This is a preliminary version. If quoted, this should be indicated.

J P Roos

Inequality and old demons of sociology

ESA Student Workshop Torun 7-8 september 2005

Introduction

Sociology belongs to those semi-scientific disciplines in which old truths long forgotten as falsehoods can be discovered anew, many times. It gives one a pleasant sense of déjà vu when reading the classics: all these arguments have either been used or refuted many times since. Our knowledge is not cumulative, except in the simple sense that in empirical research, data collected and analyzed stays as data collected and analyzed. So, data collected about inequality in the 1950’s can be, hopefully compared with data collected in 2000. In this presentation I shall discuss continuities and breaks in inequality and revive in the process some old demons (or not so old, most of them date from the 70’s and even later).

One old sociological approach which has been much reviled during most of the twentieth century is that of social Darwinism, ie. the idea of the competition for survival in which the strongest win is also the best solution from a social point of view. It is also true that Darwin was inspired by the Malthusian idea of a recurring the need to eliminate surplus populations. He was a nice Victorian who had revolutionary ideas. Brought into total disrepute by the nationalist and racist application of Darwin’s ideas, which were usually based on complete misunderstanding of Darwin’s work, it is only now that Darwinism in its modern version is being rehabilitated in sociology. One sign of this is the recent establishment of a research committee on Evolution and sociology in the ASA (still to be confirmed). The outcome is still highly uncertain: we know what happened in the 1970’s with the infamous sociobiology debate, which opened old wounds. Yet, there are already many sociologists who have stepped out of the closet, telling their colleagues that they have for a long time taught evolutionary sociology, except not with that name. Thus Gerhard Lenski, whose book Power and Privilege had a quite good reception in the 60’s could tell now that this book was based on evolutionary ideas, very discreetly. I must confess that I did not notice it when I leafed through the book in the 1970’s. Now it is completely clear.

Regardless of whether the ASA research committee on Evolution and sociology will become permanent, and whether such a research network will be established in the ESA, I do believe that Darwin’s reentry into sociology will be permanent and that here we have definitely one cumulative aspect of sociology. Or to formulate it somewhat differently, Darwinism gives us sociologists a possibility to consider certain sociological truths as relatively permanent founding blocks. One of these would be universal aspects of human behavior – human nature, in short.. This goes, as we know, against the grain of social constructionism, the dominant ideological model for the last 20 years, for which everything is highly malleable. The thing that probably draws sociologists to constructionism is precisely that it denies basic permanences and existences which are ordinarily taken for granted, especially when you question the existence of permanent or even simple correspondences – “there is no family, there are no universal aspects of human behaviour, human nature does not exist”, etc. .These are actually empirical claims, and I think it can be shown that the constructionist position is mistaken. I admit that there are those who are somewhat more cohesive and careful and do not like to get into completely paradoxical positions, but they are not so many as the defenders of constructionism like to claim.

Here, I propose to propound to you some Darwinistic heresies and hopefully clear some of the most common mistakes which still are very common: that of accusing evolutionary theory of being crude determinism, functionalism, positivism, reductionism. I must also say that reading Darwin, is an excellent antidote for thinking that the present day sociology is better and more interesting than classical writings (The Descent of man or The development of emotions, especially)

Let me just make a “political” declaration before I enter these troubled waters. I come from a Nordic country, which is arguably one of the most equal in the world. It has a highly developed social welfare system which guarantees for most citizens a protection against such risks as unemployment, illness, and strives at eliminating the vestiges of the patriarchal family system which still can be observed all around Europe. This system has been at risk since the late 1980’s when the wave of economic liberalism swept over Europe and has had to sustain many attacks, not least from an European Union which is presently not very favorable to the Nordic welfare state. I belong to those who believe that the Nordic welfare state is a model, which should be followed in the whole of Europe, and that it should be defended and protected against all kinds of direct and indirect attacks. I believe that equality and democracy are the two fundamental values presently threatened by globalization and the development of the EU towards a supranational federal structure. Besides, the Nordic welfare state seems to be the best protections against corruption which is endemic all over Europe, even in the established EU countries like France, not to speak of Italy. Let me just note that Norway, which is nowadays a fabulously rich country (that is why it has no need to join the EU) due to its oil resources, has been able to remain almost completely uncorrupted: not one single individual has become enormously rich on account of the Norwegian oil incomes, and although the state and the citizens are fantastically reach they remain extremely thrifty (free school lunches are still unknown in Norway). This would not have been possible in any southern European country. Or let us just look at the situation in Russia, where a small number of individuals have profited from the oil and gas production of the country.

