Richard Lynn
- University of Exeter
- Economic and Social Research Institute
- Ulster University
Richard Lynn (20 February 1930 – July 2023) was a controversial English psychologist and self-described "scientific racist"[1] who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, a white supremacist journal.[a] He was lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. Lynn was a professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, but had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018.[7]
Many scientists criticised Lynn's work for lacking scientific rigour, misrepresenting data, and for promoting a racialist political agenda.[b] Lynn was associated with a network of academics and organisations that promote scientific racism.[c] He had also advocated fringe positions regarding sexual differences in intelligence.[24] In two books co-written with Tatu Vanhanen, Lynn and Vanhanen argued that differences in developmental indexes among various nations are partially caused by the average IQ of their citizens. Earl Hunt and Werner Wittmann (2008) questioned the validity of their research methods and the highly inconsistent quality of the available data points that Lynn and Vanhanen used in their analysis.[8] Lynn also argued that a high fertility rate among individuals of low IQ constitutes a major threat to Western civilisation, as he believed people with low IQ scores will eventually outnumber high-IQ individuals. He argued in favour of anti-immigration and eugenics policies, provoking heavy criticism internationally.[9][25][10] Lynn's work was among the main sources cited in the book The Bell Curve, and he was one of 52 scientists who signed an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence",[26] which endorsed a number of the views presented in the book.
He was also on the board of the Pioneer Fund, which funds Mankind Quarterly and has also been described as racist.[27][6] He was on the editorial board of the journal Personality and Individual Differences until 2019.[citation needed]
Early life and education
Richard Lynn's father was Sydney Cross Harland FRS (1891–1982), an agricultural botanist and geneticist, who had lived and worked in Trinidad and later Peru extensively, establishing himself as an expert in cotton genetics. Lynn's mother Ann Freeman (1905–1964) was originally brought up in Trinidad and then educated at Bournemouth Girls' High School and Harrogate Ladies' College, and had moved back to the Caribbean to act as housekeeper for Harland. Harland was a close colleague of Ann Freeman´s father — the director of agriculture in the West Indies — but was still married to his first wife Emily. After a liaison in New York City between Harland and Freeman in 1929,[28] his mother crossed the Atlantic to resettle near to her parents in Hampstead, where Lynn was born on 20 February 1930.[29][30] In London and then Bristol, his mother raised him as a single parent during his childhood and adolescence. In 1949, after his father returned to Britain as professor of genetics at the University of Manchester, he met up with him roughly every year; Harland's younger brother Bernard became a companion of Lynn's mother, living together until their deaths in 1964.[31][32][33][34][30][35]
Lynn was educated at Bristol Grammar School and King's College, Cambridge, where he received a Ph.D. in 1956.[36][37]
Career
Lynn worked[when?] as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and as professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at Ulster University.[31][32]
In 1974, Lynn published a positive review of Raymond Cattell's A New Morality from Science: Beyondism, in which he expressed the opinion that "incompetent societies have to be allowed to go to the wall" and that "the foreign aid which we give to the under-developed world is a mistake, akin to keeping going incompetent species like the dinosaurs which are not fit for the competitive struggle for existence".[38] In a 2011 interview, Lynn cited the work of Cattell, Francis Galton, Hans Eysenck and Cyril Burt as important influences.[39]
Work
Publication on secular increases in IQ, 1982
In 1982, Richard Lynn published a paper about the generational increase in performance on IQ tests, now known as the Flynn effect slightly before James Flynn's publications documenting the same phenomenon.[40][41][42] A few researchers have called the phenomenon the "Lynn–Flynn effect" as a way of recognizing both their contributions.[40][41][43] In a 2013 paper, James Flynn offered his comments on this aspect of the effect's naming:
Calling massive IQ gains over time the "Flynn Effect" was an accident of history, a label Charles Murray coined in The Bell Curve in 1994. It is not a verdict a court would have been likely to hand down if it had an eye for the historical record. [...] Therefore, I give my thanks to Charles Murray and my apologies to Richard Lynn.[44]
