Daniel Finkelstein in the Times on why Frank Ellis should be defended:
On Sunday, a group of academics wrote to a newspaper complaining about the disciplinary proceedings instituted by the university against one of its lecturers, Frank Ellis. Dr Ellis has been suspended for arguing that racial groups have different average IQ levels, and that those of blacks are inferior to whites. His defenders protested that some evidence suggested he was correct.
Yet the academics who suspended Dr Ellis and those who defended him are making an error. In fact, the identical error. They are confusing the correctness of Dr Ellis’s views with whether he should be allowed to continue his academic career. These are not the same thing at all.
In the autumn of 1906, as recorded by James Surowiecki in his excellent book The Wisdom of Crowds, the scientist Francis Galton visited the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition. While there he found his eyes drawn to a guess-the-weight-of-an-ox competition. Butchers and farmers were taking part, but so were ordinary visitors without any expert knowledge. Galton was interested in how bad their guesses would prove to be.
Galton was to be surprised. The average of the 800 guesses during the day was almost exactly right and, crucially, much more accurate than any individual expert assessment. What he had discovered was something counter-intuitive — that even the wildest incorrect guess plays its role in helping to produce an accurate average guess.
Dr Ellis is a lecturer in Russian and Slavic Studies. He probably has as firm a grip on the study of IQ and ethnicity as he does on the study of ox-weighing. But his view is useful in both, regardless of its correctness. Allowing mistaken views to have a voice in the academy is a vital part of determining the truth.
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