UNWANTED BIRTHS AND DYSGENIC REPRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES

Unwanted Births And Dysgenic Reproduction In The United States

by Marian Van Court

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Spring 1983

Most people are surprised to discover the prevalence of unwanted births in this country and the extent to which they are inversely related to intelligence and educational level. Approximately one-fifth of the births between 1960-1965 in a U.S. sample were said by the parents to have resulted from unplanned, unwanted pregnancies; two-fifths of the remainder were also accidental, but claimed to have been intended for some future time (Bumpass and Westoff, 1970). These figures tend to underestimate the total percentage of unwanted births because there is "considerable rationalization" in parents' reporting, and because illegitimate births are not counted.

In this same study, the incidence of unwanted births war negatively related to both educational level and income. The proportion was twice as high among wives with less than a high school education compared to that of wives with at least some college (26% vs. 13%). The proportion was twice as high for families with incomes under $3000 than for families with incomes over $10,000. For every category of education and income, the percentage was higher for blacks than for whites. For blacks as a whole, more than one-third of the births to married couples were unwanted (Bumpass and Westoff, 1970).

During the 1970's, there was a dramatic increase in usage of the most effective birth control methods-"the pill'', the IUD and sterilization (Westoff & Ryder, 1977). In 1976, unwanted marital fertility had declined to 12% (USDHEW, 1980). But the rate of illegitimate births (most of which could be presumed to be unwanted) had more than tripled since the early '60's. By 1979, 9% of white births and 49% of black and "other" births were out-ofwedlock (Bureau of the Census, 1979). Significant differences by education and income remained.

Part of the problem is that those of low educational level are less likely to use contraception. Yet even among a sample of women using the same highly-effective methods, those with lower IQs were found to have much higher failure rates. Percentages having unwanted births during a three-year interval were 3%, 8% and 11% for high, medium and low IQ women, respectively. For those not using one of these methods, the percentages were 15%, 23 and 31% (Udry, 1978). After an unwanted pregnancy has occurred, higher IQ couples are more likely to obtain abortions (Cohen, 1978). Unmarried teenage girls who become pregnant are more likely to carry and deliver a baby than to have an abortion if they are doing poorly in school (Olson, 1980). Thus each factor--from initially employing some form of contraception, to successful implementation of the method, to termination of an accidental pregnancy when it occurs--involves selection against intelligence.

A pathbreaking study by Vining (1982) has reported a negative correlation between fertility and intelligence for a large, representative sample in the U.S. aged 24-35 as of the late 1970's. My own research (Van Court, manuscript in preparation) has replicated Vining's results on a broader age range. Unwanted births undoubtedly make a contribution to this dysgenic trend, although no study (to my knowledge) has yet precisely quantified their impact.

Fertility studies usually include information about socio-economic status and educational level, which can be used as proxies for IQ, but are not ideal measures. As mentioned above, there are problems with reluctance of parents to admit to contraceptive failures, which introduce unreliability into calculations of unwanted births. Perhaps the main impediment has been the environmentalist milieu of the past several decades which has relegated vital research questions such as these to a not-entirely-benign neglect.

Despite the unfortunate lack of exact figures on the effect of unwanted births on the dysgenic trend in the U.S., inferences can be drawn from various data which indicate the impact is substantial. Several studies which reported the usual negative correlation between number of children and educational level and income found zero correlation, or even a tiny positive correlation, when only planned families were analyzed (Kiser and Whelpton, 1953; Freedman and Slesinger, 1961).

As an aside, it should be mentioned that while a great deal of attention has been paid to "excess fertility'' and its implications for the problem of overpopulation, very little attention has been paid to the opposite problem of "deficit fertility". It was first analyzed by Weller and Chi (1973), and again on a larger sample by Weller (1974), who found that 18% of American women said they desire more children than they expect to have. Highly educated women were more likely to fall into the "deficit fertility" category. The reasons for this definitely warrant closer examination. Weller also found the usual negative relationship between the wives education and unwanted births.

Prevention of unwanted births could well be considered a worthwhile humanitarian goal in itself, aside from its important eugenic consequences. A great deal of individual human misery could be alleviated for parents and for children if only planned births occurred. Unwanted children are reported to be more often subjected to neglect and physical abuse, and to suffer more frequently from emotional problems (Lebensohn, 1973). Prevention of unwanted births would yield collective economic benefits as well--the number one cause of dependence upon Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC, the largest category of welfare) is accidental, unwanted births (Bogue, 1975; "Unplanned Pregnancy...", 1981).

For many people, a major reluctance to confronting the crucial question of the current direction of human evolution stems from an uncomfortable suspicion that it might well be unfavorable, and from the allied conviction that if indeed the evidence proves we are deteriorating genetically, no morally and socially acceptable solutions exist. An almost primitive fatalism and superstition underly the assumption that as a society we are utterly powerless to alter our course, however disastrous a legacy we may be leaving future generations through our negligence, and the irrational fear that if we dare attempt to guide it (or even if we think about it too much!) we run a grave risk of being suddenly forced against our wills through some mysterious, outrageously implausible yet inexorable sequence of events culminating in genocide and World War III. I am pleased to report that this need not be the case!

The fact that some substantial portion of current dysgenic reproduction is attributable to unwanted births points squarely to a set of remedies which would be acceptable to most people, both morally and socially: 1. greater efforts in the area of sex education for adolescents, 2. increased availability of permanent birth control methods for couples who have achieved their desired family size, and 3. most important, more equal access to abortion as a safety net when other methods fail. "More equal access" necessarily means liberalization of abortion laws and government support for those who want abortions but can't afford to pay for them. It seems most improbable that the vociferous "Pro-Life" faction will ever succeed in totally banning all abortions against the desires of the majority of Americans. Therefore, abortions must be equally obtained by all segments of society unless they are to act as a selective agent. At present, abortions are more readily obtained by those with money, education, intelligence and initiative. Thus the effect is to decrease our genetic potential for these and associated positive traits. Ideally abortions would act automatically as a selective agent in a eugenic rather than a dysgenic way. Since women of low IQ fail more often with birth control and thus have more unwanted pregnancies, if all women with unwanted pregnancies had abortion
s, this would neutralize the dysgenic effect of birth control failure. Few political conservatives (or liberals, for that matter) are actively searching for more government programs on which to spend taxpayers' dollars. But the alternative in this case--even viewed solely from a short-term standpoint--is even worse. It is obviously far more expensive for a woman on welfare to deliver a baby than to have an abortion, not to mention the costs of supporting the child for 18 years.

In Japan, where eugenic considerations are written into law, abortions are easily obtained and are very inexpensive (Muramatsu, 1967). As a consequence, obtaining one does not present an insurmountable obstacle to the unintelligent, the uneducated, the extremely passive or the indigent. If this became the situation in the United States, if the slogan "Every child a planned child" became a reality, it could go a long way towards eliminating the unhealthy negative relationship between intelligence and fertility which now exists.

REFERENCES
Bogue, D.J., 1975, Longterm solution to AFDC problem- prevention of unwanted pregnancy, Social Science Review 49(4): 539-552

Bumpass, L.L. and Charles Westoff, 1970, The perfect contraceptive population, Science 169(3951): 1177-1182

Bureau of the Census, 1979, Statistical Abstracts of the U.S., p. 61-66

Cohen, Joel, 1971, Legal abortions, socioeconomic status and measured intelligence in the United States, Social Biology 18(1) : 55-63

Freedman, R. and D. Slesinger, 1961, Fertility differentials for indiginous non-farm population of the U.S., Population Studies 15(1): 161-173

Kiser, Clyde V. and P.K. Whelpton, 1953, Resume'of the Indianapolis study of social and psychological factors affecting fertility, Population Studies 15: 95-110

Muramatsu, Minoru (ed.), 1967, Japan's Experience in Family Planning--Past and Present, Family Federation of Japan, Tokyo, Japan

Olson, Lucy, 1980, Social and psychological correlates of pregnancy resolution among adolescent women: a review, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 50(3): 432-445

USDHEW, Jan.1980, Wanted and unwanted births reported by mothers 15-44 years of age: united States, 1976, Advancedata no 56, 2-10

Udry, J.Richard, 1978, Differential fertility by intelligence: the role of birth planning, Social Biology 25: 10-14

Unplanned pregnancy in main cause of welfare reliance survey finds, 1981, Family Planning Perspectives l](4):189

Vining, Daniel R., 1982, On the possibility of the reemergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials, Intelligence 6: 241-264

Weller, Robert H. and P.S.K. Chi, 1973, Excess and deficit fertility, International Review of Modern Sociology 3: 49-64

Weller, Robert H., 1974, Excess and deficit fertility in the United States, Social Biology 21 (l): 77-87

Westoff. Charles and Norman B. Ryder, 1977, The Contraceptive Revolution, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

Eugenics and the Third Reich

Eugenics and the Third Reich

By Stephen B. Saetz, Marian Van Court, and Mark W. Henshaw

Original version published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Winter 1985

Paul Popenoe, one of the four most active figures in the early American eugenics movement, was asked in 1962 to account for the eclipse of the movement worldwide, and he replied: "The major factor in the decline of eugenics was undoubtedly Hitlerism" (letter of February 20, 1962 to Donald K. Pickens, in Pickens 1968: 99).

Ask almost anyone who has heard of eugenics which word comes to mind when "eugenics" is mentioned, and the answer will be "Nazis." This association provides a field day for misinformation and sensationalism. The following assertion by historian Lucy Davidowicz perhaps encapsulates the entire series of conceptions surrounding this matter:

Almost as soon as the Nazis came to power, they began to apply their racial ideology and enact these racial notions into law. The first step came with the law on compulsory sterilization, enacted July 14, 1933 . . . Thereafter the German dictatorship embarked on a program to carry out a policy of racial eugenics or, if you will, racial biology. That program had two aspects: positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics was a program designed to increase the population of persons who were regarded as racially pure "Aryans" (and good Nazis as well). Negative eugenics was a program designed first to halt the procreation of persons or categories of persons who did not meet the standards of racial purity through sterilization and then eventually to kill them and to kill those who were regarded as the racial enemy - the Jews and the Gypsies ("Biomedical Ethics and the Shadow of Nazism. A Conference on the Proper Use of the Nazi Analog in Ethical Debate / April 8, 1976," p. 3).

A number of prominent contemporary eugenicists have themselves accepted some or all of these conceptions, so pervasive have the latter become. For example, Carl J. Bajema has said:

Does eugenics include brutal racist evolutionary practices such as those of Nazi Germany? The tragic history of Nazi Germany indicates that racism and man's attempts to influence his own genetic evolution are not necessarily mutually exclusive modes of behavior . . . Eugenics includes such policies as those of Nazi Germany if eugenics is defined as the social control of human genetic evolution (Bajema 1976: 5).

Many other such examples could be cited; clearly, the link with Third Reich is the greatest cross which contemporary eugenics has to bear. But is this association fully or partially justified, or is it merely a fabricated case of guilt by association? Historical data can put this question into proper prospective and show how dedicated the National Socialists really were towards eugenics.

The purported relationship between National Socialist policies and eugenics is generally supported through five lines of argument:

I. The attacks on European Jewry was carried out for eugenic reasons.
II. The National Socialist euthanasia program was motivated by eugenics.
III. The infamous Lebensborn represents a National Socialist stud farm designed to encourage the fittest mothers to breed.
IV. Himmler attempts to create a eugenic elite through SS selection and marriage criteria
V. The German negative eugenics laws were qualitatively different, and not just quantitatively different, from similar policies elsewhere in the world.

This essay will be devoted to a critical examination of these claims.

I. THE PERSECUIION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY

There are two questions to be addressed here. Firstly, did eugenics have anything to do with the motivation, advocacy, implementation, or justification of National Socialist policies towards the Jews, and secondly, if not, then what was the source?

Adolf Hitler's fundamental view of the Jews had been formed in late adolescence in Vienna, and it consisted of the following basic beliefs: that the Jews constituted an unassimilable, ethnically alien State-within-a-State wherever they resided; that they lived a parasitical existence based upon the accumulation and manipulation of money for its own sake and even more as a source of power; that they were the creators and propagators of movements inimical to the spiritual and material welfare of European peoples, e.g., Bolshevism, Marxism, finance capitalism, Free Masonry, liberalism, egalitarianism, and Freudianism; that they acted as the bearers of the corrosion of national life, functioning as nihilistic agents of the dissolution of national and ethnic feeling and tradition and of all organic bonds, in the process setting various segments of the population against each other, e.g., capital and labor, in order to "divide and conquer"; that they were inherently venal, materialistic, and totally devoid of idealism; that they played a decisive role in manifestations of social degeneracy such as prostitution, usury, pornography, modern art, financial crimes, and the narcotics trade; and that they had been engaged in a 4,000-year-old conspiracy to dominate the world pursuant to their view of themselves as the Chosen People. (cf. generally Mein Kampf). In all this, Hitler was fully in the mainstream of European racial anti-Semitism which he had absorbed in Vienna.

From the time he came to power to the end of his life, Hitler was convinced that world Jewry was to blame, first for agitation abroad for war against Germany, and then for the outbreak of war itself and its extension into a world war. He asserted that important Jewish organizations and prominent Jewish spokesmen had stated explicitly that they would not rest until the openly anti-Semitic National Socialist regime was destroyed, even if it required war to do it; and that powerful Jewish figures in politics, the press, radio, and films - particularly in the U.S., Britain, and France - were in the forefront of this agitation for war.

The policy of the German government prior to World War II had been to bring about complete social segregation, to deny Jews German citizenship, and to eliminate systematically Jewish influence in German life. Later in the prewar period - after November 1938 - punitive measures were instituted to force Jews to emigrate at a faster rate. By 1939, 400,00 of the 600,00 Jews of pre-1938 Germany had departed. From the outbreak of the war until mid-1941, various plans were devised to resettle the Jews within the German sphere of control, but these plans were abandoned for various reasons.

In his table talk for February 13, 1945, close to the end of the war, Hitler justified his opposition to the Jews in this way:

I have always been absolutely fair in my dealings with the Jews. On the eve of war, I gave them one final warning. I told them that, if they precipitated another war, they would not be spared and that I would exterminate the vermin throughout Europe, and this time once and for all. To this warning they retorted with a declaration of war and affirmed that wherever in the world there was a Jew, there, too, was an implacable enemy of National Socialist Germany. (Hitler 1961: 57).

Finally, in a retrospective attempt to justify his actions, he announced the following in his Political Testament, dictated on April 29,1945 the day before he committed suicide:

I have left no one in doubt that if the people of Europe are once more treated as mere blocks of shares in the hands of these international money and finance conspirators, then the sole responsibility for the massacre must be borne by the true culprits: Jewry. Nor have I left anyone in doubt that this time millions of European children of Aryan descent will starve to death, millions of men will die in battle, and hundreds of thousands of women and children will be burned or bombed to death in our cities without the true culprits being held to account, albeit more humanely (Hitler 1976: 346).

Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister of
Propaganda and Gauleiter (District Leader) of Berlin, echoed these same sentiments. On November 16, 1941, in a long editorial entitled "The Jews are to Blame!" in his prestigious weekly newspaper Das Reich, Goebbels wrote:

World Jewry, in starting this war, made an entirely wrong estimate of the forces at its disposal, and is now suffering the same gradual process of destruction which it had planned for us, which it would apply without hesitation were it to possess the power to do so. It is in line with their own law, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," that the ruin of the Jews is now taking place . . .

The Jews are our destruction. They provoked and brought about this war. What they mean to achieve by it is to destroy the German state and nation . . . The treatment we give them does them no wrong. They have more than deserved it . . . (Remak 1969: 155, 156, 157).

What clearly and consistently emerges is that the motivation behind the National Socialist policies towards the Jews lay in Hitler's conviction, shared by his associates, that the Jews were traitors to Germany and responsible for the origin, enlargement, and prolongation of World War II. Combine this with the fact that the Jews were responsible for a disproportionate share of the artistic and scientific output not only of Germany but of all Europe (Murray 2003: 275-293), and it becomes obvious that the Third Reich's opposition to the Jewish people had nothing to do with eugenics, nor could it justified in terms which might be even pseudo-eugenic.

II. EUTHANASIA

The German euthanasia program - which accounted for the deaths of perhaps as many as 80,000 people, largely institutionalized mental patients - has come to be confused with eugenics in the minds of many. The historian Joachim Remak, editor of The Nazi Years: A Documentary History, devoted his entire chapter on "eugenics" in the Third Reich to euthanasia. What are the facts?

In a secret order issued in September 1939, Adolf Hitler initiated a euthanasia program. The order was both simple and direct:

Reicheleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt, MD, are herewith given full responsibility to enlarge the powers of certain specified doctors so that they can grant those who are by all human standards incurably ill a merciful death, after the most critical assessment possible of their medical condition (Irving 1977: 21).

The rationale for the issuance of this order seems clear:

The ostensible occasion for this formal decision was related to war needs. About a quarter of a million hospital beds were required for Germany's mental institutions; of Germany's disproportionately large insane population (a result of centuries of lax and indiscriminate marriage laws) of some seven or eight hundred thousand people all told, about 10 percent were permanently institutionalized. Others were in and out of hospitals. They occupied bed space and the attention of skilled medical personnel which Hitler now urgently needed for the treatment of the casualties of his coming campaigns . . . . . . Hitler instructed Dr. Conti that in view of the war, a program for the painless killing of the incurably insane should be initiated; this would release badly needed hospital beds and nursing facilities for patients with a greater national priority (Irving 1977: 20-21).

The Jewish historian Gitta Sereny, who discusses it at length, characterizes the euthanasia program as having been undertaken for "starkly economic" reasons (Sereny 1983: 50).

It is sometimes contended that those at whom this order was directed composed a large segment of those considered unfit from a eugenic standpoint; in the quotation by Davidowicz cited in the introduction to this paper, she claims that euthanasia was somehow the extension of eugenic sterilization: "Negative eugenics was a program designed first to halt the procreation of persons . . . and then events to kill them [sic] . . ." Yet neither common sense nor the historical record provide any support for this notion. The interest of negative eugenics in cases of genetic defect is that they not reproduce, a purpose fully accomplished by sterilization or segregation. What eugenic purpose could possibly have been served by putting to death institutionalized patients who had no possibility of procreation whatsoever? The answer, obviously, is none. The National Socialist's rationale behind euthanasia was pragmatic, not eugenic.

III. THE LEBENSBORN

One of the most sensational accusations made against the Third Reich is that it attempted a sort of positive eugenics program by the establishment of a "stud farm" institution known as Lebensborn (Spring of Life), where selected unmarried women of Nordic phenotype were supposedly mated with SS men, and the illegitimate offspring of these unions raised by the institution. Whether such an endeavor could ever legitimately be called a type of positive eugenics or not is irrelevant, since Lebensborn was nothing of the kind. To quote John Toland, the respected author of the most comprehensive biography of Hitler in the English language:

. . . To promote (his) racial policy (Himmler) established Lebensborn (Spring of Life), an SS maternity organization whose main function was to assist racially sound unwed mothers and their children. Thousands of children in the occupied territories were kidnapped and raised in special SS installations . . . Lurid postwar accounts describe Lebensborn as "stud farms" where SS men and suitable young women were mated to breed a master race. While Himmler's program did nothing to discourage illegitimacy, there is no evidence that he sponsored illicit sexual liaisons nor is there any proof that the kidnapping of children was done on a large scale. The fact that there were only 700 employees in the Lebensborn homes casts doubts on such claims (Toland 1977: 1046n).

Eleuel (1974: 217,221) also exposes the "stud farm" myth:

Fantastic rumors surrounded the Lebensborn or "Fount of Life" association, not only during the Third Reich but even more so after its downfall. SS brothel or stud-farm, or a cross between the two--such were the sensational constructions placed upon it by each according to his particular flight of fancy. The truth . . . was far simpler and less lurid. Lebensborn was in fact a rather bourgeois institution founded in conformity with a conservative sexual code, serving to keep up an appearance of middle-class respectability and run in accordance with an almost monastic set of regulations.

. . . (M)en were strictly forbidden to visit the home except on special occasions. Male guests might then be invited to sip a cup of coffee, but any more intimate form of hospitality was taboo. The Lebensborn motto - "Every mother of good blood is our sacred trust" was puritanically followed to the letter.

IV. HIMMLER'S ATTEMPTS TO BREED A BIOLOGICAL ELITE

The National Socialist attempt to create a genetic elite from which would come the future leadership corpus of the Reich was centered upon the SS. The program was initiated by Himmler in April 1929, four years before Hitler's accession to power, when he submitted to him and to the current chief of the SA a draft of regulations according to which no one was to be allowed to enter the SS who did not meet the strictest criteria, which were almost exclusively racial and aimed at selecting for Nordic phenotypes (Hoehne 1971: 59).

Applicants for the SS had to submit photographs, and Himmler would peer at them through a magnifying glass until he was convinced that the applicants possessed "good blood" (Hoehne 1971 : 60).

Hitler held out to the World War I generation of soldiers the prospect of the formation of a racial aristocracy, an ideological elite. In the late 1930s, he ordered the RuSHA (Race and Settlement Main Office) to compose new and more stringent criteria for SS candidates. SS Captain Professor Bruno K. Schultz, a physical anthropologist, transmitted a set of criteria to the RuSHA Racial Commission, bef
ore which all prospective SS members had to appear for their final examinations (Hoehne 1971: 166).

Schultz divided his criteria into three parts: racial phenotype, physical condition, and "general bearing." He aimed his set of values to favor the Nordic type. He listed five racial groupings: "pure Nordic," "predominantly Nordic or Falic, " "harmonious cross-breed with slight Alpine, Dinaric or Mediterranean characteristics," "bastards of predominantly East Baltic or Alpine origin," and "bastards of extra-European origin." Only those in the first three categories were eligible to join the SS. Schultz also composed a list of nine categories of physical proportion as a guide for the physical examination of SS candidates (Hoehne 1971: 166). Candidates achieving ratings of 6-9 were passed; categories 4 and 5 were only passed after proving "Nordic qualities" in their behavior; while ratings 1-3 were failed (Knoebel 1965: 26). But no mention was made of intellectual or educational attainments. As Knoebel (1965: 27-29) states: "No moral and intellectual achievement was required to qualify" although alcoholics were rejected or expelled.

On December 31, 1931 Himmler issued a marriage law for SS men which stated that they could marry "solely if the necessary conditions of race and healthy stock were fulfilled" and only after approval by him or by RuSHA. The SS man and his fiancée had to fill out a RuSHA questionnaire, take a comprehensive physical examination administered by an SS doctor, provide photographs of themselves in bathing suits taken from three angles, and submit proof of Aryan ancestry back to 1800 (for officers, back to 1750). RuSHA would determine if both prospective spouses deserved to be entered into the SS clan book; in the case of SS leaders, Himmler would make the decision personally (Hoehne 1971: 168-169, 177).

Jochen van Lang (1979: 440-444) has reproduced the actual SS medical examination form as it stood in late 1939. It was designed to be employed for both male and female applicants. The examination was divided into five sections: "Permission for Disclosure," "Past History of Family," "Past Medical Treatment," "Personal History," and "General Findings of Examination." Under "Past History of Family," the only category of interest here is "precise data on chronic diseases, i.e., endocrine disturbances, allergies, alcoholism." Family members included children, parents, siblings, children of siblings, and grandparents. Under "Personal History," there was a question about "Mental development (schooling, career training, delinquency if any)," on which the candidate had only to secure a rating of "normal" (average), and two questions on "Character development" and "Noteworthy special giftedness." Section 5 was the most detailed and significant, including a whole series of anthropometric and somatotypic measurements, as well as points on "Bearing and stride," coloration of skin and eyes, coloration and texture of hair, and presence or absence of the Mongolian fold (inner epicanthic eyefold).

Himmler expected his newborn biological elite to have large families, and did virtually everything in his power in the way of propaganda and indoctrination to assure such a result. In 1936 he decreed that SS men should marry between the ages of 25 and 30 (Smith 1975: 234). In the former, and in the latter as well, he was to be bitterly disappointed. The SS birth rate differed little from that of the population of the Reich as a whole. Knoebel (1965: 68-69) states:

The ideal image of an SS family as portrayed in the SS Leithefte [SS Manuals] consisted of a rather young couple surrounded by a large number of children . . . Yet the image was a fraud and statistics for 1937, for example, belie this picture.

As of the end of 1939, instead of Himmler's heavily-emphasized average of 4 children, the 115,650 married SS men under officer rank had an average number of children per family of only 1.41. Even his broad hints that illegitimacy was fully acceptable for SS men if the women involved were of "good blood" availed practically nothing: of 12,081 children of married SS leaders between 20 and 50 years of age, only 135 were illegitimate (Hoehne 1971: 178-179). A caveat to be entered here is that these sets of figures could not, in many cases, have represented completed fertility. Of course, one must remember that the Armed SS (i.e., combat troops), which composed the vast bulk of SS membership by 1941, sustained battle losses far in excess of those of other branches of the German fighting forces, many units being virtually decimated, which obviously had serious effects on the overall SS birth rate.

What, then, can be validly stated about this entire program from the standpoint of positive eugenics? Himmler undoubtedly saw it in positive eugenic terms. Several selection criteria fit into the framework of positive eugenics: freedom from hereditary defects, "noteworthy special giftedness" (a rather indefinite phrase), and good health. In addition, as noted, alcoholics were expelled. However, if one looks at the overall aims and criteria employed, one sees that they were largely racial, as Himmler intended. It is valid, then, to conclude that his program was intended to be positive eugenics to some extent, but that the bulk of it can not be so characterized.

V. NEGATIVE EUGENICS LAWS

Adolf Hitler did intend that a large-scale negative eugenics program become an integral part of his future State. He expressed himself forthrightly on this point in Volume II of Mein Kampf, written in prison in 1924:

The ethno-nationalist State has to make up for what is today neglected in this field in all directions . . . It has to take care that only the healthy beget children; that there is only one disgrace: to be sick and to bring children into the world despite one's own deficiencies; but one highest honor: to renounce this . . . Hereby the State has to appear as the guardian of a thousand years' future, in the face of which the wish and the egoism of the individual appears as nothing and has to submit. It has to put the most modern medical means at the service of this knowledge. It has to declare unfit for propagation everybody who is visibly ill and has inherited a disease and it has to carry this out in practice . . .

He who is not physically and mentally healthy and worthy must not perpetuate his misery in the body of his child. Here the ethno-nationalist State has to achieve the most enormous work of education . . . By education it has to teach the individual that it is not a disgrace but only a regrettable misfortune to be sick and weakly, but that it is a crime and therefore at the same time a disgrace to dishonor this misfortune by one's egoism by burdening it again upon an innocent being; that in the face of this it gives proof of a nobility of the highest mind and of most admirable humaneness if the innocently sick, by renouncing his own child, gives his love and tenderness to an unknown poor young descendant of his nationality, whose health promises that one day he will become a vigorous member of a powerful community . . . (Hitler 1941: 606-610).

In 1925, eight years before Hitler came to power, a eugenic sterilization draft law was submitted, but failed to pass. Between 1927 and 1933 a small number of sterilizations were performed on a consensual basis under an amendment to the German Criminal Code of 1927 which provided for the explicit consent of the Court of Chancery if costs were borne by public authorities (Harmsen 1955: 227). In 1932 the last pre-National Socialist government was about to introduce a eugenic sterilization law to be implemented on a voluntary basis.

When Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, one of his first priorities was the introduction of a comprehensive, compulsory eugenic sterilization law. But it is well to remember that at this time the 18-member Reich Cabinet consisted of only 8 National Socialists, including Hitler as Chancellor, and 10 nationalist conservatives. Furthermore, Hitler not only had
a conservative Vice-Chancellor, Franz van Papen, but had over him the venerated President of the Reich, Field Marshall Paul van Hindenburg, who could have removed him at any time until his death in 1934. Thus, it is apparent that during this period Hitler was subject to several checks upon his power.

On July 14, 1933 the Act for Averting Descendants Afflicted with Hereditary Disease was enacted. Anthony Smith states that it "could well have been initiated without the help of the Nazis because the idea had been actively promoted for several decades" (Smith 1975: 220). The act provided for the compulsory sterilization of all those in and outside institutions who were afflicted with specific hereditary conditions. Another purpose of the law was to reduce expenditures for the care of afflicted persons, on the presumption that after sterilization, many institutionalized cases could be released. (To provide some idea of the extent of institutionalization in Germany by this point, the entire German nation increased in population by 50% from 1870 to 1936, while in the same period the number of cases with hereditary pathologies increased by 450%.) (Santoro 1938: 126)

Under the law, the application for sterilization could be made by the patient, his lawyer (if the Court of Chancery approved), or a local public health officer. If the person was institutionalized or hospitalized, the institutional director could make the application. Hereditary Health Courts, which were annexed to District Courts, issued the preliminary judgments. Appeals could be made against their decisions within two weeks, and these appeals went before Hereditary Health Courts annexed to Provincial Courts of Appeal (Harmsen 1955: 228). The court of final resort was the Eugenic Supreme Court in Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin. An additional statute provided for the compulsory sterilization of those committing sexual crimes. The Reich government also announced that it was undertaking a census of genetically defective stocks so that thorough data could be secured on prospective sterilization cases ("Eugenical Sterilization in Germany," pp. 89, 90). The preamble to the law laid stress on the expenses incurred by the State for the maintenance of "asocial, degenerate, and incurably diseased persons." The State was spending more than one billion marks per year for that purpose, while at the same time Germany was suffering a severe economic depression (Santoro 1938: 126).

It is interesting to note that some cases which fell into one of the categories liable for sterilization were, on the grounds of "social proof," never in fact sterilized. This occurred when it could be demonstrated that a person with, for example, a hereditary physical malformation, was self-supporting, or made some contribution to the nation. As a case in point, Harmsen (1955: 229) was able to demonstrate in 1935 that persons with congenital dislocation of the hip were in general quite talented and socially valuable; the result was that many applications for sterilizations in these cases were rejected, and many were not even put at all.

So how many sterilizations were actually carried out in Germany in the years 1933-1945? No precise figure can be given, since most of the records were lost during the war (Harmsen 1955: 227). Franz Guertner, Minister of Justice at the time, stated that 62,463 were sterilized in 1934 and 71,760 in 1935. After 1936, however, there was a significant decrease in the number of cases referred to the Hereditary Health Courts. Fritz Lenz, Germany's leading eugenicist, estimated a maximum of 350,000, but Harmsen surmised a figure of between 200,000 and 250,000. Harmsen added that his estimate "exceeds by far the total number of sterilizations in all other countries of the world since the enactment in 1907 of the first sterilization law in the American state of Indiana" (Harmsen 1955: 227).

It should be recognized that eugenic sterilization laws were far from unique to National Socialist Germany. Indeed, it was the United States which pioneered them. By 1931, 30 of the 48 states had passed such a law at one time or another, and they were still on the statute books in 27, even if not always enforced (Haller 1984: 137). These laws were unique ventures observed closely by foreign eugenicists. Besides Germany, the non-American jurisdictions enacting such laws were:

1928 - The Swiss Canton of Vaud (Kemp 1947: 182)
1928 - The Canadian province of Alberta (Wullen 1937: 272)
1929 - Denmark (Kemp 1947: 182)
1932 - The Mexican State of Veracruz (Mendoza 1933)
1933 - The Canadian province of British Columbia (Wullen 1937: 272-273)
1934 - Norway (Kemp 1947: 182)
1935 - Finland (Kemp 1947:182)
1937 - Iceland (Stefansson 1939: 127-129)
1937 - Estonia (Kemp 147: 182) in 1937

The charge has sometimes been made that Germany's sterilization program was used for political purposes; after the war, the case records in certain instances gave the impression that the law had been abused to punish political enemies of the regime. Harmsen investigated the matter:

. . . I asked my students of the School of Public Health in Hamburg to examine the documents on the carrying out of the Hereditary Health Law in representative urban and rural zones. The results obtained by these public health officers have been collected in a series of papers. In all these investigations there was no evidence that any reasons other than eugenic ones influenced the handling of the proceedings. The improper political misuse mentioned above seems to have occurred only to a very insignificant extent . . . (Harmsen 1955: 228).

