Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) mentioned “white supremacists” and “David Duke” in his opening statement and allotted speaking time, respectively, during a Wednesday hearing held by House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on the “origins of COVID-19.”
Ruiz, ranking member of the subcommittee, attempted to link Nicholas Wade — a witness invited by Republicans to testify before a hearing — to “white supremacists” and David Duke.
Wade is an author and journalist who formerly wrote for the science section of the New York Times. He also worked as a writer and editor of Nature and Science.
Ruiz characterized Wade’s 2014 book, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, as “applauded by white supremacists” and praised by David Duke. He stated:
When House Republicans announced this hearing with their slate of hand-picked witnesses, I was alarmed to see someone who wrote a book applauded by white supremacists.
Mr. Nicholas Wade’s. 2014 book, A Troublesome Inheritance, suggests that different racial and ethnic groups have evolved to possess genetic variations and traits and behaviors tied to whether they prosper or not.
For example, Mr. Wade speculates that certain populations have evolved to develop greater innate intelligence. He writes that, quote, “Intelligence can be more highly rewarded in modern societies because it is in far greater demand,” end quote, and conversely, he claims that certain populations have been slower to experience an evolutionary change he has described as, quote, “the transformation of a population’s social traits from the violent short-term impulsive behavior, typical of many hunter-gather and tribal societies into,” quote, “the more disciplined future-oriented behavior observed in other populations.”
The notion that people of different racial or ethnic groups are more successful or intellectually superior to another because of predisposed genetic makeup is grossly inconsistent with the consensus of scientific and medical scholarship. That is why I sent a letter to my Republican colleagues this morning strongly urging them to disinvite Mr. Wade as a witness, so as not to give legitimacy to a man of such discredited unscientific and harmful views.
Wade’s writings on IQ variations between ethnic and racial groups are “dangerous,” Ruiz added.
During his allotted speaking time, Ruiz asked Wade about David Duke.
He asked, “Former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan hosted a radio show praising Mr. Wade and his book, A Troublesome Inheritance. Mr. Wade, are you aware of David Duke’s praise of your views on his website?”
Behind Ruiz in the committee room, a female Democrat staffer wearing a mask held a sign with a quote from David Duke’s website describing Wade as having “essentially embraced the scientific racial truth.”
Wade described his book as “anti-racist” and replied:
I should briefly try to respond to [the] attempt by Ranking Member Ruiz to discredit my testimony by saying a number of untrue things about the book I wrote 10 years ago on the biology of race.This was a determinedly non-racist book. It has no scientific errors that I’m aware of. It has no racist statements, and it stretches the theme of unity that we are all variations on the same human genome.
My book was a vigorously attacked by obscurantist academics who want everyone else to believe that there is no biological basis to race, and my book was as welcome to them as pictures of the Earth from space are to Flat-Earthers.
Wade concluded, “I have nothing to be ashamed of in my book. It’s the only place you can now read about what the genome says about human races, and I hope that Mr. Ruiz — if he reads it — will be pleasantly surprised to find this says none of the things he says it said.”
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
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