I believe it is quite obvious that intelligence is largely though not exclusively inherited. We all know that some people are born geniuses and others mentally retarded. It is reasonable to assume all other humans differ in intelligence between these extremes on the standard bell curve for most distributions of traits.
IQ, which is an attempt to measure intelligence, is indeed found on such a curve.
I believe the evidence is very strong that each human is born with a particular intelligence potential. That potential can be achieved under ideal circumstances. Any circumstances less than ideal will result in a level of intelligence at adulthood something less.
This is similar to height and other physical characteristics. Growth can be stunted by malnutrition, disease and other things, but the genetic potential cannot be exceeded regardless of the environment.
Now whether average genetic potential for intelligence differs by race is an entirely different question. It is fairly obvious, at least to me, that it could be answered by an appropriately designed investigation.
Whether as a society we find the potential for disruption so great that we ban such studies is again a different question.
A third question is what other fields of study do we ban because we are afraid of what we might find.
On some other points here, this thread went into directions I'm not at all happy about, and I'm not going to hide that. But anyone who thinks I want to ban people or try to get them in trouble for what they've posted doesn't know me — I believe in debating people when I disagree, not shutting down discussions. I think free discussion of ideas is usually how we move forward as a society. I don't remember ever hitting the abuse button on any thread on Free Republic, you won't hear calls for banning coming from me, and that is precisely why I didn't want to get into the details of defining the meaning of something like “racism” which is specifically forbidden by the posting rules.
I have major concerns with the Atlantic's attack on Free Republic because I believe it is both false and dangerous. Fortunately some of that seems to have been shot down on the Atlantic's own comment board by a number of different people saying the truth, namely, that Free Republic isn't racist.
I asked for a response from Free Republic's management, not to what is being said here on this thread, but to what was said about Free Republic on the Atlantic. It's been made clear over on the other Derbyshire thread that there won't be an official response to the Atlantic. That's their call, not mine. End of issue regarding responding to the Atlantic, as far as I'm concerned.
Back on track: I wouldn't be surprised if John Derbyshire and possibly Charles Murray are reading and perhaps posting here. Discussing these issues with them might be interesting. It's the old nature-nurture debate, and that's been going on for a very long time. They can do and should be able to do any research they want and write about it in any publication that wants to print their views. That's what the First Amendment is for.