Our verdict on the German eugenic sterilization program, then, is that it was not qualitatively different from those in other nations. It did differ in a quantitative sense, a result of the fact that when the German totalitarian State decided on definite objectives, it did not generally carry them out slowly or by half-measures. But it should by now be evident that there was nothing unusual or perverse about the criteria or implementation of the German sterilization law.

CONCLUSION

The major conclusion to be drawn from the historical evidence presented in this paper is completely at variance with popular assumptions. Put simply, there was no barbaric abuse of eugenics in National Socialist Germany. Again:

  • The persecution of Jewry throughout occupied Europe had nothing to do with eugenics; Hitler opposed the Jews because he held them responsible for World War II.
  • The German euthanasia program was instituted for economic reasons which bore no relation to eugenics.
  • The notion of the Lebensborn as a "stud farm" is pure fiction.
  • While a few of the criteria for SS membership and marriage were eugenic, most were not, and the aim of increasing the SS birthrate to a level consistent with positive eugenics was never fulfilled.
  • Finally, the German sterilization program could in no sense be characterized as perverse, savage, or unusual for its time.

Therefore in response to the question posed in the introduction to this paper as to whether the main source of the opprobrium eugenics has suffered is merely "guilt by association," the answer must be an unequivocal Yes. Only through ignorance or willful obfuscation of the historical record can eugenics be condemned on the basis of the actions of the Germans around the time of the second world war.

In view of the evidence presented, the reader might well wonder, "How did the false association between eugenics and atrocities committed in the third Reich ever come into being? And how has it managed to sustain itself all this time?" The explanatory factors are many, but the three most obvious causes are, firstly, the general confusion, uncritical attitudes, and misinformation which abound concerning this period; secondly, sensationalism, which f

  INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT KLARK GRAHAM

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT KLARK GRAHAM

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Winter 1983

Robert K. Graham was co-founder and director of The Repository for Germinal Choice, a California-based sperm bank which stores and distributes the sperm of Nobel Prize winners and other men of exceptional ability. He invented and manufactured the plastic used for shatter-proof eye glasses, and is author of The Future of Man. The following interview was conducted by Marian Van Court on January 20, 1983 in Austin, Texas.

Approximately how many applications have you received so far?

Over 1000.

And how many women have actually begun the program?

Well, we've had two births and we have 15 pregnancies, as of this speaking. There are also 45 currently undergoing insemination – those are all in the USA. Although we've had many applications from outside the country, they present various importation problems that have to be worked out first.

Are there legal questions this project has raised which never existed before?

Yes, quite a few. In fact, there are major legal expenses involved in setting this up on the present scale, to avoid lawsuits if there's a faulty child born. Because the chances of a faulty child are just inherent in the situation – sooner or later, there will be some youngster who is not well-endowed, perhaps even a child with Down's syndrome.

What originally inspired you to create The Repository for Germinal Choice?

Shall I go way back to the beginning?

Yes, please.

Early in my life it dawned on me that bright people – at least the desirable citizens, the ones who carry on the real planning and doing in the community – weren't reproducing themselves. This became apparent to me in the little town in northern Michigan where I grew up. The doctor had only one child, the banker had one child, the leading lumber mill operator had three children, none of whom married. The richest and most famous man in town was childless. So was the only man listed in Who's Who. My dad was a dentist. These were among his friends, and the people I knew best and regarded most highly. It troubled me they weren't even reproducing themselves.

Then after college, for ten years I was a salesman calling on doctors. There again, I found that most of them had only one or two children. I accumulated information and observations, and did a lot of reading for ten years. Finally I wrote a book. I asked a friend, Raymond Cattell, if he would review the manuscript, which he did. He was also a friend of Hermann J. Muller, who was as great a geneticist as there was in that day, perhaps still as great as any. Cattell told Muller about the manuscript because in it I had suggested several ways of encouraging bright people to have bigger families, and one of them was similar to Muller's plan. But Muller had conceived it first, and had thought it through much more thoroughly than I. Muller was willing to go over the manuscript and helped me immensely. In fact, he came to Pasadena where I lived, and we spent most of three days going over it.

Ever since then, until Muller's death, he and I worked together, first on the manuscript, and then on the establishment of The Repository for Germinal Choice. That was Muller's name, incidentally. All of his friends, including me, threw up their hands at the thought of such an awkward, academic name. But it's a precise name. Nobody has come up with a better one.

At any rate, Muller and I decided to jointly establish a Repository. I was to finance it, and he was to guide it. We drew up and signed an agreement to that effect. I set up a laboratory. But we never did anything about it as long as Muller lived. He always wanted to think through some of the problems. He dreaded any publicity, and it would indeed have been adverse at that time. He was a sensitive man. The equipment sat idle the rest of Muller's life, and for years thereafter, because I was busy manufacturing lenses. But when I sold my lens company to 3M, I began contacting Nobelists. Muller had named several Nobelists as desirable donors. I didn't intend to limit it to Nobelists, but I did want to start with them. Now we've extended the donors to Fields medalists. For some reason, Nobel specifically excluded mathematicians from the scientists who could win a Nobel Prize. Fields medalists in mathematics are younger, and at least the equivalent of Nobelists in the hard sciences, especially since there's only one award every four years.

Is William Shockley the only donor who has publicly acknowledged taking part?

Yes. And I would like to explain why I'm eternally indebted to him. When I started recruiting donors for the Repository, I went to a number of Nobelists in California – there were about 21 in that state. One who agreed to be a donor was Shockley. [William Shockley won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the transistor.] Two others also agreed, and were making repeat donations. I called a press conference [February 29, 1980] and announced that The Repository was set up and looking for recipients. Immediately after the conference, one of the reporters called all the Nobelists in California to ask if they were donors. They all denied it. Even the donors denied having anything to do with it. And I understand why they had to. But Shockley said "Yes, I'm a donor, and the others should be too They should be ashamed if they're not." He was the one person who saved me from looking like the country's champion liar. So when he ran for the U.S. Senate, I plugged for Shockley.

I read a little something about that, but I don't think it got much national coverage.

He didn't expect to win. But he had a point to make, that dysgenics is a serious problem that the legislature should be aware of. And I think he did accomplish that, to some extent.

How many different donors do you have now?

We now have about 19, most of whom are repeat donors.

Do you make any attempt to assess the personality and character traits of the donors?

When it comes to donors, we can be as rigorous as you could wish. There are hundreds of top-notch, world-class scientists. We can go to the ones we want. Most of them decline. But among those who agree to donate, we use only those with great creativity, which correlates closely with high IQ in the sciences, and those who have no serious hereditary taint. Myopia, hemorrhoids – we ignore a few minor things like that.

We include details about the personality and character of the donors on the information sheet. The recipients naturally want to know height, weight, coloring, ancestry and so forth. If there's anything else worthy of note, we include that too – like "He is a highly skilled amateur musician," or "He was an exceptional athlete when in college." We list a comprehensive description. In the donor's questionnaire, he has to answer hundreds of questions in order to eliminate the possibility of deleterious hereditary traits.

Do you ask about all the members of their family, like if there's any schizophrenia or other mental illness?

If there's any schizophrenia in the family history at all, they're out And there are many other things, like Tay Sachs, we try to eliminate

I've read that Muller's widow wants to dissociate his name from this project. It's abundantly clear from his writings that Muller was an ardent proponent of eugenics, and that he specifically supported artificial insemination using the sperm of eminent men. How do
you account for Mrs. Muller's attitude?

I named it the Hermann J. Muller Repository for Germinal Choice. It was his concept, and it was unthinkable not to give him credit. But Thea, his wife, resented my using his name. Furthermore, she didn't think that, in limiting it to Nobelists, I was doing it exactly the way Joe had said. Now, Joe had contemplated a lot of different ways in our years of discussion. There was no one, set final way to do it. We took his name off the letterhead, but retained the name Repository for Germinal Choice. Instead, I put on the letterhead 'Co-founders: Hermann J. Muller and Robert K. Graham." We are that – I have the documents

Do you think she might have been upset about the publicity?

No, but I think the embarrassing circumstances of the first two births made her think we weren't doing things quite right. And there's some truth to that contention, as we were naive at first. 'Still are, but less so (laughs). At first, we had a one-page questionnaire which we sent to potential recipients, and we required the husband to sign the application. In the first case (in which the woman had formerly been convicted of a felony) there was a husband. But we didn't ask "Do you have a criminal record?" We do now. In the second case, there was the name of a husband on the application that was returned. It's never been quite clear – I've purposely not delved into the specifics too closely, because there's embarrassment all the way around, embarrassment that the husband didn't materialize. I really think that Dr. Blake fully intended to have a husband, but I think he decided not to get married. Meanwhile, she was pregnant. We had supplied the material. So now with our questionnaire we require a photocopy of the marriage certificate. And we've lengthened the questionnaire to ten pages.

Then it's an absolute requirement, that a woman be married? Or would you consider any exceptions, say if a single woman wanted to have a child, and had the economic and psychological resources to raise it on her own?

No, it's absolute. It's a matter of principle with us. We feel we're innovative enough without trying to disrupt the mores of our society.

If this became widely used – for example, if a11 women who had artificial insemination went to The Repository for Germinal Choice – wouldn't it be necessary to keep detailed records to avoid inadvertent inbreeding in the future? Especially if a relatively small number of donors is used for a large number of inseminations.

Our present system is to ask in the questionnaire we send the potential recipient "Will you tell any child born of this arrangement the Repository number assigned to the germinal father?" If they agree to do that, then we make no special demands on them in that respect. If the child later wishes to marry, then he or she can ask the intended mate if the father's number is the same.

And the chances are miniscule.

Right. But at least it makes for an absolute elimination of consanguinity, more accurate even than our present social system. In the few cases in which they elect not to tell the child, in which they prefer for the child to believe the husband is also the biological father, we will not use the donor they chose again in that state. Any subsequent applications from that state will not get that donor as a possible choice.

Does the Repository make any profit?

No, the Repository is a non-profit organization. We do not charge for the semen. We charge only for the incidentals – that is, shipping costs, costs of maintaining liquid nitrogen (which keeps the semen frozen) over several months. And we do charge an evaluation fee, because we have to engage at least two physicians to pass on these ten-page questionnaires the applicants return.

Is this essentially to make sure they're healthy?

That's right. One or more physicians will talk to the individual, usually by telephone. So we do thoroughly go into the characteristics of the recipients.

What other criteria do you have for selection of recipients, other than they be married and healthy?

Married, healthy, the brighter the better. They must be 40 or under. The incidence of Down's syndrome goes up with the age of the mother. It never is very high, but Down's syndrome is a major tragedy. So we want to minimize that possibility.

On the Phil Donahue Show [originally aired in Chicago on NBC on October 29, 1982] , Paul Smith said that the Repository sends the germinal material to the recipients in little ampules which you refer to as "straws"' that are an eighth of an inch in diameter and two inches long. Is it a correct inference that one donation will be good for a number of inseminations?

Oh, yes. One donation theoretically might inseminate 20 or 40 women. Because first of all, we use extenders to help in the freezing. The real trick in doing this successfully is to freeze the semen rapidly so that ice crystals won't form. The spermatazoa are preserved, without harm, indefinitely – at least 11 years that we're sure of. To elaborate on your question – by using extenders, we can fill one straw (which is sufficient for one insemination) with only a fraction of a donation. It's effective because the contents are placed at the os of the cervix. It's not necessary to fill the vagina wastefully as nature does – it's put right where it should go. We supply three straws for each ovulation, and recommend that they use one the day before they are scheduled to ovulate, one the day they are due to ovulate, and one the day after. So we shotgun it a bit, to allow for miscalculations. I might digress at this point – we try to encourage the husband to do the insemination, to give him a sense of involvement. Also, not many physicians know how to do it, and even those who do will be away on week-ends, so if the woman ovulates then, the opportunity would be lost. So for a number of reasons, we try to make this a domestic program.

What does Paul Smith do exactly?

Paul makes our collections from donors. They wish it to be anonymous, so when Paul appears on television, he always wears a surgeon's mask so he won't be recognized. He also makes some deliveries of the germinal material, and the husband doesn't want Paul to be recognized either. There are a lot of delicate feelings involved in this whole project. So we have to maintain absolute anonymity.

How do you feel generally about your treatment from the press?

Well, initially the press and other media were highly speculative and mostly adverse. But this is slowly changing. They've made every crude, sexy joke they can think of, and now they've totally depleted their imaginations (laughs). But even at the start, when the media were quite adverse, the message got through to the people who needed us. And we were willing to go anyplace and submit to scorn and ridicule in order to spread the word.

----- Section Missing ----

[I think we were talking about the prevailing belief that heredity is unimportant with regard to IQ, and to human behavior generally.]

Do you think we're seeing any changes in that regard?

I think so. By going over every study which bears on the subject of heredity versus environment, Arthur Jensen has concluded that variations in intelligence are about 69% hereditary, 25% environmental, and 5% attributable to test error. I think this is a fact of life, and it will be increasingly recognized. Cattell has said, and said very well, that hereditary improvement in the intellectual level of the population is by far the most permanent and the least expensive way to raise the level of capability in the pop
ulation. But it's not being sufficiently utilized. We spend billions on education, which is important. But there you have to start over again with each generation, whereas an hereditary improvement continues on for generations.

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic about the future of eugenics?

I'm optimistic. It has a long way to go to become a common consideration when people contemplate parenthood. But I think with further education, people will pay more attention to it. And I think probably lots of people who don't need our services are being made more cognizant by hearing about us and our concerns for good heredity in a child. Slowly people are becoming more "eugenics-minded."

Some people involved in eugenics have religious or spiritual motivations. Do you see it as a humanitarian endeavor, or do you have some kind of religious basis for it?

I'm not myself a very spiritual person.

So you'd characterize your motives as essentially humanitarian?

Yes, essentially. Look at it from the point of view of the parents. These are couples who want a child, but can't have one because the husband is infertile. With this program, they can have a child, and they can maximize the probability of having a bright, healthy and creative child. Consider the child, too. As a consequence he spends his life with the genes of the donor, as well as those of the mother. Why not provide the best genes possible?

Thank you so much for a fascinating interview.

It was my pleasure.

THE LIMITED PLASTICITY OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

The Limited Plasticity Of Human Intelligence

by Arthur R. Jensen

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Fall 1982

As societies become increasingly technological, the demand for superior intelligence begins to exceed the supply, and the demand for sheer physical labor begins to decline Increased leisure, early retirement, and a lengthened life-span all raise the premium on intelligence for the social and moral well-being of society. With the eradication of malnutrition and infectious childhood diseases, and as universal public education and the amenities of our technological civilization become more widespread, the improvement of human intelligence, if it is to come about at all, will depend increasingly upon eugenic means.

We are now gradually emerging from a period of over-optimism regarding the supposed plasticity of intelligence, and the hope of appreciably raising the IQ of those with below-average intelligence through strictly psychological and educational methods. This hope is probably as old as humanity itself. Widespread faith in its practical implementation originated in the 1920's with the radical behaviorism espoused by John B. Watson. Watson's behavioristic conception of intelligence has pervaded psychology even to this day, although it has lost favor among the new generation of researchers in experimental cognitive psychology and psychometrics.

In the behavioristic view, intelligence became equated with learning. Man's "original nature", psychologically, consisted only of an undifferentiated, general capability for learning. All that developed throughout the course of evolution was an ever-increasing plasticity of the brain for being shaped by the physical and cultural environment. Human mental capabilities were viewed as wholly a product of learning. The wide range of individual differences (except those resulting from some form of brain damage) was attributed to differences in opportunities for learning, or to differences in the content of learning. It was believed that these differences became socially salient merely due to the fact that some forms of knowledge and skills are more highly valued than others in a particular society. Accordingly, what Western industrial societies recognize as "intelligence" and measure by means of standard IQ tests was viewed only as a specialized collection of particular bits of acquired knowledge and skills which happen to be valued within a specific cultural context.

Given the view of intelligence as essentially a product of learning, it was reasonable to expect that intelligence itself could be taught much the same way one teaches reading or arithmetic. It led to the optimistic expectation that the intelligence of children in the bottom half of the IQ distribution could be dramatically raised by providing them with early learning opportunities like those enjoyed by children in the top half of the distribution. The well-established correlation between children's IQs and their parents' socioeconomic status (SES) was accorded an erroneous causal significance: Low SES children were believed to have lower IQ's and to achieve less well in school because they lacked the cultural advantages and learning opportunities enjoyed by children from higher SES backgrounds.

Over the past three decades, hundreds of experiments, many carried out on a massive scale, have sought to prove that intelligence can be substantially raised. In a few studies, subjects were given intensive training over a period of several years. No other field of psychological or educational research has commanded such vast funds nor marshalled such concerted efforts on such a grand scale. The truly remarkable finding is not the few points gain in IQ or scholastic achievement occasionally reported, but the fact that gains are so seldom found, and, when they are found, that they are so very small. The theoretical implication of this finding is that the behaviorist view of intelligence as synonymous with learning (or the products of learning) is seriously in error. Predictions based on this view have repeatedly failed to materialize under the prescribed conditions.

When gains in test performance have occurred as a result of educational treatments, they have displayed one or more of the following characteristics: (1) they have been small, rarely more than five or ten IQ points; (2) they have been of short duration, fading out within a year or so after the training has been completed; (3) they have been restricted to tasks or tests which closely resemble the actual training procedures themselves, and have failed to generalize to a broader range of mental tests.

Although I have scoured the research literature, I have yet to find a bona fide empirical demonstration that any psychological or educational techniques have succeeded in significantly raising children intelligence. Scores on one particular test or another, or achievement in particular scholastic subjects, may have been raised, usually only temporarily. But these gains are not reflected across a wide variety of tests or school subjects, as would be the case if it were g itself (the general intelligence factor) that had been improved. This conclusion is reinforced by evidence reported in a recent book which summarizes much of the best research and thinking in this field (Detterman and Sternberg, 1982).

The limited plasticity of intelligence can be more easily understood in terms of the newly ascending view of intelligence as comprising a small number of elementary information-processing capabilities which are closely dependent upon properties of the central nervous system. Learning itself is only one of many manifestations of these elemental processes involving stimulus encoding, discrimination, comparison, short-term memory capacity, speed of transfer of information from short- and long-term memory, and the like. The fact that ordinary IQ tests measure something more fundamental than acquired knowledge is demonstrated by the correlation of IQ with performance on laboratory tacks, such as reaction time, which have have virtually no intellectual content whatsoever, but which directly measure elemental information-processing capacities (Jensen, 1980, 1982a, 1982b). That these information-processing capabilities are closely linked to brain functions is shown by correlation of both IQ and reaction time measures with brain-wave measurements (termed average evoked potentials) (Hendrickson and Hendrickson, 1980; Jensen, Schafer, and Crinella, 1981).

It is now generally accepted that individual differences in IQ and information-processing capacity are strongly influences by hereditary factors, with genetic variance constituting about 70% of the total population variance in IQ (Jensen, 1981). There is also evidence that the genes for superior intelligence tend to be dominant, which is what would be theoretically expected if intelligence is a fitness character in the Darwinian sense, and if it had been subject to natural selection through the course of human evolution (Jensen, 1983).

The genetic and evolutionary view of human intelligence affords a possible explanation for its quite limited plasticity. If intelligence has evolved as an instrumentality for the survival of Homo Sapiens, it could well be that its biological basis has a built-in stabilizing mechanism, such an that of a gyroscope. Some degree of homeostatic autonomy in the ontogeny of mental ability would safeguard the individual's capacity for coping with the exigencies of survival. Mental development then would not be wholly at the mercy of often-erratic environmental happenstance. A too-plastic malleability would give the organism little protection against the vagaries of its environment. Hence, there may have evolved homeostatic processes to buffer the semi-autonomous ontogeny of human intelligence, protecting it from being pushed too far in one direction or the other, either by adventitiously harmful or by intentionally benevolent environmental forces.

Arthur R. Jen
sen is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, California 94720. Reprints of any of his articles listed below may be obtained from Dr. Jensen.

REFERENCES:

Detterman, D.K., and Sternberg, R.J. (Eds.) 1982, How and How Much Can Intelligence be Increased? Norwood, NJ: ABLEX Publishing Corporation

Hendrickson, D.A. and Hendrickson, A.E. 1980, The biological basis of individual differences in intelligence, Personality and Individual Differences, 1: 3-33

Jensen, Arthur R. 1980, Chronometric analysis of intelligence, Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 3: 103-122

Jensen, Arthur R. 1981, Straight Talk About Mental Tests, New York: The Free Press

Jensen, Arthur R. 1982a, The chronometry of intelligence, in R.J. Sternberg (Ed.) Advances in the Psychology of Human Intelligence (vol. 1) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbau.

Jensen, Arthur R. 1982b Reaction time and psychometric A, in Hans J. Eysenck (Ed., A Model for Intelligence New York: Springer-Verlag

Jensen, Arthur R 1983, The effects of inbreeding on mental ability factors, Personality and Individual Differences, 4: 71-87

Jensen, A.R., Schafer, E.W. and Crinella, F.M. 1981, Reaction time, evoked brain potentials, and psychometric in the severely retarded, Intelligence, 5: 179-197

AN INTERVIEW WITH CARL J. BAJEMA

An Interview With Carl J. Bajema

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Fall 1983

Carl J. Bajema is Professor of Biology at Grand Valley State College in Allendale, Michigan. He has done research and authored numerous articles and books on eugenics and related areas over the past twenty years. The following interview was conducted via telephone on October 2, 1983.

VANCOURT: Do you think the Hyde Amendment [which prohibited DHEW from using Medicaid funds for abortions for poor women] has had an appreciable dysgenic influence?

BAJEMA: There are certainly a lot of unwanted pregnancies, and the Hyde Amendment makes it very difficult for women in the poverty category to obtain abortions. So my immediate response to that question would be "yes". In my particular state, in Michigan, the state still pays for these abortions. But many states have refused to step in and pick up the costs. This had got to have an adverse effect in a variety of ways, including a dysgenic effect.

VANCOURT: You have explicitly stated that tiny positive correlation between intelligence and number of offspring reported in your studies and in several other studies could not be generalized to the entire United States population. You warned that they applied only to those samples, and for that period of time. Now Vining, using a representative sample of the U.S. population, has found significant negative correlations, Do you think people generally heeded your warning?

BAJEMA: A number of people in the academic community said "Oh, well--we've got three studies which show a positive correlation, so fertility and intelligence] in not a concern anymore." There doesn't seem to have been a very strong interest in continually ascertaining what is going on in terms of differential fertility with respect to mental ability.

VANCOURT: The American Eugenics Society changed its name to The Society for the Study of Social Biology in 1972. Looking back, do you feel this was a wise decision?

BAJEMA: No, and I opposed the change at the time. I was Secretary then, and I thought both the American Eugenics Society and the Eugenics Society of Great Britain had succeeded, at least in the academic and scholarly world, in demonstrating that the word eugenics isn't something to be equated with Nazi genocide. I appreciated some of the concerns about the word. But I wasn't at all impressed with the name they chose --social biology. It just doesn't convey any information. Then, with the development of the whole field of sociobiology, the confusion became even greater.

I probably would have kept the name of the society the American Eugenics Society, but changed the name of the journal to something that would be less offensive to some people who only thought in terms of Nazi-type eugenics. In fact, one of the reasons I resigned was over that. And some people didn't want to be thinking along eugenics lines at all, which disturbed me. Social Biology still publishes excellent articles that are of eugenic interest, but I wanted to belong to an organization where eugenics was the main focus.

In the long run, though, I think we ought to consider some kind of a name that would help us. For example, Planned Parenthood used to be called The Birth Control League of America, which had a somewhat negative connotation. They changed their name to a more positive term, The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which I think really helped them politically. Now, maybe we can do the name thing with respect to eugenics. As much as I like the term and feel it's been misused, words aren't sacred It's what we're trying to accomplish that's important. We could still keep the name eugenics as the parent name of the organization, but the journal and everything else could have a somewhat different name.

I'd like to hear from readers about possible words we could use in its place. One word I've suggested--and no one seems to be particularly excited about it -- is "futuregenics". We're concerned about the future, and about how the present affects the future. At any rate, a new word could separate the idea from some of the irrational hostility against it, particularly amongst people in the social sciences who have real knee-jerk reactions to eugenics. The advantage of a new word is simply that at least some people would be willing to give it new consideration.

VANCOURT: It has been reported that schizophrenics have increased their fertility substantially in recent years because major tranquilizers make institutionalization unnecessary. Given that mental illness has a proven strong genetic component, how much do you think this will increase the incidence of schizophrenia in the future?

BAJEMA: I don't know by how much, but it certainly should increase the incidence in the future. We may well develop better drug therapy at the same time, which would ease the problem. But we can expect the incidence to increase.

VANCOURT: How do you think we could ease the burden of motherhood to make it more attractive to bright women who also want to pursue careers?

BAJEMA: There are several ways. One is free daycare centers for children. The other is scholarships and fellowships with allowances for dependents. That would apply to men as well as women. Having dependency allowances that are adequate, and free, high-quality daycare centers, and possibly even some kind of tax credit would all be appropriate ways to ease the burden of parenthood to make it more attractive to both men and women who are well-educated, and who want to make a contribution outside the home.

VANCOURT: It was announced on the news recently that an embryo had been successfully implanted into the uterus of an infertile woman. Another woman who was fertile donated an egg--she was artificially inseminated with the husband's sperm, and the embryo was removed shortly after conception and placed in the infertile wife's uterus, where apparently it has been growing normally. Do you have any thoughts to express on eugenic implications of this new procedure?

BAJEMA: There are certainly eugenic implications of embryo transfer, particularly with respect to how the women are selected who provide the eggs. The very same issue exists with artificial insemination, that is, the quality of the donor. But right now, embryo transfer is quite expensive, so I don't expect very many people to utilize it.

VANCOURT: Several people (notably Cattell, Graham and Fisher) have written about the origin of dysgenic fertility. They don't all agree as to whether it came along with civilization, or whether it existed from the time human beings first discovered the causal connection between sexual intercourse and conception. Would you care to speculate on this question?

BAJEMA: Well, everybody likes to speculate, so I might as well speculate, too. I think a good case could be made for its being associated with what demographers call the "demographic transition". As we shifted from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility, that may very well be when we got a sizeable amount of dysgenic fertility.

VANCOURT: Do you have any suggestions for the Eugenics Special Interest Group, such as how to increase our membership, participation and funding, or for improving the Bulletin?

BAJEMA: I would suggest soliciting three or four names from each new member who joins, names and addresses of people who'd be likely to be interested also. Another possibility is to identify books, journals and articles in which an individual makes a positive statement about eugenics, and check over the mailing list to see if that person is a member, and if not, send him or her a sample Bulletin.

As for improving the Bulletin, I'd suggest adding very brief book reviews of new books, notices of important papers and of conferences to come. It should be kind of a little clearing house. That's an important function, because eugenics cuts across so many disciplines.

And then you might p
ut announcements in the Bulletin every once in a while to the effect that two or three of us will be in a certain city on a certain date for a convention, say, and if there's anybody else who'd like to join us for dinner, fine. There are really all kinds of things we can do to share information and get more involved.

VANCOURT: What research questions do you think are important to investigate in the future?

BAJEMA: First would be a longitudinal study of high school students--a random sample of schools in the U.S. could be chosen, and then studies done at periodic intervals to coincide with their reunions. All kinds of biographical data could be gathered on their educational and occupational attainment, age of birth of children, fertility and so on. One of the only problems would be tracking down those who didn't graduate so their absence wouldn't constitute a source of bias. This kind of study would be very helpful in terms of estimating the eugenic or dysgenic effects of a wide variety of social practices. Right now, I'm linking into the 50th reunion of the Third Harvard Growth Study participants. When you work with the reunion committees, you'd be amazed at what you can get, and fairly reasonably in terms of cost.

Another thing I think ought to be done--there needs to be a very careful longitudinal study of children produced by artificial insemination, of their mental and physical growth, their occupational and educational achievement, their fertility and so on. I think it will clearly demonstrate the eugenic value of artificial insemination in a way that just anecdotal evidence can't.

VANCOURT: Several ESIG members have written to me saying essentially the same thing: "I believe eugenics is a vitally important issue, and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. What can I do to further this cause?" Do you have any advice to impart?

BAJEMA: I certainly do. I think you have to put your money and your time where your mouth is--that's the way I'd put it. And I mean both money and time.

There are political controversies we need to get involved in, because in some cases, the side eugenics is on is losing. I'll give you some examples: First, it's very important for anyone who supports eugenics to also support Planned Parenthood and various abortion rights groups. Second, it is crucial to support sex education and contraceptive education in the schools. Third, we need to counter the fundamentalists' attack on the teaching of evolution. And fourth, there's the controversy going on with respect to the teaching of values which concerns us. What is called "values clarification" helps students learn about different ways of viewing an act in terms of both personal consequences and social consequences. An extreme right wing faction wants to force this out of the schools.

Eugenics is not independent of these controversies, because depending on how some of them go, it could be extremely difficult to discuss eugenics in the schools, and to develop a national policy with respect to eugenics.

Then, there are the traditional things people can do in terms of financial contributions, in terms of helping the Eugenics SIG. There may be somebody out there who has considerable funds who could set up a fellowship program--that's a very important way of making sure that certain kinds of research get done.

Finally, it's important to become a critical thinker on this issue, and to do so publicly by writing articles, letters-to-the-editor and so on. In this area, I believe every little bit helps.

VANCOURT: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

BAJEMA: Well ..one thing you might want to stress in the journal is the letters-to-the-editor column. I noticed a letter from the Weyls in the last issue. But you may want to encourage people to write in more. They may have a question they'd like to ask someone who was interviewed. For instance, I'd be quite willing to answer questions. Another thing is--do you have a word-processing computer?

VANCOURT: No, I don't.

BAJEMA: Now, that's something you really need. I think someone out there really ought to donate a word processor to the editor of the Eugenics SIG.

VANCOURT: I couldn't agree with you more! Well, this has been an interesting and informative interview. Thank you very much.

BAJEMA: You're certainly welcome

ENVY AND ARISTOCIDE

Envy And Aristocide

By Nathaniel Weyl

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Winter 1984

In this article, I shall advance the hypothesis that envy of non-achievers against creative minorities is the mainspring of modern revolutionary movements, that this envy is incited and exploited by alienated intellectuals, and that the result is aristocide--the murder of productive, gifted and high-achieving people--along with consequent genetic decline.

By aristocide, I do not mean destruction of artificial aristocracies of pedigree and status. I use the term to denote the extermination of what Thomas Jefferson called "the natural aristocracy among men" grounded on "virtues and talents," and constituting "the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society" (Jefferson, 1813). Jefferson believed that the preservation of this elite was of cardinal importance. The "natural aristocracy" possess not only high intelligence, but also "virtue"--in more modern terms, character and humanity.

Envy should be distinguished from ambition. Envy is not the desire to excel, but the spiteful urge to pull down the more gifted. Christopher Marlowe wrote in Dr. Faustus: "I am Envy. I cannot reade, and therefore wish all books were burnt." In his brilliant and thought-provoking study of the role of envy in human societies, Shoeck (1972) defined it as the resentment inferiors feel at the higher status and greater rewards of their superiors, and quoted Davidson's apt description (p. 15):

Envy is an emotion that is essentially both selfish and malevolent. It...implies dislike of one who possesses what the envious man himself covets or desires, and a wish to harm him. Graspingness for self and ill will lie at the base of it. There is in it also a consciousness of inferiority to the person envied, and a chafing under this consciousness....

Since envy cannot be extirpated, the great religions have sought to control it and deflect it into comparatively harmless channels. Christianity offered hope to the virtuous poor by promising that the meek would inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5), as did Judaism (Psalms 37:11). The poor were assured that it is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25).

It remained for the messianic totalitarian movements of our century--Nazism and Communism--to exploit envy on a massive scale as a vehicle for attaining power. Propaganda of both movements depicted the envied people as bestial and unfit to live. Nazi ideology stressed the extermination of the Jewish people on the grounds that they were "sub-human."

