Berlin — GERMANY is not lacking in right-wing sentiment these days, but most people are careful about how they deploy their anti-immigrant rhetoric. And then there’s Björn Höcke.
Last month Mr. Höcke, a leading figure of the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, gave an openly racist speech on the “differing reproductive strategies” of Africans and Europeans. It was not the first time he had drawn on National Socialist themes, but this time he caused uproar, even in his own party, which has asked him to resign his membership.
His comments seem like commonsense to me. Nowhere does the writer debunk them or even detail them. The New York Times does not allow comments on the article.
Or maybe Hocke was reading the Washington Post, which published this graph:
But of course, if a white person notices it, it turns into a HateGraph. If a German white person notices it, it’s a NaziHateGraph.
Same with my graph based on the 2015 United Nations World Population Prospects:
But graphs are hateful and are only looked at by the hate-filled…
You know, if you want to have a good debate on a crucial policy that will determine the future of Germany, it’s probably a wise idea to have both sides be represented by respectable people offering informed views.
But if you don’t want to have a real debate and just want to impose your policy autocratically, then it’s ideal to restrict the side you want to lose to being represented by soccer hooligans.
Of course, that raises the worry that if all the respectable people aren’t allowed to discuss in public the fate of the nation, then the only ones who can participate in this crucial policy debate, the hooligans, might just win the debate and come to power.
Is that worth risking over migration policy? Apparently, a lot of respectable people in Germany think so.
Comments to Steve Sailer:
* Proposition nations fail. Everything else is details.
Until you can say simply, “That person doesn’t belong here because they are not a part of our tribe,” you are done for.
Definitions can be manipulated. Blood cannot.
The United States and Western Europe are done for. How long and in what way are unknown, but the final destination is not.
* So Whites living in public housing makes them a part of the fringes of society. Does that also apply to Muslims in Germany who live in public housing? Can they also be considered fringe and not part of mainstream German society?
* It’s like migration is the German establishment’s first priority.
George Will recently wrote an uncharacteristically vituperative article in National Review insisting that the first priority for the GOP has to be eliminating Trump. Otherwise he’ll destroy conservatism forever. Or something.
But you know, if that was really the first priority, then maybe there would be just a little more ideological diversity on the stage of those Republican debates and just a few more mainstream GOP politicians willing to espouse a view which is closer to their voting constituency than to the Democratic party platform.
That probably would have stopped Trump, if indeed stopping Trump was the first priority. But it seems something else has an even higher priority.
That reminds me of Ace’s GOP priority list. Number 27 on the list is, “The base, aka ‘The Garbage People Who Embarrass Us So’.”
* That Sauerbrey woman is so bloody annoying, typical “good German”.
Höcke is a bit of an idiot, has a tendency for theatralic and somewhat ridiculous behaviour that may be counter-productive. But at least he’s trying to do something and he’s right about the core issues.
The situation in Germany is really bad though, the last few months have really shocked me. This country may be messed up beyond saving by its insane self-conception and total naivite about the world. It’s insane also how religious and moralistic public discourse has become. Much Islamophilia on display, especially by stupid Christians. Just yesterday I read an interview with a professor for medieval history who advocated making Eid a public holiday in Germany. Had the displeasure of hearing that guy a few years ago at a conference…back then he had invited a speaker from Cameroon who basically lambasted the audience (who all politely clapped which I refused to do) for “racism” and went on and on how horrible “fortress Europe” is.* Maybe the new Alternative Right should do Mr. Trump a favor and start a genuine self-described Fascist Party (the logo could be the reverse of the beautiful old silver Mercury Dime). Go for it: black armbands with fasces embroidered thereon, torchlight parades, even the occasional “n” word for shock value. Just stay 10 cm on the right side of the laws.
Trump will then be magically transformed into a responsible, well-dressed man of the Moderate Right, who goes out of his way to reject “hate” in all its ugly forms.
(Needless to say, there will still be no pleasing the New York Times.)
* Did he say anything actually controversial? Not that I saw quoted in the NYT column. The “differing reproductive strategies” between the contemporary populations of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa is a reasonably well established fact, widely reported throughout the media, including the NYT itself. If anyone has contradicted it, I haven’t noticed.
* Part of me says that HBD will become a lot more obvious when every country in Europe has a black underclass. On the other hand, it’s pretty obvious now, and it doesn’t seem to matter.
* This is basically District 9 played out in real life. It’s also what happens when political elites no longer feel their country’s culture and institutions are worth defending. We are so hosed.
