Source: Facebook

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/02/mitt_romney_is_living_every_social_scientists_nightmare @UmeshPatil @Hughman It is not racism to point out the truth. The west had the extraordinary luck to have the church forbid marriage to cousins, and to award women property rights. Combined with the manorial system, which required that a man demonstrate finess in order to obtain land to work, and therefore the ability to raise a family and reproduce, the west obtained the nuclear family, the work ethic, universalism, property rights, and a near absence of corruption endemic to all other human social orders. Culture matters. India’s power failed because corruption is endemic, and corruption is endemic because of familialism. Europeans are a dying culture because it turned on itself and lost its confidence after the world wars, and because feminism decreased the breeding rate of its women to below replacement levels and governments had to resort to immigration in order to maintain it’s intergenerational redistribution programs.And if that bothers you, race matters too. Because people demonstrably prefer to be around those who look like them, and the distribution of talents does differ between the races. Races might not matter if people did not aggregate and associate by race. But they do. Status signals are the human information system. And status signals are cheaper within group than across groups. So race matters.Many scientific realities are unpleasant. It is impolitic to discuss these realities. But they are still realities none the less. Choosing not to discuss them, is quite different from disbelieving them. One is a demonstration of manners. The other is a demonstration of ignorance.