“Guns, Germs and Steel” and Ideological Orthodoxy

As I mentioned in earlier posts, we have just witnessed a remarkable transformation in the “accepted wisdom” regarding the innate in human nature. The politically correct orthodoxies of the “progressive left,” according to which human nature is, essentially, a cultural trait, and “not in our genes,” have been smashed by the progress of science. In the last few decades we have gained the ability to peer deep inside the brain. Karl Marx would have been deeply disappointed by what we have found. The “new Soviet man” has been relegated to the realm of fantasy once and for all, and common sense has prevailed. We have established beyond reasonable doubt that fundamental aspects of our nature are hard-wired in our brains. This is no time to rest on our laurels, though. We are hardly out of the woods yet. The ideological orthodoxies of the left are still the “ground state” in academia and the social sciences. They will continue to prevail whenever they can’t be decisively refuted by repeatable experiments.

Consider, for example, the book “Guns, Germs and Steel,” by Jared Diamond. Wikipedia sums it up for us:

The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations, as a whole, have survived and conquered others, while attempting to refute the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example Chinese centralized government, or improved disease resistance among Eurasians), these advantages were only created due to the influence of geography and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.

In a word, we are dealing here with the orthodoxy that there are no substantial genetic differences between human populations, or at least none that would, in the view of the ideologically pure, give one population an “unfair advantage” over another.  Common sense would seem to dictate that evolution hasn’t come to a dead halt in human populations that have been widely separated and, to some degree, isolated for upwards of 50,000 years.  Indeed, common sense prevails when it comes to “fair” advantages, such as skin color, or lactose tolerance.  When it comes to “unfair” advantages, such as that nebulous thing we call “intelligence,” however, evolution and common sense must give way.  When it comes to intelligence, all human populations are perfectly, undeviatingly equal, and have been since the emergence of the species, although Diamond does make a tongue in cheek reference to the intellectual inferiority of white people in his book.  As connoiseurs of political correctness are, no doubt, aware, such drolleries are permitted.  Other than that, however, absolute equality prevails.  If an Einstein dies in one population, it does not become “unequal.”  No, my friends, at the very instant of his death, a new genius is born, and perfect equality triumphantly prevails once again.

Far be it for me to dare to contradict one jot or tittle of Professor Diamond’s book. I merely point out that what it contains is not science. Rather, it is, in essence an ideological tract. How do we know this? Because every one of Professor Diamonds “discoveries” is perfectly predictable in advance. Once one has read a few chapters of his book, one can tell what he will “discover” in the rest of it without taking the trouble to read it.  You will smell no Lollard here.  Professor Diamond has lived, and will surely die, in the odor of sanctity.  No ideological heresies will befoul his memory.  Everything he has written, and everything he will write, will conform, in all purity, to his ideological worldview.

Well, in theory, some ideological verities might actually be true in fact.  However, we have just seen some very significant ones demolished by a mountain of evidence before our eyes.   Let us refrain from recklessly poking sticks into the hornet’s nests of academia.  Let us merely insist that no impediments be tolerated in the path to increasing human knowledge.  As long as we are free to question and learn, the truth will prevail in the end.