I believe this declaration is necessary before I go deeper into my controversial subject. At least you can be certain that I am not interested in Darwinism to defend the market liberal trends of the European Union or the explosive development on inequalities in Europe.

One reason why Darwinism is relevant in my view is precisely that in a society, where social inequalities are minimized, in a society there are few socially determined causes for inequality, the remaining inequalities are based on individual characteristic, which are either based on parental influence and education, or inherited personal qualities.

I shall discuss this point later.

And maybe I am just being too cautious. Evolutionary theory has lately made many inroads in sociology so that quite many of people are separately and in different disciplines started to become interested. Just in the most recent issue of London Review of Books (September 9, 2005), Thomas Jones is complaining that the last bastion of postmodernism, namely literary studies is also falling. Actually it is only one book in which literature is discussed from the point of view of evolution, but this is already alarming (Darwinism has been taken on board by every other discipline, but literature is “a last frontier in human evolutionary studies”. Literary theory has long had Marxist, psychoanalytic and feminist incarnations, so why not a Darwinian one”, as Jones writes)

Risk of non-relevance

I should like to mention one early example of this kind of lost of relevance. I have been reading the debates (or lack of debate) between Westermarck and Durkheim concerning incest. Westermarck and Durkheim were contemporaries and competitors. As you know, Westermarck became professor of sociology in London on the strength of his researches on the history and origins of human marriage, published almost simultaneously with Durkheims first major works. His approach is nowadays mainly considered as obsolete, being based on armchair research, (in fact he did do extensive field research), containing innumerable examples and being seemingly devoid of any theory. Also, Westermarck has been seen as being engaged in useless speculation about the “origins” of moral sentiments and family formations, which was also seen as something totally impossible.

Durkheim, on the other hand was the representative of more autonomous theoretical sociology who did engage in empirical research but which was still theoretically directed and conceptual. Consequently, he did not think much of Westermarck, usually referring to him in footnotes. But one reason was certainly the typically French way of leaving direct competitors unmentioned (this continues even today). There is one exception: the long critique by Durkheim of Westermarcks book on Origins of Human Marriage, where Durkheim tries to demolish the thesis that human marriage has existed as long as humans (see Durkheim 1895) A good example is the long Durkheim article on incest in the first issue of Journal sociologique (Durkheims own proprietary journal). There Durkheim claims to present the origin of the incest taboo, which is the law of exogamy. As to the origin of exogamy he has no explanation, it is just universal. The problem, for Durkheim, is to explain how such an totally superstitious and irrational prejudice can explain a fundamental aspect of contemporary morality (p. 88). There is one footnote in which he says that for the sake of completeness, Westermarck must also be mentioned. (p 72), although his idea is completely impossible. As it happens, it is now very clear that the whole of Durkheims article on incest I just one futile speculative attempt to “theorize” about incest, whereas Westermarck could, with his “speculative approach” achieve results which are now considered as most certainly proved and which has been called the Westermarck-effect. I.e. that the universal refusal of incest is not the result of a social construction of a norm but of an evolutionary adaptation which does not only concern humans. And the mechanism is very simple: evolutionary rules are based on “algorithms” where the choice is made semi-automatically and based on only observation or experience. The rule is: do not have sexual relations with somebody with whom you have grown together since very young. There is now much empirical research which supports Westermarck. Again, only people, who refuse to read the relevant texts, can claim otherwise. It might also be mentioned that Freud did engage in a debate with Westermarck, and presented most of the counterarguments still being used. For instance the most “sociological” of them: that it would not be necessary to have strict laws against incest if it would be a biological adaptation. But as Westermarck said, in the end of the debate: He would be more convinced if Freud had some empirical basis for his arguments. Especially, as we know that the foundational myth of the Oidipus complex is a complete invention

It is good to remember that when Darwin presented his theory of evolution, he was “speculating” because he had no idea of the mechanisms which could produce the results. Genetics did not exist yet. Only much later did we get a clear picture of how the selection process works. Thus, a correct theory need not explain everything. But it must be testable and disprovable. We do not have to know, why something works in order to know that it works. Long before anything was known of genetics, both plants and animals were being selected and improved.