The Jew was shown as a hideous lecher in the Nazi press. Red artists made capitalists appear comparably odious and despicable. The enemy must be made to seem vile so that his future murderers (who may possess remnants of decency and morality) can feel justified in their crimes.

Alienated Intellectuals as Catalysts

The leadership element of revolutions is rarely composed of indignant peasants or enraged lupenproletarians. It generally consists of frustrated, alienated and misguided intellectuals, without whom the envy of the masses would remain directionless, nothing more than sullen and silent resentment. Alienated intellectuals serve as catalysts, inciting and actuating the prevalent sentiment of envy, providing it with a seemingly legitimate target, even gracing it with an ideology and a meretricious sort of moral justification. Yet many converts to totalitarian movements themselves come from the upper and middle classes. They belong not to the ranks of the enviers, but to those of the envied. How does one explain this paradox?

I would suggest that, in many cases, their original motivations are benevolent: sympathy for the poor and passionate hatred of social injustice. However, to rise up in the ranks of the movement, pity for the downtrodden must gradually be supplanted by hatred of their supposed oppressors. The envy of the masses is the revolutionaries' most potent weapon to overthrow the social order, and the best method of exploiting it is to offer a tangible, living object of hatred (Weyl, 1974). Those who don't adequately grasp this fact tend to drop by the wayside. Clearly, a revolutionary who proclaims to the crowd that their poverty is due to sparse natural resources, overpopulation, and their own shortcomings is not destined to lead the revolution. Explanations of this sort fail to provide the enormous psychological satisfaction of Marxist ideology that poverty is caused by class exploitation. Marxist ideology also offers a wonderfully direct and instantaneous "solution"-- liquidation of the exploiters--which is far more appealing to mob mentality than the dreary prospect of a lifetime of patience, hard work and sacrifice.

Nazi Aristocide

That the Jews were envied in Europe scarcely needs to be argued. Except in those countries where they were deprived of even a semblance of equal opportunity, as a group they excelled in almost every index of achievement: education, wealth, scientific and cultural accomplishments, business and political leadership. In these respects, their status was similar to that of the European upper classes. Yet they were more vulnerable to attack because of their internationalism, and because their religious, linguistic, cultural and physical differences from the majority made them easily identifiable objects of popular distrust (Weyl, 1967).

The extermination of nearly twelve million Jews and Christians by the Nazis is no doubt one of the supreme examples of aristocide in history. It should be added that political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps for the most part were intellectuals who had spoken out against the Nazis or tried to overthrow them; hostages who were seized and shot in occupied countries were generally the most respected and successful members of their communities. Both Nazis and Communists shared a hostility toward the elite. They were at war not only with established institutions and morality, but with the upper classes themselves who were the guardians of these "degenerate" institutions (Well, 1967).

Communist Aristocide in the Soviet Union

The Soviet objective under Lenin and Stalin was the "liquidation of the bourgeoisie," which meant no less than the physical extermination of the propertied classes and all their auxiliaries. The Revolution and ensuing Civil War destroyed or dispersed vast numbers of the nobility, the bureaucracy, the officer corps, the priesthood and the intelligensia. During the Red Terror, launched shortly after the seizure of power in 1917, the criteria for being judged an enemy of the people were simple. "Don't look for evidence or proof showing that this or that person, either by word or deed, acted against the interests of the Soviet power," secret police chief Latsis instructed his agents. "The first questions you should put to the arrested person are: To what class does he belong? What is his origin? What was his education and what is his profession? These should determine the fate of the accused" (Shub, 1948, p. 325). When Gorky protested to Lenin about the death of so many highly gifted people, Lenin sternly ordered him "not to waste energy whimpering over rotten intellectuals" (Solzhenitsyn, 1973, pp. 31-32).

During the rising spiral of purges which took place during Stalin's bloody reign, an estimated 20 to 30 million people were put to death (Conquest, 1968, p. 532), approximately one-eighth of the Soviet population. The proportion among the elite was much higher. About three-fourths of the generals and senior military leaders of the Red Army were killed prior to World War II. All of the naval commanders with the rank of Flagman (admiral) perished. Comparable losses were sustained in the civilian bureaucracy, science and literature.

Dynamics of Totalit
arianism

Why is it that modern revolutions involve selective decimation of their most capable citizens? The evidence consistently indicates that aristocide is too deeply embedded in the dynamics of totalitarianism to be an accidental or incidental feature. It becomes a practical necessity for consolidating and maintaining power in the new state, because those with something to lose by the leveling of society, and those with the psychological resources to launch a successful counter movement against a repressive regime do, in fact, pose a very real threat to it. Continued aristocide in the form of purges (which have taken place in Russia, China and elsewhere) may become expedient when the government is unable to deliver on its promises and needs scapegoats. Even more important to the understanding of this phenomenon is the fact that totalitarianism requires obedient subjects who accept authority unquestioningly. Intelligent people tend to be individualists (as well as being, almost by definition, more capable) and as such they will always constitute a potential threat to repressive totalitarian governments.

Aristocide Today

Aristocide is most virulent in the revolutionary phase of seizure and consolidation of power. At present, the foci are in the Third World, where forces of discontent seek to uproot the social order and annihilate the minority with education and ability. A conspicuous recent example is Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Nearly the entire middleclass--every person with more than a rudimentary education or who didn't work with his hands--was murdered, beaten, starved or worked to death. Estimates of the Cambodian necrology run above a million human beings, more than one seventh of the population.

Free, pluralistic societies seem immune to aristocide. If the Soviet Union and China evolve into stable, authoritarian bureaucracies, the danger there should continue to recede. The real threat today lies in underdeveloped countries swept by revolutionary ferment and religious fanaticism. However, aristocide in these countries, horrible as it is, cannot compare in its magnitude with the havoc wreaked on the genetic heritage of humankind by Hitler, Lenin and Stalin.

Nathaniel Weyl is author of The Creative Elite in America and (with Stephan Possony) The Geography of Intellect.

REFERENCES:

Conquest, Tober, 1968, The Great Terror, MacMillan: New York

Jefferson, Thomas, 1813, dated October 18, 1813 in a letter to John Adams

Schoeck, Helmut, 1970, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior, Harcourt, Brace and World: New York

Shub, David, 1948, Lenin, Doubleday: Garden City

Solzhenitsyn, Alexsandr I., 1973, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, I-II, Harper and Row: New York (quoting vol. 51, p. 47 of the Russian edition of Lenin's collected works)

Weyl, Nathaniel, 1967, Aristocide as a force in history, Intercollegiate Review, June, p. 127-245

Weyl, Nathaniel, 1974, Envy and aristocide underdeveloped countries, Modern Age, Winter, p. 39-52

INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND B. CATTELL

Interview with Raymond B. Cattell

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Spring-Summer 1984

Raymond B. Cattell obtained his Ph.D. and D.Sc. at London University, where he worked with Charles Spearman developing the theory of intelligence measurement. He has since taught at Harvard and has been for 30 years Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Illinois. His research publications cover 80 books and over 400 articles. His book, New Morality from Science: Beyondism, (Pergamon Press, 1973) contains interesting ideas about eugenics. His latest book, The Inheritance of Personality and Ability, has been hailed for its methodological breakthroughs. The following interview was conducted by Marian Van Court on May 31, 1984. (A list of questions was mailed to Professor Cattell in Hawaii, and he sent back an audio cassette to Autin, TX, with his answers, where they were transcribed.)

Do you know of any studies comparing personality traits of environmentalists and hereditarians?

I don't know of any reliable study on that question. But I can tell you my hunch, that Factor I, which we call "premzia," is likely to be related, since it contrasts wishful thinking with down-to-earth realism. One would expect hereditarians to be more realistic, and therefore lower on Factor I. And they are also probably higher on Factor C, ego strength.

What is the best test of creativity?

A test of creativity often used is Guilford's test of flexibility. However, the results can be completely misleading, in my opinion, because the test measures only a quite superficial, gamesroom creativity. Creativity is closely correlated with personality factors of dominance, introversion, and ego strength. So I wouldn't try to measure creativity by using a test of creativity per se, but rather by measuring personality factors that correlate highly with it. It has been shown that intelligence is also a precondition for creativity in any socially useful sense. So I would test for creativity with the 16 PF [Personality Factors] Test and a culture-fair intelligence test.

The United States has been characterized as a "nation of strangers." Do you think our ethnic and racial diversity is in part responsible for our alienation and rootlessness?

Societies in the past that have become too pluralistic, like India, and the old Mediterranean countries like the Roman Empire, didn't perceive the danger to moral standards that arose from having too many differing moral standards, too many differing religions, too many differing cultures. On the other hand, there are advantages to a country in having some diversity, in that each can be used as an experiment to see in which direction the group as a whole might advantageously go. I think that there's a happy medium on this matter of diversity, and it has probably been overshot in the U.S. at the present. Alienation is now quite severe, and it's partly due to wholesale, unchecked immigration. Few politicians seem willing to confront the issue. I think it might not be a bad idea to remove the inscription from the Statue of Liberty which calls for the "wretched refuse" of the other countries to migrate here. This is not what you want to build a nation of. If we have immigration, we ought to have it from the best sources. At the moment, the sociologists have won out on that issue with their claims that there are no differences among immigrants. But I would maintain that there are most marked differences, in both innate intelligence and personality, among people who enter the U.S.

You have written that dominance is negatively correlated with grades in school, but positively correlated with creativity. In using grades as a major criterion for graduate admission, doesn't this mean graduate schools are actually selecting against creativity to some extent?

Yes. Dominance is negatively related to grades in high school and undergraduate work, but the opposite is true in graduate work – with dissertations and theses, the better work is done by high-dominance people who show more creativity and independence of mind. Of course, that dominance isn't necessarily welcomed, because professors may still find docility in students to be a desirable trait. Incidentally, creative people have a personality profile which is not everybody's cup of tea. They are often difficult people. Their combination of high dominance and introversion is not always easy to deal with. But there is, as you suggest, a definite difference between personality traits associated with examination success and those associated with creative research. I believe all promotions and scholarships should be based on personality tests, as well as on measures of intellectual ability. If this were done, selection could be directed toward creative people. The personality traits associated with creativity have now been worked out quite well. For example, we've compared administrative academic people to creative researchers of the same age, and we've compared creative writers and artists to those who aren't really so creative. There's an amazing similarity – you see the same high dominance, the same high ego strength, in creative people in all these fields.

In nearly every interview in The Eugenics Bulletin the same question is asked: "Specifically, what should people who are concerned about eugenics do?" How would you answer this question?

I agree with Carl Bajema's suggestions in the Fall '83 issue – the only way to progress is to enter political controversies, to set up programs for research in the area, to support the Eugenics Special Interest Group, and in general to stir up people's thinking by critical observations. Instances of neglect of eugenics are all around us. I haven't seen a single reference in all the current discussions on jobs for women to the dysgenic effect of having more women employed full time so that they can't beget as many children. This amazes me, this current trend in which women get so involved in their professions that they cannot take time off to have children. In addition, of course, there are lots of things in the economy that could be changed. For example, taxing those of higher social status more tends to be dysgenic, and this should be changed. One policy I view as eugenic is the rule in the British civil service which allows a woman to take off at least three months when she has a child without any effect on her promotional status or income.

There should also be much more emphasis during the last years of schooling on reminding children that not only their own children, but their own lives, will be happier if they choose more intelligent and stable individuals as spouses. It isn't impossible for even average members of the population to have a certain sense of dynasty. In some parts of the world, notably in Sweden and Japan, people know their genealogies much further back than most Americans do. This attention to genealogy would be, I think, a real aid to eugenics.

If society wants to go on at a proper cultural level, it should be handling these problems by economic means so as to achieve a eugenic balance. There are, in fact, many other things that could be done in economic terms to aid eugenics; for example, there could be a far larger child allowance in income taxes than presently exists. Obviously, a person with eugenic ideals should have as large a family as health and circumstances permit. Intelligent people, for example, university graduates, should be thinking in terms of four children per family, because this is little more than replacement. Nothing beats a good example.

What would you advocate in place of the present welfare system?

W
ell, I would advocate some change, because I'm most dissatisfied with it and its consequences. It appears to act as a stimulant for a higher birth rate among those who cannot look after their children on their own. Monetary advantages are given to those who have the most children. That is what one would like to see at the upper level, but instead it is being brought about at the lowest level.

I think a single solution is not possible. However, I would advocate that social workers put as item #1 of their duties the reduction of the birth rate of their clients by supplying birth control knowledge. After all, poverty is due either to bad luck, on the one hand, or to systematic defects in intelligence or personality, on the other. Insofar as poverty arises partly from heritable defects, we certainly don't want a welfare system that encourages them to have even more children.

Is it a reasonable assumption that practically all that's considered good about human nature, such as altruism, has come about as the result of group selection, and that which is considered bad about human nature, such as selfishness and insincerity, exists as a result of individual selection?

Yes, there's much truth in that. The psychopath may do very well for himself as an individual – it's only that a group with too many psychopaths wouldn't survive. Group selection and individual selection work differently. Although individual selection may favor selfishness, for example, it's caught up and corrected by group selection in the long run--one has to stress that. A society dies if it exceeds a certain degree of individual selfishness. However, behavioral genetic research doesn't show a lot of genetic influence on superego strength – it's only about 20 percent. That is enough, of course, for group selection to act in favor of increased altruism. Today we're up against the "one-world" enthusiasts, who want all group competition to cease. Of course, none of us wants war, but it's throwing away the baby with the bath water to stop group selection because of the risk of war, if group selection is the only way to advance altruistic traits, as I think one can demonstrate.

The authors of a recent article in a psychology journal voiced concern about the fact that the mentally retarded don't vote nearly as often as people of normal intelligence do, and suggested various ways to entice them to the polls. How do you react to this?

The article you describe strikes me as the highest form of idiocy. Writers such as Shaw and Wells spoke good sense a generation ago when they demanded qualifications for voting, such as some knowledge of history and current events and a certain level of intelligence. This, surely, is needed if democracy is to work.

One question which arises perennially among social scientists is why the social sciences haven't progressed at the same rate as the physical sciences. How would you explain the difference?

To focus on psychology, in which I've been working for the last 50 years, I think the trouble lies in the mediocrity of the researchers and teachers. The whole subject is a very difficult one. McDougall said that the trouble with psychology is that it is too difficult for psychologists. Quite advanced mathematics – actually quite beautiful mathematics, seemingly beyond the comprehension of most psychologists today--is necessary to solve the next issues awaiting us. We've got to get more acute selection in psychology, and take it out of the hands of the do-gooders and the social workers and really make a science of it.

A related problem is that social scientists confuse their findings with their values. Policy recommendations must necessarily be a product of the two. But when social scientists can't separate them, they're merely expressing their personal opinions with a pseudoscientific patina.

What are some of the major new points you've made about Beyondism- in your forthcoming book The Beyondist Solution to Contemporary Problems?

It aims to get nearer to contemporary problems than I got in my first complete statement of Beyondism in 1972. I begin by saying that we have cut adrift from revealed religions and their morality, and we are seeking a new morality and a new ethical system. I propose evolution as the basis for our goals, that selection among nations is vital and necessary. There is a biological and cultural experiment implicit in each of the 130 or so nations in the world. We should encourage both genetic and cultural variation, and permit selection to go on. Just as in nature there have been thousands of extinct species, so will there be extinct nations. We must allow this to take place because it is a natural and essential part of evolution.

The spiritual values of Beyondism turn out to be much the same as those of the big dogmatic religions, up to a certain point. But after that point they diverge, and I take trouble to define how Beyondism leads to a different and more adventurous set of values. A general concept that helps our thought on this question is that of "genetic lag." Societies can progress culturally beyond the genetic capacities of many or most of the individuals in them. Eugenics is required to catch up with the cultural demands of society. At present, we have unemployment on rather a large scale in most industrialized countries – and in most nonindustrialized countries, for that matter – which can be eliminated only by elimination of genetic lag on the culture. So there is an emphasis on genetics in the book, primarily because it needs emphasizing in a culture which has grossly neglected it.

I conclude with a call for action. We have studied enough to be able to act with a greater chance of progress than previously. We need huge research endowments to compare and contrast the 130 or so societal experiments, to measure, record, and plot, and to give out advice from a central world research institute. This, I think, is the only way to carry out a process comparable to variation among nations, and to avoid the all-gray "one world" which would stop evolution. For evolution to proceed, there must always be genetic variation followed by natural selection. So I call for a society of Beyondism to help in years to come the buildup of adequate social research data – research information on the effects of various experiments.

Many eugenicists feel it's best to be noncommittal on the race question, since it's not our major concern. What do you think?

I agree that the only reasonable thing is to be noncommittal on the race question – that's not the central issue, and it would be a great mistake to be sidetracked into all the emotional upsets that go on in discussions of racial differences. We should be quite careful to dissociate eugenics from it – eugenics' real concern should be with individual differences.

In her article "Test Scores as Measures of Human Capital" in Intelligence and National Achievement, Barbara Lerner stated: "We sent more of our young people to school for longer periods of time than any other nation in the world, and they emerged with more diplomas than any other people on earth." But despite all this education, SAT scores in the U.S. have been declining steadily, our relative economic productivity has dropped, and on tests of math and science the only students whose average test scores have been lower than those of Americans have been those in underdeveloped countries. What are the major causes?

The current decline in educational achievement is, like most things, multiply determined. The evidence points, first, to about 50-100 years of genetic decline in ability. It doesn't take much--perhaps a one-point decline every 30 years--to reduce substantially the percentage in the upper range of IQ. With our present mean IQ of 100, 1 person in 250 would
exceed an IQ of 140. If, however, the average dropped to 85, you'd have only 1 in 8,000 who would exceed an IQ of 140. We must suppose that academic standards are much affected by the percentages of high IQ individuals, and that their becoming more scarce will lower academic performance. So part of the remedy for this problem definitely lies in eugenic practices.

But there are some environmental factors as well, such as the failure to do "streaming" in schools, in which children of much the same ability level are put together. And I think something in the way of general idleness and slackness has gotten into the system since the 1960's which could account for a part of the decline, particularly in the more precise subjects like mathematics.

In your autobiography, you wrote that you have always been intrigued by great people. What constitutes greatness?

Greatness is something that is surely very different in different areas such as politics, art, music, and science. What I think is fundamental, however, is creativity and an ability to break away from conventional views, a combination of high intelligence with high ego strength. Great people are largely responsible for whatever progress society makes, yet they actually take quite a beating in the process. So qualities of endurance are necessary as well.

What would you consider to be the mean IQ necessary for a country to support a true democratic system of government?

It depends upon just what you mean by "a true democratic system of government," but generally I would say that we can not go much below what we have today and still maintain a real democratic system.

How do you think the irrational opposition to the idea of genetic influences on human behavior cane into being, and why does it persist?

One might suppose that all one had to do to overcome this opposition was to point to striking research in behavior genetics. But this research has been around for some time, and still the opposition persists. For example, there are five successive studies of criminal behavior cited in my 1982 book. They show that if a man in prison has an identical twin, it's likely his cotwin will also be in prison. If the twin is fraternal [with 50 percent shared genes, on average], the likelihood is not nearly as great that he'll be in prison, too, but it's greater than chance. How could one possibly account for this difference with environmentalist explanations? The strong genetic component in criminality has already been proven up to the hilt.

The role of genetics in personality and intelligence has been extensively demonstrated in the last 30 or 40 years. The information is available in numerous textbooks. In almost all traits an appreciable genetic influence exists, varying from 70-80 percent in the case of intelligence, to about 20 percent in the case of superego.

Now, the question is: why aren't these facts known to the American people? Why have academe and the media withheld this information? In Britain, when I was growing up in the '20's, it was common sense to place considerable importance upon heredity in choosing a person to marry, in choosing the occupation for which one was suited, and so on. I was astonished when I came to America to find that eugenics was almost a bad word. One may trace this situation to the sociologists, to Boas and others, and to pressure from minority groups who oppose anything aristocratic.

I think there is a problem widespread in certain societies, notably in America, which consists of the denial, for political or other reasons, of the influence of genetics on human behavior. Of course, the Declaration of Independence has written in it Jefferson's and Franklin's statement that "all men are created equal." Now, neither of those men could possibly have believed that literally, as their other writings amply attest. But to my amazement, I find that two out of three people I ask take that statement to mean that they're genetically equal. The ideal of equality of opportunity has been distorted to mean biological equality. Roger Williams has written a telling little book [Free and Unequal, by Roger J. Williams, 1953; Liberty Press, Indianapolis] about inequality and freedom. He points out that the French Revolutionary trio of ideals of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" is internally inconsistent – a society can't have both liberty and equality. Given that people are born unequal in their innate abilities, the only way for a government to bring about equality is by coercion, but ultimately it's futile.

There may also be deeper, unconscious sources of opposition to any form of biological determinism. For example, the individual may feel that heredity somehow restrains him, so he will prefer to deny its influence. But obviously the only reasonable way to deal with nature is to accommodate to its laws, as we do to the law of gravity. If one refuses to acknowledge the importance of gravity and blithely jumps off a cliff, one will find himself in serious trouble. Our society may be jumping off a cliff, so to speak, with regard to its denial of the role of genetics in human behavior.

HOW CAN WE ENCOURAGE BRIGHT YOUNG COUPLES TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN?

How Can We Encourage Bright Young Couples To Have More Children?

By Nathaniel Weyl

Originally published in The Eugenics Bulletin, Spring-Summer 1984

Our country annually spends billions of dollars to support the indolent and unemployable while they reproduce. Can it not do at least as much for healthy young couples of good character and above-average intelligence? The children of the latter group will usually enhance the productivity and progress of the nation, while those of the former will usually become burdens on society and a dead weight that the productive population must carry.

It is essential that our intelligent young men and women not defer child-bearing and child-raising until their years of greatest fecundity have passed. They should be encouraged to have children during those years when they are naturally best suited to do so, even though they may not be self-supporting at the time. The additional expenses of child-rearing weigh harder on youth and those beginning careers than on the middle-aged. It therefore becomes a social duty, both for the nation as a whole and its individual members, to assist bright and deserving couples to reproduce, and in that way improve the genetic quality of the American population. Affluent people past their own reproductive years are especially able to assist in this matter, but unfortunately they rarely do so.

The greatest impediment to progress in progressive eugenics (also called "positive eugenics") is the fact that we live in an egalitarian society. The notion that all men are equal in intelligence and abilities is a proposition in which no sensible person believes, yet one to which every prudent politician must pay lip service. Hence, schemes for financial aid to parents to enable them to produce large families are either indiscriminately applied or selectively applied to the most genetically impoverished elements of the population. Any plan to restrict public aid to those parents who have demonstrated that they are law-abiding and of at least average intelligence would be howled down as an affront to the democratic spirit and as class legislation to oppress the poor.

To maintain leadership in the modern world a nation should combine abundant fertility on the part of its intelligent and virtuous youth with higher educational facilities available to everyone with the requisite mental capacities.

For men and women of above-average intelligence, the coeducational colleges of the nation are today the most significant institutions for mate selection and family formation. They are admirably suited to fill this role because they are semi-closed communities in which young men and women live and study together during years of heightened sexual vigor, fecundity, and growing interest in forming stable emotional unions. Marriages of college students, during study or upon graduation, tend to bring together men and women more assortatively mated than the average for intelligence and with greater than average promise of producing superior-to-gifted children. Education and child rearing need not conflict. Parents should realize that discouraging children from marrying during their college years lowers the fertility of their families, for the number of children parents will ultimately have depends in large part on when they begin. Zero Population Growth (ZPG) had a disproportionately large influence on the campuses, thus contributing to the intellectual impoverishment of the American people. Fortunately, it appears largely to have died out.

Scholarships, stipends, fellowships, grants-in-aid, loans, subsidies have made it possible for most mentally qualified Americans to acquire a college education. Some 7 1/2 million Vietnam veterans, and millions of post-Vietnam veterans, have been potential beneficiaries of generous educational benefits. Partly because of the massive presence of veterans on campus, government and the universities and colleges have become more attuned to the problems of young married students with children, and have assisted them with loans, part-time employment, day-care centers, and subsidized housing. At the same time court orders and administrative decisions have forced formerly male and female colleges to become coeducational, thus widening the role of these institutions as communities of mate selection.

Under pressure from militant minority organizations and academic liberals and Marxists, the eugenic role of the colleges is diminished, however, when admissions and graduation standards are lowered. Furthermore, some universities, such as Columbia, Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Wayne State, and Temple have found themselves so swamped by slums that they seem to be small islands of order in oceans of vice and crime. Instead of moving to more healthy environments, these universities have generally committed themselves to the attempted "rehabilitation" of their neighborhoods, which has usually been unsuccessful.

One result is that such universities have largely ceased to be communities either for mate selection or other purposes, and have become places where students and faculty put in minimal time, sometimes at considerable personal risk. It also goes without saying that they are hardly good places to raise families.

What are the practical steps that could be taken to strengthen the role of the campus as an area of mate selection and family formation?

The fundamental step would be economic and would consist of the elevation of the economic position of parents over that of the childless, i.e. financial and other aid to young couples on a scale sufficient to eliminate the economic incentive to remain sterile. This aid might include the following specifics: *Help in obtaining employment, both for students and non-student spouses

*Low-cost heavily-subsidized housing which provides a pleasant, healthy, and safe environment in which children can grow up

*Free day-care centers *Free provision of children's nurses and aides to the parents

*Special scholarships and fellowships

*Partial forgiveness on student loans for each child born, up to 100 %

*Relocation allowances for married students moving to attend the institution

*Fully-paid and adequate maternity leave from work at the university

*Low-cost and comprehensive health insurance for children of student parents

*Increases in university salaries for each child born

Such a program would not only have far-reaching eugenic benefits, but could also be in the immediate interest of institutions adopting it, since they would become more competitive in attracting top graduate students, many of whom are married. In this way their prestige would rise, which ultimately is translated into endowments, grants, research funds, and donations. Such a situation would also redound to the benefit of the towns and cities in which the institutions are located.

Aside from the universities themselves, the agency best equipped to plan and carry out much of this program is the Department of Education. Unfortunately, there is very little pressure on it to do anything of the sort, partly because in our highly-fractionated country, where pressure groups occupy the place where consensus once reigned, young parents are one of the few major groups which is not organized to lobby for its special interests. Yet these interests, unlike those of some other minorities, largely coincide with those of the nation as a whole.

In addition to programs and incentives, what is needed is a fundamental change in attitude, a recognition that to court biological extinction is immoral. A new ethic on the campus could inspire so many of the brightest to become parents that those childless by design would feel their self-imposed barrenness as a reproach and would be prompted to marry and reproduce in order to participate.

F U T U R E GENERATIONS

F U T U R E
GENERATIONS


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Kevin MacDonald's Website

Kevin Macdonald's books explain *why* the current suffocating Zeitgeist came into being -- who created it, and why. Political correctness, multiculturalism, massive immigration into the U.S. (despite the fact that polls show the overwhelming majority of Americans strongly opposed) -- the whole miserable ball of wax. This Zeitgeist makes eugenics totally hopeless, at least for the short term, because it forbids any public debate of the issue. Read The Culture of Critique first and you'll be amazed at how it all happened, and grateful that someone figured it all out and had the courage to write a book about it.

"MacDonald makes a shocking case, but one which is compelling and extensively documented, that Jewish influence has undermined Gentile society. Every European and European-American needs to understand what MacDonald has written.

For the first time, MacDonald explains, using historical documents and quoting largely from Jewish sources, the history of Jewish influence in the United States and its historical antecedents. Is it a Jewish conspiracy? Well, yes, if you consider, as does MacDonald, the activities of those individuals who are part of "organized Jewry." There are, of course, dissident Jewish intellectuals who adamantly oppose the machinations of organized Jewry, but this does not negate MacDonald's deep research and important expose.

MacDonald's 3-volume series is "must reading" for anyone who wants to learn about the origins of our most serious problems: from the decadence of modern society, through "multiculturalism," celebration of "diversity" [but not in Israel] to the disastrous results of reverse discrimination and run-away Third World immigration. . . . Western Christian civilization may truly be on the ropes, but it did not get there spontaneously or without help.

Read MacDonald's trilogy to understand the 20th century."

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tommyryden.com

The world's largest eugenics website (Swedish)

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Eugenics, Questions and Answers

Eugenics Q&A: Some Old, Some New,
Some Surprisingly Encouraging
by Marian Van Court

1. Doesn't the Declaration of Independence state that all men are created equal?

This is an objection that is frequently brought up. The Declaration of Independence reads, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This means they are equal before the law, that government can't (or shouldn't) take away these fundamental rights. The historical record is quite clear that the Founding Fathers meant equal before the law, not that everyone was born equal in intelligence, talent, or athletic ability. Their other writings amply attest to the fact that they did not believe in biological equality – between individuals, or between races. A number of them were slaveholders. In a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson rejected the aristocracy based on one's birth as an artificial one, and spoke of "the natural aristocracy of talent and virtue," which he felt was our country's most precious gift. (And isn't that a lovely turn of phrase to express what he valued most highly?) Furthermore, in spite of the great admiration Americans rightfully feel towards the Founding Fathers, even if they had made the assertion that all people are biologically exactly the same (which they didn’t!), then it could be easily demonstrated that science has subsequently proven it to be false.

2. Is there something inherently bad about having a low IQ?

Yes! The chances for a happy, successful life are considerably reduced because low-IQ people are much more likely to become criminals, chronically dependent on welfare, unemployed, illiterate – in fact, they’re way over-represented in every category of social problems. From the standpoint of our whole society, it’s also bad because these social problems cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually.

The Bell Curve, by Herrnstein and Murray, is a brilliant book. It's wonderfully well-written, and easy to read. It explains the role of IQ in our society far better than I can here. Anyway, the authors found that when they moved the average IQ of their sample down statistically by just 3 points, from 100 to 97, all social problems were exacerbated: the number of women chronically dependent on welfare increased by 7%; illegitimacy increased by 8%; men interviewed in jail increased by 12%; and the number of permanent high school dropouts increased by nearly 15%.

Everyone should be treated with respect, even retarded people, but compassion requires us to face the fact that they frequently suffer from a variety of problems, and they are a big drain on our economy.

3. In the British Medical Journal (# 7108, September 6, 1997, p. 563) there’s an article entitled "Thousands of women sterilized in Sweden without consent.” The Swedish government is investigating why thousands of women were forcibly sterilized on eugenic grounds from the 1930s to the 1970s. There are similar allegations about forced sterlisations in Switzerland, Austria and Finland. Is this the kind of thing you support?

This conjures up shocking images: a young woman – selected for no good reason – is dragged from her home, kicking and screaming, pinned to the operating table, and sterilized against her will. But it's really hard to imagine that such things happen in Sweden. Sweden certainly appears to be a highly civilized country. Could it be the case that in every imaginable respect it's a highly civilized country, except for these isolated, totally atypical acts of barbarism? Or is it possible there's a higher ethical principle operating here that we can see only if we probe beneath the surface? The sad fact is that there are women in this world who are mentally incompetent (either severely retarded or mentally ill) who are also fertile. They present a serious ethical dilemma. It's easy to condemn Sweden's actions, but it's difficult to find alternatives that are demonstrably better.

There's a very real danger that if such women aren't sterilized, they'll get pregnant, because history has shown that there are plenty of unscrupulous men ready to take advantage of them. In mental institutions, women are sometimes impregnated ("raped" is probably more accurate) by attendants or janitors. Then, the infant is taken away from the mother (is this a good thing?) and given up for adoption. In many cases, the adoptive parents are never informed that the biological mother is a schizophrenic who was raped by an employee of the institution (is this fair to the adopting parents?). Most of the children born of such unions will be alright, but as a group, they are far more likely to develop psychopathologies of various sorts, causing them and their families much unhappiness.
And what, precisely, does the phrase "without consent" mean when talking about mentally incompetent people? By definition, mentally incompetent people cannot make rational decisions on their own. And what if they were to give their consent? What would such consent even mean if they were incapable of understanding what they were consenting to? Maybe the authorities in Sweden realized they'd have to decide the issue of reproduction for these women, just as they must decide many other issues for them. Maybe they didn't bother to ask permission because they knew it would be meaningless.