Dysgenics and eugenics, 1996
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Dysgenics.jpg)
In Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations (1996), Lynn reviewed the history of eugenics and dysgenics, from the early writings of Bénédict Morel and Francis Galton through the rise of eugenics in the early 20th century and its subsequent collapse. As a eugenicist himself, Lynn lists three concerns: deterioration in health, intelligence and conscientiousness. Lynn claims that, unlike modern societies, natural selection in pre-industrial societies favoured traits such as intelligence and "character".[45]
According to Lynn, those with greater educational achievement have fewer children, while children with lower IQs come from larger families.[46] Lynn claimed that twin studies provide evidence of a genetic basis for these differences. Lynn proposes that conscientiousness is heritable, and that criminals tend to have more offspring. Lynn agreed with Lewis Terman's comment in 1922 that "children of successful and cultivated parents test higher than children from wretched and ignorant homes for the simple reason that their heredity is better".[47]
A review of Dysgenics by evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton, published posthumously in 2000 in the Annals of Human Genetics, praised the book and its endorsement of eugenics, saying "discussing the large bank of evidence that still accumulates on heritability of aptitudes and differentials of fertility, shows in this book that almost all of the worries of the early eugenicists were well-founded, in spite of the relative paucity of their evidence at the time".[48]
Psychologist Nicholas Mackintosh, reviewing the book for the Journal of Biosocial Science in 2002, wrote that Lynn "argues that the ideas of the eugenicists were correct and that we ignore them at our peril". Mackintosh criticised Lynn for "not fully acknowledg[ing] the negative relationship between social class and education on the one hand, and infant mortality and life expectancy on the other". He questioned Lynn's interpretation of data, and pointed out that according to Lynn's reading of the theory of natural selection, "if it is true that those with lower IQ and less education are producing more offspring, then they are fitter than those of higher IQ and more education". According to Mackintosh, eugenicist arguments such as Lynn's are not based on a "biological imperative, but rather on a particular set of value judgements".[49]
In Eugenics: A Reassessment (2001), Lynn claimed that embryo selection as a form of standard reproductive therapy would raise the average intelligence of the population by 15 IQ points in a single generation (p. 300). If couples produce a hundred embryos, he argues, the range in potential IQ would be around 15 points above and below the parents' IQ. Lynn argues that this gain could be repeated each generation, eventually stabilising the population's IQ at a theoretical maximum of around 200 after six or seven generations.[50]
Race and national differences in intelligence
In the late 1970s, Lynn wrote that he found the average IQ of the Japanese to be 106.6, and that of Chinese people living in Singapore to be 110.[51] Lynn's psychometric studies were cited in the 1994 book The Bell Curve and were criticised as part of the controversy surrounding that book.[52] In his 2002 article, "Skin color and intelligence in African Americans", published in 2002 in Population and Environment, Lynn concluded that lightness of skin color in African Americans is positively correlated with IQ, which he claims derives from the higher proportion of Caucasian admixture.[53][54] However, Lynn failed to control for childhood environmental factors that are related to intelligence, and his research was criticised by a subsequent article published in the journal by Mark E. Hill. The article concluded that "...[Lynn's] bivariate association disappears once childhood environmental factors are considered".[55] In his response to Hill, Lynn wrote that "The conclusion that there is a true association between skin color and IQ is consistent with the hypothesis that genetic factors are partly responsible for the black–white difference in intelligence… the evidence that a statistically significant correlation is present confirms the genetic hypothesis".[56] This statement was described by Marcus Feldman as "nonsensical".[57]
In 2010 Earl B. Hunt summarized Lynn's research in this area along with that of Tatu Vanhanen, that he is "highly critical of their empirical work, and even more so of their interpretations," but that they "do deserve credit for raising important questions in a way that has resulted in interesting and important findings."[58]