* To my mind, this is a perfect description of how Trump has risen to prominence. Does he say some nasty stuff? Yep. Does he say some factually all-wrong stuff? Yep.
So, how has he gotten this far? Because there are real issues that:
a. Nobody close to the mainstream is addressing
b. Neither wing of the ruling class has any credibility in addressing.
c. Many voters care about.
The requirements of keeping on the good side of the media and the donor class have effectively prevented these issues from being addressed. And along comes Trump, who by virtue of being both rich and mediagenic doesn’t have to care about those constraints. And he’s frankly pretty lousy as a representative–he routinely says whatever pops into his mind, he often doesn’t seem to know basic stuff about whatever topic he’s discussing, and many of his policy proposals are really awful ideas. His history gives no reason to think he means what he’s saying right now, or that he won’t change his mind again tomorrow, or that he has anything more than his own wealth and power and fame in mind.
But at least he’s talking about some of these issues, and offending and upsetting a lot of the elites who have been running the country into a ditch for the last several decades, so he gets some pretty enthusiastic supporters. He’s conning them of course–politicians are basically con men by trade, and Trump is the slick con man from the big city up against a bunch of local used car salesmen like ¡Jeb! and Marco Rubio.
* When someone responds to an argument or discussion by shouting about how offensive or problematic it is, that’s usually a red flag that they don’t have much of an argument to offer. “How dare you raise the issue” is a good way of avoiding talking about the issue.
* The German people do think like Native Americans. The difference is that the German people have a powerful ruling class intimidating them into pretending to think something different. Intimidation is a powerful tool.
* Mr. [John F.] Kennedy was going to rein in the CIA and the military and I hear things didn’t work out so well for him or his brother.
* In the 90′s, the neocons made a sustained and fairly successful effort to get conservative journalists who worried about immigration fired from their jobs. Letter writing campaigns, imputations of anti-Semitism (because restrictionism in the 20′s impacted Jews), the whole works. That campaign was less successful in than it might have been in stifling the issue because of the emergence of the internet, but it did waste twenty years during which the Republican mainstream might have forged a better immigration policy.
* Although European blacks end up poor like American blacks, there is one huge difference in behavior. Blacks in Europe marry/cohabitate with whites while only a small percentage of blacks outmarry in the US. This makes HBD less visible and maybe after several generations barely visible.
In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity and quality of offspring. The focus upon either increased quantity of offspring at the expense of individual parental investment, r-strategists, or reduced quantity of offspring with a corresponding increased parental investment, K-strategists, varies widely, seemingly to promote success in particular environments.
The terminology of r/K-selection was coined by the ecologists Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson[1] based on their work on island biogeography,[2] although the concept of the evolution of life history strategies has a longer history.
Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective is a controversial book (first unabridged edition 1995, third unabridged edition 2000) written by J. Philippe Rushton. He served as a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and, until his death from cancer on October 2, 2012, the head of the Pioneer Fund.
Rushton argues that race is a valid biological concept and that racial differences frequently arrange in a continuum across 60 different behavioral and anatomical variables, with “Mongoloids” (East Asians) at one end of the continuum, “Negroids” (Sub-Saharan Africans) at the opposite extreme, and “Caucasoids” (Europeans, Middle Easterners and North Africans) in the middle.[1]
…The book grew out of Rushton’s 1989 paper, “Evolutionary Biology and Heritable Traits (With Reference to Oriental-White-Black Difference)”.[5] The 1st unabridged edition was published in 1995, the 2nd unabridged edition in 1997, and the 3rd unabridged edition in 2000.
Rushton argues that Mongoloids, Caucasoids, and Negroids fall consistently into the same one-two-three pattern when compared on a list of 60 different behavioral and anatomical variables, ranging from IQ and brain size, to temperament, speed of maturation, criminality (see also race and crime), social organization, reproductive effort, and various anthropometric variables. (Rushton’s 2000 book, like other population history works, e.g. Cavalli-Sforza 1994, uses the terms Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid to describe these groups broadly conceived, but these terms have since been replaced in the scientific literature—the MeSH terminology as of 2004 is Asian Continental Ancestry Group, African Continental Ancestry Group and European Continental Ancestry Group.)[6]
Rushton uses averages of hundreds of studies, modern and historical, to assert the existence of this pattern. Rushton’s book is focused on what he considers the three broadest racial groups, and does not address other populations such as South East Asians and Australian aboriginals. The book argues that Mongoloids, on average, are at one end of a continuum, that Negroids, on average, are at the opposite end of that continuum, and that Caucasoids rank in between Mongoloids and Negroids, but closer to Mongoloids. His continuum includes both external physical characteristics and personality traits.