Furthermore, it might be asked, "Did these women give their consent to get pregnant, give birth, and have their babies taken away from them?" The answer is “No.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, pregnancy and childbirth, in and of themselves, are not terrific experiences! They involve nausea, depression, mood swings, bladder problems, severe discomfort towards the end (just from being so fat), to say nothing of pain. Surrogate mothers are paid considerable sums of money by infertile couples, presumably because there aren't lots of women volunteering to do it for free. If, after being pregnant for nine months, a woman delivers a baby and then has it forcibly taken away from her, this is a wrenching experience which is far more traumatic than having a simple operation to prevent pregnancy in the first place, a procedure that many thousands of normal women choose to have each year.

One crucial point must be emphasized: By sterilizing these women, Sweden is not depriving them of the joys of motherhood – they are already denied that by the fact that they would be unfit mothers as a consequence of their severe mental impairment. Rather, society is depriving them of the dubious joys of pregnancy and childbirth, which, as the majority of women would attest, is doing them a big favor. In addition, it's preventing altogether the heartbreak of having babies taken from their mothers at birth, never to be seen again. (It should be noted parenthetically that the problem of fertility among mentally incompetent men is not nearly as serious because they are rarely able to find sexual partners.)

It's inappropriate to use words like "coercion" in such a situation because there's no way of knowing what the women would want if they were rational and could see things clearly. The only sensible and compassionate solution is for the authorities to do for them what most women would want
in their position, and most women would much rather not risk getting pregnant if they couldn't keep the baby.

The mentally incompetent must have decisions made by others for their own good, and for the good of everyone involved, in the area of reproduction, just as in all other facets of their lives. Clearly, it's in their best interest, and in the best interest of society, if these people do not procreate.

4. Everyone knows that IQ tests are biased – what makes you think they’re not biased?

“Everyone knows” that IQ tests are biased because the media keep telling us this, but it’s an outright lie. Here's an example of real bias: Say an IQ test is created and standardized in England, and the vocabulary section includes words like "lorry" and "scones." If this same test were given to American kids, these items would stand out rather conspicuously. When you looked at the data, you would recognize immediately that: (1) answers to these questions were merely random guesses, (2) kids who scored high on the test as a whole weren’t any more likely to get them right than those who scored low, and (3) older kids didn’t do any better than younger kids. This means they're worthless questions with no predictive value for the American kids, because all they do is add "noise," thereby reducing the reliability and validity of the test. Furthermore, if nobody ever bothered to look at the data and delete these questions from the American version, they could legitimately be said to be "biased" against American kids in relation to the English kids.

By analyzing the data this way, it’s possible to determine definitively whether a test is, or is not, biased against any group, or whether particular items are biased. If a test doesn't satisfy the criteria for bias, it's not biased. People's feelings, and what may appear on the surface to be bias, have nothing to do with making this determination. Also, there's the crucial question of whether the test predicts success equally well for all groups. The fact is that IQ tests and other standardized tests predict success in college and in career in blacks as well as whites.

In Arthur Jensen’s authoritative work on the subject, Bias in Mental Testing, he found that IQ tests are not biased (using statistical criteria), except that the tiny unreliability of the tests slightly favors low-scoring groups. Also, it’s hard to imagine how the argument of bias in favor of Caucasians could be refuted any more effectively than by the finding that American kids of Japanese ancestry score higher on average.

5. Wouldn’t it be impossible to make a serious dent in the incidence of recessive metabolic disorders through eugenics?

Yes, that’s a good point. Most children born with them come from parents who didn’t know they were carriers. But nowadays, there are many powerful new ways to deal with these problems. Parents can be tested to see if they’re carriers, and if a fetus is affected, they have the option to abort. Or, they could have in vitro fertilization, and implant only the fertilized egg that is not affected. These procedures are part of contemporary eugenics, which has many more options than early eugenics had.

6. There are good reasons to reject eugenics, even if it’s scientifically valid. One is that the world is not ready to handle this research. It’s true the media have a kind of filter that is heavily biased in favor of equality, so pro-eugenics views are hardly ever heard. However, there’s a reason this filter exists: it’s more important for the majority of people to have a good life than it is for them to consider dangerous or volatile ideas.

Ahh, now you've hit on something! You very aptly describe the suppression of these ideas as a "filter." I agree absolutely that this belief – that the public should be protected from radical ideas, particularly ones the media themselves find distasteful – is a major reason journalists and others have lied to the public about IQ. But as reasons go, this one is not nearly good enough! Don’t journalists have an ethical obligation to report the facts? In The IQ Controversy, Snyderman and Rothman showed that in this debate, the ultra-liberal media have actually kept expert opinion from the public.

Are you suggesting that the public is too stupid and too unstable to be trusted with the truth? What a handy rationalization for journalists and others who are simply too cowardly to express an unpopular truth! They don't even have to admit it to themselves. Instead, they can congratulate themselves on being "real humanitarians.”

To me, the attitude you express conveys a chilling arrogance, and utter contempt for the humanity of the public. It indicates they (you?) don't value truth, or freedom, very much. Because you "care" about them, you want to decide what's best for them to believe?! Would you want people to "care" about you that way? Who are you – who is anyone – to decide what truths the masses can, and cannot, be told? Do you believe in freedom of speech? Or is it only for certain people? Who is the fascist here?

7. There are many admirable human qualities that aren’t measured by IQ tests. There will never be consensus on what all of those qualities are. What gives any of us the right to decide which ones to phase out?

There’s already a consensus on the fundamental traits we value – for example, what traits would you want to see in your children? Most people want their children to be healthy, intelligent, sane, law-abiding, and conscientious – meaning possessing good character (honest, hard-working, concerned for well-being of others). These are universally valued traits. Have any parents, anywhere, ever said, “We’re hoping our son will grow up to be a psychopath”? Or, “We hope our daughter will be retarded”? These values were exactly the same 100 years ago, and 1000 years ago.

Another way this consensus is expressed is in government expenditures on hospitals, research on diseases and mental illness, prisons, police, etc. We as a society are already very clearly trying to change people, using environmental engineering in a marginally-effective attempt to make people smart, law-abiding, sane, and healthy. Why not do something that really works?

A “right” implies there’s something in it for us, when in reality, there’s nothing in it for us. I believe that we have a responsibility to future generations, and a great and unique opportunity to help them. We already agree on what is good, and what is not. There’s absolutely no doubt about it – we are quite sure that we wouldn't want to be diseased, retarded, a criminal, a psychopath, or insane – so it's no great leap of faith to assume people of the future don't want that, either.

But it's not as if a “Eugenics Court” will dictate each individual who can and cannot be born! A likely scenario is that legislators, in response to public opinion, will form a new Eugenics Department that will provide attractive incentives for criminals and the mentally deficient to be sterilized, and incentives for bright, healthy couples to have more children, and medical professionals to help prospective parents make decisions on how best to utilize the new reproductive technologies.

8. Lately, the issue of over-population has pretty much gotten drowned out by other problems in the world. But wouldn't well-educated people be more likely to know about it, and take it seriously, than poorly-educated people? And wouldn't this have a dysgenic effect?

Absolutely. People who have no children, or fewer children, as a result of concern about over-population would most likely be smart, well-educated, and altruistic, with a sense of social responsibility, and these are all traits we need more of, not less.

Around 1970 (back when I was just a “fledgling eugenicist
”) I had a friend, a retired professor, who was the leader of Zero Population Growth for the San Francisco Bay Area. I told him about my concerns about ZPG, and he was interested. He invited me to give a little presentation at the meeting of all the regional leaders held yearly in Northern California. Looking back on it today, it's almost funny to recall that I honestly expected that they would all welcome my talk with enthusiasm. I was quite naïve (21-years-old), but I really should have had enough common sense to realize that some of them had been working on ZPG for a long time, and they were all “rah rah” about the cause, yet there I was, telling them that actually, all their hard work was doing more harm than good!! But they listened politely until the end, when a middle-aged physician became positively livid. “What you're talking about is exactly the reason we fought World War II!” he declared angrily. I really had no idea how to respond to that, so I just stared at him for a long, awkward moment, and then sat down. Interestingly enough, three regional leaders came up to me later to thank me, saying they had the very same misgivings.

9. Maybe there are valid reasons why many people are ignorant about sociobiology and eugenics – i.e., because they are scared of their implications.

But is it ever a good strategy to stick our heads in the sand like an ostrich? The scientific facts are basically the same things people have believed since the beginning of time – that individuals and races differ genetically. Now science has confirmed what common sense told people for millennia, so there’s no reason to think these beliefs will somehow bring about the end of the world. The belief that everyone is born exactly equal on everything that matters is totally fabricated, and has only empty assertions to back it up, nothing in the way of evidence. Before Marx and Freud and political correctness, it would have been scoffed at, and it will be scoffed at again in the future, because a gigantic falsehood – especially one this blatantly obvious – can’t sustain itself indefinitely.

10. What is intelligence?

One simple, straightforward definition of intelligence is is “problem-solving ability.” Another definition is “that which IQ tests measure.” Egalitarians will object, "Since we can’t all agree on a definition, it’s a useless concept." Not true! Intelligence is like heat. We know the difference between hot and cold, and we can measure fine gradations of heat. Some people will say, "It's too hot in here!" while others say, "It's too cold!" Does this mean we must discard the concept of heat? No. Almost any definition of any word could give rise to disagreement. We don't have unanimity on definitions of many important constructs which we use every day, but we carry on nevertheless, and we are much better off with them, than without them.

Egalitarians also love to say, "But IQ isn’t everything!" That’s true. (Is there anything which is everything?) But IQ clearly is something very important. Those who pooh-pooh it have an impossible task explaining why IQ is the single best predictor of success in school and in life. How could anything which measures nothing – or even something trivial – predict success so well?

11. It seems like there’s a total "disconnect" on this issue between science on the one hand, and popular opinion, on the other.

You’re absolutely right. There are 2 arenas in which the Nature-Nurture debate is taking place – the scientific one, and the public one – and the outcomes are exactly opposite. Scientifically, the egalitarian (Nurture) position that heredity has no influence on behavior, that everyone is born exactly the same, and that the environment determines everything – is totally bankrupt. Proponents of this view have been not just beaten, but clobbered by overwhelming evidence from numerous twin studies and adoption studies, despite the fact that the "playing field" is absurdly uneven in their favor – it is far easier to get funds for research if you take an egalitarian stance, your articles will be greeted with great interest and approval, and you won't have even one-thousandth the problem finding a publisher for your book, which will get rave reviews and sell lots of copies. In spite of all that, the egalitarians have been thoroughly trounced in the scientific arena for the plain and simple reason that they’re wrong, and the evidence against them is overwhelming.

In the public arena, just the opposite is true, and Nurture has clearly won the day. The egalitarian strategy has been to snipe at the research of the hereditarians. [I use "hereditarians" to mean people who believe heredity exerts a strong influence on behavior. No hereditarians I’ve ever heard of believe the environment is unimportant.] Egalitarians use ad hominim attacks, portraying hereditarians as evil men who deliberately distort their data because they want to make themselves feel superior, and because they want to deliberately make other people feel bad. (Oh please! How stupid can you get?!)

Egalitarians have no evidence and they know it. They try to confuse the issue: "Nobody can ever know for sure." "It hasn't been proven." They like to say that heredity and environment are so hopelessly entangled, how could anyone figure out the relative influence of each? [Easy – by studying identical twins reared apart.] Their obscurantist strategy is powerless against vast areas of new research such as biological correlates of IQ (e.g., .4 with brain size) so they simply ignore them. They point to a small flaw in one twin study done 50 years ago, for example, in an attempt to discredit twin studies, but neglect to inform their readers that a dozen more studies conducted since then have reported exactly the same results. They give examples of questions taken from IQ tests discarded decades ago, saying they’re "obviously biased," as if it's sufficient to simply make an assertion and leave it at that. But do the egalitarians really want to get at the truth? Ask yourself this question, "What research have Gould, Kagan, Lewontin, Rose, et al ever produced?" Answer: None.

Among researchers in the field of IQ, it’s been common knowledge for many years that the leading proponents of egalitarianism are not merely mistaken or misinformed, they are thoroughly dishonest. They deliberately mislead people into accepting egalitarianism in order to further their own political agenda, and their allies in the media do likewise. (And in so doing, they all make lots of money – they must be in hog heaven.) Brilliant and sincere scientists, such as Jensen, Whitney, Lynn, Rushton, Herrnstein, and Murray, who consistently report the truth even though they know it’s unpopular, are branded “racists” and “bigots,” while the egalitarians portray themselves as the "good guys." It’s downright disgusting the way they take on pious airs while blatantly lying to the public.

Everyone knows that if a person listens to only one side in a bitter divorce, he/she is likely to come away with a totally biased impression. (The wife's friends say "The husband is a monster!" and the husband's friends say "The wife’s a psychopath!") But even though we know better, we still fall prey to believing what we hear based on just one side, and we do it all the time, because there are only so many hours in a day, and we can’t probe deeply into every single issue. On the question of genetics and behavior, the egalitarians and the liberal media have tightly controlled public discourse, so for decades, only their side has been presented to the public. Is it any wonder the public accepts what they say uncritically? It’s certainly not anyone’s fault for believing it. If I didn't happen to study and do research on IQ, I'd probably believe it, too.

But then maybe someday, I might think to myself, "Why not just see what the other side has to say?
" Many, many people are incapable of doing this, because they’re terrified the other side might be right, and to discover that they've been completely wrong would be such a jolt to their psyches they might never recover. Anyway, just imagine I summoned up the courage to venture into forbidden territory – I might read one really good book, such as The Bell Curve, by Herrnstein and Murray. I'd think to myself "Gee, what a totally different world this is! It's not a pretentious piece of propaganda like Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man – it's down-to-earth, clearly stated, interesting, even engrossing. Hmmm . . . kind of exciting! It’s easy to read, yet it feels more . . . substantive, more satisfying, like meat-and-potatoes compared to that other stuff, which was like cotton candy. And look – all these interesting graphs and tables! I guess that's because this is, well, science." And when I'd finished, I don't think I'd feel foolish at all – I think I'd be plenty angry at the dishonest low-lifes who had blatantly lied to me for decades.

12. Whatever happened to The Repository for Germinal Choice? I read that it closed in 1999, but were the children born from this program ever studied?

All prospective parents signed statements promising that they would take part in surveys in the future, but I remember Graham saying that when they sent out questionnaires about the children, many parents never returned them, so this was a source of frustration and disappointment to him. He understood their desire to protect their privacy, but he wanted very much to follow the children to see how they turned out, yet this study was never done. I interviewed him in Austin, TX in 1983 for a small publication I edited, The Eugenics Bulletin. I also met with Graham maybe a dozen times or so over the years for lunch, dinner, or coffee. (As a man, I found him to be warm, kind, gracious, and very smart.)

The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Sperm Bank, by David Plotz, was published in 2006. Plotz, a journalist, wrote a series of articles about The Repository, and each time he published one, people who had been involved with The Repository – mothers, children, and even a few donors – contacted him. Of the over 200 children born from this program, he eventually communicated with 30. Some children even met their donors. It’s an interesting book, although I detected several inaccuracies and instances of bias. For example, he writes something to the effect that “William Shockley loved attention.” This kind of statement naturally raises a red flag about an author’s objectivity because it’s such a transparent cheap shot. Plotz portrays Graham as a kook who thought he could create a bunch of little geniuses, but that’s demonstrably false, and quite frankly, I suspect that Plotz knew it was false when he wrote it. Nowhere in Graham’s book or in his interviews did he ever say he expected all geniuses to be born from this program, a majority of geniuses, or even half geniuses. So why did Plotz characterize Graham that way, in the complete absence of any evidence to support it? Perhaps Plotz felt obligated to forsake truth and conform to standard journalist scorn and ridicule for fear of being ostracized by the “politically correct club,” and a “kook” may be a better subject for book sales than a courageous, innovative, and altruistic man. Graham had amassed a fortune, and he was no fool – he understood mutations, regression to the mean, and other basic facts of genetics, and he understood probability, and he told me once that, as a matter of chance, there were bound to be a few Repository children who were not blessed genetically, possibly one with something as serious as Down’s syndrome.

Graham said in his interview with me: “Look at it from the point of view of the parents. These are couples who want a child, but can't have one because the husband is infertile. With this program, they can have a child, and they can maximize the probability [my emphasis] of having a bright, healthy and creative child. Consider the child, too. As a consequence he spends his life with the genes of the donor, as well as those of the mother. Why not provide the best genes possible?”

In spite of his obvious bias, Plotz tells some interesting stories about the children, the mothers, and the donors, some positive and some not, but given questions about his credibility, it’s difficult to know how much faith to have in them. However, by far the most important thing I learned from the book is that The Repository really revolutionized artificial insemination.

Before The Repository, most doctors inseminated patients whose husbands were infertile with little concern about the donors. Prospective mothers were sometimes able to select the donor’s hair and eye color, but little else. The Repository opened in 1980, and it gave much more detailed information about each donor – in addition to his coloring, his height and weight, age, occupation, accomplishments, hobbies, athletic pursuits, whether he played a musical instrument, often his IQ, and so on. Donors also had to pass very thorough medical exams. Suddenly women didn’t need doctors anymore, they had the power to choose what they wanted, and this changed everything. From the very beginning, there was far more demand for sperm than The Repository could provide. Despite constant indoctrination by the media that genes don’t matter, apparently many women weren’t so easily brainwashed. The Repository demonstrated that, overwhelmingly, they wanted the very best sperm. Paul Broder, who worked for Graham, later co-founded his own sperm bank, the California Cryobank, and he readily acknowledges his debt to Graham. Basically, all sperm banks became eugenics sperm banks because The Repository showed that that’s what women want.

Today, California Cryobank, one of the largest sperm banks with over 200 donors and offices in Los Angeles, Palo Alto and Cambridge, provides a great deal more information on donors than did the Repository, and it charges for the information, and for the sperm. It also pays donors. Whereas The Repository gave “germinal material” only to married women with infertile husbands, nowadays sperm banks also cater to lesbians and single women.

According to Plotz, there have been about a million children born from artificial insemination in America as of the year 2000, with around 30,00 more born each year. Graham was disappointed that The Repository children were never studied, but the whole point of studying them was to show how well they turned out, so other sperm banks might follow his lead. The study would have been interesting, but it was largely a means to an end. Graham died in 1999, but he accomplished his objective much faster than he anticipated because The Repository revolutionized sperm banks. Half the genetic heritage of upwards of a million children – with many thousands more each year – has been greatly improved as a result, and that is a huge victory for eugenics.

Future Generation: Reviews

 

 

Our Readers Write

The letters printed here are selected on the basis of interest and relevance. Future Generations doesn't necessarily endorse all statements they contain.

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Sent: Thursday, May 5, 2016 2:08 AM
Subject: Thank You - A Black Woman's Perspective

Good day, Marian Van Court,

Thank you so much for writing your articles on Eugenics. Your website has been thoroughly insightful for me. I write to you as someone who is genetically more predisposed to have qualities that do not naturally promote human betterment - I am a black woman. I know that separate from lower IQ, I am more likely to procreate children with undesirable qualities that would undermine the purpose of eugenics. I also know that my race is twice as likely as Whites to engage in criminal activity, a result, more than likely, from lower IQ that can lead to crime and more social problems.

If there is any truth to Margaret Sanger's Negro Project, I admit that I do understand why she and others would have encouraged this. In an attempt to salvage human civilization, society should be thankful for her contributions.

That said, I often wonder what more I can do as a black woman to support eugenics. Separate from trying to provide whatever donations I can to The Pioneer Fund, the Milbank Memorial Fund and women clinic's in developing countries that encourage abortion and sterilization within dysgenic societies, I recently made the decision to voluntarily sterilize myself as to prevent the increase risk of adding to a human population of degenerates. I will be completely honest and admit that I wish more black women agreed to voluntary sterilization. For the most part, we have added little to society.

I am most comfortable with this decision in my life and while others may call it black genocide, I call it taking a pre-emptive step in helping the cause of eugenics and betterment of society.

I still have so much to read on this subject, but I want to relay that some of us are taking steps to entirely prevent procreation that adds nothing to society. I am forever grateful in knowing my decision, though difficult, is the right one.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to reading more of your contributions!

- Rachel

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Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:10 PM
Subject: Future Generations

Hello!

I recently found your website and it was a breath of fresh air. Society is going downhill and egalitarianism is largely to blame. People in modern times seem to view everyone as their own island, connected to no one except through self-chosen relationships, but of course this is not so; we are all part of a larger family tree, and that defines who we are in so many ways! There was a time when people recognized this, but now, it seems that most do not. Our family trees show us so much about our personality, our intelligence, our abilities, and, naturally, how we look.

I've read most of the articles on there, and while I agree in theory with the concept of entirely voluntary eugenics for the betterment of society, I'm wondering if you have any suggestions of how to put this into effect practically. Please understand, I'm not trying to challenge you, I really am curious. I know one of the articles mentioned paying certain people to reproduce; is this the ideal method, in your opinion?

Thank you for your time.

N.B.

P.S. Please feel free to publish this email on your website if you'd like to, but I ask that you kindly keep my name and email address private.

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Sent: Friday, December 31, 2010 9:55 AM
Dear Marian,

I cannot speak openly about my ordeal because I would be criticized harshly by most for my opinions. I never really understood about the mental retardation in my family, but looking back, it was there. My husband is from a very nutty, dysfunctional maternal family, with a very questionable paternal heritage. I always wanted to have only one child so that I could lead a more free and financially stable life. My husband and I could not reach a decision regarding this matter, and as a Christian, I was forced to defer to his leadership. After our first son was born, he was diagnosed with autism. I took him to a psychiatrist who told me that there was absolutely no genetic link in autism, that it was a fluke. If I had been taught in the 2 psychology courses that I took in college about the genetic link, I would have probably been sterilized. My husband wanted more children.

To make the story short, I had 3 more children. One was later diagnosed with severe psychoses and autism. The other two are functional, but with some degree of autism. My husband (lower IQ) left us for his pregnant girlfriend before my last was born. The school system has failed us, and even though I have an advanced degree, I am forced to homeschool the children, living off welfare, so that I can try to make productive citizens from them.

I love my children because they are mine. I am very proud of their accomplishments. They have, however, suffered a great deal for their deficiencies. They are rejected by their peers. One of them is functionally unable to leave the house. They are good kids, but they suffer terribly due to their genetic defects. Who will care for them when I am no longer able? Their useless father has abandoned them.

I applaud you for your efforts. I wish I had met you 20 years ago. A lot of suffering might have been avoided.

Anonymous Mother, PhD

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Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 12:51 PM
Dear Marian van Court,

MANY THANKS for your excellent blog on Eugenics! I have been a firm believer in Eugenics for decades, and I fully support your amazing efforts to rehabilitate this Science, which will play an ESSENTIAL ROLE in the betterment of Humanity. We must END once and for all the BIG LIE of « Human equality »! This evil lie has done IMMENSE HARM to all Human groups, most especially White Europeans, whose average genetical quality today is APPALLING, compared to that of their great Ancestors!… Please keep up the good work in favor of Eugenics: I will always support courageous people like you Many thanks again for your great blog!

Sincerely Yours,

M L

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Sent: Sunday, October 06, 2013 8:02 PM
Subject: Eugenics

I applaud your courageous efforts in the face of narrow-minded criticism to further the cause of human betterment. Please keep up the good work and ignore the hate mail from ignorant people! L. A.

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May 1, 2013
Hello,

I would like to thank you for this website. It is absolutely fascinating.

I am simply terrified of dysgenics. We are staring down the barrel of civilizational collapse. And no one is doing anything about it. This is doubly so because of the horrific animal abuse committed daily in factory farms. High IQ promotes empathy and low tribalism, so the lowering of IQ through dysgenics will perpetuate this monstrous line of w
ork.

What can I do to help? You mention Pioneer in previous emails, but they've folded. Donate to the Ulster Institute, perhaps?

Thanks
Frank

Editor's note: The Pioneer Fund is alive and well! Please see "How Can I Help?" for details on how to donate.

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February 27, 2007

Hello there,

I have visited your Eugenics website and I must say it is excellent. It is very in depth and it says things that the majority of those sites run by simplistic lemmings will not say. I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of eugenics. I have went through hell and back over the choices of my parents.

I have numerous genetic defects. First and foremost, I have a condition called hidradenitis supurativa which causes scarring boils with severe pain to appear in the armpits and the groin. These lesions smell, leak and there's no cure only management as the condition will definitely recur. I am plagued by the scarring and I am very much ashamed of my body. The condition causes such severe pain that I once thought about killing myself. I have had painful surgery only for the condition to recur. It first began when I was about 13 years old and since modern medicine could only give me expensive antibiotics which ruined my immune system and helped none, I turned to alternative medicine. I am going better now thanks to my own ingenuity but because of the condition, I decided when I was 16 not to have children.

Since I was about 2 years old I've had severe allergies and asthma problems. Some of my first memories are of caregivers jamming nasty smelling and tasting steroidal nasal sprays up my nose when I was in a high chair. I have endured surgery, countless years of allergy shots, countless emergency room visits, years of nasty tasting and smelling steroidal nasal sprays that stunted my growth and could cause me cataracts in the future. I never could run and play with the other kids. I missed countless days of school. I took inhalers which also were steroidal and messed up my height potential. Even to this day, I have constant breath issues and a nasty taste in my mouth so that I cannot enjoy my meals. I cannot sleep due to the constant stuffiness and my school performance has greatly suffered due to my lack of sleep. This lack of sleep has me crabby a lot of the times and also has lowered my resistance to infection. I am stuck paying high fees for medicines and doctors to control the issue (just go to http://www.walgreens.com and look up the drugs Nasonex, Singulair and Zyrtec if you don't believe me.) The drugs also contribute to my tiredness. I am a walking zombie. And the drugs still do not help much with the allergy symptoms.

Also, another genetic issue is my weight. I don't eat much and I never have. I exercise faithfully everyday for at least 30-45 minutes in my proper target heart rate zone and I still am overweight. I remember times when I have exercised for 2-3 hours a day and fasted and I still wouldn't lose. I've been fat every since I could remember and I was taunted by the jeering and tactlessness of my peers and adults alike. Members of my own family taunted me because of my weight issue. I was going to weight counselors at hospitals by the time I was 4 years old. I've been taking diet pills since the age of 11-12 (paid for by my mother at the time). I have done everything from Slim Fast to actual fasting to infinity and still remain overweight. Don't let the media brainwash you--if all it takes to be a slender healthy weight is eating less and moving more (as the lemmings croak), then everyone who wanted to be slim would be slim. Look at the numbers...the majority of people who actually do outsmart their genes and lose weight will gain it right back with interest. You cannot fight your genes. They are too powerful. Prevention is the only option.

In addition to this, I have jaw and tooth alignment issues that years of braces and appliances and headgear wouldn't correct all the way.

I can look right at my family tree and see all of these problems staring me right back in the face. I inherited them from my parents, mainly my father and his side of the family. The only good genetic trait that I have is my intelligence but I'm not having kids because the bitter with the sweet will get passed on and I don't have the right to pass onto others what I don't want myself. My father also has major retardation and mental illness on his side of the family and I thank God I didn't inherit that one thing from him.

If it were just one or two genetic issues, I could deal more but oftentimes it gets overwhelming. You have to be careful who you have kids with as their health and whether they are a burden or not on society's pocketbook depends on it. You have to look at the amount of genetic problems a person has and whether or not your family has the same issues before you have kids. People only take genetic flaws seriously when the child is on a ventilator. People don't even look at the "functioning" genetic problems that people like me have. No, you have to have severe hemophilia or be retarded before they take heed and even then they don't go the eugenics way even though it is the most sensible way.

I want you all to continue preaching the truth for it shall set all of us free!

~Kay

P.S. You have my full permission to use my letter. The truth must be heard.

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April 5, 2004

Eugenics is a great idea. All we have to do is figure out a way to kill off all those inferior types now that our beloved Fuehrer is gone--just kidding! My sense of humor gets a little macabre at times. The Nazis did forcibly sterilize a lot of people who were retarded, mentally ill, severe alcoholics, or with other problems (we Americans also forcibly sterilized about 100,000 of our citizens, and Sweden kept forcibly sterilizing its defective citizens until the 1970's--social democracy is pure evil, I tell you), but the Nazis' killings of various unfortunate persons, such as people who were permanently hospitalized, were done for economic reasons. Now that we know what economics leads to, I can't believe that economics and accounting are still taught in our colleges. The discredited pseudo-sciences of economics and accouting are proven slippery slopes to mass murder, world war, genocide, and, ultimately and worst of all THE HOLOCAUST. Economists and accountants are just pure evil. They're closet Nazis for sure. No decent, respectable person would have anything to do with tainted eccentricities like economics and accounting.

If this sounds a little nutty, remember it's the "reasoning" that typically lies behind kneejerk denunciations of "eugenics," but this reasoning applies much better to economics and accounting than it does to eugenics. So when people find out that the Nazi executions of incompetent persons that they attribute to eugenics was really motivated by economics and accounting, why don't they shift their sense of horror and repulsion from eugenics to economics and accounting? And then there were the notorious experiments of Dr. Mengele--a brilliant physician, but clearly high on psychopathy (which is not at all unusual for creative scientists); these inhuman experiments were not motivated by eugenics either, but by medical research. Medical science is evil! End it now! It can only lead to THE HOLOCAUST!

Okay, enough sarcasm. If people think eugenics is scary, try presenting the evidence for *dysgenics* to them. As if increasing rates of disease, obesity, etc. were not enough, it appears clear that the genes for intelligence must also be declining. Fortunately (in a perverse sort of way) peoples around the world (and even within the borders of the same country many times) have widely varying IQ's. For the moment, it doesn't matter whether
these average IQ's vary due to genetic differences or depressed environments. The fact is, they do vary, and low IQ has the same consequences regardless of its causes. We can look at these countries with low IQ's and very low IQ's and see where western civilization is ultimately headed--and there is reason to think we're headed there much faster than most people assume. So if eugenics worries people, they need to consider the alternative.

Unfortunately, people come to this topic with a strong bias in favor of environmental determinism. In most people's minds, the default explanation for human differences, consciously or unconsciously, is not the sensible "genes plus environment," but "environment alone until proven otherwise," which is just as silly as "genes alone until proven otherwise." Yet hardly anyone believes this second silliness (contrary to what one may hear from various ignoramuses), yet hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, believe the first silliness. The good news is that there's a vast amount of data that supports a large role for genes in most human behaviors, abilities, and other traits. The bad news is that people have a lot to learn, and a lot of faulty assumptions to unlearn, and this takes time and, alas, a certain amount of effort.

~Alypius

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August 3, 2005

Dear Sir or Ma'am:

I have just discovered eugenics, and I have found something that summarizes the feelings I've had for years. I'm very interested in this subject and wish to learn more. I wish this movement was still going strong, because it makes so much sense. My top complaints about our society include people having too many children who can't care for them, my taxpayer money funding programs for these types of people, and the media's portrayal of whites as the "bad people" and a dying race.

I often wonder if, had people been able to see into America's future from, say, the 1920's, if things would have turned out the way they did. I don't know where things got so turned around, but it's truly unbelievable.

It makes me sad to see the country that my family helped to build turning into such a mess. My ancestors arrived here in the 1700s from England, and I am extremely proud of their accomplishments and my link to such amazing people. I often wish I had been born several generations ago (I'm 30) so I could have avoided many of the social ills that now plague us.

I live in Miami, and am constantly being reminded that my culture is "dead", I'm not anything special because I'm not of a mixed race or Hispanic, and that it's just not "cool" to be white. I have even had my education mocked in job interviews. I've been told, "Why did you bother going to college? Trade school would have been a better choice. You wasted four years." Incredible. Apparently these days, education isn't given the high priority it deserves.

Thank you for providing your website, which I will be reading in depth, and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Sincerely,

Sarah

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Dear Future Generations:

The last large group of institutional Eugenicists were the Nazis. They didn't survive very long. From that I must conclude that belief in Eugenics is a maladaptive trait resulting from inferior genes.

