Eminent scientist and wildly popular blogger Gregory Cochran wrote the following:

You know, esoteric, non-intuitive truths have a certain appeal – once initiated, you’re no longer one of the rubes. Of course, the simplest and most common way of producing an esoteric truth is to just make it up.

This demonstrates that Cochran is not just generally intelligent, but socially intelligent, because he understands the psychology of people unlike himself: HBD deniers. Although Cochran was not talking about HBD denial in that quote, that clearly was the subtext; and his quote nicely explains why so many brilliant liberals can deny HBD while even the dumbest most inbred conservative gets it right away. Some truths are so obvious that it actually takes more brains to deny them than to see them, and when they’re that obvious, denying them is an easy way to differentiate yourself from the stupid.

Further evidence of Cochran’s high social IQ comes from the fact that he and Henry Harpending have arguably the most popular HBD blog on the entire internet. One of the greatest scientists in the world told me privately about Cochran’s negative charisma and that other bloggers try so desperately to imitate it. Cochran has the social IQ to go around calling people idiots and morons in a way that most of his readers find charming and entertaining, but if most bloggers tried this, they would just look rude and insulting. In addition Cochran (and Harpending) had the social IQ to become heroes to the opponents of political correctness, despite writing one of the most politically correct books ever written: The 10,000 year explosion.

Don’t get me wrong, the book is scientifically brilliant and one of the most important books of the early 21st century, but it’s also politically brilliant, because the authors get credit for being rebels (look how bad-ass we are!; we’re saying there are ethnic genetic differences in IQ!) while also being darlings of the ultra-politically correct New York Times, and ultra-liberal Harvard’s luminary Stephen Pinker.

Because so many HBD people are a little autistic, they lack the social IQ to understand that there’s absolutely nothing politically incorrect about saying there are ethnic differences in intelligence, as long as the group differences favor a historically oppressed group. For example, Jared Dimond claimed Papua New Guineans are more intelligent than other populations and he’s a hero of the politically correct, who quote him on that very issue. Cochran and Harpending asserted (correctly in my opinion) that Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent than gentiles, but this is actually one of the most politically correct things you can ever say, because it suggests that Jewish wealth and success is meritocratic and deserved, and thus counters anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. So the authors very skillfully achieved street cred in the HBD community despite writing a book so politically correct my liberal mother enjoyed it (she normally goes absolutely ballistic when I talk about HBD and wonders where she went wrong as a parent).

Figuring out how to have your cake and eat it too indicates intelligence, because from a Darwinian perspective, intelligence is the mental ability to adapt; to take whatever situation you’re in, and turn it around to your advantage.