Citing genetic research by Cavalli-Sforza, the African Eve hypothesis, and the out of Africa theory, Rushton writes that Negroids branched off first (200,000 years ago), Caucasoids second (110,000 years ago), and Mongoloids last (41,000 years ago), arguing that throughout all of evolution, more ancient forms of life (i.e. plants, bacteria, reptiles) are less evolved than more recent forms of life (i.e. mammals, primates, humans) and that the much smaller variation in the races is consistent with this trend. “One theoretical possibility,” said Rushton “is that evolution is progressive and that some populations are more advanced than others”. Rushton argues that this evolutionary history correlates with, and is responsible for, a consistent global racial pattern which explains many variables such as worldwide crime statistics or the global distribution of AIDS.
Psychologist Linda S. Gottfredson wrote in 2012:
ABSTRACT: I review Rushton’s research on the evolutionary divergence of the three major human lineages. His life history theory predicts, and his multiple analyses document, a consistent three-way patterning of mean differences among blacks, whites, and East Asians on coevolved sets of morphological, physiological, developmental, psychological, and behavioral traits. I then analyze a typical example of how critics evaluate his work, including the rate at which they cast his scientific hypotheses, methods and conclusions in politically charged language. The set of articles in question, although authored by well-known academics and appearing in a major, peer-reviewed journal, illustrate how mob science works to ‘‘discredit’’ valid research and enforce collective ignorance about entire bodies of evidence. Rushton is a scholar and gentleman but it appears that his critics often act like neither.
1. Introduction
Philippe (Phil) Rushton has contributed important works to
evolutionary psychology, intelligence, and personality psychology.
I focus here on his work receiving the most attention. That is his
life history theory of how the major races, or geographic lineages,
evolved in somewhat different directions as humans spread out of
Africa about 50–100 kya (Rushton, 1995). He has documented a
large suite of morphological, physiological, developmental, psychological, and behavioral differences among these groups, whose
most recent common ancestors are from Africa, Europe and East
Asia. These various traits cohere evolutionarily and are consistent
with his life history explanation of the wide array of mean group
differences that persist over generations.
I first assess Rushton’s research contributions. Then I analyze a
typical example of the scornful commentary on the man and his
work—a target article and eight comments published together in
a major, peer-reviewed journal. I look especially at the nature of
evidence and argument used by Rushton and the authors asked
to evaluate his work.
2. Rushton’s approach to human biodiversity
Rushton is proudly of the London School of thought in psychology.
It rejects the separation of mind from body and of culture from
its genetic substrate, preferring instead to probe their connections.
It was an outpost of biological realism during the long reign of
behaviorism, whose founder James B. Watson famously assured
us we could form children into anything we wished, not unlike
the Soviets’ New Man.
Phil Rushton began his career by addressing one of evolutionary
psychology’s biggest challenges at the time. Altruism seems to require reproductive self-sacrifice, so how could it possibly have
evolved? This work garnered him praise and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Humans are not promiscuous altruists, of course, but favor
persons genetically similar to themselves. This led him to
ponder the dissimilarities that have intrigued writers and travelers
throughout human history: Why do the different tribes of man
look and live so differently?
During the 1980s Rushton began systematically testing a
theory-based life-history explanation. As I describe later, the life history perspective allowed him to predict a particular pattern of
evolved differences among genetic lineages. These predictions are
not obvious because they link seemingly unconnected attributes
across different realms of human existence, from sexual behavior
to social organization. The great sweep yet high specificity of his
theory with regard to racial differences would seem to make it easy
to disprove if false. To test it, Rushton collected a broad spectrum
of primary and secondary data, comprising three categories.
2.1. Evolutionary life history
Life history is a population-level concept. It refers to the coordinated suite of traits and behaviors that characterizes a particular species or subspecies (its shared ‘‘life’’), which evolved in response to the recurring adaptive challenges its members faced (its evolutionary ‘‘history’’). The life-history concept highlights an important empirical phenomenon. A species’ distinctive traits—such as humans’ large brain, slow maturation, and pair bonding—do not evolve independently, one by one, but as a constellation of co-evolving traits. In fact, the nexus of traits typifying a species had to have evolved in a coordinated manner in order for the organism to maintain or enhance its evolutionary fitness. For instance, a bigger brain relative to body size consumes more of an organism’s fixed energy budget, so humans (those who survived) evolved a smaller gut to afford their metabolically expensive brains, which in turn required a less toxic and more easily digested diet, which the innovation of cooking provides. The physical and logistic constraints of bearing and nurturing big-brained babies likewise generated correlated selection pressures on social behaviors, including male and female mating strategies, pair bonding, parenting, and provisioning.
