The "white male" effect

I had not heard of it before reading about it at Althouse this afternoon but I can't say I'm surprised to learn that such a thing has been "discovered". "Invented" is a better word.

Here is how Wikipedia describes it:

Risk-perception researchers have documented that white males are less concerned with a wide variety of risks than are minorities and females, a phenomenon known as the "white male effect" in the risk-perception literature.

 I don't want to all John-Wayne on all you pilgrims, but guys who are "less concerned with a wide variety of risks" sounds to me like just the sort of guys you want to have around in a crisis.

That this is just, as Althouse notes, political bias masquerading as science comes out in the last sentences of the Wikipedia write up:

White males in general appear to be less concerned about risks only because a discrete group of white males who subscribe to hierarchical and individualistic values are extremely skeptical that activities important to their cultural roles (commerce, gun ownership) impose harm on society generally. This finding does not imply, however, that white males or white hierarchical and individualistic males are uniquely prone to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their social values and roles.

"Commerce" is a risk factor? As my father would say, "Don't eat that Melvin, it's horseshit."

Yeah, white males "are not uniquely prone to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their social values and roles", they are just uniquely prone to believe things that left sociologists don't want them to believe.