Heads up, gentle reader. I’m about to give you an intelligence test. To begin the test, read “The Talk: Nonblack version“.
The single most important kind of intelligence is the ability to see past your own strongly-held preconceptions and your tribe’s conventional wisdom and engage reality as it actually is and facts as they actually are.
Now I’m going to ask you some questions about your response to the article.
1. Did you fail to notice that the key paragraph in it is this one: “Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:”
2. Did you recoil from refuse to accept any claim in the article that you recognized as true or probably true because it would hurt peoples’ feelings?
3. Did you at any point refuse to believe a fact claim in the article because you think the world would be a worse or uglier place if the claim were true?
4. Did you finish the article believing that John Derbyshire (the author) is a racist?
5. Do you believe I am a racist for having asked the previous four questions?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, you failed the test.
EDIT: Changed the phrasing of question 2 slightly as some people found it confusing.