In that regard, by your own paradigm, you folks should be the first to be euthanized so as to eliminate from the Human gene pool those particular highly antisocial genes which you apparently possess. Removal of your patently antisocial genes from the Human gene pool would be a very good first, last and final process of applied Eugenics.

Your next historical example and object lesson shall be the current self-destruction of Israel, which like the Nazis were, is also composed largely of a small group of people who are gravely mistaken in the belief that somehow they are superior to other Humans.

Here are some philosophical terms and concepts you need to study and learn about, so as to relieve your ignorance. I suggest you do it before it is too late for you.

-altruism.
-fatalism.
-jingoism.

Everyone born has something to offer. If your goal is to prevent unwanted birth defects, there exist plenty of opportunities to educate the medically ignorant on ways to avoid pregnancy with an unsuitable mate. But if that were to succeed, doctors would be much the poorer as a result, and we all know the AMA can't have that, can they?

Sincerely,

Tom Lowe
Borrego Springs, CA

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October 16, 2004

I can't believe people like you still exist in the world, hopefully by your case for Eugenics, if you're what you perceive as being 'Intelligent' types such as yourself will be bred out by the 'dysgenics' of the world. I'd still prefer someone that I could relate to not based on a number from a test, but in terms of views and acceptance - to any person claiming to be 'intelligent.' It's the year 2004, the world doesn't need people who believe in sterilizing others for the sake of humanity, or what ever bullshit you believe it's for, we need people who don't slander others, and who believe that everyone should have the right to equality. You're the only f*cking dysgenic in the world. By the way, I scored 116 on an IQ test, it doesn't mean shit.

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July 20, 2004

Even before I knew that the idea of eugenics existed, I knew that it wasn't a good idea for people like me to breed. I have "depression with psychosis." It's genetic. My dad hears voices, my sister is paranoid-schitzophrenic, and my mom is a "neurotic narcissicist." On top of that, diseases like cancer and heart disease run rampant on both sides of the family. I'm not even a pretty person. It's bad when six-year-olds yell "hey ugly girl" at you when you're taking a jog around the neighborhood.

I know it would be unfair to let my genes spread, allowing myself to make descendants who suffer like me. I don't want them to experience the things I do, like seeing and hearing things, or to be like my sister, who is highly obsessed with "catching" the "spies" who are "out to get" her--for instance she covers up the vents in her room because she thinks people watch her through them. However, it's too bad that my genius IQ won't be passed on.

I found out about eugenics from a History Channel program which portrayed eugenics as something only "evil Nazis" believe in. But that didn't sway me from my beliefs. I was happy when I found out from the internet that other people believe the same way that I do.

Kittie

P.S. If you happen to put this on your letters page, please don't display my e-mail address. Thank you.

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Hello,

I think I agree that the world is dumbing down. The Flynn Effect is not, however, a barrier to this thesis. The Effect disappears when one realizes that its problematic conclusion follows merely from asking the wrong question. As Flynn presents it, the question is whether the mean IQ of later populations is greater than the mean of earlier ones--which is to say, whether you or I, if dropped in our present state among test-takers of the past, would be able to up our percentile rank among the ancient plodders. And the obvious and correct answer to this wrong question is that it should be and we would but that doesn't tell us anything worth knowing because each generation can only devise tests according to cues given the neural circuitry by the education, materials, and circumstance of the life of its time; and if the life of its time is more adjusted to, or more difficult with respect to, certain problems (however petty) the
neural circuitry will be more cued to deal with those problems (however petty) and the tests, which of course are designed expressly to produce a bell curve sort of distribution of results, will be adjusted accordingly; and it is merely in the nature of change that the cues of today might include most of the cues of yesterday, but not vice versa ( because one reviews--perhaps unconsciously-- the past, not the future) especially given the naivety of the test devisers of the the past. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that earlier IQ tests are easier than later ones. This conclusion should direct one away from Flynn's path, not along it. The real question, the only interesting one, is whether you or I, if born and raised among the test takers of the past, could solve the problems of that time any easier than we can, in our present circumstance, solve the problems of our own time. However, this question, too, has an obvious answer: Probably Not, for the obvious reason that our problem-solving circuitry would be cued to the world as it was then. The obverse is the question whether Thomas Jefferson, if born as Thomas Jefferson but born today, would rise to great heights and do great things or just be a stockroom clerk. And again, the answer is obvious: he would probably do something notable because his problem solving circuitry would be cued to present times--and he would still be Thomas Jefferson. (This is an elitist view, I know, but I am an elitist.)

Of course, with respect to a Jefferson and those others who do or have done (as opposed to those who merely talk about it), "the pudding" (as in "the proof") always trumps any IQ test. In other words, if I prove the Riemann Conjecture all other tests of my math ability become irelevant. Therefore, while it may well be true that a knowledgeable physicist of today could explain certain things to Isaac Newton, the Flynn effect readjustment of Newton's intelligence downward is idiotic, to put it mildly.

No, my own strongly held opinion is that people are indeed getting stupider. Recently I had occasion to remark upon how glad I was to get out of junior high fifty years ago. But then, it all seems like junior high today, and the idiots I despised then are running the world. (At least, they are giving us the news.)

Here is a subject that I opine may well be connected to the dumbing of the species: the ballistics of the human brain. Have you perhaps noticed that very few persons today can speak even a single sentence without a continual jerking of the brain container. I would be interested in the neuropsychiatry of this phenomenom, which is self-evident in modern movies, almost absent in old movies, and positively correlates, I would guess, with stupidity.

Regards,

Michael O'Hair

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Quotes We Just Happen to Like

QUOTES WE JUST HAPPEN TO LIKE

“The Truth Shall Make You Free” (John 8:32)

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Think Noble This Day
Think noble this day
For it is life
The life of life.
All is there
In its brief moment
All the reality
All the truth of existence
The joy of growth
The splendor of action
The glory of strength . . . .

For yesterday he is but a dream
And tomorrow but a vision
But today, well lived
Forms each yesterday
Into a memory/dream of happiness
And each tomorrow
Into a vision of hope/realization of trust.
Thus, live this day with honor/confidence.

From Idylls from the Sanskrit

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Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

Winston Churchill

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"Giving birth and nourishing,
Bearing yet not possessing,
Working yet not taking credit,
Leading yet not dominating,
This is the Primal Virtue."

- Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

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“Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs.”

Roger Ebert, Life Itself

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The result of not being involved in politics is being governed by one's inferiors.

Plato

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Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary.

One would like to ask: by whom has it been elected, and to whom is it responsible?

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

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The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favorable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

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How many ideas have there been in the history of mankind which were unthinkable ten years before and which, when their mysterious hour struck suddenly appeared, and spread all over the earth?

Dostoyevsky

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When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.

Margaret Sanger (1883-1966)

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What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.

Sir Francis Galton (1905)

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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell

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"General impressions are never to be trusted. Unfortunately when they are of long standing they become fixed rules of life, and presume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. Consequently, those who are not accustomed to original inquiry entertain hatred and a horror of statistics. They cannot endure the idea of submitting their sacred impressions to cold-blooded verification."

Sir Francis Galton

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"Where the government fears the people there is liberty; where the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Thomas Jefferson

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"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Thomas Jefferson

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"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."

Thomas Jefferson

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"Reason and free inquiry are the effectual agents against error. They are the natural enemies of error and error only."

Thomas Jefferson

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All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed,
and third, it is accepted as self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer,1788-1860

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Ram, ass, and horse, my Kyrnos, we look over
With care, and seek good stock for good to cover;
And yet the best men make no argument,
But wed, for money, runts of poor descent.
So too a woman will demean her state
And spurn the better for the richer mate.
Money's the cry. Good stock to bad is wed
And bad to good, till all the world's cross-bred.
No wonder if the country's breed declines-
Mixed metal, Kyrnos, that but dimly shines.

Theognis of Megara on eugenics and dysgenics, circa 520 B.C.

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If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

George Orwell

(Examples: eugenics, racist, anti-Semite, hater.)

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Nature is the art of God.

Dante

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The dangerous things ain't what we know that is so,
it's what we know that ain't.

(Author unknown, but frequently attributed to Mark Twain.)

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'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we k
now only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World:
Science as a Candle in the Dark

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Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

Wynn Cotlin

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"Naturam non vinces nisi parendo."
(You will not master [conquer] nature unless you obey it.)

Roger Bacon

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The greatest threats to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal -- well-meaning but without understanding.

US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928

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You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.

Robert Darwin, to his son Charles

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If you sit by the river long enough, the bodies
of your enemies will float by.

Taoist saying

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Goodie-goodies are the thieves of virtue.

Lao-tzu

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When cosmic energy became life a new dimension was added to the drama of time and space. For the first time in forever, there would be pain and pleasure. For the first time in forever, there could be hope, faith, and love. Forever would never be the same again.

from "The Human Factor," by R.L. Hart

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The heresy of heresies is common sense.

George Orwell

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At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is "not done" to say it... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.

George Orwell, 1945, Introduction to Animal Farm

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Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments . . . and of being bored and repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

George Orwell

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In the beginning of a change,
The Patriot is a scarce man and brave,
Hated and scorned.
When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him,
For then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

Mark Twain

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Think Noble This Day

Think noble this day
For it is life
The life of life.
All is there
In its brief moment
All the reality
All the truth of existence
The joy of growth
The splendor of action.
The glory of strength . . .

For yesterday he is but a dream
And tomorrow but a vision
But today, well lived
Forms each yesterday
Into a memory/dream of happiness
And each tomorrow
Into a vision of hope/realization of trust.
Thus, live this day with honor/confidence.

(from Idylls from the Sanskrit)

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Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for a moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

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I have pledged upon the altar of God Almighty eternal hostility to tyranny over the minds of men.

Thomas Jefferson

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If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Samuel Adams

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Evolution is the development of the energy of the universe in such a way that it has an increasing ability to consciously control itself and the universe around it. It is a progressive change from the unconscious to the conscious. We are the universe trying to comprehend itself. Man is the corporeal manifestation of the universe trying to control its own destiny. Man is God in the process of coming into existence.

James Hart
Eugenic Manifesto

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The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being, is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To undertake the responsibility--to bestow a life which my be either a curse or a blessing--unless the being on whom it is bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that being.

John Stuart Mill, essay On Liberty

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There is no permanent status quo in nature; all is the process of adjustment and readjustment, or else eventual failure. But man is the first being yet evolved on earth which has the power to note this changefulness, and, if he will, to turn it to his own advantage, to work out genetic methods, eugenic ideas, yes, to invent new characteristics, organs, and biological systems that will work out to further the interests, the happiness, the glory of the God-like being whose meager foreshadowings we the present ailing creatures are.

Herrman J. Muller, 1935
From R. M. Sonneborn, 1968, ?Muller, crusader for human betterment,Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â? Science, 162, 772-776

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To know [how a civilization comes into being] you must be aware of two prerequisites . . . namely leadership and problem-solving ability on the part of the general public. They are necessary not only as preludes to a civilization but as a continuing requirement for its survival.

Where whole segments of population, either geographic segments or classes within an area, are bungling their problems, the chances are not only that the leaders are inadequate as leaders, but that the masses are mostly composed of far-down specimens of humanity, biologically incapable of producing wise leaders. Essential to wise leadership are high quality brains. The only source of brains is heredity . . .

Problem-makers reproduce in greater percentage than problem-solvers, and in so doing cause the decline of civilization.

Since civilization is an accumulation it must necessarily lag behind the concentration of brain power on which it depends . . . [Since] the manifestations of a civilization, its visible structures, are an accumulation, they may linger on for decades after the average intellect, the inherited brain power, has declined below the level that would have been necessary to initiate it.

In short, if capable, intelligent people had most babies, society would see its problems and solve them.

Elmer Pendell, from Sex Versus Civilization, 1967

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Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim of eugenics.

It has now become a serious necessity to better the breed of the human race. The average citizen is too base for the everyday work of a modern civilization. Civilized man has become possessed of vaster powers than in old times for good or ill, but has made no corresponding advance in wits and goodness to enable him to direct his conduct rightly.

[Man has] already furthered evolution very considerably, half unconsciously and for his own personal advantages, but he has not yet risen to the conviction that it is his religious duty to do so deliberately and systematically. . . . The chief result of these Inquiries has been to elicit the religious significance of the doctrine of evolution. It suggests an alteration in our mental attitude, and imposes a new moral duty. The new mental attitude is one of a greater sense of moral freedom, responsibility, and opportunity; the new duty which is supposed to be exercised concurrently with, and not in opposition to the old ones upon which the social fabric depends, is an endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race.

Those who enjoy a sense of communion with God can dwell on the undoubted fact that there exists a solidarity between themselves and what surrounds them, through the endless reaction of physical laws among which the hereditary influences are to be included. They know that they are descended from an endless past, that they have a brotherhood with all that is, and have each his own share of responsibility in parentage of an endless future.

Francis Galton (quoted in C.P. BlackerÃ?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?s Eugenics: Galton and After, 1952)

�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������?
??�����������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥

The process of change is like a children's slide. One climbs laboriously to the top, but once over the edge, the downward movement is quick, abrupt, inevitable, and complete.

D.C. Lau

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??��������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through...all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥����������������������������
���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������¥

Eugenics and evolutionary ethics involves much more than merely the mechanics of selective breeding like we human beings were merely a new breed of cattle or a new strain of wheat. Evolutionary ethics is an entirely new understanding of man and his relationship to the universe.

Good and evil are not myths, although many myths have been written about them: they are biological laws no more arbitrary or subjective than any of the laws of mathematics or chemistry. Morality is not some superstitious fairy tale: it is the mathematics of survival.

Man is the real miracle, the real God, and he has proven it for a thousand generations. All that is science or religion comes from him and is less than him. The purpose of life is the evolution of man toward perfection.

Our fathers endured starvation, glaciers, jungles, monsters through the struggles of eons of evolution so that we might be veritable Gods today. If you do not have the courage to carry on the sacred flame of life, then die, but do not encourage others in your ignominious anti-life, anti-child cowardice.

Dysgenic suicide is only possible in a society that refuses to accept the moral responsibility for what it does. . . . Ironically, we are using the intellectual capacity that made us great in order to destroy that capacity itself.

It is not a question of beginning or initiating a eugenic program. It is a matter of recognizing that we have already begun an anti-eugenic program which is a suicidal and disastrous one because it selects the inferior for
survival and eliminates the superior. We are practicing eugenics in reverse. We are causing the reversal of evolution. Since we are already manipulating genetics, we should be made conscious of our responsibility for the results of our actions on future generations. We are responsible for what our children will be. We can no longer plead ignorance. We have a voluntary choice to make between superior and inferior, between prosperity and starvation, between evolution and devolution. Doing nothing is a choice and a disastrous one.

The cause of our suffering is within us. The source of our salvation is also within us.

Evolution is the systematic and progressive development of life toward perfection. Evolution is the development of the energy of the universe in such a way that it has an increasing ability to consciously control itself and the universe around it. It is a progressive change from the unconscious to the conscious. We are the universe trying to comprehend itself. Man is the corporeal manifestation of the universe trying to control its own destiny. Man is God in the process of coming into existence.

James Hart, Eugenic Manifesto

Cohousing: An Ancient Idea Whose Time has Come – Future Generations

 

Cohousing:
An Ancient Idea Whose Time Has Come by Marian Van Court

This article appeared in Counter-Currents Publishing

In 1516, Sir Thomas More published his now-famous work, Utopia. One of his recommendations was that housing be constructed for groups of about 30 families in order to create small villages which share common facilities, dinners, and child care.

This idea has recently been expanded considerably and put into practice in what has come to be called bofaellsskaber in continental Europe, and “cohousing” in the English-speaking world. Cohousing communities first appeared in Denmark in the late 1960s, and the idea spread to a number of other European countries, as well as the United States and Canada. Today in Europe, there are many hundreds of cohousing communities, and hundreds more in North America.


Modern cohousing began in Denmark in the 1960s.

Cohousing came into existence because people had become dissatisfied with the isolation of the typical suburban house or urban apartment, but they wanted to avoid the opposite extreme of communal living. They wanted privacy, but not alienation and loneliness. They wanted to be part of a community, but to retain their independence and their right not to participate. They wanted a safe, healthy, stimulating environment in which to raise children. One couple explained what motivated them to search for an alternative form of housing:

Several years ago, as a young married couple, we began to think about where we were going to raise our children. What kind of setting would allow us to best combine our professional careers with child rearing? Already our lives were hectic. Often we would come home from work exhausted and hungry, only to find the refrigerator empty. Between our jobs and housekeeping, where would we find the time to spend with our kids? Relatives lived in distant cities, and even our friends lived across town. Just to get together for coffee we had to make arrangements two weeks in advance. Most young parents we knew seemed to spend most of their time shuttling their children to and from day care and playmates' homes, leaving little opportunity for anything else.?(MacCamant, Katherine, and Durrett, Charles (1988) Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves, Ten Speed Press, California, p. 9.)

What is Cohousing?

The Danish word for cohousing, bofaellsskaber, translates living communities. When Katherine McCamant and Charles Durrett wrote Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves in 1988, they coined the English term short for collaborative housing. In a nutshell, cohousing is that which is organized in such a way as to create a natural community, much like the villages in which our ancestors lived for thousands of years.

There are many variations on the cohousing theme. One cohousing venture was constructed inside an abandoned iron foundry, another was created in a high-rise apartment building. In one Toronto neighborhood, six families tore down their backyard fences and began sharing gardening equipment, buying in bulk, and eating dinner together several nights each week. Some cohousing communities have as few as 4 families, some as many as 80 (although the latter is subdivided into smaller groups). However, there are several essential elements which most cohousing communities have in common:

  • self-sufficient, single-family residences
  • a common house for group activities
  • participation by residents in decision-making on matters affecting the group

Although some cohousing groups modify existing structures, most embark on the more ambitious journey of building their communities from scratch. An individual or couple usually begins the process by placing an advertisement in the local newspaper or on the internet announcing their intention, asking like-minded people to contact them. After a series of meetings and considerable attrition, the group enters into in a loose-knit partnership and begins looking for a site upon which to build. Next they consult with a developer and an architect, with who
m they work especially closely so they can build homes to fit each family's needs. From start to moving in, it takes a minimum of 2 years, sometimes as many as 4 or 5.

Most cohousing is situated on the outskirts of a metropolitan area where many of the residents work. One typical arrangement is clusters of 2-story townhouses constructed in an oval shape surrounding a courtyard, along with one large, collectively-owned building at the end the common house used for dining and other group activities. The complex provides homes for 25 families of various compositions couples with children, single parents with children, elderly couples, and singles. Houses may vary from one to four bedrooms. Each house is designed to be self-sufficient, and each kitchen is fully furnished. The front door opens into the courtyard with a semi-private yard for each household, and the back door opens to the outside to a private yard, and then the parking lot. This arrangement creates a village atmosphere where, in the course of ordinary, every-day activities, residents naturally interact and get to know one another.

The Common House

The common house is the hub of social activity, where people can chat with neighbors, play indoor sports, and, most importantly, eat dinner. The evening meal is the main collective endeavor. Most cohousing communities serve dinner in the common house every night to the majority of residents. There are very substantial practical advantages of communal dinners over individually-prepared dinners, both in terms of time and money. Buying food in bulk is much cheaper, and one big effort spent preparing a communal dinner once a month for everyone is far less trouble than each family shopping, cooking, serving, and cleaning up independently each night. Two adults and two children may work together for several hours once a month to prepare a meal for everyone, and clean up afterwards. This entitles them to inexpensive, work-free dinners for the entire rest of the month. I don't have to cook all those other nights, one woman resident exclaimed cheerfully. I can just waltz in there at 6 p.m. to a homemade dinner!

Almost all cohousing communities chose to include the following basic features in their common house, in order of priority:

  • a common kitchen which is convenient for use by several cooks at the same time with the capacity for preparing meals regularly for most of the community, and occasionally for all the community, plus guests
  • a dining area and gathering space, capable of seating most residents regularly and all residents, plus guests, occasionally
  • a children's play area visually connected, but acoustically isolated, from the dining area
  • mail pick-up location, with bulletin boards

Many cohousing communities also include storage areas, a laundry room, an adult lounge area, guest rooms for visiting friends and family members, office spaces, and other special-use spaces in the common house. Cohousing communiti
es in Scandinavia often have glass-covered pedestrian streets or courtyards, which can be a blessing during their frigid winters.

Practical Matters

Financially, owning a house in a co-housing community is like owning a condominium, where each household owns its own home, plus a share of the common facilities. In Europe, existing cohousing complexes are highly prized because buyers receive the benefits without all the developmental work involved in finding a site and building on it. Attempts are made to standardize as much as possible during the building phase not customize to keep costs down. Turnover in cohousing complexes is less than in conventional housing, and appreciation is considerable greater, as they're considered desirable places to live.

Children

In conventional housing, parents especially tend to feel isolated and stressed. If a couple decides to go out to a movie, for example, or if a wife wants to go shopping, what was formerly a simple act suddenly becomes a major undertaking when small children are involved, requiring finding a babysitter, picking her up, paying her, and driving her home again. Usually this must be planned well ahead of time in order to work smoothly, so there's little opportunity for spontaneity. In contrast, the social network which naturally develops in cohousing enables parents to take time away from their children on the spur of the moment. As one resident explained, When you have children, you lose some of your freedom. To move into cohousing is to regain it.

Potential babysitters are always around. Children easily find playmates. The courtyard makes a safe haven for toddlers where mothers can keep an eye on them. Crime is virtually non-existent because everyone knows his neighbors, and a stranger will be spotted immediately. Cars are parked safely outside, on the periphery of the complex. Another resident explained it thus:

If I had to chose one word to describe what cohousing meant to me, it would be security in the emotional sense that I know there are people that I can depend on, people I can call for help. When I couldn't make it home the other night, I called a neighbor to ask him to feed the chickens. When I got home, I found that he had not only fed the chickens but also the rabbits, figuring I had forgotten about them. We never worry about finding a baby sitter because we know we can depend on one of the neighbors and the kids are very comfortable staying with them. The older kids can just stay home because they have neighbors to call if they have any problems. (Ibid., p. 87)

Children seem to thrive in this environment. Field trips become possible when a critical mass is reached such that if one or two participants drop out at the last minute, the outing doesn't fall through. As one cohousing resident put it:

[T]here are favorable conditions for children here socially, physically, and educationally. They are exposed to many more interests and stimulations than usual . . . They also have a strong sense of identity. They are not anonymous here; and like the children of any village, they know that there is a place they are recognized and have a sense of belonging. This enhances their self-confidence. Children who live in cohousing are usually can do people because they learn from participating in so many kinds of activities, and receive recognition for their accomplishments. (Ibid., p. 87)

Many families nowadays home-school their children, which can be a big burden on the mother, but it's made much easier by tackling the job collectively, as is day care for the younger children.

Shared Facilities: More Stuff, Lower Cost

While few people would consider relinquishing private ownership of their houses, cars, or personal possessions, there will always be a myriad of impersonal items which people need occasionally which quite reasonably might be purchased collectively. Examples: guest rooms for visiting friends or family, soccer field, workshop, swimming pool, tree house, tennis court, exercise machines, and garden. In conventional housing, the family must either foot the bill for the entire thing, or go without. Cohousing makes it possible to own these sometimes-needed items collectively, at a fraction of the cost. A few cohousing communities even maintain a small store stocked with household items, cereal, toiletries, etc. The store is unattended, but all residents have a key so they can shop any time. They simply record the items they've bought, for which they're billed later. Residents appreciate the convenience of an on-site store, and benefit from the savings of buying in bulk.

Who are These People?

Virtually everyone in cohousing is on at least one committee, and most people attend at least some meetings. The alternative to attending meetings is to have no impact on how things are run, and to leave decisions to others who may or may not see things the same way. The point is that in this environment, unlike a typical suburban house or urban apartment, total lack of participation can have costs.

New people assimilate quickly in cohousing, and become part of the community, which is an advantage in technologically advanced countries where more and more people work all day at the computer, never meeting anyone in the course of their workday, and where others move frequently to better jobs.

People who chose cohousing are an interesting, self-selected bunch. They tend to be well-educated, with a broad range of interests, often active in local affairs such as politics or the school board. They also tend to be predominantly professionals, who often work at home, with higher than average incomes, of European descent, ranging from early thirties to retirement age, and politically somewhat Left of center. Efforts to increase ethnic diversity have not been successful. The authors of The Cohousing Handbook describe them as experienced and successful controllers, accustomed to controlling the world around them, at least more so than the average person. When asked what most attracted them to cohousing, they reply that it offers safety and security; an ideal place for raising children; flexibility and choice in such things as meals and socializing; savings in terms of both money and time; and greater control of their lives. (Scott-Hansen, Kelly, and Scott-Hansen, Chris (2004) The Cohousing Handbook, New Society Publishers, p. 120)

Cohousing is not for everyone. It probably wouldn't be a congenial environment for extreme introverts or people who dislike children. Personality clashes are inevitable in any group endeavor, and in small communities, they will have more impact than in larger ones, where it's easier for two people to simply avoid one another. In small communities, if the disagreement is serious, one party may decide to move out.

Back to the Future

Medium-sized cohousing complexes (15-35 units) seem to work best. It's interesting that Sir Thomas More chose the figure of 30 families per village in Utopia, because it's not far from the median number of 25 which recent experience seems to have chosen as ideal (Ibid., p. 15). Evolutionary psychologists frequently talk about the environment of evolutionary adaption (EEA). The EEA is said to influence our innate psychological predispositions today by the process of natural selection. Since human beings are social animals and evolved in small groups, it stands to reason that they are best suited psychologically for living in a similar environment to the one in which they evolved. The pioneers of cohousing tried to imagine the optimum arrangement of houses to create a community. There are limits to how many people we can get to know, or how many names we can remember. Originally intuition and reason were the only guidelines to such things as optimum size, but now there's the experience of others to draw from. 

Cohousing and Eugenics

Eugenicists are interested in cohousing because it makes parenthood easier and more enjoyable. Women who have children as a result of a conscious choice are, on average, much brighter and more responsible than women who have their children as a result of a series of so eugenicists favor anything that makes motherhood easier. Moreover, high-IQ women often have fewer children than they would ideally like to have because of conflicts with career. Living in a cohousing community makes juggling career and motherhood easier and less stressful, so it could reasonably be expected to increase the fertility of this group.

Many wives either want to work, or need to work. Few young couples can afford full-time nannies, but most want to have children. However, they don't want to become slaves to their children they want to retain a good deal of their freedom. But is this even possible? In the Western world today, few couples have an on-call, 'round-the-clock baby-sitter living nearby, so it may not be possible. Cohousing provides couples the opportunity to have small, medium, or even large families while still retaining a good portion of their freedom.

21st-Century Cohousing

In the future, cohousing ventures may increasingly be organized around one unifying principle for example, all elderly residents, vegetarians, environmentalists, artists, musicians, writers, scientists, and those with specific religious or political philosophies. People who are committed to a religious or a political belief can be empowered by joining forces with others who have the same convictions. The value of such gatherings is already well-known, viz. universities, conferences, and churches. Inspiration doesn't occur in a vacuum, and having the opportunity to meet informally with colleagues on a regular, day-to-day basis could be ideal. When people get together who share the same beliefs and interests, it sparks imagination and fosters collaboration, and the kind of deep communication that makes life worthwhile. A unique and priceless takes place that frequently results in original creative work.

Conclusion

Beyond sharing common facilities, dinners, and child care, cohousing has little else in common with Sir Thomas More's Utopia, and residents don't claim that life resembles a utopia in the more general sense of the word. Not surprisingly, however, cohousing communities bear a strong resemblance to traditional villages of the past. Cohousing offers major time, money, and convenience advantages over conventional 21st-century housing, particularly for parents and children, which probably account for its rather marked growth worldwide, despite the very considerable trouble and expense of starting such endeavors from scratch and seeing them through to completion. In addition to practical advantages, cohousing seems to have struck an emotional cord because it provides a more natural balance between autonomy and community.

 

Heretical Thoughts on Abortion & Eugenics – Future Generations

Heretical Thoughts on
Abortion & Eugenics by Marian Van Court
This article appeared in Counter-Currents Publishing

Once I saw an interview with a woman whose child had cystic fibrosis. The child was forced to endure long medical treatments every day just to stay alive. Tests showed early in the pregnancy that her baby would be afflicted with cystic fibrosis, but the woman decided not to abort because, she said, “I figured that I’d rather have a life with health problems than no life at all.”

Strangely enough, I’d heard this exact same statement once before from another woman who gave birth to a child with a genetic defect. But what does it mean? You and I are conscious beings, and as such, we certainly recoil at the prospect of having no life at all. That would definitely be a loss. But if we had died before we were conscious beings, was there anyone there to suffer “having no life at all”?

Hugo Simbert,
The Wounded Angel, 1903

I do have a problem with late-term abortions, and I was appalled to learn some of the excuses women give for waiting so long, such as, “I kept meaning to do something about it, but I just kept putting it off.” It seems monstrous to take a viable fetus from a woman’s womb and then kill it, so I am personally sympathetic to the idea that there’s a point at which abortion is no longer an option. The timing is problematic, of course, because the fetus matures very gradually, and it doesn’t achieve viability and consciousness on any particular date.

Numerous embryos develop naturally in the womb and then spontaneously abort (the woman’s period is “late”). In fact, geneticists believe that perhaps the majority of conceptions spontaneously abort. It would be interesting to hear what Pro-Lifers have to say about that. According to their own dubious reasoning, everything that happens “naturally” is God’s will. Wouldn’t this mean that God aborts vast numbers of embryos and fetuses? It’s an inescapable conclusion. And if God commits abortion, then how could it be a terrible sin against God? I see no way out of this contradiction. Embryos and fetuses that spontaneously abort are usually defective, often with chromosomal abnormalities, so maybe this gives us a clue into God’s intention. Maybe God doesn’t want defective fetuses coming to term and becoming defective children. And if God is a eugenicist, would it be so wrong for us to follow God’s lead and only deliver healthy babies?

Suppose a woman learns early in her pregnancy that her potential child, if she carries it to term, will suffer from severe mental retardation. I believe that to knowingly give birth to a baby with any serious defect is cruel, immoral, and a crime against that being. Some pro-lifers are concerned with life to the exclusion of all other considerations – such as quality of life. Do they care at all about suffering? No woman should let herself be frightened or made to feel guilty if she decides to have an abortion in such a situation. She might not want to sacrifice her life in order to spend decades changing the diapers of a severely retarded child, and she surely need not apologize for that. But would she be “righteous” if she carried it to term and became its unpaid, unappreciated, round-the-clock, lifetime slave? No. In my opinion, she’d be a fool. The mother’s life matters plenty, and there are other people to be concerned about, in addition to the mother – such as the father, the other children, and the potential child itself should be considered when there’s little chance it would lead a normal life. What about the potential healthy children that the mother might forego bearing because of the time and expense of taking care of a severely handicapped or retarded child? Often it’s an act of courage and compassion to abort and to try again to have a healthy baby.

Typically, a severely retarded child (or any other child with serious genetic impairment) requires an extraordinary amount of care, more than any one person can provide, and the state (a.k.a. “the taxpayer”) virtually always ends up paying for it. Fairness would seem to require that the state should therefore have some input if it pays the bills, but, of course, it doesn’t. A strong case can be made that parents have no right to impose a huge financial burden on the rest of society if they can possibly avoid it.

If the parents sign a legally-binding contract that they will assume the entire life-time cost of the child themselves, that would be different, but few people have that much money. Parents who knowingly give birth to seriously defective children are also evading their responsibility to the larger society unless they accept full financial responsibility for them.

Some would maintain that evading responsibility in this way is both immoral and un-Christian, and unfortunately, this is the rule rather than the exception. Almost invariably, the larger society is burdened with the enormous expense. It’s my understanding that even parents with very substantial incomes still obtain social services for these children. If all such parents were required to take full responsibility, a few might very well change their minds regarding their total and unconditional opposition to abortion. When taking full responsibility means financial ruin and life-long slavery, my guess is that at least some Pro-Lifers will find their unwavering principles beginning to waver.