Lynn proposed the "cold winters theory" of the evolution of human intelligence, which postulates that intelligence evolved to greater degrees as an evolutionary adaptation to colder environments.[59] According to this theory, cold environments produce a selective pressure for higher intelligence because they present cognitive demands not found in warmer environments, such as the need to find ways of keeping warm, and the stockpiling of food for winter.[60] James Flynn has criticized this theory as being inconsistent with the global distribution of IQ scores. If the theory were correct, the people of Singapore, who originated primarily from China's southern Guangdong province, would possess a lower average IQ than the people of mainland China, when in fact the reverse is true.[61] In 2012 Scott A. McGreal, writing for Psychology Today, described it as a just-so story, saying the theory fails to account for challenges specific to warmer environments, and also does not explain why hominids who evolved for millions of years in colder environments (such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus) did not also evolve similar intelligence.[62]
In IQ and the Wealth of Nations (2002), Lynn and Vanhanen argued that differences in nations' per capita gross domestic product (GDP) are partially caused by IQ differences, meaning that certain nations are wealthier in part, because their citizens are more intelligent.[63][64] K. Richardson wrote in the journal Heredity that "an association between IQ and national wealth is hardly surprising, though its causal direction is the opposite of that assumed by L&V. But I would not take the 'evidence' presented in this book to serve arguments either way."[64] Other economists who reviewed the book also pointed to numerous flaws throughout the study, from unreliable IQ statistics for 81 of the 185 countries used in the analysis,[65] to insecure estimates of the national IQ in the remaining 101 countries in the sample that did not have published IQ data.[66] This was in addition to the highly unreliable GDP estimates for present-day developing countries[64] and the even more unreliable historical data estimating GDP and national IQ dating back to the early 19th century, well before either concept even existed.[64][66] Even the data on the 81 countries where direct evidence of IQ scores were actually available were highly problematic. For example, the data sets containing Surinamese, Ethiopian, and Mexican IQ scores were based on unrepresentative samples of children who had emigrated from their nation of birth to the Netherlands, Israel, and Argentina, respectively.[8] In a book review for the Journal of Economic Literature, economist Thomas Nechyba wrote: "Such sweeping conclusions based on relatively weak statistical evidence and dubious presumptions seem misguided at best and quite dangerous if taken seriously. It is therefore difficult to find much to recommend in this book."[63]
Lynn's 2006 Race Differences in Intelligence[67] organises data on intelligence into ten population groups and (in the 2015 edition) covers over 500 published articles..[68]
Lynn's meta-analysis lists the average IQ scores of East Asians (105), Europeans (99), the Inuit (91), Southeast Asians and indigenous peoples of the Americas each (87), Pacific Islanders (85), Middle Easterners, South Asians and North Africans each (84), East and West Africans (67), Australian Aborigines (62) and Bushmen and Pygmies (54).[69][70][71][better source needed]
Lynn has previously argued that nutrition is the best-supported environmental explanation for variation in the lower range,[72] and a number of other environmental explanations have been advanced. In his 2011 book The Chosen People, Lynn offers largely genetic explanations for Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence (generally estimated at 107–115 IQ).[73]
Sex differences in intelligence, 2004
Lynn's research correlating brain size and reaction time with measured intelligence led him to the problem that men and women have different-sized brains in proportion to their bodies.[31] In 2004, Lynn and Irwing conducted a meta-analysis and reported that an IQ difference of roughly 5 points does appear from age 15 and onward on the progressive matrices.[74]
However, in 2006, researchers such as Johannes Rojahn and Alan S. Kaufman found contradictory results in gender IQ differences.[75] Rojahn's study found that the discrepancies between the gender development were smaller than predicted by Lynn and in fact were so small that they have little or no practical importance.[75]
Intranational intelligence variations, 2005