Rushton relies on the r–K version of life history theory that evolutionary biologists have used to distinguish species throughout
the animal kingdom. The r–K version arrays organisms along a continuum of reproductive strategies, from highly r-selected species
(many offspring, little parenting) to highly K-selected species
(few offspring, much parenting). The assumption is that, given its
evolutionary importance, reproductive strategy is likely the axis
around which other species-typical traits become organized. The
two strategies, r and K, are alternative means to the same end:
reproductive fitness, which is to produce more genetic descendants
than the Joneses.
Biologists have used r–K theory to compare members of the
same species, but Rushton was the first to apply it so systematically to humans. His aim has been to determine whether, and
how well, it can explain the many systematic differences observed
today among major branches of the human family. He focuses on
three. While their labels have changed over time, their origins have
not: lineages tracing their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africa (Negroids
or blacks), East Asia (Orientals or East Asians), and the lands in between (Caucasians or whites).
Rushton gathered already-published population data on several
dozen traits from institutional sources such as the US military (e.g., head size) and Interpol (international crime rates). His most recent update (Rushton & Jensen, 2005, Table 3; reproduced in Nyborg, this issue) compares the three geographic lineages on 26 measures:
intelligence (3 indicators), brain size (2), maturation rate
(7), personality (5), reproduction (6), and social organization (3).
The set forms a consistent pattern illustrating key insights from life history theory, in turn supporting his application of it to humans.
First, mean population differences are numerous, consistent,
and generalized across the body and behavior. Whites are intermediate to blacks and East Asians on virtually all (24) of the 26 measures, whether they be physical or behavioral, speed or size. For instance, physical maturation (skeletal, motor, dental, lifespan) and sexual maturation (age of first intercourse, first pregnancy) are accelerated in blacks relative to whites, and in whites relative to East Asians. Compared with whites, American blacks have larger bodies (reported elsewhere), larger secondary sex characteristics, higher hormone levels, and higher rates of sexual intercourse and two-egg DZ twinning (not MZ twinning)—with the reverse being true for reproductive behavior in East Asians compared with whites. A three-way pattern of mean differences is also seen in personality, with blacks being the most (and East Asians the least)
aggressive, impulsive, dominant and sociable, whereas East Asians
are the most cautious (and blacks the least) on average. It is also
seen in social organization, with East Asians having higher rates
of marital stability, law abidingness, and mental health than
whites, and whites having higher rates than blacks.
The apparent evolutionary divergence between the three lineages
is not just from ‘‘the neck down.’’ East Asians have the largest
skulls, largest brains, and most cortical neurons, whereas blacks
have the smallest skulls and brains and the fewest cortical neurons,
on average. These differences in the physical brain are mirrored by
comparable mean group differences in the speed and quality of the
brain’s information processing. East Asians have the fastest decision reaction times (measured in milliseconds) on elementary cognitive tasks, which are so simple that virtually everyone can
perform them correctly, and they also have the highest average
levels of general intelligence (g) on validated, unbiased tests of
intelligence.
The pattern of cranial vs. sub-cranial group differences illustrates
a second insight from life-history theory: evolution imposes
tradeoffs. For example, the populations with larger brains have
(had to evolve) smaller bodies; and those with slower maturing
offspring have (had to evolve) more socially and sexually constrained adults.
Note that none of the aforementioned biological traits is a social
marker of race, either singly or collectively, as would be skin color and hair type. Moreover, as Rushton and others have shown, within-race variation in all these characteristics is moderately to highly heritable, so we cannot dismiss the possibility that mean group differences in body and behavior are also somewhat genetically
rooted. In fact, these mean differences in ‘‘non-racial’’ traits appear to shift in tandem, as a coordinated set, from one human lineage to another. This implicates a consistent deep influence linked more tightly to distant genetic heritage than to current circumstance.
The great variation within racial groups is entirely consistent with
genetic divergence, because within-population variation is the
grist for evolution. Also consistent is the systematic overlap among
groups, because mean differences in genotype will emerge from
the same ancestral genotype, slowly but surely, when the groups’
adaptive demands diverge and consistently pull selection in somewhat
different directions.
