Andrew Sullivan Retires From Blogging

In response to Andrew Sullivan’s retirement from blogging, a poster on iSteve writes:

Not sure how I feel about this. Sullivan is easily amongst the sanest liberal bloggers/pundits (a couple months ago he marked the 20th anniversary of The Bell Curve by re-endorsing the idea of racial differences in IQ, then doubled down when denounced by Ta-Nehisi Coates). HBD as a popular idea owes quite a bit to Sullivan for giving The Bell Curve publicity and (initial) legitimacy in the pages of The New Republic. Remember, for every Sullivan, there are 20 “Jezebel”-type deranged Marxists waiting to take his place in the popular media.

While I don’t care for his position on gay marriage, Andrew Sullivan, to his credit, took unpopular, but important and – what would later be proven – correct positions on issues such as IQ, and recently – as part of the post-2008 HBD awakening – people are starting to realize he was ahead of his time not just about IQ and human differences, but many other things. He stood steadfastly in the face of overwhelming political correctness, possibly alienating some of his own friends in his unwavering pursuit of the truth, but never backing down from a good fight when he knew that he was right.

Of course, there are the expected cries of ‘scientific racism’ from the peanut gallery, despite the abundant evidence showing a positive correlation between IQ (and it’s proxy the SAT) and a myriad of outcomes such as income, educational attainment, and likelihood of being published. Other evidence links low IQ with a greater propensity for being on welfare and incarceration for violent crime. Again, it’s not racism; it’s just the facts based on years of studies by professional, impartial researchers. From a meta-study: The relationship between lower intelligence, crime and custodial outcomes: a brief literary review of a vulnerable group

A body of research has also demonstrated that individuals with lower IQ levels are more likely to commit more severe (and violent) offences (Crocker & Hodgins, 1997; Hayes & McIIwain, 1988; Martell, 1991). Additionally, evidence exists which demonstrates that criminal offenders have lower IQ’s than non-offenders (Feldman, 1993; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985). In fact, a large body of early research found clear links between lower intelligence and criminal behaviour (Hischi & Hindelang, 1977; McGarvey, Gabrielli, Bentler, & Mednick, 1981; Culberton et al., 1989). This may be because of deficits in the “executive functions” of the brain, which are thought to be associated with abstract reasoning and concept formation,..

and

… sex offenders have lower levels of intellectual functioning than non-sexual violent offenders, particularly in the areas of vocabulary, comprehension, arithmetic, mathematics, letter-number sequencing, performance IQ and total IQ (Guay et al., 2005). In fact, Guay et al. (2005) examined a cohort of incarcerated sex offenders and reported that 35.7% of the sample had IQ scores below 75, with 25.1% scored below 70. It is noted that an IQ of below 70 is often considered indicative of cognitive impairment or retardation (Flynn, 1985). The researchers concluded that sex offenders may have 10 times the percentage with IQ scores below 70 when compared to the normal population (Guay et al., 2005). This finding has more generally been confirmed with other research that has indicated that sex offenders have lower IQs than non-sex offenders …

We can whine all we want, but it won’t change the facts.

The question is what will become of The Daily Dish? There will probably be a lot of cancellations, although I can’t imagine it costs too much to run the site. It would have been interesting as an experiment if he secretly quit or only made one post a week and then had staff made the other posts, and then see if anyone detects his absence.