Ideally, eugenicists want Western countries to have nation-wide eugenics programs of incentives and disincentives, much like the eugenics program that exists today in Israel. (Isn’t that the very height of irony?) But sadly, we are nowhere near “ideally.” Political oppression has made this impossible for the time being because a tiny ethnic minority controls our world, and they want eugenics for themselves, and dysgenics for everyone else.

While we continue to promote eugenics generally, as we have always done, and work to free ourselves from this oppression, we can also engage politically in ways that advance eugenics without even having to mention the word. In the United States, for example, Republicans have taken control of many state governments recently, and they have dramatically reduced the number of women’s clinics, sometimes cutting the number by more than 50%. Limiting access to contraception and abortion is horribly dysgenic. Smart, responsible women with initiative and drive will find ways to get them, whereas less-capable women often will not, so closing clinics only makes a bad situation worse.

Just to clarify one point: there’s exactly zero chance that we will ever return to the days in which there was no contraception. People already know all about it, clearly they want it, and there are numerous companies that make and sell it. We will never stuff that genie back in the bottle.

Planned Parenthood is a “natural ally” of eugenics. Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) founded Planned Parenthood, she pioneered the use of contraception, and she was an outspoken eugenicist. She’s most frequently quoted as having said, “When motherhood becomes the fruit of a
deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.” This is why nearly all eugenicists are pro-choice, and support “reproductive rights.” Sometimes I wonder how many of Planned Parenthood’s present-day leaders are “closet eugenicists.”

Recall that the major cause of dysgenics (genetic deterioration) is that low-IQ women have far more accidental pregnancies than higher-IQ women have, and the end result is that they typically have many more children than they intended to have. These children are unplanned, and often unwanted, and they have disadvantages in terms of both heredity and environment. If we could somehow halt that trend, we could eliminate dysgenics. Then at least we would “break even” genetically.

Eugenics is not an “all or nothing” proposition. Rather, every miniscule bit of progress we make helps real people in the immediate future. Regardless of where things stand today – whether we live in a eugenic utopia, or a dysgenic hell hole, or somewhere in between – we can always improve the lives of those who follow us. Even if we can only reduce the severity of dysgenics, that’s a totally worthwhile endeavor because many lives can be improved, and soon. Keeping one more women’s clinic open is worth the fight.

Eugenicists must vigorously oppose all so-called “pro-life” candidates, and the utterly outrageous “personhood” amendments. “Pro-life” is a superficially attractive term that conceals a sinister interior, because what it really means is unequal access to contraception and abortion, which invariably causes genetic deterioration. Just as the idea of Communism sounded appealing in the beginning, the reality was untold misery. It is the same with pro-life.

Finding Your Soul Mate with the Utmost Efficiency – Future Generations

Finding Your Soul Mate
with the Utmost Efficiency by Marian Van Court
This article appeared in Counter-Currents Publishing

One useful thing to come out of social psychology is the discovery that spouses who are very similar get along much better, and are far less likely to divorce, and it’s fairly easy to measure these traits (like introversion-extroversion) and make predictions.

When I first learned about this research around 1970, I envisioned starting something remarkably similar to eHarmony. But I was still an undergraduate, and computers were just being invented, so it was a bit premature. It seemed to me that it would be much better for the whole world if couples were happy and didn’t get divorced, and it was exciting to think that science could really make this happen.

Today, more than half the marriages in America end in divorce, and of those who remain married, about half are unhappy. So that gives us over 75% bad outcomes.

Neil Clark Warren founded and now runs eHarmony, and he is both a theologian and a clinical psychologist. He’s the kindly, white-haired man in the TV commercials. Dr. Warren has determined that most marriages that fail are actually doomed from the outset because the couple is incompatible.

n his book, Falling in Love for All the Right Reasons, Warren tells the story of eHarmony, and the 29 dimensions of compatibility. He counseled couples for several decades, and performed “autopsies” on marriages that failed, and that’s how he became involved in this endeavor. As far as chemistry goes, he believes it’s either there, or it isn’t, and he has no idea why, but that it’s necessary in a marriage.

He says it’s fashionable nowadays to emphasize “friendship first,” and that’s good, but he believes if a man and a woman are good friends and are very compatible, and they have a strong physical attraction, that’s great, but if there’s no attraction, they should stay friends and absolutely not get married.

It was interesting to learn that if couples are strongly attracted to one another but are not fundamentally compatible, very often they will ignore red flags and rationalize their partner’s bad behavior because a great sex life clouds their judgment.

Warren also seems to think a good deal of who we are is genetic, especially IQ, and that ideally, partners shouldn’t be more than 10 points apart. Now they’ve started making homosexual matches, too, with the same purpose of finding enduring love.

Most people sign up for 6 months or 1 year. It begins with a long list of questions which takes over an hour to complete, and this is no doubt off-putting to many people, but remember that prospective mates will answer those questions, too, and the answers are what determines compatibility, so this is important. Each person is actively involved in the process from beginning to end.

It’s a good idea to be as flexible as possible about things that don’t matter – for example, where the person lives – because anybody can take a flight to anywhere, and most long distance phone calls are free, as is Skype. I’ve never actually done eHarmony myself. (I’m very old and not personally interested in finding a mate.) But hypothetically, as a woman, I would include the entire English-speaking world if possible, and I would definitely not rule out bald guys, short guys, or even “below average in looks” guys, because intelligence and character are crucial, and they are in short supply, as well as warmth and kindness, and sensible political beliefs.

To belabor the point, if you are flexible about all the things that don’t matter, you create a larger pool of potential mates, so this increases your chances of finding someone with the qualities that do matter. There’s no guarantee with eHarmony, but it’s definitely worth a try for at least 6 months, especially in light of the alternatives. The “old fashioned” method is only somewhat better than a crap shoot. Say you meet someone attractive who has similar interests, you fall in love, get married, have 3 kids, and then finally one day, after years of turmoil and conflict, you finally reach the conclusion that it’s just hopeless. Kind of a kick in the stomach.

If you’re in it for the long haul, it might be wise to step back and look at your situation objectively, in a state of total calmness. Sometimes when people are trying to solve a problem, especially one that’s sensitive, personal or embarrassing, they think that somehow this particular problem is “different.” A sense of fatalism sets in, they feel stuck, unable to take any action at all.

But that’s wrong! Applying creative intelligence, imagination, hard work, trial-and-error, patience, persistence, soliciting expert advice, taking reasonable risks – all these apply to finding a mate, just like they do to any other problem. Granted that it seems strange to employ science for this purpose – and it is strange! But so what? What matters is results.

According to eHarmony’s website, altogether they’ve had 600,000 marriages, with an average of 542 new marriages each day. Almost 5% of all new marriages in America today are the result of eHarmony.

People may object, “But what about chemistry?” eHarmony doesn’t attempt to figure out who is physically attracted to whom. That part’s up to the individual. When you find potential mates (who are similar to you and meet your preferences), most likely at least one of them will attract you, and be attracted to you, but if not, the situation requires a bit of patience. After all,10,000 new people sign up each day.

There’s always been a severe woman-shortage for men who hold radical conservative beliefs, because women on average, tend to be more liberal. But this could be a way to find a wife who is at least in the same ballpark politically.

People looking for a mate today are lucky that eHarmony exists. It’s not magic, it’s just a tool – a very useful tool – that substantially increases the probability of success. And if you succeed, the lifetime pay-off is huge. I believe that Warren and eHarmony have made a unique and valuable contribution by applying science to match-making.

Reflections on My Life as a Eugenicist – Part 2 of 2

 

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Reflections on My Life as a Eugenicist

By Marian Van Court

Part 2 of 2

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J. Philippe Rushton

? I first met J. Philippe Rushton at a luncheon sponsored by the Pioneer Fund in New York, circa 1987. He gave a brief presentation about his research, and I talked to him afterwards. Like most illnesses, mine waxed and waned, but on this particular day I was just starting a bad spell, so when it was over, I walked out to the street and I suddenly found myself in a dream world, a chaotic swirl of noise and movement. As soon as I figured out where I was and what was going on, I realized that I needed one of those yellow cars that drive people around so I could go to the airport, but I couldnt think of how to get one, or even what they were called! Thats how disoriented I was.*

Ã
I knew Rushton wasnt married, and I imagined he must be suffering from all kinds of vicious attacks because of his research on race differences in IQ and there he was, all alone!

Plus he was a very nice guy, he had an English accent, and he was good-looking to boot! (He looked a bit like a taller, more slender version of the original Clark Kent/Superman.) So I decided to call him on the phone. I identified myself, and I told him I was just calling to see how he was getting along. He sounded really glad to hear from me.Ã
Most people called him Phil, but I asked him if I could call him Philippe (the French pronunciation) just for fun, and he said sure. Anyway, this was the beginning of long, week-end phone calls that lasted years. It turned out that he was not being attacked for his research on race the way Jensen had been. I couldnt understand it. His colleagues in the Psychology Department at the University of Western Ontario knew all about his research on racial differences in IQ, and apparently, they were fine with it. He said he got along well with all his colleagues. I thought to myself, Gee, isnt that amazing, that Canadians could be so different from Americans?
__________________
*Note: When I got home to Memphis, I realized that I had an appointment to meet with Harry Weyher, the president of the Pioneer Fund, after the luncheon ¢ but I forgot! I should have called him up immediately and apologized ¢ but this never even occurred to me! So I did nothing. Eeech! I¢ve done my very best to compensate, but the truth is that I haven¢t been
¢myself¢ since that fateful day in 1984 when I first got sick. Navigating the social world through this ¢brain fog¢ has not been easy! I shudder to think about all the other things I must have forgotten, all my gaffes, screw-ups, inadvertent insults or slights, over-reactions, failure take a hint, bad judgement, assorted blunders, and misunderstandings. I¢ve probably messed up hundreds or even thousands of things ¢ socially and otherwise ¢ all because I¢ve been drugged by that lousy virus. Subjectively, it¢s a little bit like being drunk, except that it¢s decidedly dysphor
ic.
.__________________

Not long afterwards, however, Philippe went to an AAAS conference in San Francisco (American Association for the Advancement of Science) where he presented a paper on his research. The newspapers got wind of it, and suddenly he was being lambasted by the American media, and this spread to the Canadian media. When he got back home to Toronto, suddenly all his colleagues in the Psychology Department shunned him! Because the newspapers became harshly critical of his research
? which members of the department had known about and accepted for years when they passed him in the hall, all of a sudden they looked the other way instead of saying hello. Presumably these were grown men and women with above-average intelligence. In my opinion, this behavior was absolutely revolting cowardly, dishonorable, rude, cruel, stupid, and disloyal all at the same time. What a bunch of morally worthless, despicable, low-life bums! This marked the beginning of many years of trouble for Philippe.

When I was having a good spell, wed sometimes meet at a conference. Once Philippe came to visit me in Memphis, and my grandmother put him up at the Memphis Country Club. We had a great time together. He asked me if we could go see Graceland, the home of Elvis, and I said sure, but I thought it was kind of funny that such a brilliant guy was an Elvis fan.

I remember we were talking on the phone one day, and he asked my advice about a career decision he was mulling over. I told him that I needed to know what his long term goal was in order to give good advice. He paused for a moment, and then he said in total seriousness, I guess my ultimate objective is to alter the course of human evolution. Well, I laughed in surprise, no one can ever accuse you of lacking ambition!

For Philippe to apply the r-K theory of reproductive strategies in animals to different races was a stroke of genius. His other major contribution was the genetic similarity theory. It applies to animals and people, that altruism is strongest towards those who are most closely related genetically, and this makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective.

In 1989, there was a debate about race and IQ between Philippe and David Suzuki, a geneticist. It was quite extraordinary that such a debate took place at all, and nothing short of a miracle that it was broadcast live in prime-time on Canadian TV. It was held at the University of Western Ontario where Philippe was on the faculty. He mailed me a video of the debate which I watched with great interest. (I watched it again yesterday and its still interesting!) There was a large university crowd, and great excitement in the air. Philippe looked handsome as always, and he had a remarkable presence. He was composed, he didn
t appear to be the slightest bit nervous, and he gave a very cogent statement about his theory of r-K differences between the races. By contrast, Suzuki was clearly upset, but he didnt have anything concrete to disprove Philippes theory. There were a number of black students in the front row who looked sullen and angry. I found myself getting frightened for Philippes safety, and I had to remind myself that the debate was already over.

One of the last things Philippe did in the way of research was a study with Art Jensen on the Flynn Effect. Both men were getting older and not in the best of health, and I believe they chose their last research carefully. James Flynn, a New Zealand political scientist, had reported massive gains of 3 IQ points per decade in much of the Western world over a large swath of the 20th century.[] This sounds highly implausible on the face of it, especially in light of dysgenic fertility, and Flynn himself was not at all sure it was real. Most of my colleagues puzzled over this for years is it really real And if so, what could possibly account for such a big increase Improved nutrition?
Outbreeding Better test-taking skills Id been pondering this question, too I thought it was next-to-impossible that it was real, but I didnt have a clue as to what might account for his findings. Art was in correspondence with Flynn, who seemed like a serious and honorable man, and he told me that Flynn wanted to discredit IQ in order to make the black-white difference meaningless. At any rate, I was delighted when Philippe and Art (both psychometricians) refuted Flynns hypothesis. They analyzed the data themselves and reported that the IQ subtests in his study that improved over time had zero or even negative g loadings (which means that intelligence itself has absolutely not improved).[] The title to their paper aptly began, The Rise and Fall of the Flynn Effect.

The Acid Test for Intrepid Seekers of Truth: The Jews

[Quick medical update: Over the years, I tried dozens of medical treatments from traditional to alternative to downright bizarre (such as honey bee stings) (which actually helped me!) Id estimate that not quite 20% produced some detectable improvement, making the entire odyssey worthwhile from my point of view. Also, I discovered the wonderful world of palliatives.
By 1997, I was still sick, but my condition had improved just to the point that I could live independently, so I moved to an apartment not far from Boston because it has exceptionally good medical care. By a great stroke of luck, I ran into the same super-smart immunologist there in Boston who had originally diagnosed me in Denver many years before.]

Between 1995 and 1998, I read Kevin MacDonalds trilogy, including The Culture of Critique, and David Dukes book, My Awakening, and this changed my life forever.
I was profoundly shocked. I remember reading along, positively enthralled, and then becoming so horrified, I was forced to put the book down. But Id be compelled to pick it up again because it was fascinating, but after a while Id become angry and depressed about all the vicious and deceitful things the Jews had done, so Id have to stop reading. It was a roller coaster ride, an intellectual-emotional experience like no other. It reminded me of watching horror movies when I was a little girl I used to cover my eyes with both hands, until only a thin sliver of the scene was visible through my fingers. Ironically, I cant recall any terrifying, ghoulish creatures at the movies that chilled me to the bone quite like the reality we now face today that of being infiltrated by a hostile alien species.

So many things suddenly made sense after learning about the Jews. I finally began to understand why the Western world had gone insane over race, egalitarianism and eugenics. It was a tremendous relief to be liberated from confusion. Confusion is so unpleasant! Its oppressive, and frustrating, and it involves anxiety and a great deal of tension and turmoil whereas understanding is such a smooth, light, free feeling! Like taking in a deep breath on a beautiful Spring morning, or soaring through the sky like a bird! The brilliance of MacDona
lds works can be measured by the enormity of the social and political landscape they explain, which otherwise would be chaos.

I didnt tell just anyone what I was reading about, but I did tell several close friends and family members, and they were somewhat alarmed, I guess understandably. I suspect they were gossiping about me over the phone: Well, she
s really gone off the deep end now! But thats because they didnt know all I knew. It would have been easy for them to learn, but they were too terrified even to hold such books in their hands. (The Thought Police might burst in at any moment!) I offered to send each of them a copy of My Awakening as a gift because its very well-written and easy to read, making it perfect for a naive person to get an overview of the Jewish question. But they said No, thank you!

I genuinely wish that what MacDonald and Duke wrote about the Jews were untrue and Ill wager that they wish this, too that we could all wake up tomorrow morning and discover that it was only a dreadful nightmare.

If there had ever been any hope of my returning to polite society (there was never really any hope!) it vanished after I read those books. Not only was I a eugenicist and a race realist, I was now (according to some peoples definition) an anti-Semite as well.

Sometimes I wonder how Nathaniel and Sylvia Weyl would have reacted to the extremely negative revelations about the Jews, and to my paper on the (Jewish) anti-eugenics hoax. Would they have been deeply offended Would they have tried to deny the truth Or would they have faced it My guess is that initially Nathaniel would have been angry, before he completely understood, and then the facts would sink in, and theyd both be devastated, and terribly, terribly depressed. Then they would have slowly recovered and joined the ranks of the good Jews like Israel Shahak, Gilad Atzmon, Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shamir, Victor Ostrovsky, and others who work hard and suffer much abuse in order to warn the wor
ld about the crimes of the Jews. That would be my hope, anyway.

Richard Lynn

I have no recollection of when I first got in touch with Richard Lynn except to say that it was a very long time ago. I remember mailing him various papers and clippings that I thought might be helpful to him at least as early as 1980 Ã
? Ive always felt it was my civic duty to help Richard in any way I can, because he was, and is, the worlds foremost eugenicist.

In 1990, I finally met Richard in person at a small conference in New York sponsored by the Pioneer Fund. As soon as I got there, I realized that it was a terrific bunch of people. There was Richard, Philippe, Art Jensen, also Hans J. Eysenck, Helmuth Nyborg, Chris Brand, Roger Pearson, Linda Gottfredson, and Dan Vining. Everyone seemed happy to see one another. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray were there, who later went on to write The Bell Curve, a brilliant and wonderfully readable book. I was the youngest person present, and it was exciting for me to meet all these people whose work Id long admired. On the last day of the conference, I suggested that we take a group photo, so we all marched outside and stood on the steps of a statue. I set up a tripod and aimed the camera, then I scooted back to be with the rest of the group, while Barbara Jensen took the picture. (This photo is on my website, along with some mildly-amusing out-takes.)


Over the years, Richard and I frequently corresponded by email, and we saw each other a few times at conferences. Then in 1999, Richard invited me to visit him in England and to go to the Galton Society Conference in London. It just so happened that finally, for the first time since 1984, a medical treatment gave me a significant but precarious state of improved health I could sit up in a chair for several hours, and even walk 5 or 6 blocks at one time. At first I declined the invitation because I still feared the trip would be too much for me. But Richard persisted, and he understood that Id have to rest a lot. At this point, I had hardly seen my colleagues, or had any fun at all, in years, so I threw caution to the wind.

I was delighted to see Richard again. On our first day in London, we visited Westminster Abbey, which was magnificent. We were reading the inscription on one elaborately decorated tombstone, when all of a sudden I realized it belonged to one of my distant ancestors! How cool is that?! I made a mental note to be sure to tell my relatives. Just walking along down cobblestone streets again was lovely, and I felt more at home
in England than I do in America, possibly due to my predominantly English ancestry.

At the conference, I was also very glad to see Art Jensen, Chris Brand, and Glayde Whitney. Glayde Whitney may not be as well known as some of the others, but he was a behavior geneticist at Florida State University who did some great work. He also wrote the introduction to David Dukes book, which took considerable courage, and for years, he generously answered my numerous email questions about behavior genetics.?

Richard and Glayde both presented papers the first day of the conference. The second day, I stayed in my hotel room and rested, but Richard later filled me in on all the details. Apparently, there was a protest in which about a dozen people barged into the lecture hall and marched up on the stage, wielding a giant banner which read
Diversity not Discrimination (prompting eye-rolling from the audience). The intruders refused to leave, so that was the end of that. I honestly dont understand how the organizers failed to anticipate and prevent such a disruption. At any rate, most of us got together for a lively dinner that night at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. When I returned to Boston, I adopted an adorable kitten, and I decided to name him Richard.

Some years ago, Richard published a fascinating little book entitled Educational Achievement in Japan: Lessons for the West. Their entire system stands in stark contrast to education in the West, especially that in America. The children are all polite, and they work hard. At every level, there are incentives to excel, for students, teachers, principals, and schools. Competition is strongly encouraged. They compete in a variety of ways, between rows, between classrooms, and between schools. They spend less money per pupil and get better results, often with large class sizes. The children keep the school clean themselves, and the brighter children help the slower ones. Its a model of what school should be.

Over his lifetime, Richard has been extraordinarily prolific. The bulk of his research falls squarely in the realm of differential psychology genetic and environmental influences on race differences, sex differences, and individual differences in IQ, personality, and behavior. He usually tackles the big questions, questions that matter to the world, whereas a good deal of psychological research deals with minutiae. (This may be deliberate because theres refuge from the PC Police in insignificance.) The third salient characteristic of Richards work is that almost all of it is very interesting (objectively speaking!) Some of his major works include Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Society, and Eugenics: A Reassessment (both a must readÃ
? for serious eugenicists), and (with Tatu Vanhannen) IQ & the Wealth of Nations, in which they report that over 185 countries, the average IQ of the population is the single most important predictor of the economic prosperity of a nation, with free enterprise and presence of natural resources ranked second and third, respectively.

Demographers routinely omit under-class men from their fertility studies because they tend to be promiscuous, so they really dont know all their offspring. However, Richard did a study of the fertility of London criminals using the number of children they reported, and even with what was surely an underestimate, and despite their lengthy sojourns in prison, London criminals still had more children, on average, than other Londoners.Ã
Then, using the heritability of criminality, he calculated how much their excess fertility would be expected to increase crime in London in the future.[] Ive always thought this was a terrific little study, and I think its a shame that political correctness forbids anything about genetics and behavior from getting to the public because so much of it is both fascinating and enlightening.

Richard and I did a research study together on fertility and IQ which essentially replicated my 1984 study (with Frank Bean) using the General Social Survey, but with additional, more recent data collected between 1990 and 1996.?
The results were quite similar, and we calculated a loss of .9 IQ points per generation. Like the original study, we also published our report in the journal Intelligence[] Our results show that genetic deterioration is not only a problem that will exist in the future, rather, that it has existed in the recent past, and that it exists today.

While working with the GSS, we ran across an interesting question about values: Which of these traits would you most want to see in your children?
The following 13 choices are written on a card and handed to each respondent: good manners, tries to succeed, honest, neat and clean, good sense and sound judgement, obedient, self-control, behaves appropriate to gender, responsible, considerate, studious, interested in how and why things happen. Of particular interest to me is honesty. There are some tests of honesty which employers use in an attempt to screen prospective employees, but their validity is uncertain. The GSS question is revealing, however, because it tells us what the respondents value most what their priorities are. In one of Richards GSS studies about the Jews (with Satoshi Kanazawa), they found that those who placed honesty first were: Protestants 38%, Catholics 34%, and Jews 26%[] Its almost axiomatic that people who value honesty highly will be more honest themselves.

In recent years, Richard has done research reporting that men, on average, are somewhat more intelligent than women.[] He asked me a while back if I would find this upsetting, and I said, Of course not! Whats true is true! secretly hoping that by some screwball twist of logic this might make me smarter. Boys and girls average the same IQ until puberty, but after puberty, boys gradually become somewhat smarter than girls, between 2?
½ and 5 IQ points, depending on the test. This conclusion is a radical departure from a century of IQ testing, and, like Richards work as a whole, its highly original. Richard used meta-analysis to combine many studies so that differences which may not be statistically significant with a small sample became significant. I havent studied this question in depth, but with what little I know about it, Im inclined to agree with him.

As far as I know, I agree with Richard on just about everything else, except that I believe in God and an afterlife (he doesnt), and I think the Jews are destroying the Western world (he doesnt even after reading MacDonald! He thinks Im paranoid!). He thinks China is going to take over the world, and he may be right (with eugenics and phenomenal economic growth rate, how could it be otherwise?) But Richard doesnt care a great deal, whereas I care plenty. Everyone agrees that people of European descent have made a vast and unique contribution to the world, and if they die out, it will be a terrible loss. The Chinese could never write Shakespeares plays or compose Verdi
La Traviata because its not in their DNA. But quite frankly, Im not nearly as concerned about the poor rest-of-the-world having to do without them (us) Im concerned about us! Im concerned about our not being there! Our dying out (or becoming marginalized) would be the disaster, pure and simple. For one thing, people of European descent are physically the most beautiful people on earth, and most other races will concede this if theyre honest. I realize full well that this point may seem superficial, but its not, because beauty matters! Not only sunsets and rainbows, but beautiful faces! More importantly, they (we) are the most creative, altruistic, idealistic, generous, noble, and inventive. Imagine if we celebrated
European-American Week in the United States we wouldnt have to make up things to be proud of because people of European ancestry have already invented most of the things worth inventing.

Richard publishes books and papers faster than I can read them.
I envy his extraordinary capacity for sustained intellectual work. And after working all day, he devours novels at night. His brain should be studied! As of today, Richard is 85-years-old, and still going strong. Recently I suggested to him that he save some of his DNA for the future, because almost certainly cloning will be perfected someday, and the world would benefit greatly with lots more of him. Then I sent him an email with a simple plan for how he could accomplish this by pulling out a little bit of his hair with pliers (cut hair is no good it has to have the roots to get DNA), placing it in a clear plastic bag, and giving it to his daughter for safe keeping. (He agreed.) Note: This may be a good plan of action for great creative minds in any field!

A number of other brilliant scientists whove done research in differential psychology and behavior genetics such as Jensen, Rushton, Whitney, and Cattell are now gone. We honor their memories, along with their invaluable research, made all the more precious by the fact that it may well be the last of such work for quite some time. Recently the coffers of the Pioneer Fund, the source of grants for this research, have shrunk. Richard Lynn, Michael Woodley and others are still doing important and fascinating work, but the quantity of such research is already diminishing, and could dry up entirely in the foreseeable future.

Because the universities in the West are no longer free, the science contingent of our movement is getting old and dying off with no graduate students waiting in the wings. The activism contingent has sustained several serious losses, but on the whole it seems to be thriving with some frankly impressive brainpower, drive, and guts, and it
?s actively working to promote eugenics and to free us from the yoke of the Jews, so therein lies hope.

The Anti-Eugenics Hoax

The question of why the opponents of eugenics have tried so hard to discredit it has tormented me for decades. I began to understand after reading MacDonald. Then, finally, I stumbled upon the last pieces to the puzzle in 2014, and I was thrilled. What I discovered was monstrous, of course.Ã
But there was a sense of coming full circle, having begun my lifes work in a state of total naivete´, discovering dysgenics over 20th century America, and then finally figuring out why this devastating blow has befallen us all. I excitedly wrote up the paper, but then it seems that nobody wanted to publish it! Finally I sent it to Greg Johnson, which turned out to be a most fortuitous act.

Looking Toward the Future

Its clear that the Jews want eugenics for themselves, and dysgenics for everyone else, especially whites of European descent, both in North America, Europe, and elsewhere. (When I write Jews here, I do not mean all Jews, or even most Jews, I mean a very small, very powerful core of Jews. But its important to note that this core (amazingly) endures from generation to generation, or, put more accurately, it is replenished, and that a vastly larger number of Jews willingly cooperate with it.) At the present time in America, we dont control our own destinies because we dont live in a democracy, its more like an oligarchy. The crime that the Jews have committed (and continue to commit) against us that of deliberately causing the genetic deterioration of millions of our people by perpetrating the anti-eugenics hoax
is almost incomprehensible because the suffering it inflicts is incalculable. It is positively surreal, the struggle we face. We need to remind ourselves that there have been countless oppressive regimes since the beginning of time that appeared completely impenetrable until unforseen events conspired to break them wide open. Theres really nothing else to do but to soldier on. But having righteousness on our side hardly means that we will prevail. History is replete with struggles in which Good fails to triumph over Evil.

Beyond our own innate strengths, what is there to give us reason for hope Id be glad to be proven wrong, but I doubt moral goodness has any inherent power whatsoever. Despite being indispensable to all honorable people, in terms of helping to achieve power, it may well be a net liability. Imagine a fight-to-the-death between twins who are identical in every respect except that one is a psychopath, and the other is an honorable man. The smart money would be on the psychopath. But many people have cared about righteousness in the past, and will continue to care in the future add this to the fact that theres power in numbers so maybe this constitutes an advantage for us.

Also, our side possesses truth, which has a peculiar habit (almost an internal impetus) of popping up when its suppressed. Truth seems to possess some power, maybe because people just naturally seek it out, since truth is a far better foundation for making decisions than falsehoods or ignorance. Finally, historically, the Jews have made many mistakes, often borne of arrogance, so we can expect them to make more in the future. Currently they have a near-stranglehold on government, the media, and academia, but not on the internet, our last bastion of freedom, and the world is getting wise to them. Theres been an increasing number of books, articles, websites, videos, radio programs and conferences exposing their many crimes including their role in instigating the Iraq War, the Jewish origin of Communism, and the tens of millions they murdered. Even the formerly sacrosanct Holocaust (or Holohoax,?
?? as its sometimes called) is beginning to stagger under the growing weight of historical facts, common sense, and scientific evidence.

As eugenicists, our biggest asset will always be the basic concept of eugenics itself, which is a gem. Its common sense backed up by a mountain of unassailable scientific evidence, and it
?s elegant in its simplicity. Most people find it compelling when they are told the truth thats why it used to be very popular, and thats why it may well be popular again someday. Bear in mind that eugenics didnt fizzle out because of inherent defects or failure to inspire it had to be murdered in a heinous plot. Eugenics offers a unique and powerful way to improve the world and alleviate suffering, and our desire to do those things has existed for thousands of years, and shows no sign of letting up.


As long as the egalitarian, anti-eugenics Lie Machine rolls on, however, its next-to-impossible for us to implement a comprehensive nation-wide eugenics program like the one in Israel, for example, so we need to do all we can to expose the tyranny of the Jews (any and all tyrannies), and specifically the anti-eugenics hoax. Thats a tall order, and it could take years or even decades to free ourselves from their yoke and turn public opinion around.

In the meantime, there are components of eugenics in more circumscribed realms which we can influence. Of course, a eugenics ethic means that the bright and healthy among us should have as many children as we can afford. In addition, our most accomplished men should think about becoming sperm donors (and comparable young women may likewise consider becoming egg donors). A eugenics ethic also suggests that we consider expanding our paternal or maternal embrace to include our extended family, especially as we get older, taking what steps we can (financially or with child care) to help bright young relatives who want to have large or medium-sized families.

Recently, Republicans have taken control of many state governments in America, and theyve been shutting down womens clinics and limiting access to contraception, which is horribly, horribly dysgenic. Smart, responsible women with initiative and drive will always find a way to get contraception and abortions, whereas less-capable women often do not, so they end up having many unplanned, unwanted children who have both genetic and environmental disadvantages. Pro-life is a superficially attractive slogan that really means unequal access to contraception and abortion, which invariably causes genetic deterioration. Eugenicists support Planned Parenthood, and vigorously oppose Pro-Life candidates and the preposterous Personhood amendments.

In Conclusion

I became a eugenicist not only because I care about intelligence, but because (just like when I was 12-years-old), I also care about honesty and kindness. The anti-eugenicists were flagrantly dishonest, I could see that from the beginning. It was obvious that they werent so stupid as to believe the lies they were peddling, and their lies were hurting real people. Dysgenics is cruelty on a scale far too va

 

Reflections on My Life as a Eugenicist – Part 1 Of 2

 

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Reflections on My Life as a Eugenicist

By Marian Van Court

Part 1 of 2

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One Saturday afternoon when I was 12-years-old, I was at home in Memphis sitting in our den, staring into space, when my father walked into the room.

Marian, are you aware of the fact that intelligence is largely hereditary? he asked.

I frowned slightly, and paused for a moment to consider what he had just said.

Yes, I nodded. I agree.

I had never really thought about it, but in a normal world, long before political correctness, it seemed like common sense.

OK, so heres the problem, he said. Smart people have fewer children than stupid people have, which means that were all becoming more and more stupid with each new generation.

I just started at him, dumbstruck. Maybe he thought that I didnt even care, since I didnt say anything, but the reality is that I was horrified. If what he said were true, that was about the worst news imaginable. I can still remember very clearly looking out the window at a typical sunny suburban scene, with kids skating along and riding their bikes. I thought to myself, How can everybody carry on the way they always do, as if the world is just fine We should all stop what were doing and solve this problem immediately!