Rushton’s results reflect a third insight of life history theory:
individuals do not evolve, populations do. A population’s social
organization—its culture—necessarily co-evolves with the distribution of its members’ attributes. Humans, for example, are not just an exceptionally brainy primate, but also an especially social one.
We have a special penchant for pair bonding (even if serial), living
and working in groups, forming networks and coalitions, trading,
teaching, gossiping, reading others’ minds, and befriending nonkin.
Our big-brained, slow-maturing, vulnerable and care-intensive
children would not survive without such enduring social networks
and bonds of long-term reciprocity.
Rushton’s version of life-history theory proposes that reproductive
strategies drive (cause) differences in social organization.
Although all humans are K-oriented (relatively few offspring with
much parenting), his r–K theory posits that the somewhat less Koriented human populations will tend more strongly toward social
relations guided by self-interest, relative physical strength, and a
tolerance for interpersonal conflict, with the result that, from a K
perspective, they produce cultures with less stable families, less organized institutions, more transgressions of person and property,
and therefore higher rates of mental and physical illness. In contrast, more K-oriented lineages produce societies whose members
tend to exercise more self-control, social control, and mutual coordination in the pursuit of longer-term shared goals, with the result that such groups will create somewhat better organized, more productive, personally secure and—from an r perspective—more rigid
societies that tightly constrain what their members may do.
Nonevolutionary explanations have been offered for these differences
in social organization but none, to my knowledge, can account
for—let alone has predicted—the nexus of physical, mental, and
behavioral mean differences that Rushton found—and had
predicted.
2.2. Forensic anthropology
Rushton has also tested his life-history theory by following
hominoids back down their evolutionary tree. Rushton and Rushton (2004) examined progressive changes in 76 musculo-skeletal
traits across seven hominoid populations, listed here by evolutionary age: Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee), Australopithecines, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Africans, Europeans, and East Asians (for humans: Rosenberg et al., 2005). The aim was to test the hypothesis that a cascade of skeletal changes accompanied the evolution of brain size in hominoids, ranging from humans’ most distant relative (the chimpanzee, 5 mya) to the youngest human lineage (East Asians). Standard texts on evolutionary anatomy provided data on 76 skeletal traits for the one ape and the three fossil species, and standard forensic anthropology textbooks provided data on 42 traits for the three human populations.
The skeletal data for the seven hominoid groups did, in fact, differentiate them in the same order as did their evolutionary distance from the youngest human lineage (East Asians). Of the 42
traits available for the three racial groups, 38 were measured in
absolute terms—14 cranial traits (including cranial capacity), 8
teeth and mandibular traits, 3 neck, 3 pelvic, and 12 upper and
lower limb traits. All but one (nasal bone prominence) fit the predicted pattern.
The 6 other traits, measured as body proportions, uniformly did
not (e.g., leg length as a % of height, weight of upper limbs as % of body weight). Ratios and percentages of a trait are hard to interpret because they have different measurement properties than do absolute measures of a trait, such as length, area, volume and weight.
Nor is it clear that r–K theory makes any predictions for body proportions. If we set the body proportions data aside for now, it appears that the increase in cranial capacity from 380 to 1364 cm3
across the 7 hominoid groups was accompanied by systematic and pervasive changes across the musculo-skeletal system, including
cranial traits (e.g., size and shape of the skull, jaw, teeth, eye
sockets, brows, muscle attachments) as well as post-cranial traits
(e.g., dimensions, shape and orientation of particular bones, joints, and pelvis). The most general change is that the musculo-skeletal system became less robust as brain size increased. Perhaps there is a non-evolutionary explanation for the progressive and pervasive skeletal differences among blacks, whites, and East Asians that are so well known to forensic investigators, but I am not aware of any plausible ones having been offered.
2.3. Patterns of phenotypic and genetic variation in intelligence
If the major human races diverged physically and behaviorally
during evolution, their living descendants should differ genetically, on average. Self-identified races are different branches of the human family, as confirmed in the last decade by studies of the Y chromosome, mitochondrial DNA, neutral markers on the 22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes, number of short tandem repeats on various ones, and more. But that is not the issue here. It is whether a highly particular, much documented, mean phenotypic difference among the major human races has a genetic component.