Intelligenge and the Taboo of inequality

Next, I shall discuss intelligence and inequality. There is so much concrete research about intelligence and its distribution that I don’t know of any specific sociological field which would be so well researched (possibly poverty? ) . There is certainly no consensus about the fundamental questions, as for instance a recent debate concerning a review of race and intelligence shows, but it seems to me that at least the claims made by Arthur Jensen in 1969, namely that

a) IQ tests measure socially relevant general ability

b) Individual differences in IQ have a high heritability (i.e. that proportion of the observed variation in a particular phenotype, that can be attributed to the contribution of genotype (inheritance). ) (the present estimate is about 60 to 70%)

c) Because social mobility is linked to ability, especially in otherwise equal and meritocratic societies, social class differences in IQ have an appreciable genetic component

have been more or less confirmed. In other words, what I like about IQ or g, is that it is not a social construction. As somebody has said: you can hide it, you can deny it, but it doesn’t go away.

( see Charles Murray 2005 The Inequality Taboo Commentary September 2005, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/production/files/murray0905.html). Charles Murray is the Bell Curve guy, extremely reviled by the “right-thinking” sociologists. I don’t like his politics, either, but I think he knows his numbers and what he is talking about when he writes about intelligence. And the article I am referring to is extremely fascinating and convincing.

But as said, there is a continuing debate. It has become more civilized, so that those who do such research are not any more treated as completely outside the scientific community. They get their articles published. Thus, in the debate concerning recent very controversial article by Rushton and Jensen, it seems for me that Rushton and Jensen come out as much more convincing (see http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/).

I’d prefer that you check this yourselves, reading through the debate. I’ve read SO much criticisms which on closer reading are completely wrong, present false or even purposefully misleading claims or where the author never checked the originals. False claims reappear all the time and gullible people spread them. Read the originals! Don’t believe any claims without checking the sources! This goes especially for Rushton, who is perhaps the most reviled living psychologist in the world. It is clear that it is easy to suspect somebody who has compared the length of penises or the size of skulls of different races and whose articles can be found in the web pages of the American Nazi Party (without his permission, hopefully) and who is routinely himself accused of racism and worse, at least by association (see www.ferris.edu/ISAR/archives/mehler/foundation.htm). I am myself of two minds about him. The article referred to above is in my view a serious piece of writing. Rushton knows what he is writing about, contrary to most of his critics who take the easy way out using the technique of guilt by association. But of course measuring brain size is not an innocent choice. But you cannot say that it shouldn’t be done.

The arguments of the opposition are in my view very problematic. They are of two types: general intelligence does not exist, it is irrelevant, it cannot be measured, and on the other hand, maybe there is some truth in the arguments but as this truth can be harmful, it should not be discussed. These can be even combined. The horrified reactions on the claims of differing intelligence of different populations or sexes are to me quite out of place: they are essentially empirical questions which can be resolved by careful research and elimination of all possible sources of error. The burden of evidence is on those showing the differences are non-existent and that they are not genetic, but environmental. The attempts to do this so far seem to have been mostly refuted see Murray 2005 for further references). The Flynn effect is a case in point. Flynn effect refers to the fact that IQ shows a small but permanent increase all over the world and especially where it is being measured all the time. So, the argument goes, if IQ increases like this, the problems with possible differences of ethnic groups can also go away. The problem is, it seems that the Flynn effect is variable according to the type of the test, and the differences between groups do not seem to go away. By the way, a funny example of the type of criticism Murray is getting is that he has been claimed to have ignored the Flynn effect. In fact, he did not only mention it, he named it (Murray 2005, footnote). All those who hate his politics, should still check their arguments.

