Race and IQ more taboo than pedophilia and incest

Published 19 April 2024 at 16.30

Foreign. Intelligence research has for decades produced countless studies that demonstrate the connection between race and intelligence – and that the differences are largely genetic. Even so, the question is the most taboo in Western science, according to a new study.

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In the survey, the researchers asked a representative sample of the American population assess how taboo various topics are.

The participants were asked to rate the topics themselves on a five-point scale from “not at all taboo” to “extremely taboo”.

At the top of the list was the question “whether white Europeans are smarter than black Africans for genetic reasons”.

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Even the questions of whether pedophilia or sex between siblings is harmful proved to be less controversial.

Among the other topics that were considered less taboo than race and IQ are also theories that homosexuality is caused by bacteria, Jewish nepotism as a means of power and mental illness in transsexuals.

One of the researchers, Emil O. W. Kirkegaard, reflects on the results on its website:

“It seems that social taboos, especially since the 1960s, have become stronger and more uniform as humanity's collective scientific endeavor has become increasingly centralized. This has resulted in opportunities conducting research on taboo subjects is small. Because taboo does not necessarily reflect what is true or not, this is a very serious limitation of centralized science.”

Everybody knows some topics or questions are taboo, but which ones? Do people agree? Decided to find out. We asked 500 Americans online to rate the tabooness of 29 questions, and this was the result.

Race and IQ was the winner, even beating incest, pedophilia, gay germs etc. pic.twitter.com/17MTj6wyfn< /p>

— Emil O W Kirkegaard (@KirkegaardEmil) April 17, 2024