PETER FROST: Negotiating the gap. Four academics and the dilemma of human biodiversity.

This essay presents four academics—Richard Dawkins, Claude Lévi-Strauss, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides—and how they negotiated the gap between personal conviction and mainstream discourse. All four came to the conclusion that human populations differ not only anatomically but also in various mental and behavioral predispositions. These differences are statistical and often apparent only between large groups of people. But even a weak statistical difference can affect how a society will develop and organize itself. Human biodiversity is therefore a reality, and one we ignore at our peril.

Yet most academics do ignore it, their ignorance being either real or feigned. It is easy to forgive the truly ignorant. But what about the ones who know better? What’s their excuse? “I don’t have tenure yet.” “I’m not well enough known yet.” “I don’t have enough clout yet.” Some will just say: “Please come into my office. Others may hear us talking in the corridor.”

And so, among those who do know better, the common response is … no response. But what else is there to do? How does one go about saying something that is offensive to most people?