Of course, I am not using this example just for the fun of annoying you. Iintelligence is important because it is so clearly connected with inequality. If we agree that general intelligence means that you can quickly resolve a previously unknown problem and get the best results of a difficult situation, it means that you are endowed with a quality which in most cases should give you a better end result in any situation as compared to your less intelligent fellows. We know that the basic argument in defense of the inequality of incomes or ownership is that the person with higher incomes has deserved them by doing something better, by using opportunities open to all, but in a more efficient way. He has thus deserved them. He does not have to be intelligent, but it helps. The success stories usually include at least as one element an innovative, creative idea emanating from the person, but also lot of work in needed, too. And there is quite a lot of research which shows intelligence is especially important in situations where the normal socio-economic determinants are inoperative; that is intelligence becomes important when everybody really starts from the same position.

Now, let me recapitulate the evolutionary theory of intelligence very quickly (one version, there are several, see Pinker 1997, Miller 2000, and all the brain and consciousness research). Of course this is partly speculation, but not totally unfounded. We know that at some period in the hominid development, the human brain evolved very rapidly, and reached its present size and structure about 100 000 years ago. We know that this development could not be connected with the use of tools, which did not change at all during the first million years of living with a human brain, and for the use of which a much smaller brain would be quite sufficient (even now!) One of the current assumptions is that the development of the brain was related to human interaction, and most specifically sexual selection. I.e. we needed our brain to be social: talk, sing, play, seduce, understand others and evaluate their sincerity.

For both genders it is extremely important to be very discerning and to be able to assess reliably different qualities, such as intelligence, honesty, conscientiousness etc. I.e. we are interested in even very fine individual differences, but we must assess them from what we see, from outward cues. Intelligence is very useful in both producing these cues and evaluating them. This is called sexual selection, which in Darwinian terms means that people (and animals) select their partners on the basis of different graded criteria which are different for the two sexes. One of the fundamental reasons for this is the so called parental investment: the more one has to invest one’s resources in the offspring (time, care, money etc) the more careful one is about with whom one makes babies (and animals seem to be aware of the fact that having sex with somebody leads to babies). With animals, this often means that the males are those who are chosen and the females are the choosers. Males don’t have any choice at all. And conversely they take as many females as they get. Anything goes. In previous times this meant that some males had lots of partners and many males had none. Nowadays we have serial monogamy, with men having usually more partners. In humans, and especially when even the males use a lot of resources to take care of the offspring, the situation is much more even. And in some cases the relationship is already inversed. This means that both men and women had to develop their intelligence to the utmost (Miller 2000).

But one other problematic thing should be mentioned. Normally, if there is an adaptation which is useful for everybody (even necessary for survival) there is pressure for it to become universal and centered to some optimal value. Many of our abilities, such as learning a language, are relatively fixed. Everybody learns a language and is able to learn several at a certain age. There is very little variation in this ability. Why then is it so that intelligence has such an enormous and regular variation? And why does IQ increase although the theory of evolution predicts the opposite (see Hamilton 2000, for very strange explanations). There is an enormous discussion of this. For example: is q modular or a general trait (Kanazawa 2004)? If it is modular it follows that it cannot be very useful in sexual selection, if it is general, it affects everything.

Of course intelligence is not the only factor to affect your ability to survive or manage. Here in this hall most of us are supposed to be highly intelligent persons who have been selected many times over: school, university, appointments, research proposals. Universities value intelligence in principle over anything else (actually, in research, too, diligence and ability to work seem to be quite useful, so that an intelligent but lazy researcher has no chance). Yet we are not rich or do not have any privileges, i.e. our intelligence has not produced much social (hoped for) inequality. But in many cases it does. There is an interesting relationship which illustrates this. This comes from a study on the social inequalities in Helsinki and describes the relationship of income and education. The unit is a 250 m to 250 m square of households, i.e. whose incomes and education we know. Up to a certain level of education, there relationship is absolutely linear, but after a certain level of educational attainment (precisely, lower academic degree), the relationship becomes negative. You lose income if you become a PhD (see Vaattovaara 1999). Even Bourdieu understood that: that is why we PhDs say that the berries (high incomes) are sour anyway. On the other hand, Bourdieu never took a doctorate.