Of all human traits, variation in general intelligence (g) is the
functionally most important in modern life. The first question that
behavior genetics tackled was ‘‘how heritable are within-group differences in intelligence?’’—the answer: ‘‘very.’’ The next obvious question is ‘‘how heritable are the between-group differences in phenotypic intelligence?’’ It could easily be answered using today’s analytical methods, but no scientific discipline will touch it. Most would have to be shut down completely, however, to avoid generating relevant evidence. Traits that are so useful in daily life and so heritable across generations are going to manifest themselves in many predictable ways. Rushton has marshaled relevant such evidence on intelligence to test competing hypotheses about the longstanding mean IQ difference between American blacks and whites: 0% genetic vs. 50–80% genetic.
The latter range of percentages is Jensen’s (1998) ‘‘default
hypothesis,’’ which is that within-race variation and between-race
variation arise from the same sources, whether genetic or environmental.
Accordingly, there is no Factor X operating on all members
of one race but on no member of another. (Anything that affects
some but not all members of a group would show up as a within-group
influence.) If within-race IQ variation is 50–80% heritable,
as it is in the West, the default hypothesis predicts that between group differences will be too. This is a readily testable hypothesis, but virtually no one with the necessary data has been willing to test it or lend the data to others who are.
Rushton and Jensen (2005) tackled the question by having their
‘‘hereditarian’’ hypothesis (50–80% genetic) compete head-to-head
with the ‘‘culture-only’’ hypothesis (0% genetic) in 10 categories of evidence: the worldwide distribution of test scores, the g factor of mental ability, heritability, brain size and its relation to mental ability, transracial adoption, racial admixture, regression to the mean effects, related life-history traits, human origins research, and hypothesized environmental influences on intelligence. This set captures much of the dense nomological network of empirical
evidence on psychometric g, including its genetic structure, biological and social correlates, behavioral manifestations, joint heritability with brain structure, function, and life outcomes,
developmental course, and manipulability by various experimental
means, including adoption.
The evidence in at least 7 of the 10 categories is much replicated,
often over time, age, sex, race, class, and geography, and
therefore provides a firm basis for comparison. The 50–80% genetic
hypothesis fits this array of evidence far better than does the culture-only hypothesis (Gottfredson, 2005). Where the two make
opposite predictions, the hereditarian predictions are confirmed
and the culture-only predictions are contradicted. For instance,
achievement differences expand just when the culture-only explanation says they will contract—when resources and opportunity
are equalized (Ceci & Papierno, 2005). And, as noted earlier, group
differences follow geographic ancestry far more closely than the
groups’ current location or circumstances. They behave just like
evolved, genetically-influenced traits are expected to behave—with
great consistency regardless of species-typical variations in nongenetic milieu. The greater explanatory success of the 50–80% genetic hypothesis does not prove it true, but that is better approximates the truth than does its never-plausible 0%-genetic
competitor.
3. The critics’ approach to Rushton and race
In 1989 Rushton summarized his evidence for a black-white East
Asian gradient in life-history traits at the AAAS meeting in
San Francisco. There followed a convulsion of excoriation by the
scientific establishment, his home institution (University of Western Ontario), and the Canadian government (Rushton, 1998). All
launched investigations into his work. He was shunned and isolated
by fellow academics, as if having a professionally deadly contagious
disease. When he presented his corpus of published evidence in book form—Race Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (1995)—it was greeted as ‘‘inflammatory,’’ ‘‘indecent,’’ ‘‘pseudoscientific,’’ ‘‘racist trash,’’ and in scatological terms too (Gottfredson, 1996).
3.1. High talk and low blows
In a collective exercise in confirmation bias, Rushton’s critics
spied damning evidence of scientific and moral perfidy wherever
they looked. They saw nothing exculpatory, or even ordinary, in
his conduct. So, where evolutionary psychology had always
concentrated on sexual selection and therefore on mating strategies, sexual behavior, and physical attractiveness to the opposite
sex, critics insinuated that Rushton’s interest was prurient.
Although behavioral geneticists were busy estimating the heritability of intelligence differences within races, Rushton’s interest in possible between-race genetic differences betrayed, to them, an archaic racial elitism. And while none denied that the human species’ remarkably large brain is largely responsible for its
remarkably high intelligence, they said Rushton was resurrecting
long-discredited 19th century thinking when he asserted (correctly)
that brain size and intelligence are correlated in modern
humans.
