They Walk Among Us

``Race realists'' like to claim that our beliefs about people are based on biological facts. The best evidence that they are wrong was noted by Jared Diamond a decade ago: There are many biological facts that we ignore when we classify people, and those make just as much sense as the ones like skin color or eye shape, that are the basis of our notion of race.

A case in point I often like to cite: Left-handed people. They're as biologically real a group as you could hope to find, as they have a clear, unconcealable, consequential, immutable difference from other human beings. As genes contribute to handedness, lefties almost certainly have more genes in common with each other than Jews with other Jews, or gay people with other gay people. Yet there are no charts showing that our sinistral brethren are a separate human kind; no Lefty Pride marches or set-asides in Legislatures for representatives of the Other Handed People.

Why not? Because something, apart from logic and fact-collecting, tells you that this biological difference isn't the basis for a ``real'' human kind. That something, I think, is the distinct set of rules we have for deciding what's a real tribe and what is not.

What brings this to mind is this rather eccentric but interesting article. Pravda reports that the ranks of the left-handed are increasing. And that, because lefties are smarter and more creative than the rest of us, this will be good for civilization. Perhaps it's time to start designing the flag . . .