I think the reason the idea of dysgenics (genetic deterioration) struck me so forcefully is that my family and friends and teachers and acquaintances varied a great deal in intelligence, and I was quite sensitive to these differences. Some people were very bright, and some very dull, with all gradations in between. But it mattered a lot to me, just like kindness and honesty mattered to me. Intelligence is very valuable, and if, in fact, were losing it, this is a disaster. But gradually this conversation receded into memory.

University of California, Berkeley

Fast forward to UC Berkeley, 1970: I learned in psychology class that heredity is, in fact, extremely important in human intelligence, as it is in numerous other traits. Identical twins separated at birth are amazingly similar to one another in adulthood, and adopted children grow up to resemble their biological parents, but not their adopting parents. I overheard a classmate saying afterwards, Yeah, but I still think its better to believe everything is caused by the environment, because that way, you can do something about it.
I shook my head ruefully.

Despite having more than its share of radical, left-wing crackpots, I adored UC Berkeley. It was paradise, really. I had spent so many painfully boring years growing up in Memphis, and here was Heaven on earth for anyone who craved int
ellectual stimulation and had a quest for knowledge. Curiosity was the driving force, and there finally it could be satisfied! Praise be to God! This was a wonderful, exciting time in my life, with one gorgeous, sunny day after another, a beautiful campus, and so many brilliant professors.

The culture of the San Francisco Bay Area was light years ahead of where I grew up. Even the air was terrific ¢ crisp and clear and invigorating, as opposed to the stultifying atmosphere (both climate and culture) that I had long endured in Memphis. The average person was smarter and more interesting. I was so grateful to be there. I¢m an avid music lover, and the rock scene was fantastic, plus San Francisco even had an opera house. There was energy and excitement in the air. This was the kind of life I¢d craved ever since I was born.

One day I was talking with a friend, a retired professor, who was the leader of Zero Population Growth for the Bay Area. We both agreed that over-population was a problem, but it seemed to me that the people who would most likely be influenced by ZPG would be smart, well-educated, and altruistic, with a sense of social responsibility, and these were all traits we needed more of, not less. Whether these traits are hereditary or environmental or a combination of both, the principle of ¢like begets like¢ still applies. So he invited me to give a presentation at the up-coming meeting of all regional leaders held yearly in northern California. Looking back today, I smile when I recall that I honestly expected them to welcome my talk with enthusiasm. I was quite naive (21-years-old), but I should have had enough common sense to realize that some of them had been working on ZPG for years, and they were all ¢Rah, rah!¢ about the cause, yet I had the impertinence to stand there and tell them (very politely, of course) that all their hard work was actually doing more harm than good!! But they listened attentively until the end, when a middle-aged physician became positively livid. ¢
What you¢re talking about is exactly the reason we fought World War II!¢ he declared angrily. I really had no idea how to respond to that, so I just stared at him for a long, awkward moment, and then sat down. Interestingly enough, three regional leaders came up to me afterwards to thank me, saying they had exactly the same misgivings.

Sometimes I used to think that it may have been a mistake ever to graduate from Cal Berkeley, that maybe I should have stayed there indefinitely and taken every single class that was of any interest whatsoever. I studied psychology, and a good deal of political science and history, especially modern European history, because it was inherently interesting, and because I felt I needed to figure out once and for all exactly where I stood politically, just for my own peace of mind. (I believe in democracy and free enterprise, and I¢m liberal on most social issues.) Perhaps paradoxically, however, I had no interest whatsoever in current politics. There were various political parties on campus ¢ in addition to SDS (Students for a Democratic Society, a radical left-wing group), there were the Young Republicans, the Young Democrats, and so on, but I had the most sympathy for the Happy Birthday Party, and especially the Apathy Party (although I never got around to actually joining).


Marian Van Court (1970)

Arthur R. Jensen

On campus at this time there was a big to-do about Arthur R. Jensens 1969 Harvard Educational Review article which stated that part of the black-white IQ gap may well be genetic.

When the student elections were held, there was a referendum on the ballot asking whether or not Jensen should be fired. I, of course, voted No, but the referendum was irrelevant because Jensen had tenure and couldnt be fired anyway. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Either theres a genetic component to the black-white difference in IQ, or theres not, but whatever is true, he didnt make it that way! So this was a classic case of attacking the messenger.

Of course, everyone in the South had always assumed that black people are less innately intelligent, even most black people. At any rate, the controversy began to pique my interest, so I decided to take an independent study course, and I found a psychology professor willing to sponsor it.
My topic was simply Jensen vs. his opponents, and my objective was to read both sides to see where the preponderance of evidence lay. So one day I visited Jensen in his office for the first time.

He was very friendly and helpful, and he gave me not only copies of his articles, but copies of his opponents articles, too. We had a very pleasant chat, and pretty soon he asked me about my Southern accent. I told him I was from Memphis, Tennessee.?
He tilted his chair back, and rubbed his chin.

Oh yeah, so youre from Tennessee, he said thoughtfully.?
Hmm, well did you know that Tennessee has got the absolute lowest average IQ . . . of any state . . . in the entire country?!

I was kind of at a loss for what to say to that, but I must have told this story 10 times, and it always gets a laugh.Jensen also told me that hed had a number of death threats, and that the campus police had to escort him across campus. He kept a buzzer in his pocket at all times to push in case of emergency he said that once he pushed it by accident in his office, and the police showed up almost instantaneously.

After reading numerous articles, my final conclusion was that the bulk of evidence was on Jensens side. The professor whod agreed to sponsor my study looked visibly disappointed when I told her. I had lunch with her one day, and she asked me why anyone even wants to study such things in the first place. She thought that Jensen should do some other kind of research because his results wounded the pride of black people. At the time, I felt intuitively that the truth must be told, even if its painful, but I couldnt really articulate that at the time. Now, however, I can.With the assumption that blacks and whites are exactly equal in average IQ, for example, how could anyone possibly explain the huge differences in academic achievement? In criminal convictions In income Is it because whites are evil, holding blacks down somehow But if white racism is the problem, who is holding blacks down in Africa Or maybe the teachers are at fault.Â
One study found that there arent enough books in the houses of poor black children it suggested that we should give them lots more books. Finger-pointing could go on indefinitely. To say that blacks and whites are exactly equal in average IQ is a lie, and it causes unrealistic expectations. Jensen told me that in high schools where courses are offered that teach a trade, the less-intelligent white kids take these courses, but the black kids dont because they feel like its beneath them they want to stay on the college track despite the fact that theyre failing. Its not some academics research in a scholarly journal thats hurting blacks, and maintaining the lie wont help them.
What hurts blacks is the day-to-day circumstances of their lives their poverty, their lack of achievement, and their disproportionate amount of time spent in prison (all of which could be helped by eugenics.)

In addition, this lie negatively affects our entire society. Its corrupted all the social sciences, where no one is permitted to utter the truth for fear of losing his job, being ostracized, or failing the course.?
The rationale for affirmative action derives, at least in part, from the assumption that the races are really equal in average ability, despite what the tests show, but the fact is that affirmative action is blatantly unfair to millions of individuals, almost all whites, and its also unfair, in a sense, to blacks, many of whom are put in situations where they lack the ability to succeed. Furthermore, it harms the entire economy any deviation from meritocracy causes inefficiency, and that means loss of money for the company, the organization, and for the nation.

Next semester, I went to my anthropology class one day, and the professor had brought in a woman guest speaker to give us a lecture (a warning, to be more precise) about Jensens ideas. It was strange because the issue of race and IQ was completely unrelated to anything we were studying. Anyway, the class was held in a huge lecture hall, and I got more and more nervous as she recited all the usual propaganda points: IQ tests were created by white men so they are inherently biased against blacks; Jensen is a racist; Race doesnt exist; IQ means nothing.

I knew I couldnt just sit there and listen to her spread lies to hundreds of students with no rebuttal from me. I was petrified at the prospect of speaking to an enormous crowd like this whereas most people experience fear of speaking in public, for me, it was more like abject terror. I can speak haltingly from notes, but I wasnt expecting this, so I had no notes. Extemporaneously, Im so nervous that by the time I get to the end of my sentence, Ive already forgotten the beginning (which is a serious handicap for anyone trying to make sense!) But in the end, my righteous indignation won out she was spreading lies, and I just couldnt let her get away with it! So I took a deep breath, commanded myself to focus, and I raised my hand.

Since this was long ago, I dont honestly remember exactly what I said. I could have babbled away incoherently (not really!), but I think maybe it went something like this: First of all, you say that IQ tests are biased against blacks in favor of whites, but if thats true, why do Chinese and Japanese children in the U.S. score better, on average, that everyone else??
Secondly, you say that blacks score low because theyve been culturally deprived, but low-class white kids average higher IQ scores than upper middle-class black kids. Third, IQ predicts success equally well for all races, and IQ predicts success better than anything else in fact, theres a correlation of about .6 with success in school and in life so how can anything that means nothing predict success so well? Just as I was finishing my last sentence, I was literally struck blind. My eyes were wide open, but all I saw was total blackness! I blinked 8 or 10 times, and then (thank God!) my vision returned. This never happened to me before or since, and I can only guess that it had something to do with the tidal wave of adrenalin that had washed over me.

Around this time, I heard about William Shockley, a professor at Stanford who became an extremely outspoken proponent of eugenics. He had won the Nobel Prize for invention of the transistor. As the story goes, Shockley first became interested in eugenics when he read an article in the newspaper about a woman on welfare who had 13 children, but couldnt remember all their names. I thought it might be a good idea to talk with him, so I wrote him a letter, and one day he called me on the phone. We talked for a while, and he invited me to visit him and his wife in Palo Alto, but somehow it never worked out.Â
I knew he was in communication with Jensen, who thought he was brilliant but quite eccentric, and seriously deficient in social skills. Jensens wife, Barbara, made a clever remark about him she said he had negative charisma. I remember Shockley used to say that hed debate any of his critics any time, any place as long as theyre hooked up to a lie-detector machine!

I invited my best friend since 4th grade to come out from Memphis and live with me in Berkeley. She was confined to a wheelchair after breaking her neck in a childhood accident, and she didnt have much of a life sitting in the backyard all day by the pool. In Berkeley, it was not uncommon to see disabled people riding around in electric wheelchairs. So I spent months helping my friend get established in her new home. She got an electric wheelchair, her parents bought her a house near campus and had it equipped with ramps, and she started taking classes. This was a great thing for her, enabling her to lead a much richer and more normal life. Wed been best friends for many years, but eventually her hoodlum-boyfriend heard about my politically incorrect views, an
d gave her an ultimatum it was either him or me, so she chose him. I didnt cry myself to sleep, because losing friends was starting to become a common occurrence.

Without thinking about it, I just naturally tried to form my beliefs based on facts and evidence, and I assumed that other people did the same.
But gradually I came to realize that many people care only about which beliefs are socially acceptable, and others form their beliefs about what is true based on what they wish were true (a.k.a. wishful thinking), and whats worse, they assume everyone else does this, too. So from their viewpoint, if I believe part of the black-white IQ difference is probably genetic, that means that I wish that were true, ergo, Im mean and hateful! In addition (and what may be even more damning), Im terribly uncool!

Looking back, there were ominous early warning signs of my free-thinking, non-conformist, iconoclastic tendencies, even as a little girl. In the elementary school I attended, girls always wore dresses, with no exceptions. But each year, once a year, on an especially pretty day in April or May, I wore Bermuda shorts to school in my own personal celebration of Spring. Nobody said a word. Then when I was 14, I refused to go to church any more because I just didn
t believe what I was supposed to believe. I decided I could never be a Christian (although I believe in God), and I wasnt going to pretend to be one. Nearly everyone in the South goes to church, so this didnt go over well at all. Later, in high school, we were supposed to give a speech about which candidate we supported for president, Goldwater or Johnson. This presented me with quite a dilemma. The problem was that I honestly could not have cared less, so that became my speech about exactly, precisely how much I did not care! (The teacher liked me, so I got an A for originality.)

University of California, Santa Barbara

In 1975, I was excited to begin the doctoral program in Psychobiology at UCSB. It was a far cry from the excellence of Berkeley, but then so were the vast majority of other places. I had always been interested in sex differences, so I began studying the effects of pre-natal hormones on masculine and feminine behavior.

Things got off to a good start. The campus was nice, and my course work was interesting. The weather was gorgeous, and there were lots of bike paths, so I had fun cruising around on my 10-speed. But I had two problems. First, my academic advisor was a tall, thin, 60-ish, rather eccentric guy whose behavior didnt bode well for my future. He played footsie with me under the table when a bunch of us went out for beer, and when we were sitting alone together in his office, he would put his hand on my knee. I had long blonde hair, and I was young, but I wasnt a child, and I had fended off unwanted advances before, but that was always on a date.Ã
This was different. I should have pushed his hand off, and if he put it back again, I should have done something, maybe stomped on his foot, or at least walked out. But the problem was that his eyes glazed over, and frankly he looked insane, so I just sat there in a state of paralysis.

My second problem was even worse. All doctoral students had offices in the psychology building which they shared with one other student, and my office-mate was a rather unattractive guy Â
? lets just call him Rat-Bastard. We got along fine, but we didnt talk much because I worked really hard. Then one day he asked me the source of my income, which wasnt exactly polite. I was trying to be nice to him even though he was a creep so I told him I had a National Science Foundation fellowship and I also got financial aid. He said, Oh, you cant have both. Its not allowed.Â
I wasnt worried because Id been totally honest on my application, and they had given me both, and even added together it was still a modest sum. Two days later, however, I got a call from the Financial Aid Office, and they told me that henceforth, I would get no more financial aid on account of the fact that I had a NSF fellowship.But the fellowship is so small, I protested, its not enough to live on! It doesnt matter, she replied. Those are the rules.

Rat-Bastard! So, after two semesters, I was forced to drop out of graduate school. In retrospect, I realize that he might have been a sadist, or maybe he was angry at some perceived slight, but by far the most likely explanation is that he overheard me say something in defense of Jensen, so I guess he decided hed do the world a favor by ruining the career of a
?racist. I hardly ever talked about Jensen, but if the subject came up, I knew enough about the controversy to make one or two points on his side. And (silly me) I thought we were supposed to be scientists, not ideologues! At any rate, as I cleaned out the desk in my office, R-B sat there and watched me with a look of smug satisfaction on his ugly face. I remember wishing that pesky law against assault and battery could be suspended for just one day, so I could go get my cast iron frying pan! Kaa-pow!!

Interregnum

My advisor at UC Santa Barbara had suggested I take a leave of absence instead of dropping out entirely, so when I got back home to Berkeley, this made it possible for me to take a few graduate classes at UC Berkeley, including one with Jensen. I was glad to see him again, and I was kind of relieved, too, because I was beginning to feel like the rest of the world had gone berserk. The controversy raged on, and the campus paper, The Daily Californian, ran an article about Jensen, along with his picture, and they asked him how he was reacting to all the fuss. He said he was doing fine, and that he was pretty much unflappable.

My boyfriend and I got married during this time he had been my teaching assistant for one of my psychology classes. He was funny, and very smart, and we played tennis every day.We got along well, except that he believed what were all supposed to believe, whereas I did not, but it didnt seem like a big thing. I remember telling Jensen that Id recently gotten married, and he asked me how my husband felt about my beliefs I replied that he tolerated them.
But now this conversation seems more significant to me than it did at the time, because Ive come to realize that holding unpopular beliefs can be a source of friction, sometimes very serious friction, not only between friends, but within families as well. I know that his wife, Barbara, was very supportive of his work, but his mother never forgave him. I ended up divorcing my husband several years later for other reasons, but it probably didnt help that he often referred to me as the Nazi.

I worked at part-time jobs while I continued to read and study. I applied to the University of Minnesota so I could work with Thomas Bouchard on the famous Minnesota Twin Study, which united identical twins from all over the world who had been separated at birth. All the people involved in the study including the twins and the researchers themselves were surprised at their striking degree of similarity. The twins were delighted to meet their co-twins, and they became instant friends. Of course, they were very similar in IQ. But what also captivated my interest was that identical twins separated at birth had the same laugh, the same gestures, the same phobias, similar taste in clothes, the same favorite subjects in school, similar vegetable aversions, and similar (but not identical) religious and political beliefs. The fact that the twins often shared minutely specific traits and idiosyncracies filled me with a sense of wonder. Its almost as if a baby is born, and he is who he is. He grows, he matures, he learns (and what he learns matters), and gradually he becomes an adult, with full adult consciousness.Â
But the Minnesota Twin Study really brings home the fact that a baby is hardly a tabula rasa [blank slate], as political correctness would have us all believe.

I was looking forward to starting the Fall semester at the U of Minn, but I got sick with recurrent sinus infections, so I wrote to the Psychology Department and asked if I could begin the following year, and they agreed. For that entire year, I took broad-spectrum antibiotics repeatedly, and then one day, I got really sick. The doctors couldnt figure out what it was, so they concluded that it must, therefore, be psychological. So for the entire next year, I saw one doctor after another after another about this new mystery illness, and they all gave me the same bogus diagnosis. ?
Their assumption was that if they didnt know what it was, it must, therefore, be nothing! In fact, it was more of an insult than a diagnosis (and for this theyre supposed to get paid money?) I never doubted for a second that I was sick, but I finally went to a psychiatrist just so I could tell the doctors I went. In retrospect, I realize that I was extremely lucky that the guy I saw was honest and had common sense. He told me I was definitely not crazy, and that I was obviously sick. He said that psychological is just a convenient, face-saving way to get rid of patients when doctors reach a dead end diagnostically. I agreed with him, but it seemed like such an unenlightened thing to do, both arrogant and unkind. Instead of saying, Im sorry, I can
t figure out whats wrong with you, they prefer to say, You must have some kind of mental problem. By this time, I was beginning to seriously wonder if physicians will be over-represented in Hell. The psychiatrist also predicted that I would eventually diagnose myself, which turned out to be prescient.

I had already started going to the medical school library at the University of California, San Francisco. After 1 ½ years of the new mystery illness, Id lost 40 pounds. (I lost 40 pounds, yet I wasnt on a diet! That should be a clue to those deadbeat doctors that something was wrong!) At this point I was 5'8" tall, and weighed less than 100 pounds. I knew Id have to figure it out myself, and that I didnt have forever to do it, because I was wasting away. Finally, after several months of searching, I figured out what was wrong with me and how to treat it. (It was extremely rare, and didnt even have a name.)
I mailed a copy of the journal article to my Berkeley doctor, with the relevant passages highlighted in yellow. He ordered the blood test, the results confirmed my diagnosis, he prescribed the recommended drug, and I was completely well again in a few weeks.

Then with a very bony finger, and vengeance in my heart I dialed a famous malpractice lawyer in San Fra
ncisco. After a lengthy discussion, he concluded that we could have nailed them for malpractice, except that I sustained no permanent damage. I did, however, waste 2 years of my life.

A word of explanation about my overall health is necessary at this point. All my life, Ive had a very marked lack of physical stamina, and far more illness than most people.Ã
Eventually, I was diagnosed with a minor heart defect and an immune deficiency (both of which I predicted as far back as junior high school based on my experiences). (Both are genetic.) When I was an undergraduate, I took classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so I could stay home and rest on Tuesday and Thursday. My grades were good, but I didnt always make all As. I was already working at my full capacity, which was kind of like having 2-3 fewer usable hours per day than everybody else had, or like being a 4-cylinder car when everybody else is a 6-cylinder or 8-cylinder car. Once I had a regular 40-hour/week job in an office, and I called in sick almost every single Wednesday because it was just too exhausting. So the point is that poor health has been a life-long problem for me, and a constant source of anxiety.

Nathaniel & Sylvia Weyl

I read several interesting articles about eugenics by Nathaniel Weyl in the Mankind Quarterly, and then I read his book The Creative Elite in America. I wrote him a letter, and we struck up a fascinating correspondence. Nathaniel and his wife Sylvia invited me to visit them at their home in Boca Raton, Florida, so the next time I went to Memphis to visit my family, I decided to fly down to see them. They had all the same heretical beliefs that I did, such as eugenics, and race differences in IQ, so it was a celebration of kindred spirits We had so much fun together, and when it was time for me to go, we all hated to say good-bye.

Thank you so much for inviting me, I said. I really had a fabulous time.

Its been wonderful having you, Sylvia said. Weve had a marvelous time, too.

Yeah, Nathaniel concurred. Were really gonna miss you!

And Im gonna miss you, too! I exclaimed

I looked up at the ceiling as I processed a thought.

Say, Ive got an idea, I suggested, only half facetiously. Why dont I go home to Berkeley, get all my stuff, move in, and live here indefinitely?

Great! they exclaimed in unison.

So I did!

The year I lived as Nathaniel and Sylvias house guest was one of the best times of my life. They were in their late 60s, and both of them were fascinating, wonderful people.
Living with them was peaceful emotionally, and stimulating intellectually. We often went to the beach in the afternoon, and then sat out in the garden drinking champagne, talking about everything under the sun. Sylvia was a Jew, and Nathaniel ½ Jewish, but he identified with Jews. Despite being Jewish herself, Sylvia actively disliked Jews, and found them physically ugly. Her mother had changed their last name to Castleton, and Sylvia always made it a point to sign her name Sylvia Castleton Weyl.

Nathaniel was a raconteur with a treasure trove of interesting stories. Both Nathaniel and Sylvia had been card-carrying Communists in fact, thats how they met until they learned about the secret treaty between Stalin and Hitler, when they renounced Communism and told the FBI everything they knew. Nathaniel testified at the famous treason trial of Alger Hiss. He told me once that a Jewish organization had approached him about assassinating Hitler, but he declined. I asked him why, and he replied quite candidly, I didnt want to do it cause I might have gotten hurt!

I remember one typical sunny afternoon in Boca I had just gone to the grocery store, and I was pushing the shopping cart out to my car. I noticed this very old car creeping slowly along, circling the parking lot. Two black men, both very dark and somewhat sinister-looking, seemed to be checking out the situation, and I felt an instinctive wave of fear. Then they came right up beside me, about 3 feet away, and the man on the passengerÃ
?s side stuck his head out of the window, and he shouted at me:

Why dont you get out the street, white bitch?!

In an instant, knee-jerk reaction, I turned and shouted right back at him:

Why dont you drop dead, greasy nigger?!

Jesus Christ!! I thought to myself. What have I done now?!

Immediately the two men got into a heated argument. I can only guess what they were saying: Im gonna kill that f-ing bitch!
Listen to me m-f, I aint going back to the joint, so if you gonna shoot the bitch, then you can get the f- out my car!

I put the groceries in the trunk with a sort of controlled alacrity, because I was trying to get the hell out of there, but without looking terrified. Soon I was in my car, and then back home to safety. Whew!
Note: I do not recommend this to anyone! If I had thought it over for two seconds, I would have kept my mouth shut like any normal, sensible person would

Massive Anti-Eugenics Hoax Uncovered

 

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Massive Anti-Eugenics Hoax Uncovered:
A Radical New Interpretation of the History of Eugenic
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[On Counter-Currents.com currently, and to appear in the Fall 2014 edition of North American New Right]

by Marian Van Court

Russian translation [pdf]

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The story of eugenics has been a tragedy. The basic idea goes back to antiquity – the belief that the world would become a much better place if healthy and intelligent people had the most children. But in the 20th century, in a bizarre and mysterious twist of fate, something went terribly wrong, and what began as an altruistic movement to help future generations ended in the barbaric murder of millions. This fantastical tale has long been the accepted history of eugenics – but is that really what happened?

Recently, John Glad published Jewish Eugenics, which adds important new pieces to this puzzle, and when combined with already-established facts, a radically different picture of the history of eugenics emerges. JE gives an overview of Jewish participation in eugenics which shows consistent support in Israel from its birth in 1948 to the present, and among the majority of Jews in the West until the late 1960s, at which time most Jewish social scientists and journalists reversed themselves to vehement denunciation, which remains their position today. The question immediately arises: “Why the mass reversal?” Glad states matter-of-factly that most Jews in the West altered their position 180°, and then he moves on, offering no explanation for this extraordinary event, but that will be the central focus of this paper.

JE is a scholarly work about an extremely important subject, but there’s also an inescapable element of sensationalism simply because of the topics addressed. Eugenics is widely reviled as “the ideology of the Holocaust,” the most diabolical scheme in all of history. Furthermore, the very idea of Jewish eugenics may seem strange, since eugenics is associated in the minds of most people with the Nazis. Nevertheless, eugenics is now, and has always been, practiced in Israel:

Unlike the U.S. situation, this anti-eugenics view never even got off the ground in Israel. Behavioral scientist Aviad Raz (b. 1968) of Ben Gurion University is quite open in pointing out that both the word ‘eugenics’ and the actual practice of eugenics enjoy broad approval in that country, and objections to eugenics – at least as far as genetic screening combined with eugenic abortions – are a ‘non-issue’ in Israel: Eugenic ideologies and practices have persisted in Israel, in a thinly disguised mode, even after the holocaust, because they were an inherent and formative part of Zionism . . . [P]renatal genetic testing was eugenic and was indeed supported precisely for that reason, since ‘eugenic’ for them meant the improvement of the health of progeny and carried positive rather than negative connotations.

Today in Israel, abortion is not a controversial issue. Human embryos are not considered sacred. The new eugenic reproductive technologies – pre-natal diagnosis, abortion of defective fetuses, in vitro fertilization, surrogacy – are all encouraged by the government and widely utilized by the population. (It should be noted, however, that Palestinians are not encouraged to take part, as their fertility is seen as a threat to the state.) In fact, surrogate mothers are paid by the government. There are 16 sperm banks in Israel, and more in vitro fertilizations are performed there per capita than in any other country in the world. Stem cell research is not strictly regulated in Israel. In short, their pragmatic attitude towards issues surrounding human reproduction contrasts sharply with that in America.

Ancient Jewish Eugenics

Jews have practiced eugenics since ancient times. Moreover, eugenics is an integral part of Judaism, and of the evolution of the Jewish people themselves. Eugenics is thought to be responsible for their higher average IQ, and consequently, for their higher incomes and disproportionate success in virtually all fields of endeavor. Richard Lynn has written extensively on this subject, and has estimated the average IQ of Jews worldwide to be 110. Nathaniel Weyl proposed an interesting theory to explain how this IQ advantage came about:

The selective character of the Captivity and the Return was perpetuated by eugenic practices, based on learning and scholarship, which would persist for centuries of Jewish history…[which has] sometimes been considered as a vast experiment, in which status was based on intellect serving religion, in which intellectuals were commanded not to be chaste, but to be fertile, in which the rich and successful sought brilliant rabbinical scholars as husbands for their daughters….

In addition, in a society that places an enormous premium on learning, it might be expected that those of lower intelligence would be accorded little respect, and little of everything else, so they would have the most to gain by defecting. Also, it might be asked, why did Jews value intelligence so much in the first place? Perhaps they were smarter than the other people around them from ancient times, and they wanted to keep it that way – in other words, a sort of “founder effect.” Finally, the “Shadchan,” or marriage broker, may also have played a significant role in Jewish eugenics:

[T]he Pentateuch raised Eugenics into a matter of religion…. The much-despised Shadchan or marriage broker as an institution had many obvious faults. Yet, in a quiet, unscientific manner he has been the means of curing mere sentiment and passion in the matter of mating of sons and daughters of Israel…. The Shadchan is distinctively on the side of Eugenics in ‘regulating’ the union of men and women….

Jewish Attitudes towards Eugenics Do an About-Face in the West

Glad quotes a Jewish eugenicist in a 1930s journal: “The eugenicist…does not aim to establish a race of supermen, but rather, a race of sturdy, intelligent and healthy individuals similar to the large proportion of the human family now in existence.”

Later, he cites another Jewish eugenicist’s 3-point plan:

Social Eugenics will accomplish the following: It will reduce future welfare rolls. It will reduce our prison population. It will reduce future crimes. It will consist of a simple three-point plan: First, the Aid to Dependent Children will be phased out….Second…persons on Welfare who consent to sterilization will receive a one thousand dollar cash bonus…. Third, all prison inmates will be [given] a three-year reduction in their prison sentences if they consent to sterilization.

In much of the Western world during the 1920s and 1930s, eugenics was a popular cause. Some of its more notable proponents include H. G. Wells, Charles Darwin, Margaret Sanger, Winston Churchill, Francis Galton, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Lindbergh, Alexander Graham Bell, Theodore Roosevelt, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Julian Huxley. Huxley described eugenics as “of all outlets for altruism, that which is most comprehensive and of longest range.” Wells said, “It seemed to me that to discourage the multiplicati
on of people below a certain standard, and to encourage the multiplication of exceptionally superior people, was the only real and permanent way of mending the ills of the world.” It was neither a liberal nor a conservative cause, with supporters along all points of the political spectrum.

Then in the late 1960s, the majority of Jewish social scientists and journalists in Europe and North America did an about-face, reversing their position to one of harsh denunciation of eugenics, and since there was no organized opposition, their beliefs became both the academic orthodoxy and the “conventional wisdom.” This has lasted about 50 years to the present day. Although Glad never even speculates about why this remarkable event occurred, he provides the first clue – that it coincided with the birth of the Holocaust Memorial Movement, which can hardly be an insignificant coincidence.

Perhaps the second clue towards explaining anti-eugenics lies in the content and tone of their works – they became more dogmatic, and less rigorously scientific. Their readers were taught that certain opinions are acceptable, even praiseworthy, whereas others are forbidden, held only by screwballs and evil-doers. For example, according to them, all good and decent people believe the following: that heredity counts for nothing; that race doesn’t exist; that IQ is a fraud invented by White men who wanted to feel superior; that everyone is born exactly the same on everything that matters. Obviously, if only the environment determines human behavior, then there’s no point in eugenics.

The Nature-Nurture debate took center stage in public awareness in the latter part of the 20th century because of a media blitz engineered by the political left. It wasn’t much of a “debate,” however, because, for the most part, only their side was presented to the public. Eugenics was given a leading role – along with heredity, environment, race, and IQ tests – in their little “morality play.” Hereditarians believe both Nature and Nurture are important – they were cast as the heartless, bigoted villains. “Environmentalists” (a.k.a. “egalitarians”) should not be confused with those who want to protect the natural environment – in this context, environmentalists are those who believe that all human beings are born exactly equal on everything that matters, and that differences in behavior are determined by the environment. The environmentalists portrayed themselves as the “good guys” who bravely defend the public from the hateful influence of wicked hereditarians and eugenicists.

In 1971, Steven Jay Gould published The Mismeasure of Man. It received lavish praise all ‘round, and won numerous awards. It was translated into 10 languages, and it became required reading for undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Gould was a staunch environmentalist. He published a new “revised” edition in 1996, but it was the exact same book with extra chapters added to the end. J. Philippe Rushton writes in his review of the new edition:

After carefully reading the book, I charge Gould with several counts of scholarly malfeasance. First, he omits mention of remarkable new discoveries made from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which show that brain size and IQ correlate about 0.40. These results are as replicable as one will find in the social and behavioral sciences and utterly destroy many of Gould’s arguments. Second, despite published refutations, Gould repeats verbatim his defamations of character against long deceased individuals.

Gould was the most popular and prolific of the bunch, but there were a number of other academics who wrote books in the same vein, such as Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin who jointly published Not in Our Genes in 1984. Dawkins aptly described the book as “silly, pretentious, obscurantist and mendacious.” They agreed with Gould that IQ means nothing, plus it’s not inherited, and furthermore, it doesn’t even exist! These authors, too, believed that science can never be truly objective, never free of bias or political and cultural influence. This is a form of nihilism, and common sense would suggest that nihilists should not be trusted, and that their own motives should come under the deepest scrutiny.

The environmentalists had no remotely compelling evidence that heredity is unimportant in human behavior for the pure and simple reason that this is nonsense. There’s a mountain of scientific evidence on twins and adopted children which proves the importance of heredity. So they merely sniped at the research of their opponents, especially their older, out-dated research, while generating none of their own – and herein lies the third clue about the Jews’ about-face on eugenics: most of them have produced precious little (if anything at all) in the way of original research. If they had truth on their side, they should be able to prove their assertions with research, but they didn’t even try, suggesting that they knew all along it would be futile. Their new secular religion was made up of “politically correct” tenets that have become articles of faith. Not only is their set of beliefs true, they insist, it is the only moral stance. Doesn’t this sound suspicious? How can a question of fact become a moral duty to believe?

