The irrationalists would be much more put out if it turned out that not only is alcohol more harmful to African babies, but that Africans have a higher rate of alcohol abuse during pregnancy than other races. Or would it be more rational to think that the harm done by alcohol would have led to more prevalent abstinence during pregnancy among African mothers, at least after correcting for IQ?

If one can refrain from conduct likely to lead to reproduction during particular days of the month, why can one not so refrain in any particular time, making lustfulness utterly irrelevant? I blame the women, who consider that if they can put off their men they would, but they don't, because other women would not. I see no solution for this.

What would Mother Teresa say? As an Albanian, she would no doubt advocate for out-producing the Serbians, so that in 2050 the Battle of Kosovo would be decided in favor of the Muslims once again, and the Renaissance would have to wait for 2571 to come around again for another Lepanto to rescue Christianity from the triumph of the new Caliph.

A bit OT, but why is "Eskimo" now verboten? "Inuit" doesn't seem any more necessary or compassionate than "Native American" for "Indian". Or is this just one of those diktats that cannot be questioned, must be blindly obeyed, but no one has a reason for?

I just read a devastating takedown of "inclusive fitness" by David Stove in "Against the Idols of the Age". Essentially he says the Dawkinses of the world use the theory to deny the reality of kin altruism when it suits them and use the "appearance" of kin altruism to reinforce the "selfish gene" theory. I can't imagine a satisfactory response.

Is this why people start looking like their dogs?

"Government-sanctioned preachers" are a good thing???

One where no one is vapid enough to say that a good society is "One which sets a minimum living standard for all."

The good society is one where no one gets to define for anyone else what the "good society" is.

I haven't read the book, but isn't it true that the concept "belief" is as undefined and conveniently flexible as the concept "God"? Isn't it true that one cannot "disbelieve" any more than one can "believe" in some concept if that concept is irrational and self-contradictory? So there are not atheists and believers. There are merely wise men and fools.

Hmm. Seems to me autism is not terribly different from "cognitive impairment", since one of the defining characteristics of autism is that one's mental functioning (cognition) is, like, impaired. Or are autistics merely "differently cognitioned"? And what in the world would that mean? 
 
Or is IQ merely a measure of potential cognitive ability? If so, how could that possibly be measured?

So why not polygamy? The entire nation of Pakistan - heck, the entire Islamic world - can join one large civil partnership and move lock stock and barrel to Slough. Wait a minute, they already have!

Why can't harmful drugs be treated as poisons are? Surely there are laws regulating the sale of strychnine. If someone purposely puts rat poison in someone else's food, there's no debate whether a crime's been committed. I also wouldn't complain about making it illegal to give rat poison to someone who has expressed a wish to kill himself by ingesting rat poison. 
That said, the burden of proving the harmfulness of a substance should be on the ones proposing the laws. And it's not enough to say, "It makes the user lazy and socially inept". Actual physical harm must be the standard.

Emo said, 
 
"I used to think the human brain was the most important part of the body. Then I remembered what was telling me that."

It would be interesting to compare the IQ scores of those who passed and those who didn't. Then you could look at race. I'm not sure how ziel reached that result that 85% white and 50% black pass rates would reflect the one standard deviation difference that IQ shows. If a larger proportion of blacks with IQs of, say, 90, than whites with the same IQ passed, the test would appear to be biased.

So let me see, the lesson of this post is: smart people tend to make smart choices in life. And water is wet.

Stark's and Weber's arguments are, may I say, starkly different. Stark certainly does not discount the possibility of other cultures adopting real science after the kind of change of consciousness typified by the Meiji restoration. The thesis reminds me of Julian Jaynes' arguments in The Emergence of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - stimulating even if not bulletproof.

agnostic: Is it possible to know why not?

What if radiation is actually good for you?

All women don't have babies. So the women who don't have babies couldn't be scientists? Nonsense. Men have been "helping with the housework" for a generation now and it hasn't made a bit of difference to the emergence of female genius. Maybe genius is a predominantly male trait. Maybe it requires aggressiveness and innovative thinking. And maybe obscenity isn't a substitute for rational thinking.