Human Diversity: Gender, Race, Class, and Genes - Charles Murray torrent

Category: Misc. Non-fiction, Science
Language: English
Keywords: Misc Nonfiction Pyschology Science Sociology

Written by Charles Murray
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

All people are equal but, as Human Diversity explores, all groups of people are not the same — a fascinating investigation of the genetics and neuroscience of human differences.
The thesis of Human Diversity is that advances in genetics and neuroscience are overthrowing an intellectual orthodoxy that has ruled the social sciences for decades. The core of the orthodoxy consists of three dogmas:

- Gender is a social construct.

- Race is a social construct.

- Class is a function of privilege.

The problem is that all three dogmas are half-truths. They have stifled progress in understanding the rich texture that biology adds to our understanding of the social, political, and economic worlds we live in.

It is not a story to be feared. “There are no monsters in the closet,” Murray writes, “no dread doors we must fear opening.” But it is a story that needs telling. Human Diversity does so without sensationalism, drawing on the most authoritative scientific findings, celebrating both our many differences and our common humanity.

“The propositions that accompany most of the chapters . . . are not as snappy as I would prefer—but there’s a reason for their caution and caveats. On certain important points, the clamor of genuine scientific dispute has abated and we don’t have to argue about them anymore. But to meet that claim requires me to state the propositions precisely. I am prepared to defend all of them as “things we don’t have to argue about anymore”—but exactly as I worded them, not as others may paraphrase them.

Here they are:

1. Sex differences in personality are consistent worldwide and tend to widen in more gender-egalitarian cultures.

2. On average, females worldwide have advantages in verbal ability and social cognition while males have advantages in visuospatial abilities and the extremes of mathematical ability.

3. On average, women worldwide are more attracted to vocations centered on people and men to vocations centered on things.

4. Many sex differences in the brain are coordinate with sex differences in personality, abilities, and social behavior.

5. Human populations are genetically distinctive in ways that correspond to self-identified race and ethnicity.

6. Evolutionary selection pressure since humans left Africa has been extensive and mostly local.

7. Continental population differences in variants associated with personality, abilities, and social behavior are common.

8. The shared environment usually plays a minor role in explaining personality, abilities, and social behavior.

9. Class structure is importantly based on differences in abilities that have a substantial genetic component.

10. Outside interventions are inherently constrained in the effects they can have on personality, abilities, and social behavior.”
― Charles Murray, Human Diversity: Gender, Race, Class, and Genes