Free Speech?
March 30th, 2006 by Stephen
Some sections of the media have been getting uppity about their freedom of speech, using this pretext to publish material that is offensive to muslims. However, these same media are quite happy to support the decision to suspend the lecturer Dr Frank Ellis, who refused to apologise for publishing a survey that claims to show that white people have a statistically higher average intelligence.
Now let’s get a few things straight right now:
1. Free speech is a cornerstone of our stable democratic system, and any attack on free speech is an attack on our society.
2. Racism in any form is utterly wrong. It is wrong in principle and ugly in practice. Racist views should be resisted.
So how do we balance these two principles? Do we say some racist views are so repugnant that we should criominalise those who hold them? Or should we assert that anything goes, and may continue to go without challenge.
Neither of these is acceptable. The media who boost their sales through expolitation of the sensibilities of muslims should be condemned, because freedom of speech should not mean freedom to offend with impunity. Of course, Islam is a religion, not a race, but it is the same cultural xenophobia that drives someone to attack Islam as drives someone to attack all that is foreign.
So what of Frank Ellis? Should he have been suspended?
I would argue not.
Let me again be quite clear: I disagree with Ellis’ thesis. I would find it astounding if there was such a marked difference in intelligence between races who are so genetically similar. Instead I suggest that Ellis’ methodology is flawed. The assumption that intelligence is fixed at birth, and the IQ test is a reliable guide to this is flawed. Ellis has analysed data about intelligence over the years for various races, and discovered a statistically significant difference between two racial groups (statistically significant does not necessarily mean we would notice the difference). This difference can be explained by our cultural racism that has consistently denied education and opportunity to these very racial groups. Ellis cannot remove these confounding factors, so the study is flawed.
But producing bad science is all part of producing science. We have a process that can peer review such publications and weed out the dross. If scientists are scared to ask the unthinkable questions, how can we make progress?
So by all means rip Ellis’ thesis apart. By all means oppose racism wherever it occurs. But if there is a witch hunt merely because someone has asked a question that we find unthinkable…?
I’m sorry, what century am I living in?
