Racism and epistemology

If you are not a racist, there is something seriously wrong with your epistemology. I do not mean racial bigotry: it is important to distinguish between factual ("scientific") racism, and racial bigotry. ("Scientific racism" is genuine science.) It is possible to be a scientific racist but not a racial bigot, and vice versa.

We can also distinguish between racist thoughts and racist actions. This gives us four categories:

• Racist factual beliefs: for example, about racial differences in morphology.
• Racist bigoted opinions: dislike of other races.
• Racist actions motivated by facts: making sure donor and recipient for an organ transplant are from the same race; not bothering to test white people for sickle cell anaemia.
• Racist actions motivated by bigotry: violence towards other races.

Clearly, "discrimination", treating people differently, is not bigotry if it has a reasonable basis.

Racist thoughts with a factual basis include all the statistical differences between the races. If you believe in racial differences, you are a racist. If you do not, you are wrong. Therefore, if you are not a racist, there is something seriously wrong with your epistemology.

Belief in racial differences is an inevitable consequence of belief in human differences. Belief in human differences is an inevitable consequence of belief in human evolution. This is why people who do not believe in human genetic differences are called "liberal creationists".

Humans are different from one another, mainly because of genes. It would be exceedingly unlikely for there to be no statistical differences between the races, and in fact there are such differences, because the races have been sufficiently genetically isolated, and subject to different selection pressures. Hence we see genetic resistance to malaria in Africa; adaptations to altitude in Tibet; and short people in the jungle. For the races to have remained the same would have been most improbable, and it did not happen.