Here I should only like to point out the interesting paradox that simultaneously as we academic sociologists abhor measures of intelligence over anything else, we, in our practical lives seem to appreciate it very much. We all recognize immediately an intelligent individual from a less intelligent one. And we are very careful not to select as a professor somebody we think is very stupid.

(The committees for selecting Finnish university professors follow a highly formalized exercise, with the members of the committee going through the publications of the applicants, looking at their research record etc and evaluating the applicants on this basis. Once we selected unanimously a fellow, who is highly obnoxious, whose personality is such that I would like to avoid the person at any cost and in every circumstance, but who is so intelligent and active in research that there is no way he could be bypassed.)

Yet, in many other situations, we would be very careful not to use such arguments openly but still think that we definitely would prefer a more intelligent person to a less intelligent person. Intelligence is a very valued quality in an individual.

So what is so terrible about intelligence? The answer is simple: intelligence is something clearly – at least 50%, maybe even 80 % - innate, genetically inherited. It should not influence how we value other people – after all, there are also artistic, social and other qualities - but in the current information society it often does so. And as I said, it is not socially constructed. It doesn’t go away if we refuse to discuss it. And it doesn’t go away if we refuse to accept the studies which show this, by inventing all kinds of counterarguments. Q just is there, and affects causally a lot of things (see Murray 2005, 12).

The most recent apparent paradox in this debate is something touching my own national pride: Finland has been shown to be on the top in measurements of scholarly abilities of children, the so called PISA study ( in all three: math, reading and science). This has been interpreted as being the result of our welfare society and school system. There is something in this: Finnish schools can be shown to be very good in improving the results of the worst students, so that there are very few who fail completely, whereas the elitist and unequal school systems come out badly: US, UK, France etc. But still it is true that the correlation between the results of the PISA exercise and the measurements of average intelligence of people is almost one when one looks at the whole world results (the total correlation is of the order .8 and in mathematics or problem solving ability it is .86). In Europe, there are only a few countries whose PISA results deviate significantly from the level of average intelligence: especially Finland, Ireland and Italy. The Finns and Irish have much better results than their intelligence would predict, whereas the Italians have much worse. We think that Finn’s results are better because the schools take better care of the bad students, whereas Italians may be intelligent but their schools are so terrible that their PISA results are very bad. Actually the Italians think that it is because their children have not been tested the PISA way so they did not know how to respond. Therefore they are now being drilled in such tests. As Charles Murray notes, this is the main difference between IQ tests and tests of academic excellence: with training you can improve your school results, but NOT your IQ. So schools CAN change the results of PISA, but they don’t seem to do this, at least not very much. Actually I think that we can even improve our results in IQ tests if we train them (the Flynn effect) but it is plausible that this is more difficult when we approach the g which is essentially the quality to be able to manage in unexpected situations.

Country PISA (Index) IQ

Finland 2183 109 97

Korea 2164 108 106

Hongkong 2147 107 107

Japan 2127 105

Netherlands 2095 102

Belgium 2070 104 100

Switzerland 2046 101

Czech Republic 2044 102 97

Sweden 2040 101

France 2037 98

Ireland 2021 101 93

Germany 2009 102

Iceland 2007 98

Denmark 1998 100 98

Austria 1994 102

Hungary 1976 99

Poland 1972 99

Norway 1969 98

Slovakia 1954 97 96

Latvia 1946 97

US 1946 98

Spain 1935 97

Italy 1898 93 102

Portugal 1882 95

Russia 1878 96

Greece 1847 92 92

(Source: Pertti Töttö 2005, Lynn-Vanhanen 2002)

But the most interesting thing here is that PISA is being actively discussed and is thought as being of very great interest, whereas the IQ measurements and their comparisons between countries (Lynn and Vanhanen 2002) are considered as taboo, racism and worse. Again the problem is the same as above: PISA is supposed to show the effect of the school system (which it probably does not do exclusively do), whereas IQ is bad because it is normally not something you can teach or change at will. At first glance, it seems that the PISA measurements vary much more than IQ, but as you can see from the indicative index values, the difference is actually very slight.