In a 2005 article, Lynn reported that Mexicans of European descent had an IQ of 98, Mestizos in Mexico had an IQ of 94, and indigenous peoples of Mexico had an IQ of 83, explaining the lower-than-expected IQ of Indians on their poor nutrition and other social factors.[76]
In a 2010 article about IQ in Italy,[77] Lynn contended that IQs are highest in the north (103 in Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and lowest in the south (89 in Sicily) and are correlated with average incomes, stature, infant mortality, literacy and education. The lack of any actual IQ test data (as Lynn used PISA score data) among other methodological issues and Lynn's consequent conclusions were criticised.[78][79] Other large surveys in Italy have found much smaller differences in educational achievement.[80][81] Several subsequent studies based on the direct assessment of IQs failed to report significant differences among Italian regions. On the contrary, the results from the Southern half of the country (103) are sometimes higher than those from the North Central regions (100–101).[82][83]
In 2012 Lynn similarly claimed that southern Spaniards have lower IQs than northern Spaniards do and believes that this is because of Middle Eastern and North African genes in the South.[84]
In a 2015 article published in Intelligence about the regional IQ differences in Turkey, Lynn, Sakar and Cheng analysed the PISA scores of NUTS-1 regions of the country and calculated the average IQ scores of said provinces, claiming there being a high correlation (r= .91) between the two metrics. The team took the average PISA score of UK as baseline to represent an IQ of 100. The paper concluded that the NUTS regions with the highest IQ average were West Marmara (97.7), East Marmara (97.4) and Central Anatolia (97.3), meanwhile the regions with the lowest scores were made up by Central East Anatolia (87.3) and Southeast Anatolia (86.3), respectively. The article suggested multiple theories to explain regional IQ disparity, such as historical migration to wealthier Western coastal areas having a eugenic effect on intelligence, or economic growth being inhibited by the mountainous terrain in the East, causing a negative effect on IQ. The paper compared the results of the study to those of Italy and US, citing a gross regional variation.[85]
The Global Bell Curve, 2008
The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ and Inequality Worldwide is a book by Lynn, originally published Washington Summit Publishers in 2008. The book's stated purpose is to determine whether the racial and socioeconomic differences in the United States in average IQ, as originally claimed by the 1994 book The Bell Curve, also exist in other countries. Lynn's book claims that such differences exist in other countries, in addition to in the United States. It was reviewed favorably by researchers J. Philippe Rushton,[86] Donald Templer in white nationalist publication The Occidental Quarterly,[87] and Gerhard Meisenberg.[88][unreliable source?]
A less favorable review of the book was written by Wendy Johnson of the University of Edinburgh, who wrote in Intelligence, which had Lynn on its editorial board,[89] that "... despite many possible statistical and psychometric quibbles, the data Lynn presents in this book are essentially correct. At the same time, despite Lynn's protestations to the contrary, these data do little or nothing to address the questions of why this is the case or whether the situation is inevitable or permanent. Like the other theorists he criticizes, Lynn confuses correlation with causation."[90]
Pioneer Fund
Lynn [when?] served on the board of directors of the Pioneer Fund and was also on the editorial board of the Pioneer-supported journal Mankind Quarterly, both of which have been the subject of controversy for their dealing with race and intelligence and eugenics and have been accused of racism, e.g., by Avner Falk and William Tucker.[6][91][92] Lynn's Ulster Institute for Social Research received $609,000 in grants from the Pioneer Fund between 1971 and 1996.[93]
Lynn's 2001 book The Science of Human Diversity: A History of the Pioneer Fund[94] is a history and defence of the fund, in which he argues that, for the last 60 years, it has been "nearly the only non-profit foundation making grants for study and research into individual and group differences and the hereditary basis of human nature ... Over those 60 years, the research funded by Pioneer has helped change the face of social science."
Reception
Lynn's review work on global racial differences in cognitive ability has been cited for misrepresenting the research of other scientists and has been criticised for unsystematic methodology and distortion.
