Re: Times review of Rushton book

WSN

The review essay by Malcolm Browne is very troublesome indeed. It should
be carefully read. I offer a few points.

Malcolm Browne states that the Nazis "perverted" eugenics. That is,
eugenics was okay until Nazis used it. How exactly Nazis perverted
eugenics is an interesting question. What the Nazis did was in keeping
with the principles of eugenics. Nazis took eugenics to its logical
conclusion.

After cleansing eugenics of the Nazi perversion, Browne asks, "Is it wrong
to regard a hereditary predisposition to lower intelligence as a kind of
genetic disease and to find ways to cure it?"

Browne doesn't appear to believe so. 

"Sooner or later," he writes, "society may have to decide whether human
beings have the right--perhaps even the duty--to strengthen our species'
cognitive defenses against an increasingly dangerous global environment.
Human beings evolved over the eons to defend themselves against changes in
their environment, and things are still changing." 

Is this call for strengthening the species "against an increasingly
dangerous global environment," a nationalist call? Are Americans obliged
to raise the intelligence of their nation to protect themselves from other
people whose intelligence threatens the United States?

Malcolm Browne's strategy is transparent. 

About Rushton, Browne writes, "One of his papers on racial differences was
presented at a 1989 meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and caused an uproar, but demands to suppress the
paper were rejected by Walter Massey, who at the time was president of the
association. Mr. Massey, who is black, argued that no scientific
organization has the right to act as a censor of scientific debate."

Why does Browne note Massey's defense of Rushton? Perhaps Massey's
decision to permit Rushton to speak is an honorable one, but it is
completely irrelevant to the express theme of Browne's essay: to
review the scientific merits of the book, i.e., its contents. 

But it is relevant to the strategy of the essay: it is a ploy to shift the
debate from one over the racist content of Rushton's work to one over the
freedom to distribute racist propaganda.

And why does Browne feel it is necessary to note Massey's race? Good
intentions fallacy. By showing that one black man supports the right of
Rushton to be a racist and to speak about his racism, we are supposed to
be left with an impression that Rushton's speech is not racist. This is
not a loose interpretation on my part; Browne presents this evidence to
support his claim that Rushton is not a bigot.

The point is not that Browne's argument is poorly constructed, but that
the fallacies are intentional. This is the mark of propaganda.

Browne actually uses Murray and Herrnstein as character witnesses to
uphold the honesty and scientific objectivity of Rushton's book.

Browne quotes Murray and Herrnstein: "Rushton's work is not that of a
crackpot or a bigot, as many of his critics are given to charging. . . .
As science, there is nothing wrong with Rushton's work in principle; we
expect that time will tell whether it is right or wrong in fact." 

But Rushton's work is bigotry--in fact it is part of a concerted racist
strategy by high-powered intellectuals backed by corporate and government 
funding to distribute racist ideology to a mass audience.

And what does this line mean: "there is nothing wrong with Rushton's work
in principle"? Do they mean that it is a principled position to be a
racist? For if, as Browne argues, Murray and Herrnstein disagree with
Rushton's evolutionary theory, then the authors of the Bell Curve cannot
be talking about the evolutionary principles in Rushton's work.

The close of the review essay is designed to once again shift attention
from the content of the Rushton's speech to an appeal defending the right
to utter racist speech: "The most insistent plea of the four authors is
for freedom of debate and an end to the shroud of censorship imposed upon
scientists and scholars by pressure groups and an acquiescing society."

Again, this point is not in dispute.

Then the Browne repeats a lie: "Mr. Murray and Mr. Herrnstein write that
`for the last 30 years, the concept of intelligence has been a pariah in
the world of ideas,' and that the time has come to rehabilitate rational
discourse on the subject." 

The truth is that I.Q. is widely accepted by social scientists and the
public as reality. Elites have successfully injected into popular
consciousness the importance of biology in the life-chances of people. 

The Bell Curve has been characterized on this listserv as a minor blip on
the radar screen. That's news to me. The freshmen who enter my class know
next to nothing about social science but they all appear to be familiar
with at least one book: The Bell Curve. And they accept the conclusions of
that book. To counter popular consciousness about race, class, and IQ, I
spend two class sessions showing them that the book is a fraud.

Unfortunately, while they know who Charles Murray is, they do not Stephen
Jay Gould's work.

Raymond Cattell, a world famous psychologists who was recently exposed
during the process of his being honored by the APA, and who publishes his
work in Roger Pearson's journal Mankind Quarterly, has great influence in
the area of intelligence testing.

Raymond Cattell is a race theoriest.

If you wish to see how dear Cattell is held in the hearts of psychologists
see his memorial posted on the web:

                www.standford.edu/~cattell/rbcbio.htm

Roger Pearson was one of Reagan's sources of knowledge during the 1980s
and through his influence played a role in the further racialization of
the federal government in the era of reaction. Pearson also publishes
Rushton's work.

These people have the ear of people who are in positions to make policy.
Dismissing them easily reveals an ignorance about the true extent of
racist ideology in the United States. If these publications are not
challenged they will continue to filter into popular consciousness
unchallenged.

Andy Austin