In 1985, Daniel Kevles published a book entitled In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. It first appeared in serial form in The New Yorker, and it was also extremely well-received, very influential, and widely cited. In the first chapter, Kevles states that Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin and the “father of eugenics,” believed in eugenics because (1) he was born into the aristocracy, and (as Marx would claim) he was an elitist participant in the “class struggle” of capitalism, and because (2) he and his wife were childless, a psychological need arose which led him to promote eugenics. Kevles writes that “[H]ad [Galton] been more self-aware he might have understood that his proto-eugenic pronouncements celebrated the social milieu – and met the psychic needs – of Francis Galton.” With this one statement, he simultaneously patronizes Galton and insults him. He offers no proof, nor evidence of any kind. He goes on to assert that “Galton may well have diverted frustration over his own lack of children into an obsession with the propagation of Galton-like offspring.” But how can Kevles presume to know what “really” motivated Francis Galton?

The following quote by Lucy Davidowicz provides another example of the uncritical thinking so typical of the anti-eugenics literature:

Negative eugenics was [the Nazis’] program designed first to halt the procreation of persons…through sterilization, and then eventually to kill them [sic].

The point is that, aside from being untrue, if the goal of the Nazis had been to prevent procreation, it would be absurd to first sterilize people, and then to kill them! This quote also brings up the important subject of euthanasia. In the years before World War II, Germany had an unusually large institutionalized population, mostly psychotic or severely debilitated by illness. Hitler instituted a program of euthanasia to give them a “merciful death.” The historical record shows that he did this in order to free up medical supplies and personnel which he knew he would need for future military campaigns. Whether this program was wise or unwise is irrelevant to the issue at hand, because euthanasia has nothing whatsoever to do with eugenics. People who are institutionalized do not procreate, so euthanasia would serve no eugenic purpose. Yet somehow, euthanasia has become entangled conceptually with eugenics. It’s difficult to know to what extent this was an accident, and to what extent eugenics may have been deliberately confounded with euthanasia, as the Davidowicz quote might suggest. The unfortunate result of this confusion is that many educated people today actually believe eugenics is a program of forcible m
ass murder of the weak and infirm.

“The Anti-Eugenics Movement is a Hoax.”

The big gun in the arsenal of the anti-eugenicists is their claim that eugenics caused the Holocaust, and more generally, that eugenics invariably leads to genocide, and for that reason it’s extremely dangerous and should be banned everywhere. Unfortunately, this belief is often treated as self-evident, as if it needs no proof, but it is hardly self-evident!

Despite the fact that this is accepted as true in much of the Western world, in reality it can easily be proven to be false: (1) It’s well-known that in the 1920s and 1930s, there were numerous eugenics programs in countries around the world, including America and a number of European nations, and that in one of these countries, Nazi Germany, genocide was committed. If eugenics causes genocide – as its opponents claim – then why was there no genocide in all those other countries? Why were there literally dozens of exceptions to this rule? (2) Both before and after the Nazis, mass murder and genocide have been committed many times throughout history. The Communists murdered far more people that the Nazis did, and they vehemently opposed eugenics. History records numerous instances of genocide in the absence of eugenics, and numerous instances of eugenics in the absence of genocide, and only one instance in which they even existed in the same time and place. These are hardly obscure facts of history, nor are they in dispute. The plain fact is that eugenics has nothing whatsoever to do with genocide.

On the face of it, the very notion that a program designed to help future generations is directly responsible for mass murder is preposterous. Assertions of causality – for example, “The influenza virus causes the flu” – need to be backed up with facts if they are to be taken seriously. But in this case, where are the facts? To assert that “Germany had a eugenics program and the Holocaust took place there” is wholly inadequate. Furthermore, even a cursory examination of the historical record is sufficient to rule out a causal link. What's remarkable is that this blatant falsehood has been vigorously promoted to the public for decades – to the point where most people actually believe it – which elevates it from a mere falsehood to the status of a “hoax.” This raises the intriguing question of who is behind this hoax, and what exactly have they been trying to accomplish by it?

The vast majority of Western anti-eugenicists have been Jews. (Of course, only a small minority of Jews were anti-eugenicists.) They denounced eugenics with such remarkable and relentless ferocity that it has become profoundly stigmatized. As a result of their tidal wave of distortions, the image of eugenics was completely transformed in the mind of the public. It seems almost miraculous how they managed to replace the normal, honest, correct, sane image the public has held of eugenics since its inception – that of a transparently altruistic effort to help future generations – into the most vicious form of pure evil ever to scourge our planet.

By the late 20th century, the few beleaguered eugenicists still left, mostly academics with tenure, struggled to carry on their work:

Dissidents are subjected to academic shunning. Their books and articles are not recommended for publication or are ignored if published, and are certainly not assigned to students. Many librarians not only will not order them, but will refuse to accept them as gifts. Such authors are not invited to participate in conferences or deliver guest lectures, are not awarded grants or academic appointments, and even their correspondence goes unanswered….This de facto blacklisting easily carries the day in newspapers and on television-radio talk shows, scooping out an ever widening chasm between popular opinion and science. It is a scenario that has been repeatedly played out in academia in the past. Galileo ultimately wins out over the Inquisition, but that can be a very lengthy process [emphasis in original].

North American and European eugenicists were up against an anti-eugenics juggernaut of books, lectures, articles, TV mini-series, museums, interviews, radio talk shows, newspaper stories, and movies. Plagued by hostility and ridicule from colleagues, even ostracized socially for holding “unsavory” opinions, we developed an uneasy sense that the entire world had gone insane. This surreal suppression of truth in supposedly “free” countries created an extremely uncomfortable atmosphere that lasted for decades. Consider the following analogy: imagine you dropped a tennis ball and it flew upwards into the clouds! Naturally, you’d be dumbfounded. Experience and judgment told us that what we were witnessing – right there before our very eyes – should not be happening. Something was profoundly wrong in the world – but what?

Furthermore, it was hard to fathom how the public could be so easily brainwashed about eugenics when science, logic, and morality were all firmly on its side. We wondered: Have they considered even once the alternative to eugenics, which is dysgenics (genetic deterioration)? Do they really want to see each generation become more sickly, more stupid, poorer, and more criminal than the last one?

Among the handful of eugenicists remaining, opinion was divided on the subject of why eugenics was in a shambles. Everyone agreed that it had been unfairly tarnished because of guilt-by-association with Hitler – an extremely unfortunate but nevertheless “natural” result of a confluence of world events – whereas a few suspected more was involved. The anti-eugenicists were not merely mistaken or misguided – by this time, we knew that they knew they were lying. Bear in mind that during the 1970s and 1980s, hardly anyone had even heard about the thriving eugenics program in Israel.

Since virtually all our opponents were Jews, and it was obvious that they had some kind of political agenda they barely tried to conceal, most people thought it was Marxism. The problem was that, at least among a few of us, we also assumed that world events took place as a result of an interaction of factors which unfolded “naturally.” We were idealistic scientists, admittedly naive and trusting, and we hadn’t the faintest clue that the entire Western world was being manipulated for the political benefit of a tiny ethnic minority. Then along came Kevin MacDonald’s trilogy to open our eyes. Suddenly we realized that the world is a far more sinister place than we could ever have imagined, but we understood – finally – what had happened to eugenics.

A number of modern Jewish intellectual movements have used wholesale deception to mold public opinion to create a climate favorable to their own interests to the detriment of society at large (see MacDonald, 1998b). A broader perspective can be achieved with regard to the anti-eugenics hoax after stepping back and viewing it in this context. When it is seen alongside these other movements, the anti-eugenics hoax begins to make more sense. Examples: Marxism, Freudian psychoanalysis, “open immigration,” and most recently, neo-conservatism. The neoconservatives lied America into war with Iraq (Israel’s enemy), and their campaign for war, significantly, has also been characterized as a “hoax.”

.Not just “many” or “most” anti-eugenicists have been Jews, but the “overwhelming majority,” and this distinction is crucial because it defines anti-eugenics as a Jewish movement, and makes it reasonable to assume that it was intended to benefit Jews in some way. Also, they engaged in massive fraud for a period of 50 years to accomplish their goal, so the anti-eugenics hoax clearly “fits” alongside the other Jewish intellectual movements which MacDonald has written about. Now at least we have the beginnings of an answer starting to take shape, a preliminary step closer to solving the puzzle. We're still left with the questi
on of how destroying eugenics could possibly help Jews, but this will be answered below.

As touched on earlier, eugenics is part of a cluster of issues along with IQ, race, and the Nature-Nurture question. These, in turn, are part of a larger matrix known as “political correctness,” or “leftist fascism,” and this includes immigration, intermarriage, diversity, and multi-culturalism. Much has been written about political correctness – nobody knows quite where it came from, and why it has taken over the Western world with a vengeance. Political correctness didn't just occur arbitrarily like a change in the weather; it happened because people made it happen, people who derived (and continue to derive) benefit from it. MacDonald believes that the current Zeitgeist, with its various manifestations, is the product of Jews and Jewish organizations working for decades to re-create the social and political landscape, bit by bit, into one which benefits their own narrow ethnic interests.

Case in point: immigration. Jews have been persecuted throughout their long history, and quite understandably, their paramount concern is making sure that it doesn’t happen again. In a confident, united, ethnically homogeneous society – like Nazi Germany – Jews are much more vulnerable as conspicuous outsiders, and they know this both consciously and unconsciously. They are safer and more powerful in a society which is divided and disorganized, where they are more free to advance their own agenda, unnoticed and without interference. In Israel, immigration is closed to everyone except Jews, regardless of their need for refuge. But in America, where Balkanization is to their advantage, Jews spearheaded the fight for “open immigration,” ostensibly on “humanitarian” grounds, and this allowed many different nationalities and races into the country. They promoted the belief that the environment is all-powerful and heredity counts for nothing, and this led directly to political policies which benefited themselves. According to their reasoning, if millions of Pygmies immigrate to America, they are bound to become good citizens sooner or later, since race doesn't exist and all behavior is determined by the environment. But lofty-sounding universalist ideals espoused when in the minority are forgotten in Israel, where it’s no longer to

 

Adam, Eve, and Evolution

Adam, Eve, and Evolution

by Marian Van Court

The traditional interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve is that they disobeyed God by eating the forbidden apple, which is the origin of Original Sin. I shall present a new interpretation (based largely on the principles of evolutionary psychology) that the story symbolizes the major step in our evolution from animal to human, a transition which spanned millions of years.

Occasionally people refer to Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge. They leave off the "of good and evil" part, which is crucial. The Biblical passage clearly states that they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If it were merely the tree of knowledge, the passage would make no sense whatsoever. God said:

Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Later, the Serpent assured Eve that what God had told her was untrue, and that her fears were unfounded:

Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods . . . .

Adam and Eve ate the apple, and when God realized this, He said:

Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.

Thus, God confirmed that what the Serpent had said when he tempted Eve was, in fact, true. Now they have souls, and their consciousness lives forever, even after their bodies are gone. They have become as one of us.

In the traditional interpretation, the Serpent is considered wicked. Its plain from the text that the Serpent was perfectly truthful in everything he said to Adam and Eve, and the fact that he was telling the truth is somehow overlooked, as is the fact that God deceived them, at least until the point at which they ate the apple. This is an inescapable conclusion, and God admits as much later on. The fact that God lied to them is also ignored or glossed over by the traditional interpretation.

God told Adam and Eve if they ate from that one tree, they would die. But clearly, they ate from the tree, and they didn't die!! It could be argued that, in the very broadest sense of the word, that they did die, the change in them being so great, their former selves and their former lives being lost forever. However, a stronger case could be made that God simply deceived them. Maybe it was for their own good, but He deceived them, nevertheless. God goes on to confirm everything the Serpent predicted, and Adam and Eve became as gods. How did the Serpent know all these things?

Perhaps it makes sense to view God and the Serpent as two aspects of the same entity. God loved Adam and Eve, and didn't want to see them suffer, but, having planted the tree in the Garden, God knew it was inevitable that at some point they would eat from it. In this story, God and the Serpent may represent the two opposite poles of a conflict similar to the one parents feel as their children grow up, need them less, and venture out into the cold, cruel world. Parents want their children to become independent, but they also want to keep them at home, forever safe.

What exactly is meant by knowledge of good and evil? It means morality, a distinctly human trait. It means the entire array of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that goes along with it, such as the assumption of free-will, desire for approval and respect, fear of rejection, guilt, pride, envy, admiration, desire for revenge, ambition, anxiety, shame, remorse, love-- in short, all the emotions that make up the glue holding human social groups together, motivating members to suppress hostile impulses, forgo selfish interests, and work for the common good. Eventually, this leads to the development of civilization, along with its numerous ramifications.

Acquiring the knowledge of good and evil means evolving from animals to human beings. Becoming human was both a blessing and a curse. There was much to be gained from it--as the Serpent said, "your eyes shall be opened". But it entailed a steep price. God said to Eve, "I will increase your labor and in labor you shall bear children." Why specifically that? Because becoming human meant becoming more intelligent, and in order to do that, their brains had to grow larger, resulting in extremely painful births which lower primates, with smaller head-to-body ratios, do not experience. This evolution of larger brains, along with an un- avoidable increase in pain during childbirth, is at the very heart of the process of becoming human.

Before, they were naked, but unashamed, their sexuality uninhibited, like animals. Afterwards, they suddenly realized they were naked, and they stitched loincloths from fig leaves. Strong social restrictions on sexual behavior characterize any civilized people, and make up an integral part of the whole cluster of moral beliefs and behaviors that distinguish us from lower animals.

When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, they began the long, Faustian journey to human-hood, striving for understanding and mastery. God said to Adam, "You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground." No longer could he pluck fruit from a tree when he got hungry the way a monkey does. He cultivated the land, tended his flock, and put away food for hard times. He had the intelligence to envision the horror of famine, and he knew if he didn't work hard and plan wisely, he and his family would starve.

Back in the security and isolation of The Garden, good and evil were hardly salient concepts. But suddenly they become very real, and very potent forces, in human social groups where survival itself is uncertain. Good is whatever helps the group as a whole to survive and prosper--courage, honesty, unselfishness, intelligence, hard work. Evil is whatever harms the group--cowardice, dishonesty, selfishness, stupidity, and laziness.

The concepts of good and evil were integrated into the culture. Parents taught children to share, to be honest, and to consider the feelings of others. The concepts became internalized, along with all the whole vast array of emotions, both powerful and subtle, that go with them. For example, a man feels instinctive rage when he discovers his wife with another man. People feel spontaneous resentment upon witnessing the selfish or deceitful behavior of others. They experience fear and anxiety when they imagine themselves ostracized by the group for engaging in forbidden acts. And they feel pride after being praised for making a major contribution to the group. All of these pleasant and unpleasant emotions form a system of positive and negative reinforcement that molds the behavior of individuals and keeps the group working successfully as a unit.

The importance of the group is paramount, for we know that human beings must band together in order to survive. Groups with a highly developed morality survived in greater numbers than those without it, thus the genetic predisposition increased in the population. The most successful hunters and warriors received the admiration and gratitude of all, as did the most ingenious inventors--in short, those who contribute to the group. Thieves and murderers were executed or banished. Adolescent boys dreams of glory constituted specially potent fuel for the creative process that constructed technology and civilization. This entire dynamic, the network of prescriptions and proscriptions, facilitated group co-operat
ion, cohesion, morale, progress, and ultimately, survival.

How does the story of Adam and Eve end? They (or shall I say "we") are still evolving. Will we become more and more human--smarter, more compassionate, more creative--until eventually we become one with God? Maybe in some symbolic sense we will come full circle back to the Garden. The story of Adam and Eve is a beautiful and powerful allegory. I hope what I have suggested fits the original text from Genesis reasonably well, and that it at least provides an interesting alternative interpretation to the traditional one.

Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations

 

Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations

by Richard Lynn (Praeger, 1996)

reviewed by Marian Van Court

[This review first appeared in the Journal of Social, Political,
and Economic Studies, Volume 23, Number 2, Summer 1998.]

Countless volumes have been written about the past evolution of the human species, yet hardly any attention has been paid to the crucial question, "Where are we evolving now?" Richard Lynn, of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, courageously addresses this question in his controversial book Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations. Professor Lynn presents compelling evidence that much of the world is deteriorating in its genetic potential for intelligence, health, and conscientiousness (or good character). The word for this is "dysgenics," the opposite of "eugenics."

The Bell Curve devoted one chapter to the question of where we are evolving with regard to IQ (Herrnstein and Murray, 1994). Dysgenics picks up where The Bell Curve left off. Professor Lynn surveys studies from all over the world, and everywhere finds the least intelligent people having the most children. The only exception is sub-Saharan Africa where contraception is rarely used. Our genetic potential for intelligence has been declining in Europe and North America since the mid- 1800s, with a total loss of about 5-8 IQ points. Currently, we are losing almost one IQ point each generation.

The decline in genotypic intelligence coincided with the dissemination of information about contraception. For several centuries prior to 1800, married couples had natural fertility, essentially uninfluenced by efforts to limit it. During this period, there was a strong taboo against sex outside of marriage, and many people never had children because they were too poor to marry. Illegitimacy was rare. Infant mortality was high, especially among the lower classes. Harsh though it may have been, natural selection operated to maintain a healthy population, and to keep intelligence gradually increasing.

Then in the early 1800s, several books on contraception were published. These ideas naturally affected the reading classes disproportionately. Goodyear perfected the vulcanization of rubber, making it an ideal material for the mass production of condoms and diaphragms. By the middle of the century, it was becoming apparent that educated people were having fewer children than the uneducated. Charles Darwin worried about the fact that "the scum" of society were so prolific, and expressed deep concern about the future of civilization because natural selection had ceased to operate. Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, coined the term "eugenics," and was its main proponent:

The chief result of these Inquiries has been to elicit the religious significance of the doctrine of evolution. It suggests an alteration in our mental attitude, and imposes a new moral duty. The new mental attitude is one of a greater sense of moral freedom, responsibility, and opportunity; the new duty . . . is an endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race.

Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim of eugenics. (Blacker, 1952).

In the early decades of the 1900s, eugenics societies were being formed in Great Britain and the United States, and eugenics was advocated by leading thinkers along all points of the political spectrum. H.G. Wells summed up its common-sense appeal: "It seemed to me that to discourage the multiplication of people below a certain standard, and to encourage the multiplication of exceptionally superior people, was the only real and permanent way of mending the ills of the world. I think that still." Julian Huxley described eugenics as "of all outlets for altruism, that which is most comprehensive, and of longest range" (Van Court, 1982).

Eugenics made sense because few doubted that heredity was important. Life was more closely tied to the land, and farmers knew from experience that plants and animals vary widely depending on their inborn qualities. Common sense dictated that human beings, like all the rest of nature, are strongly influenced by heredity. In addition, most people had larger families back then. If a couple had many children, all of whom turned out good except one, it was perfectly reasonable to think that what accounted for the difference was inborn, especially if there were signs from early childhood. Since all the children grew up in the same house, with the same parents, eating the same food, it was just a matter of common sense.

Common Sense Confirmed by Science

Professor Lynn's major thesis in Dysgenics is that scientific evidence has proven the eugenicists were absolutely right in their concerns about genetic deterioration, and that we, as a society, have made a serious mistake by discounting them. Twin studies and adoption studies have established beyond any doubt the important role of heredity in determining IQ. Identical twins separated at birth have quite similar IQ's. When adopted children grow up, they resemble their biological parents more closely than their adoptive parents in IQ. Just as the eugenicists assumed, social mobility over centuries has produced a social class gradient for intelligence, and social class is determined partly by innate intelligence. One U.S. study found that in families with 2 or more brothers, the boys with higher IQ's tended to move up the SES ladder when they grew up, whereas those with lower IQ's tended to move down. Finally, the evidence shows we are deteriorating genetically because the most intelligent people are having the fewest children.

A number of recent studies point to contraceptive practices as the key to understanding dysgenics today. People with low IQ's, whether married or unmarried, are less likely to use any form of birth control. Among women using the same birth control methods, those with low IQ's have much higher failure rates. After an unwanted pregnancy has occurred, low IQ couples are less likely to obtain abortions. Thus each factor selects against intelligence. One minor contribution to dysgenics is the fact that high IQ women often end up not having as many children as they would have liked to have had. By the time a baby is "convenient," it may be too late. However, the major reason for the decline in our genetic potential for intelligence is greater birth control failure on the part of low IQ women. In the United States, women of all IQ levels report that they would like, on average, about 2.3 children. But low IQ women frequently have more children, often far more children, than they would ideally like to have. If all women had exactly the number of children they desired, there would be no dysgenics, and we would at least break even in our genetic potential for intelligence (Van Court, 1983).

The loss of a 5-8 IQ points may not be a tragedy for an individual, but when applied to a population, it has profound consequences. As readers of The Bell Curve may remember, small shifts in the average of a bell-shaped distribution produce large effects on the tails--in this case, the retarded and the gifted. For example, a decrease in the average IQ of just under 5 points doubles the number of retardates (IQ less than 70), and cuts in half the number of gifted (IQ over 130). Furthermore, Herrnstein and Murray found that when they moved the average IQ down statistically by just 3 points, from 100 to 97, all social problems were exacerbated: the nu
mber of women chronically dependent on welfare increased by 7%; illegitimacy increased by 8%; men interviewed in jail increased by 12%; and the number of permanent high school dropouts increased by nearly 15%.

One anomalous finding known as 'the Flynn effect' adds an element of mystery to this picture. James Flynn, political scientist from New Zealand, has reported "massive gains" in IQ in the U.S. and elsewhere. When IQ tests are standardized, people consistently find earlier versions of the tests easier, and score higher, than did the original test-takers. There's no consensus on whether this is due to actual increases in intelligence, or some sort of artifact. Certainly, enormous gains are difficult to reconcile with casual observation and declining SAT scores. Many people dismiss 'the Flynn effect' on the grounds that if the population had actually gained 3 points per decade since 1932 as claimed, "Our ancestors would have been morons." Flynn himself is not unsympathetic to this view. Christopher Brand makes a convincing case that people have merely become more savvy test-takers over the years (Brand, 1996). Professor Lynn believes the gains are real, and probably due to better nutrition, which is thought to be the cause of comparable increases in stature. He likens the situation to poorer quality seeds given ever greater quantities of fertilizer. But even if his optimistic view proves to be correct, there should soon be a limit to how much more benefit can be derived from nutrition, if the limit hasn't been reached already.

Decline in Health and Conscientiousness

Throughout our evolution, the weak and diseased died young and didn't pass on their genes. Now, because of modern medicine, people with numerous genetic diseases live long enough to reproduce and transmit defective genes to their children. (Examples: cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, diabetes, pyloric stenosis, various heart defects, thalassemia, phenylketonuria, and sickle cell anemia.) The incidence of many of these disorders is doubling or tripling each generation. No one would deny sufferers treatment, but it's important to realize that, as a result of it, our genetic potential for robust good health is declining. Life-long care will require ever-increasing expenditures. Furthermore, while sufferers are grateful for medical advances, most would nevertheless be quick to point out that the quality of their lives would be far better if they'd never inherited a disease in the first place.

Conscientiousness, traditionally known as "good character," consists of honesty, a strong work ethic, and concern for others. Since IQ is positively correlated to a number of desirable traits (such as altruism, anti-authoritarian attitudes, and middle-class values of hard work, thrift, and sacrifice), when IQ declines, so do these traits. People with low IQ's are far more likely to become criminals, so the fact that our genetic potential for intelligence is declining means our genetic potential for crime is increasing. Moreover, some evidence suggests that despite lengthy sojourns in jail, criminals still manage to procreate at a faster rate than the rest of us. Professor Lynn's research on London criminals found they had nearly twice as many offspring as non-criminals, and those figures are almost certainly underestimates. In demographic studies of fertility, the entire category of underclass males is frequently omitted because reliable data on their offspring simply can't be obtained – their sexual behavior is often promiscuous, and their relationships transient. Since twin studies and adoption studies have established that there is a substantial genetic component to criminality, the higher fertility of criminals significantly increases the genetic potential for criminality in the population.

What to do?

The solution to genetic deterioration in intelligence, health, and conscientiousness is not a matter of know-how or resources. Rather, it's a matter of overcoming the pernicious association of eugenics with Nazi genocide. This association has made eugenics a taboo subject, and prevented most rational discussion of it for at least the past few decades. Previously I have addressed this issue:

An almost primitive fatalism and superstition underlie the assumption that as a society, we are utterly powerless to alter our course, however disastrous a legacy we may be leaving to future generations through our negligence, and the irrational fear that if we dare attempt to guide [our evolution] . . . . we run a grave risk of being suddenly forced against our wills through some mysterious, outrageously implausible yet inexorable sequence of events culminating in genocide and World War III (Van Court, 1983).

The public has witnessed numerous grim and frightening stories about the Holocaust, along with Nazi propaganda on the creation of "a master race," so quite understandably, it has come to associate eugenics with Nazis and genocide. Who could ever forget the sight of bulldozers shoving mountains of emaciated bodies into mass graves? It's not surprising that the Nazi's strong and vocal support for eugenics has utterly destroyed it as a social movement, because nothing, no matter how inherently benevolent, could survive an association with such nightmarish images. But Germany is just one example of a country with a eugenics program – one very, very conspicuous example.

In the first half of the 20th century, a total of 29 countries passed eugenics laws, including Germany, The United States, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Venezuela, Estonia, Argentina, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Greece, and Spain. History tells us that in one country, Germany, there was genocide; in the other 28, there was not (Saetz, 1985). Furthermore, numerous cases of genocide have been committed without so much as a mention of eugenics. Communism – far and away history's biggest mass murderer – never advocated eugenics, and, in fact, held the opposite beliefs from the Nazis, that the environment causes everything, and heredity counts for nothing. So how can there possibly be a causal connection between eugenics and genocide? In order to prove causation, it's necessary minimally to show a true association. Put simply, one case out of 29 does not an association make.

Consider the following analogy: Imagine that the most salient historical event of all times was the Crusades, instead of the Holocaust, and that for the past 50 years, the Crusades had been the subject of highly sensational movies, documentaries, commemorative ceremonies, newspaper and magazine articles, books, lectures, museum exhibits, and so on. If we didn't know much about Christianity, it would be easy to conclude that it was a war-like religion, and quite reasonably, we'd be concerned that if we should ever convert to Christianity, we might wind up fighting and dying in some Crusade. The emotionally-charged association between "Christianity" and "war" would become indelibly imprinted in our consciousness after being paired thousands of times. It wouldn't be a true association, with predictive value – whenever there's Christianity, there's likely to be war (and vice versa), as would be the case if Christians had actually engaged in a disproportionate share of the wars throughout history – but in fact, it would be a false association, because it's based on just one single event which is replayed again and again and again.

Ghost of Adolf Hitler

To say, "The Nazis believed in eugenics, and they did terrible things" just isn't good enough as a reason to reject eugenics forevermore. Before rejecting the only solution to dysgenics – a serious problem which isn't 'could be' or 'might be' but rather is – it must be firmly established that a eugenics program would actually cause more harm than genetic deterioration of the population. In order to do that, it would have to be shown that genocide (or some other clearly-specified catastr
ophe) is, in fact, a very real danger of a eugenics program, and not merely hysteria and irrational anxiety resulting from a false association with Nazi's. The idea that there's an actual risk of genocide as a result of implementing a eugenics program is preposterous, and it has never been established flimsily, let alone firmly!

Draconian practices would be wholly unacceptable and unnecessary in a modern-day eugenics program. Professor Lynn offers no recommendations in Dysgenics, leaving that for his promised sequel, to be entitled Eugenics. But in light of the problems touched upon in this review, several possible eugenic measures come to mind. Since low-IQ women are much more likely to have unwanted children due to birth control failure, a reasonable first step might be to offer them free long-term and permanent contraception. (Prevention of unwanted births would be a worth-while humanitarian goal in itself, aside from eugenic benefits, because unwanted children are far more likely to be neglected and abused.) A second step might be to provide incentives to criminals (such as reduced sentences) to have vasectomies or tubal ligations. A third step might be to implement various measures to ease the burden of parenthood for college students. Such a program could go a long way toward halting dysgenics, or possibly even reversing it.

Professor Lynn concludes Dysgenics with a word to his critics:

[W]e have considered the criticisms of the view that the genetic quality of modern populations is deteriorating. These are that there is no genetic determination of intelligence, conscientiousness, crime, educational attainment or socioeconomic status; that there can be an inverse association between intelligence and fertility without genetic deterioration occurring; that there are no genetic differences between the social classes; that there are no such things as bad genes; that the genes for genetic diseases should be preserved, especially in other people, because they make a positive contribution to creative achievement; and that all human types, including the mentally retarded, criminals and psychopaths, are equally valuable. All these arguments have been examined and found wanting. Only one verdict is possible concerning the critics of eugenics who have advanced these arguments, and that is that they have not taken the trouble to examine the research evidence. The eugenicists believed that modern populations were deteriorating genetically. The evidence set out in this book shows they were correct.

Perhaps Professor Lynn is being charitable to his critics by suggesting that they are merely ignorant. A decidedly less charitable view would be that – at least with regard to the high percentage of Marxists and nihilists among them – his critics have read the research, and know perfectly well that it's true, but publicly they insist it's utterly false (in a tone of moral indignation, no less) because it threatens their thinly-veiled political agenda. Like all important works on genetics and IQ of the past few decades, Dysgenics is bound to send Marxists/ nihilists into apoplexies of agitation and rage. They respond to scientific facts which don't fit their egalitarian ideology by attempting to suppress them, branding scientists who report them "Nazis" and "racists," and publishing devoid-of-substance, pseudo-scientific "rebuttals," which – unlike the scholarly, substantive, straightforward works they line up en masse to rebut – are welcomed with open arms by the politically-correct media. They can do all of these things, and they can pitch a fit 'till they rupture an artery in their collective brain. But they cannot make these facts go away.

We are deteriorating genetically, and the only alternative to leaving future generations an increasingly chaotic, violent, degraded society is called "eugenics." What a dilemma! Have we no other choice than to bequeath to our children a poorer genetic legacy than the one we ourselves inherited? And what if they too live in terror of the ghost of Adolph Hitler? Where will it end?

From every imaginable perspective – the economy, education, literacy, crime, welfare, government, the "misery quotient," advancing civilization, and science, to name just a few – human genetic deterioration in intelligence, conscientiousness, and health is a disaster. For the believers among us, add to these the religious implications of dysgenics: How could it be God's will for us to behave irresponsibly and cruelly to people who come after us? Would it not be a sacrilege to thoughtlessly squander God's most precious gifts--in fact, the very ones used to create us in His image?

In retrospect, it seems inevitable that at some point, the widespread knowledge and use of contraception would bring about dysgenics. Many people feel it's wrong for society to attempt to influence reproduction in any way. But it should be borne in mind that dysgenics came about as a result of society's “meddling” with the natural order of things by introducing contraception, and it's clear some sort of “compensatory meddling” will be required if we are ever going to set our evolution back on a healthy course.

REFERENCES

Blacker, C.P., (1952) Eugenics Galton and After, London: Duckworth

Brand, Christopher (1996) The 'g' Factor, New York: Wiley & Sons

Herrnstein, Richard, and Charles Murray (1994) The Bell Curve, New York: Free Press

Saetz, Stephen B. (1985) "Eugenics and the Third Reich," The Eugenics Bulletin, reprinted on Future Generations website at http://www.ziplink.net/~bright/

Van Court, Marian (1982) "Eugenics Revisited," Mensa Bulletin, #254

Van Court, Marian (1983), "Unwanted births and dysgenic fertility in the United States," The Eugenics Bulletin, reprinted on Future Generations website at http://www.ziplink.net/~bright/

Van Court, Marian, and Frank Bean (1985) "Intelligence and fertility in the United States: 1912-1982," Intelligence 9, 23-32