There is a big difference in perspective between scientists and liberals, on the one hand, and right-wingers or right-centrists on the other hand. When the left finds fault with the right on this topic, the left makes insults like "victim-blaming" or "racism."
To explain my point without focusing on a single prejudice I'll use two examples: Whites in West Virginia, and Blacks almost everywhere.
Many liberals regard some West Viginians as "white trash" -- under-educated, bigoted, embittered and drug-using. Google will show you that West Virginians performs much worse than average by many metrics. One example: W.V. has a higher rate of drug-overdose deaths than any other state. Some in the "white trash" culture make a good life for themselves, but many fester in poverty, seemingly unable to "claw their way to the middle class."
It's easy to criticize some of these "red-necks." Instead of focusing on self-improvement and fighting drug addiction, they blame their troubles on blacks, immigrants and liberals -- despite that all three of these groups are rare in West Virginia. When I write "white trash" or "red-neck" I am NOT trying to insult. Just the opposite: I will show why such stereotypical insults are wrong.
What causes W.V.'s failure? Are West Virginians genetically inferior to others? NO! Modern man evolved very recently so different groups will have very similar genes. The lowered success of these whites has to be blamed on culture. (Start another thread to explore exactly WHY their culture has failed these West Virginians.) If we found 10 or 15 families in West Virginia unable to escape from unemployment and drug addiction, we might blame those families. But when we find 20,000 families victimized in the same way we must ask "What is wrong with their culture?"
It just does NOT make sense to blame these victims. If they had some genetic defect that led to their poor results, we'd expect the same failure rate in other states. If some groups of poor immigrants have a much higher success ratio that West Virginians,
Do Not Blame the Victims! Try to understand the cultural differences if you seek improvement.
Instead of West Virginia Whites, we could discuss Baltimore Blacks with very similar conclusions. Asking a black teenager in a badly governed city and surrounded by poverty, apathy, violence and drug addiction to succeed as well as the children of an educated two-parent family (immigrant or not) is wrong-headed, and quickly turns into racism and/or victim-blaming.
I won't Google for the numbers but a large number of American soldiers returned from foolish wars with debilitating psychological problems; Republican budget-cuts exacerbate the victims' problems. To write "But millions of Americans (including even some who served in Iraq) have succeeded. Why can't those soldiers overcome their PTSD? I overcame my leg injury" is, again, victim-blaming.
And so on.
I've seen enough immigrants claw their way to the middle class despite starting with nothing and a language barrier besides.
"West Virginia white trash and Baltimore gangsters did NOT claw their way to the middle class." Whatever.
But victim blaming is not the solution.
