Here's an interesting and mildly terrifying site I found on some of the dehumanising effects of the whole 'genetic destiny' idea:
http://www.sntp.net/eugenics/genetics_1.htm .
Highlights include:
"With fear of crime replacing communism as America's number one threat, academics who believe that genes dictate destiny have commanded the kind of government attention and support once reserved for rocket scientists. Their views on saving America from the hereditarily defective are increasingly influencing federal research priorities and public policy."
"In 1992, for example, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council issued a 400 page report titled "Understanding and Preventing Violence." Funded in part by the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Justice Department, and the National Science Foundation, the report called for more attention to "biological and genetic factors in violent crime." In particular it called for more research on "new pharmaceuticals that reduce violent behavior"."
"Jensen attacked Head Start programs, claiming the problem with black children is that they have an average IQ of only 85 and that no amount of social engineering would improve their performance. Jensen urged "eugenic foresight" as the only solution."
"Blacks are at one extreme, Rushton claims, because they produce large numbers of offspring but offer them little care [...] Despite Rushton’s controversial race theories, he has been embraced by the scientific mainstream, having been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American, British, and Canadian Psychological Associations."
""Blacks... are reproducing more rapidly than whites. I have seen it estimated that 25% of the population will be black and less than 50% white by the middle of the next century. This contingency was not foreseen by the founding fathers, and it is an open question whether liberal democracy can be sustained by a population whose mean intelligence and self-restraint fall sufficiently below Caucasoid norms." Dr. Levin’s solution is to slow black population growth by ending public assistance."
"Time, U.S. News and World Report, and the New York Times, among other publications, and various TV programs have reported Bouchard’s conclusions that shyness, political conservatism, dedication to hard work, orderliness, intimacy, extroversion, conformity, and a host of other social traits are largely heritable. the scientific data and methods of analysis upon which his conclusions are based have to date never been released for objective scrutiny.
Nevertheless, the prestigious journal Science invited Bouchard to contribute a key article in its June 17, 1994 edition, which included an editorial reporting that a "new consensus" had been reached among behavioral scientists in the nature vs. nurture debate: genes dominate."
And some more on the 'Violence Initiative' from the second quote. I believe it's been shut down since, but it's still interesting to read:
http://www.plp.org/pamphlets/violinit.html . Key line:
""[...] to try to find out who might be more likely to go on to becoming labeled eventually as delinquent or criminal...identifying at-risk kids at a very early age before they have become criminalized." These children (some 100,000 or more of them) and their families would then be subjected to psychiatric intervention -- mainly drug therapies."
And finally,
"What is especially dangerous about Rushton is his influence on mainstream public policy. His racist research to portray Blacks as genetically inferior in mental capacity has been used as a weapon to justify denying employment and equal education and economic status against Blacks." -
http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=130&Itemid=29 So, yeah, just in case anyone was thinking that believing in genetic destiny doesn't automatically make you an evil fuck...
EDIT: Also, in case anyone thought all that stuff about 'genes dominate' proved that it was a valid argument:
“…although Rushton's writings and public speeches instill the vision of Blacks as small-brained, oversexed criminals who multiply at a fast rate and are afflicted with mental disease, his views are neither based on a bona fide scientific review of literature nor on contemporary scientific methodology. His dogma of bioevolutionary inferiority of Negroids is not supported by empirical evidence.” -
http://foreigndispatches.typepad.com/dispatches/2004/09/portrait_of_a_r.html "Some of Rushton's references to scientific literature with respects to racial differences in sexual characteristics turned out to be references to a nonscientific semipornographic book and to an article in the Penthouse Forum." - Zack Cernovsky, journal of black studies
"Steven Cronshaw and colleagues wrote in a paper for the International Journal of Selection and Assessment in 2006 that psychologists should critically examine the science employed in Rushton's race-realist research. Through a re-analysis of the validity criteria for test bias using data reported in the Rushton et al. paper they assert that the testing methods were in fact biased against Black Africans. They disagree with other aspects of Rushton's methodology such as the use of non-equivalent groups in test samples."
"Rushton is the most dubious of Bakalár’s sources; he has been criticized repeatedly for misrepresenting data and selectively citing and misinterpreting sources. This is significant in terms of Bakalár’s book, which relies heavily on Rushton’s ideas and research, most notably his study, "The IQ of Gypsies in Central Europe." Interestingly, neither Rushton nor Bakalár carried out any primary research or fieldwork, but based their scientific claims on the papers of other researchers." -
http://www.geocities.com/sailerfraud/articles/rushton.html"It is in a way personal and political propaganda. There is no basis to his scientific research." - the excellently named Hermann Helmuth
"Because Rushton was consistently rejected by the scientific community for his faulty empirical data and unscientific research methods, his sole source to fund his racist research program was the fascist group, the Pioneer Fund."
“Rushton's research has been widely criticized, however, and other studies have contradicted many of his claims.” -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-selection "Rushton's theory is based on an attempt to extend the r/K selection theory to humans. He explains the patterns in the table by arguing that while all humans display extremely K-selected behavior, the races vary in the degree to which they exhibit that behavior. He argues that Negroids use a strategy more toward an r-selected strategy (produce more offspring, but provide less care for them) while Mongoloids use the K strategy most (produce fewer offspring but provide more care for them), with Caucasoids exhibiting intermediate tendencies in this area. He argues that Caucasoids evolved more toward a K-selected breeding strategy than Negroids because of the harsher and colder weather encountered in Europe, while the same held true to a greater extent for Mongoloids.
Rushton's work is prominent in race and intelligence research, but his r/K selection theory is the subject of much more criticism and accusations than found even in this controversial field. For example, in a 1996 review of the book, anthropologist C. Loring Brace wrote that "Race, Evolution, and Behavior is an amalgamation of bad biology and inexcusable anthropology. It is not science but advocacy, and advocacy of 'racialism'" (Brace 1996). Brace argues that Rushton assumes the existence of three biological races with no evidence except Rushton's speculation as to what an extraterrestrial visitor to Earth would think." -
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/J_Philippe_Rushton_-_Works/id/1519481"Rushton sources, such as semi-pornographic books and the Penthouse magazine, have been dismissed by other researchers, or have been criticized as extremely biased and inadequate reviews of the literature, or simply false [5]. There have also been many other criticisms of the theory [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Actual recent data show that blacks are not more psychopathic [13], nor do they differ in from whites when testing for the big five personality traits [14], differences in sex hormones between whites and East Asians are best explained by environmental differences [15], and the fundamental prediction of the theory that blacks have a higher frequency of twins is incorrect [16]." -
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/J_Philippe_Rushton_-_Works/id/1519481Possibly overkill, but I just can't get enough of Rushton and his wacky psychopathic 'science'...
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