In 1994, Charles Lane criticised Lynn's methodology in his article in The New York Review of Books, "The Tainted Sources of The Bell Curve" (1994).[95] Pioneer Fund president Harry Weyher, Jr. published a response accusing the reviewer of errors and misrepresentation; Lane also replied to this with a rebuttal.[96]
In 1995 psychologist Leon Kamin faulted Lynn in a critical review of The Bell Curve, for "disregarding scientific objectivity", "misrepresenting data", and for "racism".[97] Kamin argues that the studies of cognitive ability of Africans in Lynn's meta-analysis cited by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray show strong cultural bias. Kamin also reproached Lynn for concocting IQ values from test scores that have no correlation to IQ.[98] Kamin also noted that Lynn excluded a study that found no difference in white and black performance, and ignored the results of a study which showed black scores were higher than white scores.[99]
In 2002, David King, the coordinator of the consumer watchdog group Human Genetics Alert, said: "we find Richard Lynn's claims that some human beings are inherently superior to others repugnant".[100] In 2003, Gavin Evans wrote in The Guardian that Lynn was one of a number of "flat-earthers" who have claimed that "Africans, or black Americans, or poor people" are less intelligent than Westerners. He further wrote, with regard to Lynn's claims that Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, "What is remarkable in all this is not so much that there are people who believe him – after all, there are still those who insist the Earth is flat – but rather that any creditable institution should take it seriously."[101]
The datum that Lynn and Vanhanen used for the lowest IQ estimate, Equatorial Guinea, was taken from a group of children in a home for developmentally disabled children in Spain.[102] Corrections were applied to adjust for differences in IQ cohorts (the "Flynn" effect) on the assumption that the same correction could be applied internationally, without regard to the cultural or economic development level of the country involved. While there appears to be rather little evidence on cohort effect upon IQ across the developing countries, one study in Kenya (Daley, Whaley, Sigman, Espinosa, & Neumann, 2003) shows a substantially larger cohort effect than is reported for developed countries.[8]
In 2002 an academic dispute arose after Lynn claimed that some races are inherently more psychopathic than others, and other psychologists criticised his data and interpretations.[103] Kamin said that "Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with the scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity".[24]
In 2006, John P. Jackson Jr., of the University of Colorado, Boulder, disputed Lynn's claim in The Science of Human Diversity that the Pioneer Fund was dedicated to funding objective scientific research. Jackson wrote that "... although the Pioneer Fund may not have endorsed any policy proposal officially, it has funded a group that is remarkably uniform in its opposition to school integration, immigration, and affirmative action".[104] In 2010, on his 80th birthday, Lynn was celebrated with a special issue of Personality and Individual Differences dedicated to his work that was edited by Danish psychologist Helmuth Nyborg with contributions by Nyborg, J. Philippe Rushton, Satoshi Kanazawa and several others.[105]
In February 2018, the Ulster University students' union issued a motion calling for the university to revoke Lynn's title as emeritus professor. The motion argued that Lynn's title should be revoked because he has made statements that are "racist and sexist in nature".[106] The university agreed to this request in April 2018.[107]
Allegations of racism
Lynn is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in their extremist files as a white nationalist.[24] The SPLC has kept a record of Lynn's controversial statements: for example, in a 2011 interview with then far-right artist Alex Kurtagić, Lynn stated: "I am deeply pessimistic about the future of the European peoples because mass immigration of third world peoples will lead to these becoming majorities in the United States and westernmost Europe during the present century. I think this will mean the destruction of European civilization in these countries."[24] In 1995, Lynn was quoted by the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) saying: "What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples ... Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality."[108]
FAIR also quoted Lynn as having stated in an interview with the right-wing British political magazine Right NOW!:
I think the only solution lies in the breakup of the United States. Blacks and Hispanics are concentrated in the Southwest, the Southeast and the East, but the Northwest and the far Northeast, Maine, Vermont and upstate New York have a large predominance of whites. I believe these predominantly white states should declare independence and secede from the Union. They would then enforce strict border controls and provide minimum welfare, which would be limited to citizens. If this were done, white civilisation would survive within this handful of states.[24]
The SPLC stated that "for 50 years, Richard Lynn has been at the forefront of scientific racism",[24] that "he argues that the nations with the highest IQs must subjugate or eliminate the lower-IQ groups within their borders in order to preserve their dominance",[24] and summarizes his career thus:
Since the 1970s, Richard Lynn has been working tirelessly to place race, genes, and IQ at the center of discussions surrounding inequality. Through his own writings and those published by his Ulster Institute for Social Research, in Northern Ireland, Lynn argues that members of different races and nations possess innate differences in intelligence and behavior, and that these are responsible for everything from the incarceration rate of black Americans to the poverty of developing nations. Lynn is also an ethnic nationalist who believes that countries must "remain racially homogenous" in order to flourish.[24]
The centre has also stated that "Lynn uses his authority as [former[7]] professor (emeritus) of psychology at the University of Ulster to argue for the genetic inferiority of non-white people."[24]
Lynn was a frequent speaker at conferences hosted by the white-nationalist publication American Renaissance.[109][23]
Death
On 23 July 2023, it was announced that Lynn had died. He was 93.[37][110]
Works
- Lynn, Richard (1997). Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations (PDF). Praeger Publishers. ISBN 9780275949174.