I think this is something sociologists should think very seriously about. Why is it so difficult to accept social givens, which we cannot always change at will? I e why do many of us prefer social constructionism to simple “naïve” realism? Why is it more difficult to think that we should try to create situations in which these social givens are least harmful, if we cannot change them? I.e., it if is true that the heritability of intelligence is somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent and that we cannot change a person’s IQ very much even with the best of schools, shouldn’t we rather do our best so soften the impact of this, make it sure that even the most stupid are guaranteed such education that they do OK in a modern society? That they are really given the means to manage with computers, internet etc. It is not so that only the extremely intelligent can survive in globalized society, but it is so that there is an ever increasing minimum level of educational competences one needs to be able to function. In fact, it is true that the extremely intelligent may have some difficulties of functioning, too. There are studies of the highly intelligent, who have all kinds of problems (Vanttaja 2002)

As to the individual differences, they are clearly acknowledged by all of us. We know they exist. The debate is about how much they can be influenced by upbringing and social background. And how important they actually are (i.e. the question of general intelligence vs. specific abilities which are independent of each other). I think this debate is already pretty much closed, except by those who have not followed it, and thus tend to repeat all arguments already debunked by research (for instance the cultural bias of intelligence tests, the non-existence of general intelligence, the permanent effects of upbringing or early schooling). IQ is important and especially the so-called g factor is very difficult to change – or made to disappear (Murray 2005, p. fn 65)

Most of us here in this workshop are considered more intelligent than their compatriots: we have selected you very carefully! So why is it “better” to say “this is because I had such a nice family and I worked so hard in school?” than to say that “I must have inherited strong cognitive capacities?” But of course hard work and nice parents have had something to do with the fact that you have been able to use fully your cognitive capacities.

An even bigger problem concerns group differences. If it is true that certain nations and even ethnic groups show persistent differences in intelligence so that their averages are clearly different. Note that intelligence is normally distributed so that standard deviations give a good picture of the significance of difference but that there are always, in all groups, people who are highly intelligent or highly unintelligent. Their numbers are just different. If this is true, we should not try to deny it, but to try to discuss the possible consequences.

Again, I think that the best approach is to try to mitigate the harmful consequences of low average levels of intelligence. That is, a strategy of equality from below. The approach typically preferred by sociologists, is to ignore the differences or refuse to accept the research results. Not discuss them (again, see Murray, footnote 76, who points to many harmful consequences of this, especially in the European context, where these taboos are much stronger, because for us equality is an important value, whereas in the USA it is not)

This does not help us very far. The scientific danger, in the sociological strategy of refusing unpleasant results, not wanting to discuss them is that one gets defined out of the research field. Of course an even more important consequence is that what we do may be completely wrong, based on an illusion. It is already happening in family research that sociology with its theories of a totally malleable family is simply being ignored and the advances take place in other disciplines better geared to accept the most advanced research in the field (I am speaking of the results of Hamilton, Williams and Trivers concerning kin and sexual selection which have highly important consequences for family research as well as sex research). Sociology ignores them at its own peril. Just as Durkheim ignored Westermarck and missed the only relevant theory concerning incest.

Charles Murray, once more:

Thus my modest recommendation, requiring no change in laws or regulations, just a little more gumption. Let us start talking about group differences openly—all sorts of group differences, from the visuospatial skills of men and women to the vivaciousness of Italians and Scots. Let us talk about the nature of the manly versus the womanly virtues. About differences between Russians and Chinese that might affect their adoption of capitalism. About differences between Arabs and Europeans that might affect the assimilation of Arab immigrants into European democracies. About differences between the poor and non-poor that could inform policy for reducing poverty.

Even to begin listing the topics that could be enriched by an inquiry into the nature of group differences is to reveal how stifled today’s conversation is. Besides liberating that conversation, an open and undefensive discussion would puncture the irrational fear of the male-female and black-white differences I have surveyed here. We would be free to talk about other sexual and racial differences as well, many of which favor women and blacks, and none of which is large enough to frighten anyone who looks at them dispassionately.

Talking about group differences does not require any of us to change our politics. For every implication that the Right might seize upon (affirmative-action quotas are ill-conceived), another gives fodder to the Left (innate group differences help rationalize compensatory redistribution by the state). But if we do not need to change our politics, talking about group differences obligates all of us to renew our commitment to the ideal of equality. Steven Pinker put that ideal in today’s language in The Blank Slate, writing that “Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.”

