From a scene in the evolution episode titled “Go God Go”
“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.
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 wellfade 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.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a civil debate with Michelle Goldberg on the 2024 election and the summer of 2020; reader dissents over my take on the presidential debate and the Springfield mess; nine notable quotes for the week in news, including an Yglesias Award for Van Jones; 22 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics — political and non-political; a musical Mental Health Break of optical illusions; a majestic view from Yosemite; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
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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.
Other topics in the Michelle episode: growing up in Buffalo with conservative parents; her dad a journalist and mom a math teacher; Michelle a teen activist in the “Buffalo abortion wars”; the legality but ugliness of clinic protests; a pro-life man knocking the wind out of her; ACT UP; going to J-school; reporting at mega-churches in Ohio in the 2004 election; Harris’ moderate Smart on Crime book in 2009; her “triangulating” in 2019 (e.g. fracking); her busing moment with Biden; supporting a bail fund in summer 2020; Biden’s bait-and-switch as a centrist; bipartisan support for Israel; Merrick Garland’s effort to appear apolitical; lawfare; from Bush’s “fuck yeah” patriotism to Trump’s dark view of America; the Iraq War and 2008 bailout causing mistrust toward institutions; crumbling infrastructure; Trump never being a majority candidate; the cultural grievance fueling him; Michelle going to Trump rallies; the 1619 Project; debating the US as a “white supremacy”; the left radicalizing after Trump replaced a two-term black president; Covid mania; the distortion of Twitter; the Electoral College and its roots; the violent crime spike in 2020 and after; how the disadvantaged always bear the brunt of disorder; the greed of BLM Inc; the press distortion of unarmed black men killed by police; Michelle’s 2014 piece “What Is a Woman?”; Rachel Levine; puberty blockers; the Dutch protocol; the Cass Review; bathroom bills; and the GLAAD protest against the NYT.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Frum on Trump, Musa al-Gharbi on wokeness, Walter Kirn on Republican voters, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal welfare, Mary Matalin on life, Anderson Cooper on grief, John Gray on, well, everything, and Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
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?
Read four more dissents, along with my replies, here — and they continue on the pod page. As always, keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the latest assassination attempt, the pager attack, and Trump’s incoherence on policy. Below are a few examples, followed by a brand new substack:
Nathan Goetting writes, “the legal rules regarding entrapment are a confusing, unworkable mess.”
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.”
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Here’s an example of sleuthing prowess from last week:
The flora and overall drabness of the landscape suggests the northern US, and my first thoughts went to the various office parks I’ve encountered over the years. But the rounded glass building seemed unusual, and the faint reflection of a bed in the VFYW window and the skylight dome got me thinking more along the lines of a hotel with a modest domed atrium. I searched Google in vain for hotels with cylindrical towers and skylight domes that are relatively small and plain (though I now understand why I kept getting pics of the Westin Bonaventure in LA).
Then I noticed the flag on the left side of the view:
It’s mostly white, and it struck me that it could be a state flag. So which states have flags that are mostly white? Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island:
Which of the states did it turn out to be, and which idiosyncratic town? Check out the full results, for paid subscribers. And see you next Friday.
