For every paper by J. Philippe Rushton, or Arthur Jensen, there are sound responses, criticisms and dismissal of much of the work they've done. They haven't been able to put unassailable truths out there and simply had them ignored, they're taken seriously as academics and there exists a robust discourse of peer reviewed literature challenging their ideas out there.
It really depends on you consider takes them seriously. Within their fields, yes, they are taken seriously. Outside them they are loathed (particularly Rushton), dismissed as completely and utterly wrong, and are even called to be revoked as academics, censored, or worse. This suggests a dogmatic orthodoxy that refuses to even face up to the possibility of even a quarter of what they say being right. This is my primary objection.
I'm super open minded to human biological differences, I agree the argument has been over politicized, but the evidence for differences in racial intelligence isn't conclusive, by my reading of existing scientific literature, you can't say with certainty differences in outcomes for racial groups have been caused significantly by biological differences.
It differs from outcome to outcome. BTW, this is the first coherent post made against many of my claims on this forum that I have ever read. You are certainly correct that the evidence is not conclusive at this stage (I touched upon this in a previous post) and we can't say much with certainty. The legitimacy of human racial taxonomic classifications definitely has merit, and I think you may find it difficult to argue against the proposal that physical differences exist across human population groups, but many of the other (and far more controversial) arguments that I make regarding race and intelligence, psychological differences outside those directly under the influence of
g, and the potential incompatibility of different races (as groups) and different cultures that stems from these psychological and physical differences are still tentative.
But it'd be just as bad to swear to a gospel that blacks are certainly inferior.
Establishing some sort of superiority/inferiority hierachy of different human biological groups is not in my interest whatsoever. I don't think you can logically conclude that even if blacks are less intelligent on average from other races as a result of intrinsic biological reasons that therefore that must mean that they really are "inferior". Inferior why? Inferior in what sense? For an organism, inferiority/superiority is absolutely relative to the situation and surroundings of that organism. If the proposed race/IQ paradigm is indeed true, then that would probably mean that certain races are superior to other races with regards to creating and maintaining civilizations. But just from being better in that respect that does not at all imply that an overall ranking of superiority/inferiority is possible. If I found myself in Africa tomorrow, I would probably find my skin peeling off from the hot sun pretty quickly. Being good at the art of civilization is only one thing one can be good at.
I am primarily disgusted by the actions of progressives, who cloak themselves in a Darwinist, rationalist veil, yet, hypocritically censure anybody who even suggests that human biological differences are possible. Maybe if HBD was like Young Earth Creationism and had absolutely no scientific merit whatsoever this would be justifiable, but clearly there is a debate still going here (and it looks like hereditarians like Jensen, Murray, Rushton, Gottfredson etc. may have the upper-hand), which makes their actions deplorable. It is one thing to disagree that these ideas are right, but to say with absolute certainty that they are not, and to shout down anybody who disagrees (which is what progressives do) and call for their censorship or imprisonment is not.
The other thing worth mentioning is the policy prescriptions that flow from the heriditarian/egalitarian paradigm. Because racial egalitarianism is absolute orthodoxy in politics and outside the fields where its underpinnings are being debated, therefore we are subjected to egalitarian social policy. Many of our social policies such as social engineering, immigration, encouraged multiculturalism/multiracialism, anti-discrimination laws, racial quotas in employment and education etc. are intellectually founded upon racial egalitarianism, in part or in total. This is an example of why the only people who really believe (besides white supremacists, etc) that this is a decided argument are my opponents. These policy prescriptions, based on something which is still obviously tentative, are incredibly dangerous. I have favoured policy prescriptions of my own, and I base them on what I call a
default position. The default position was inspired by some of Charles Murray's particular writings, and I consider it the most sensible position to take. I won't get into the details of this right now though.
Speaking on behalf of myself, many of the things I say here are presented as if I am absolutely sure of what I say, but a lot of that is bluster. I may be firmly within the heriditarian camp, consider myself a racial realist and believe that in itself, the white race is worthy of preservation, but that doesn't mean that I speak with total certainity when I speak of these matters. There's still a lot we don't know, but we will know more as time continues to go by. I don't think it'll really matter though; if it turns out I'm right, we will likely have reached a point where governments will simply suppress the research confirming HBD completely. The egalitarian position is great for big business and officious bureaucrats, and, even if proven with certainty, will never be accepted by blacks and other minority groups.
As for the second portion of your post, it's much less important so I'll reply to it later. If my response was sloppy here it was because I'm tired.