- Lynn, Richard (2001). The Science of Human Diversity: A History of the Pioneer Fund. University Press of America. ISBN 076182040X.
- Lynn, Richard (2001). Eugenics: A Reassessment (PDF). Praeger Publishers. ISBN 9780275958220.
- Lynn, Richard; Vanhanen, Tatu (2002). IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 9780275975104.
- Lynn; Vanhanen (2006). IQ and Global Inequality. Washington Summit Publishers. ISBN 1-59368-025-2.
- Lynn, Richard; Vanhanen, Tatu (2012). Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for the Social Sciences (PDF). Ulster: Ulster Institute for Social Research. ISBN 9780956881175.
- Lynn, Richard (2015) [2006]. Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis (PDF). Washington Summit Publishers. ISBN 978-1593680190.
- Lynn, Richard; Becker, David (2019). The Intelligence of Nations (PDF). London: Ulster Institute for Social Research. ISBN 9780993000157.
- Lynn, Richard; Dutton, Edward (2019). Race Differences in Psychopathic Personality: An Evolutionary Analysis. Augusta, Georgia: Washington Summit Publishers. ISBN 9781593680626.
- Lynn, Richard (2020). Memoirs of a Dissident Psychologist. Ulster Institute for Social Research. ISBN 9780993000171.
- Lynn, Richard (2021). Sex Differences in Intelligence: The Developmental Theory. Arktos Media Ltd. ISBN 978-1914208652.
References
- ^
- Min, Alex (18 November 2020). "Racist Pseudoscience Has No Place At Harvard". Harvard Political Review.
Lynn is a self-described 'scientific racist'...
- Sehgal, Parul (12 February 2020). "Charles Murray Returns, Nodding to Caution but Still Courting Controversy". The New York Times.
Richard Lynn, for example, a self-described 'scientific racist,' ...
- Evans, Gavin (2 March 2018). "The unwelcome revival of 'race science'". The Guardian.
...Richard Lynn, who has described himself as a 'scientific racist'.
- Min, Alex (18 November 2020). "Racist Pseudoscience Has No Place At Harvard". Harvard Political Review.
- ^ Jackson Jr., John P.; Winston, Andrew S. (7 October 2020). "The Mythical Taboo on Race and Intelligence". Review of General Psychology. 25 (1): 3–26. doi:10.1177/1089268020953622. S2CID 225143131.
- ^ Joe L. Kincheloe, et al., Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, p. 39
- ^ Ibrahim G. Aoudé, The ethnic studies story: politics and social movements in Hawaiʻi, University of Hawaii Press, 1999, pg. 111
- ^ Kenneth Leech, Race, Church Publishing, Inc., 2005, pg. 14
- ^ a b c Tucker, William H. (2002), The funding of scientific racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund, University of Illinois Press, p. 2, ISBN 9780252027628
- ^ a b "Ulster University withdraws status from Prof Richard Lynn". BBC News. 14 April 2018. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
- ^ a b c d Hunt, E; Wittmann, W. (2008). "National intelligence and national prosperity". Intelligence. 36 (1): 1–9. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2006.11.002.
- ^ a b Kamin, Leon. "Behind the Bell Curve" (PDF). Scientific American. p. 100. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016.
Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with the scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity
- ^ a b Valone, David A. (2002). "Richard Lynn: Eugenics: A Reassessment, review". Isis. 93 (3): 534. doi:10.1086/374143.
