money Quotes For The Week

“All Americans … are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country … We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it,” – Bill Clinton, 1995. Words you’d never hear from Kamala Harris.

“Nobody knows where [Haitians in Springfield] come from. I’m angry about young American girls being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens,” – Donald Trump. Beyond vile.

“Trump supporters are just as despicable [as he is],” – Elie Mystal on MSNBC.

“The U.S. isn’t fighting a war, a crisis or a recession. Yet the federal government is borrowing as if it were,” – Richard Rubin. And no one gives a damn.

“All I wanted was to be gay and smoke weed, but y’all told me I couldn’t go outside without a mask on and had to call men women,” – RaveCrab, a red-pilled Twitter user.

“They’re still grappling with the idea like, ‘Oh, am I really going to vote for a woman to be president and commander in chief? This is particularly true, let’s just say it and underline it, about white women [voters],” – Hillary Totally Not Bitter Clinton.

“When an architect designs a building that collapses, his career is ruined. When an intellectual creates an idea that unravels society, he gets speaking engagements,” – Seán Ono Lennon.

“We live in a time when religious experience has grown cold and dead, and political affiliation feels alive and invigorating. Plus, it’s easy,” – Russell Moore.

Yglesias Award Nominee

“It’s not just Kamala Harris that’s moved. Our whole party was on some weird pogo stick in 2020. We had all kinds of ideas that turned out to be bad ideas,” – Van Jones.

The View From Your Window

Yosemite Valley, California, 10.22 am

Dissents Of The Week: Debating The Debate

A reader writes:

I get that you want Kamala Harris to do a point-by-point repudiation of 2019. But first off: that’s not how politics works, nor would it help Harris with the voters she needs to win. I would guess that most undecided voters in the general election only have the faintest idea what she may have written on a policy form five years ago, trying to win the Democratic nomination. I care far less whether she explains why her opinion changed, and far more about what her actual stance is — and I bet most voters do too. A basic axiom of politics is if you’re explaining, you’re losing — so why would Harris want to explain her evolution?

Another reader feels that Harris has addressed my concerns:

You lambaste her for not answering a series of quite involved questions (about, for example, gender transition) because they don’t answer to your specific obsessions. Specifically you wrote: “She needed … to spell out how she will grow the economy, keep inflation under control and stop illegal immigration.”

Let’s take them in order. On the economy: tax cuts, and reductions in red tape for the middle class, specifically a substantial grant to first-time homeowners. On inflation … actually that’s been done already, and the proof is the big rate cut from the Fed this week. On illegal immigration: the numbers are the lowest they’ve been in years, plus she committed to sign Lankford’s bill.

Compare that to Trump: another massive tax cut for billionaires (which, even as a conservative, you surely cannot agree is good policy); tariffs that will cause inflation to come roaring back; and … a massive police action and deportation scheme as cruel as it is unworkable.

My father used to say, “Don’t keep arguing when you get a yes.” You’re arguing when you’ve gotten a yes. There’s literally nothing — other than the niche issue of gender transition — where she hasn’t answered your concerns.

She has answered me on gender reassignment for children. She is very much in favor of it. Ditto race and sex discrimination: she’s an equity true-believer. Ditto amnesty for all illegal aliens. Ditto the abolition of sex in law and culture and its replacement by “gender”. Ditto: funding full-scale wars across the globe.

Another dissenter quotes me:

Trump’s biggest advantage is that Americans feel poorer today than they felt in the Trump boom years. Harris had to persuade them that her policies are not Biden’s, will make the economy soar, and that they’ll feel better off in four years’ time. She didn’t. She can’t.

Good grief. The average low-information, undecided voter may well believe that Biden and Harris have a “Make Prices Lower” lever on the Resolute Desk that they’re refusing to pull out of spite, but an intelligent political commentator like yourself ought to know better. Harris is running for POTUS, not for Omnipotent Empress of the US. The president can screw up the economy (by, ahem, implementing high tariffs, or deporting large numbers of workers), but he or she cannot single-handedly “make [it] soar.”

