Auster and Social Conservatives on HBD

Larry Auster of View from the Right has now shifted from Game to HBD. Frequent commenter TUJ started the conversation and yet another clash between social cons and "biocons" (are we legitimate enough to have our own name?) has commenced. Auster mainly argues that HBD is a reductionist ideology too focused on the biological aspects of humanity while ignoring the social and (most importantly) spiritual facets of man. While he seems to accept the conclusions of HBD, he resents the supposed materialist basis of our "movement". [Note: The godfather of HBD, Steve Sailer, is a practicing Catholic.]

Parallel to this discussion, Beta Prime has an ongoing series intending to allay discord between the two groups. In response to the VFR thread, Mangan penned a great rejoinder dispelling the reductionist myth of HBD:

HBD, broadly speaking, is a point of view that says that the facts of human biology have been massively overlooked or suppressed as explanations in politics, education, sociology, criminology, sex relations, war, sports, and just about any other field of human endeavor. As such, it possesses great explanatory power for the problems that plague the world, and even manages to suggest a few solutions. But that it is reductionist is no more true of HBD than it is for, say, economics.

Towards the beginning of blogging, I discussed a similar argument in regards to liberal creationists. HBD denialists often assert that HBD is too simplistic and that the interweaving of culture, technology, and oppression provide a more thorough explanation. But as I show below, even incredibly complex human systems can be reduced to a single parameter.

Basketball is a multifaceted game that requires its participants to have quickness, agility, strength, endurance, toughness, and athleticism. Each game is fast-paced, unpredictable, and each move is subject to numerous variables. Let's engage in a thought experiment. Take 1,000 random white men (control for race and gender) above 5'10'' and 1,000 below 5'10''. Split them into teams of 5 and have a round robin tournament. I guarantee the teams comprised of the taller men will have a higher winning percentage than teams comprised of the shorter men. We can contribute this to a number of external factors, such as the taller men probably have more playing experience or the shorter men might have been subject to stereotype threat.

But it's rather obvious, even in such a complex system as a game of basketball with multiple external factors, one simple number basically explains the entirety of the data: height. The taller men were conferred a tremendous, inherent advantage due simply to their height.

IQ (and its relation to race) functions in the same manner as height in the above analogy. Finally, as Mangan and I both note, HBDers don't reduce humanity and his functioning to an entirely biologically based existence. The generally accepted nature/nurture split is around 70/30. That means 30% of human outcome is predicated on some nebulous combination of culture, luck, parenting, and a multitude of other factors. Here is where Auster's argument fails and where social cons can more satisfyingly accept HBD. In this remaining 30%, social conservatives can interject their spiritual and faith-based concerns. In such a formulation, HBD does NOT reduce to only the empirical; as a result, Auster and his ideological peers can describe humanity through both the material and the incorporeal.