What he probably thought that was that his PhD dissertation would remain in one academic world and his public policy work on behalf of heritage would remain in the other. Big mistake.

After all – that’s how it is with the rest of scholarly psychometrics. Plenty of obscure academics have published plenty of results identical to those found in Richwine’s PhD thesis and no one cares to excommunicate them or hound them out of polite society. They sit collecting dust on library bookshelves. In fact, demonstrating ethnic cognitive gaps or high heritability scores is so completely uncontroversial and boring and done every day with standardized testing in schools that no legitimate researcher really cares about trying to validate or undermine the basic data anymore. The market demands actionable intelligence – that is – results which show whatever limited progress we can make with the nurture part of the equation and which suggest feasible policy implications.

If Richwine had written a paper for Heritage on the evils of tax-increment-financing or the minimum wage then he and his thesis would have remained in obscurity. But he dared go against the Open Borders Crusade and any exploitable paper trail he’d left in his past became fair game.

The ability to deploy vilifying hysteria so selectively is one of the great strengths of the Cathedral – and Richwine was just trying to demonstrate how tiring, ridiculous and hypocritical these public crucifixions are. Oh well, too late for him it seems.

What causes so many in the media to react emotionally when it comes to IQ?

Well figure that out before seeking a career in public policy. Sheesh.