The pandemic screwed up the supply chains; then both Trump and Biden threw tons of money at the economy (correctly, in my view) to prevent Great Depression 2.0; then the combination of low supply plus excess demand caused high prices; and we’re still dealing with the aftermath. Harris can’t fix it, Trump can’t fix it, and if you brought Lincoln and Eisenhower together in a wacky time-travel buddy comedy, they couldn’t fix it either.

Another feels that only one issue really matters:

I’ve been a reader for a few years, and you’ve changed my mind on some positions. But holy fuck, quit being a baby about Harris and her (non)positions. It’s not enough to say you’re “not voting for Trump.” You — yes YOU — have the ability to change peoples’ minds, but you’re crossing your arms in a huff about Harris and saying, “Not good enough!” or “Too woke!”? I might feel the latter, but guess what: If you care about America, there is ONE choice in this election. That choice is to stop Trump. That’s it. That’s all there is.

I take the point, of course. It’s a choice between the venal and the vacuous, the awful and the empty, as Peggy puts it. I may force myself to vote for Harris. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

One more dissent for now:

Your interpretation of Ezra Klein’s interview with Alejandro Mayorkas misrepresents what was actually said. You claim Klein “exposed” that the administration — and Harris in particular — prefer the Lankford bill over extending the executive order because the bill is designed to expedite illegal immigration. This interpretation is incorrect.

In the interview, Mayorkas explained that the executive order has successfully reduced illegal crossings, but it’s a temporary measure facing legal challenges, making it unsustainable in the long term. The Lankford bill is being considered as a more durable legislative solution to fix the system, not to expedite illegal immigration. The bill focuses on strengthening immigration processing by increasing resources — such as more asylum officers and immigration judges — to handle cases efficiently and fairly while ensuring border enforcement.

So Klein did not “expose” any preference to expedite illegal immigration through the Lankford bill. Instead, Mayorkas emphasized that both the executive order and the bill aim to address the broken system and create lawful, controlled immigration pathways. I encourage you to reconsider this interpretation.

The Lankford bill would allow many, many more migrants into the country than the current executive order. If the bill kept the parameters of that order, I’d agree with it. It doesn’t. It combines amnesty, which incentivizes more illegal mass migration, with expediting the process, not reducing or stopping it.

More dissents are over on the pod page, arriving in your in-tray shortly. Please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Mental Health Break

Buried in last week’s VFYW contest, our music columnist featured a gem of optical illusions:

In The ‘Stacks

• Trump’s latest would-be killer was quoted a lot by press covering Ukraine. Much of the MSM is now victim-blaming. “We must not acclimatize to attempted assassinations,” warns Charles Hunter.
• What does the Fed rate cut mean for the economy and the election?
• Nate Silver analyzes the polling gains by Harris. Her favorables have shown a stunning rise in two months.
• Drop Site details the ingenious pager attack on Hezbollah. Is it terrorism?
• Joe Klein worries about an atomic surprise in October.
• Mark Robinson is pretty fucking weird — and Republicans knew it.
• What’s the truth about the death of a pregnant woman in Georgia that Harris is amplifying?
• Ruy Teixeira urges Harris to push for energy abundance.
• Jeff Maurer struggles to make sense of Trump’s policy platform.
• How much of an economic populist is Trump really?
• Would he and Vance bring back preexisting conditions?
• Is Vance especially unpopular because he’s too intellectual?
• Political influencers are increasingly paid propagandists.
• Nathan Goetting writes, “the legal rules regarding entrapment are a confusing, unworkable mess.”
• Ted Gioia points to the latest signs that legacy entertainment is dying.
• An ode to country music — and thinking.
• Copyranter is posting a flurry of his favorite ads from the 1990s — “best decade ever.”
• Dan Harris joins Substack: “ancient wisdom + modern science to help you do life better.”

The View From Your Window Contest

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