(Murray 2005)

I must say that, completely regardless of the politics of Murray, these recommendations seem to me very sensible and useful. As he points out, they can work both ways. They are not inherently conservative or rightist. Just sensible.

Another important point that Murray makes concerns Europe (Murray 2005, footnote 76) According to him, Europe is even worse than USA with respect to the inequality taboo. This is probably true, because equality is a concrete positive value here, whereas in the US it is not.

In the text I ignore Europe, where both academic and political elites have suppressed the discussion of group differences even more effectively than in America. Contemporaneously, the European Union has revolutionized free movement within Europe. That, combined with immigration from outside Europe, legal and illegal, has produced unprecedented population change in countries that historically have been ethnically homogeneous.

Immigration poses problems for European countries that are qualitatively different from those faced by the United States. … But it is taboo among the elites to talk about such things (although ordinary people sense what is at stake), and so a momentous social experiment is under way without any reason to think that its assumptions are correct, many historical reasons for thinking they are wrong, and recurring stories on the evening news suggesting that the social fabrics of Europe will be shredded before the elites can make themselves come to grips with what they have been doing.

In fact I think that Murray is here more than right. Many of our discussions in Europe ignore totally that we are already very much non-homogeneous societies which still assume that there is homogeneity and no differences (not to speak of the present European Union as such which is extremely heterogeneous!). Even in many statistics this is so: we make misleading assumptions about the homogeneity of the populations. Many of our assumptions simply are not true and may lead to very strange results especially when we look at distributions relative to intelligence.

What about all the theories of inequality? In my view, we should require as much of any theory purporting to explain inequality in the world. I.e. that it makes claims that we can compare to those made by other theories. It need not explain everything, but it needs to be coherent. I believe that the evolutionary theory concerning development and existence of inequalities is such a theory. It is based on the heritability of certain qualities, of the relative advantages of certain behaviors, of universal human qualities. There is a human nature, but then there are also important differences.

And on the fact that all these qualities increase in importance as the society becomes more equal. So, if we strive – as most of us probably do – for a society with maximum equality in opportunities, access and with strong support for socially and otherwise challenged social groups, the outcome is that in the resulting society, differences will be highly attributable to inherited dispositions. On the contrary, a feudal society or a polarized class society with less social mobility has much less playroom for inherited personal characteristics.

And also, as a result of this continuous evaluation, the differences between individuals tend to grow, i.e. social interaction tends to produce more inequality unless checked by opposite tendencies. This is because there is a pressure for runaway development when both parties try to react to the requirements of the other party. And note that we seek in our partners, permanent, unchanging, authentic, i.e. genetic qualities, not representations or constructs which disappear after the choice has been made. Sexual selection is thus a very strong force favoring increasing inequality. Another strong force which favors increasing inequality is kin selection mentioned previously. This is the famous theory of Hamilton, maybe the most unpalatable for sociologists. Because why should we accept that people operate following a simple mathematical formula based on genetic similarity. How do people calculate the genetic closeness and how should they follow such a simple rule? (this is one of the typical counterarguments: ants or primitive tribes cannot calculate in percentages!) The simple answer is that they need not calculate anything, just make choices based on very simple rules which they can follow.

Conclusion

I am aware that I have not come even near to discussing really inequality from the point of view of evolutionary theory. This would have needed much more empirical data. My main point is twofold: there are “natural” inequalities or variations in such traits in the populations which cause inequalities and this must be considered when we discuss strategies against inequalities. Not all inequalities are caused by social injustices. And secondly: the closer we approach a situation where the welfare state guarantees basic equality in education, health etc., the more important “natural” inequalities become. So, in future, if the European social model will be carried into reality, the situation will be such that we will have to consider the evolutionary bases of inequality.

References

Emile Durkheim 1969 (1897) La prohibition de l’inceste et ses origines. Journal sociologique, PUF, Paris, 37-101

Emile Durkheim 1975 (1895): Origine du mariage dans l’espece humaine d’apres Westermarck, Textes 3, Editions du Minuit, Paris, 70-92

A W F Edwards 2003: Human denetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy. Bioessays 25.8, 798-801

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