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I agree with Robin most of us would deplore racism on the radstats list, but his illustrative excerpt from David Klein's message is not in itself racist. (I've not followed all of this recent debate, because there seemed to be a lot of it, so I may have missed some more explicitly racist comments.) Genetic factors in behaviour are surely subject to the old Scottish verdict of 'not proven', but as we should know absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence. My gut feeling is that the 'genetic case' as it stands will end up refuted, but gut feelings are not a sufficient condition for good science. One could say (as I have done) that the 'Bell Curve' was bad science and politically motivated, but it remains that we must engage with the science itself in such projects in order to be able to falsify the claims. Especially when (in this particular case) the statistical debate continues. Can I refer colleagues to a paper in Philosophy of the Social Sciences (29) 3 1999 by Hocutt & Levin defending the Bell Curve. There is of course an excellent paper in Radstats by Drew, Fossam & Gilborn in 1995 arguing the opposite. Yes, by all means condemm racism, but lets not stifle debate. Malcolm Williams Malcolm Williams, Department of Sociology, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA UK Tel: (0)1752 233283 (Direct) (0)1752 233217 (Department) FAX: (0)1752 233201 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%