One of the common refrains that I have noticed while perusing conservative blogs focused on race differences and genetics is that they offer insight into issues that the mainstream media won't cover, presumably because the liberal ideologues who run the media squelch free and open debate. As a left-winger, my first reply to them this is: if you think that your point of view gets squelched by the mass media, welcome to the club! There is no doubt that the mass media of this country does some things well, and unfortunately one of the things it does well is constrain debate about important issues. Fortunately for all of us, internet allows us to bypass mass media and have open discussion on those topics.
The point that I'm leading towards is subtle but important. Although I agree that MSM constrains debate on theories that ought to be discussed, that fact alone does not prove that the theory is correct. The theory must stand or fall on its own, MSM's acceptance or rejection notwithstanding.
In fact, there are probably plenty of people who have ideas that will never be debated in the MSM because they are just plain delusional. Do we really want to have a major national debate about whether or not George W. Bush staged 9/11 via MSM? Does the fact that MSM won't engage in this debate suggest that the conspiracy theorists are right? Absolutely not.
Is the notion that racial inequality is rooted in genetics more worthy of debate than 9/11 conspiracy theories? Probably it is, although the evidence for it is pretty weak, and the evidence for the social construction of racial inequality is much stronger. Perhaps we ought to have the debate just so we can get it over with and move on to more important things.
© Jed Lewison