Rushton answered all published critiques while carefully adhering
to the scientific coda his critics often flagrantly violated—logic,
weight of evidence, and no aspersions on character. Rushton’s dispassionate scientific manner on socially sensitive questions only
confirmed for them that he was a heartless ideologue misusing science for pernicious ends. I illustrate this phenomenon of high talk and low blows, as sociologist Robert A. Gordon calls it, with a concrete example. It is a target article (Lieberman, 2001) and associated comments published in Current Anthropology. The
Anthropological Review’s 2007 obituary for Lieberman lauded him
for having ‘‘often challenged racists and racialist views.’’ It pointed specifically to his 2001 article because it ‘‘dissected and ridiculed [Rushton’s] views of supposed racial differences in intelligence.’’
3.2. Argument from authority, political opinion, and impossible
standard of proof
Lieberman opens with a question that itself damns Rushton. A
century of anthropological work has invalidated Rushton’s claims,
so how can he claim to find in it a ‘‘racial hierarchy’’ for intelligence and brain size? The question is thus not whether Rushton is wrong, but why and how he persists in being so wrong. The article’s first section (‘‘Changing Hierarchical Worldviews’’) justifies the premise, and the second (‘‘Abusing Anthropological Research’’) explains the ‘‘paradox’’ of how Rushton and other ‘‘scientific racists’’ could claim to be doing science when they draw evidence from the very fields that disavow racism and the concept of race (p. 74).
To justify his premise, Lieberman describes 19th century research
on cranial size and its social context which, he says, was
the need by Caucasians to justify their domination and exploitation
of other races. He discredits that research and Rushton’s own primarily by appealing to authority in 20th century anthropology:
Franz Boas’s theorizing (no link between culture and genes), offi-
cial statements on race from the UN and the American Anthropological
Association (no biological races, no meaningful innate
racial differences), Gould’s critiques of research on intelligence,
brain size, and heritability (none is valid), and anthropology’s ‘‘disavowal’’ of ‘‘hierarchical’’ and ‘‘racist’’ thinking. Lieberman also draws from stock concerns, long-since resolved, about possible
methodological flaws in twin research, brain research, behavior
genetics, and mental testing. He says nothing about the explosion
of research in the 1990s using the Y chromosome and mtDNA to
trace the evolution of human lineages as they migrated across
the globe. He says nothing about Rushton’s many other 3-way results
on ‘‘reproductive behavior, sex hormones, twinning rate,
speed of physical maturation, personality, family stability, lawabidingness, and social organization’’ (p. 74), except to summarily dismiss them as a faulty ‘‘blizzard of data’’ (p. 78).
Zeroing in on Rushton’s IQ, race, and brain size analyses,
Lieberman details his own list of 6 major ‘‘errors.’’ Briefly, Rushton ‘‘uses ‘race’ despite decades of findings that invalidate it,’’ his conclusions about racial differences in cranial capacity are ‘‘contradicted by evolutionary anthropology,’’ he did not account for environmental factors that surely influence cranial capacity and intelligence, his measurements tell us nothing because they are confounded or the differences they reveal are trivial in size, he cannot claim to ‘‘explain’’ a vast array of human behaviors because some of his measures and concepts may be faulty, and his ‘‘principle of aggregation’’ (e.g., grouping diverse populations into ‘‘races,’’ averaging results from different studies) is invalid. ‘‘Aggregation’’ is Lieberman’s single most frequent complaint of the 6 (38 times in 14 pages), even though it is a well-known principle that averaging non-comparable samples would work against Rushton’s finding consistent patterns.
The first two ‘‘errors’’ are, again, appeals to authority. The next
two disallow drawing conclusions until an infinite regress of alternatives has been considered, and the last two demand uniformly perfect data and measurement before concluding anything from a
body of evidence. All insulate his factual premise (no evolved differences) from disconfirmation by creating five thou-shall-nots
that selectively handicap researchers who might disagree. Scientists
shall not refer to race except as a social construct; not group
people or results by race unless to illustrate environmental effects; not hypothesize evolutionary differences that contradict reigning ‘‘antiracist’’ opinion in anthropology; not infer any genetic differences before ruling out all non-genetic influences; and not draw non-reigning conclusions about patterns of racial differences in a large body of data if any particular datum might be faulty.
