Yeah I read this this morning. I think we need more articles like this because the idea that intelligence could be a racial trait follows pretty logically from basic knowledge and assumptions that average people have about humans. The fact that the conclusions reached from those assumptions end up being wrong is why they need to be challenged, and is the very raison d'etre of scientific research in the first place.
The assumptions:
-That races exist, determined by broad categories of consistent similar physical features such as skin colour or height or facial relief etc (I would argue this is largely true)
-That intelligence is inheritable (certainly appears to be partially true)
-Therefore that other, non-visually apparent traits, such as intelligence, can and do develop in the manner of visually obvious ones and can do so in a similarly consistent way across a racial population (this appears to be largely or completely false and is where this breaks down)
But that's the thought highway that leads people down this road, and you need good arguments to combat it because it doesn't look irrational on its face, and when it confirms people's preexisting biases it attains the look of hard truth.
I think the argument that 'race is a social construct, who knows where you draw the line' is a poor one - everyone can see that broad races exist. You won't convince anyone with this, even if the scientific rational behind it is solid. The fact that a white european can have more genetic material in common with a black african than his neighbour isn't relevant to people because the rebuttle is 'Yeah, but he'll always be whiter, so therefore could he not always be more intelligent?'
I think the argument that 'human beings are incredibly genetically similar' is a good one. The biggest differences between us are ultimately small, and typically small enough to be overcome by education and environment.
I think the argument that 'there's no evidence of any simple intelligence gene, meaning evolutionary changes to intelligence would take thousands of years' is a good one.
I think the argument that 'IQ tests aren't useful enough at measuring intelligence to be worthy of study' is a good one.
But I think if you want to combat this stuff you actually need to get those arguments out there because like I said, it's quite easy for people to assume that intelligence could be a racial trait. And if you cede the entire conversation to fascists and ethnoessentialists then you're just letting them recruit easily at your expense.
