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Entry: Noble Lies Link: http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/noble_lies#27104 Post contents: There's plenty of room between the two extremes you've proposed. James Flynn, the foremost "environmentalist" in the debate, appealed to Cardinal Bellarmine. Flynn wrote: However, the adaptation of humane-egalitarian ideals [if hereditarianism is believed correct] would not be without pain, and therefore, the evidence for unwelcome theses should be convincing. Galileo is so often championed against Cardinal Bellarmine that equity de- mands a word or two in defence of the latter. The evidence about whether the sun is at the center of the solar system was mixed. The predicted stellar parallax was not there; Galileo needed more epicycles than the old astronomy did; he had the earth circling not the sun but a point in space somewhat removed from the sun! Bellarmine did not deny that the thesis might be true; he did not deny that it should be tested against evidence. He argued that it should not be <i>asserted</i> to be true until the evidence was decisive, given hat it required a reinterpretation of scripture unsettling to those of simple faith. Bellarmine likened the Devil to a wily angler and people to frogs with mouths gaping, ever ready to take the Devil's bait. Humane ideals can adapt to significant genetic differences between the races, but there are a lot of frogs out there with mouths gaping for the bait of racism. Those who believe in such differences should be very, very certain before they stamp them as proven. Need- less to say, those skeptical of such differences should not disgrace themselves: They must not follow Bellarmine so far as to try to silence opponents whose confidence, argu- ably at least, outruns the evidence. The indefensible sup- pression of Chris Brand's book is a case in point. Sent at: 2008 12 01