Lieberman moves Rushton’s work into the political realm by always
labeling his hypotheses and results with political terms. It is
‘‘hierarchical’’ (because it measures ordinal differences on a trait), ‘‘racist’’ (it finds mean racial differences in traits), and a ‘‘justification’’ for ‘‘inequities’’ (it predicts social inequality when those traits matter). Table 1 illustrates this practice by categorizing his terms of derogation. (Data for detailed categories are available from the author.) He uses an average of 21 derogations per page, split evenly between connoting extreme right-wing politics and unacceptable science. Forty percent (8.4 per page) allege error in politically neutral terms (‘‘lacks evidence’’), but almost as many render his hypotheses and results politically noxious by relabeling them hierarchical and racist (4.9 and 2.8 times per page).
The lone dissenting commentary, by Henry Harpending, objects
to Lieberman repeatedly attributing notions of ‘‘inferiority’’ and
‘‘superiority’’ to Rushton (56 times, not shown), but Lieberman insists that Rushton’s work implies them. He further connotes immoral politics by describing Rushton’s research as ‘‘notorious,’’
‘‘destructive,’’ and ‘‘socially harmful’’ and situating it within a history of political evils (slavery, genocide, torture, exploitation) and social harm (misery, poverty, inequality).
3.3. Mob science
Rushton was invited to submit a comment, as was one anthropologist
‘‘well-known [for his] support of racial differences’’ (p. 90).
The other 6 individuals were already on record as hostile to such
ideas. They are less restrained than Lieberman, their negative
descriptors being more numerous (29 vs. 21 per page) and more
extreme (‘‘odious,’’ ‘‘quackery,’’ ‘‘same old lies’’). They less often use politically neutral terms to allege scientific incompetence, but are over twice as likely as Lieberman (per page) to associate Rushton with racist thinking, evil politics, pseudoscience, social harm, and imminent danger. Their commentaries vary in emphasis and personal abuse, as such commentaries usually do: Loring Brace (‘‘inexcusable anthropology’’), Fatimah Jackson (‘‘diseased,’’ ‘‘twisted,’’ ‘‘same old misrepresentations’’), Jonathan Marks (‘‘modern creationism,’’ ‘‘quackery’’), John Relethford (‘‘resurgence of racial classification’’), Audrey Smedley (‘‘so-called science’’), Verena Stolke (‘‘continuity of racist thought,’’ ‘‘persisting exclusions’’), and Fredric Weizmann (‘‘strong claims,’’ ‘‘relationships of minimal importance’’).
Taken as a whole, the symposium illustrates what happens when high talk and low blows is practiced collectively: unrestrained mob action to destroy a purportedly vile member of the group, invite a single defender to speak from the sidelines, and allow the target to say a few words which the crowd will ignore or ridicule.
3.4. Resolute ignorance
The first rule in science is to consider the totality of evidence;
the second is to make alternative hypotheses compete in explaining
it. Rushton has done both, but Lieberman and commentators do
neither. Table 2 helps illustrate how a hostile crowd can circumvent
these rules yet still appear scientific in order to maintain ‘‘resolute ignorance’’ about some stubborn, unwelcome fact, as the late sociologist William Beer dubbed it—in this case mean racial differences in general intelligence.
The table lists the seven common rebuttals, ranging from ‘‘intelligence doesn’t exist’’ to ‘‘racial differences are unthinkable.’’ Most critics accept some of the foundational findings (second column) but seldom the same ones, meaning their ‘‘yes-buts’’ often clash. One may ‘‘discredit’’ the notion of racial gaps in intelligence by first accepting some of the evidence (‘‘Yes, intelligence exists’’) but then rejecting the next link in the chain of evidence (‘‘but it can’t be measured fairly’’). Another may concede that ‘‘Yes, it can be measured,’’ but reject a different link in the evidentiary chain (‘‘but it isn’t important in real life’’), yet both stand arm-in-arm to denounce the evidence. All that matters in mob science is that critics howl together at the target.
Lieberman and fellow critics likewise jab haphazardly at different
nodes in Rushton’s network of evidence. All dismiss his
hypothesis of evolved racial differences in intelligence on the
grounds that races don’t exist. But the evidence does not melt away
for being relabeled, ignored, or characterized in nasty terms. Therefore, in ‘‘yes-but’’ fashion, some of the 7 add that intelligence doesn’t exist either; others that it exists but isn’t important, or isn’t as heritable as it seems; yet others contend that the race-IQ gap is trivial, or will be washed away by the Flynn Effect, or that Gould discredited the whole business of measuring intelligence and brain size. They reunite again in suggesting that no credible scientist could possibly agree with Rushton. Yet it is Gould’s work on cranial capacity, not Rushton’s, that we now learn was fudged and falsified (Lewis et al., 2011)—just as Rushton said it was.