- ^ Velden, Manfred (2010). Biologism: The Consequence of an Illusion. V&R unipress GmbH. p. 118.
- ^ Wilson, Carter A. (1996). Racism: From Slavery to Advanced Capitalism. SAGE. p. 229.
At best Lynn's approach is racial propaganda or biased research driven by a strong prejudice against blacks and a strong need to believe in their genetic inferiority. At worst, Lynn's research arises out of a malicious and dishonest effort to demonstrate the genetic inferiority of blacks
- ^ Barnett, Susan M.; Williams, Wendy (2004). "National Intelligence and The Emperor's New Clothes". PsycCRITIQUES. 49 (4): 389–396. doi:10.1037/004367.
Among this book's strengths are that it argues for a point of view unpopular within the scientific community, it relies on hard data to make its points, its organisation and clarity. Also, the book is expansive in its thinking and argumentation. All of these strengths considered, however, we believe that the arguments advanced in the book are flawed by an omnipresent logical fallacy and confusion of correlation with causation that undermines the foundation of the book.
- ^ Valencia, Richard R. (2010). Dismantling Contemporary Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice. Routledge. pp. 56–61.
- ^ Gross, Richard (2015). Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour (7th ed.). Harchette.
- ^ Richards, Graham (2004). Race, Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History. Routledge. p. 280.
- ^ Ferber, Abby L. (2012). Home-Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism. Routledge.
- ^ Neisser, Ulric (2004). "Serious Scientists or Disgusting Racists?". PsycCRITIQUES. 49 (1): 5–7. doi:10.1037/004224.
- ^ Gelb, Steven A. (1997), "Heart of Darkness: The Discreet Charm of the Hereditarian Psychologist", Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 19 (1): 129–139, doi:10.1080/1071441970190110
- ^ Kenny, M. G. (2002). "Toward a racial abyss: Eugenics, Wickliffe Draper, and the origins of The Pioneer Fund". J. Hist. Behav. Sci. 38 (3): 259–283. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.626.4377. doi:10.1002/jhbs.10063. PMID 12115787.
- ^ Mehler, Barry (1989). "Foundation for fascism: The new eugenics movement in the United States". Patterns of Prejudice. 23 (4): 17–25. doi:10.1080/0031322x.1989.9970026.
- ^ Newby, Robert G.; Newby, Diane E. (1995). "The Bell Curve: Another Chapter in the Continuing Political Economy of Racism". American Behavioral Scientist. 39 (1): 12–24. doi:10.1177/0002764295039001003. S2CID 143761154.
- ^ a b Sussman, Robert Wald (2014). The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Harvard University Press.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Richard Lynn". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
- ^ Ahmed, Rabia (19 April 2014), Forget polio, Pakistan is 'BIGGER' than India and size is all that matters!, retrieved 1 June 2016
- ^ Gottfredson, Linda (13 December 1994), "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", Wall Street Journal, p. A18
- ^ Kincheloe, Joe L. (1997), Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 39, ISBN 9780312172282
- ^ See Harland (2001, pp. 75–76) and Lynn (2020a, pp. 8–9) for more details.
- ^ "Lynn, Richard, 1930-". Library of Congress Name Authority File. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
- ^ a b Lynn, Richard (2020a). Memoirs of a Dissident Psychologist. Ulster Institute for Social Research. ISBN 9780993000188.
- ^ a b c Nyborg, Helmuth (July 2012). "A conversation with Richard Lynn". Personality and Individual Differences. 53 (2): 79–84. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.02.033.
- ^ a b "Lynn, Richard". Who's Who. Vol. 2022 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ "Harland, Sydney Cross". Who's Who. Vol. 2022 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ "Harland, Sydney Cross". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31201. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Harland, Sydney Cross (2001). Max Millard (ed.). Nine Lives: An Autobiography of a Yorkshire Physicist (PDF). Boson Books. ISBN 0-917990-25-0.
- ^ "Richard Lynn", RLynn.co.uk.
- ^ a b "Richard Lynn, evolutionary psychologist who declared his belief in the benefits of eugenics – obituary". The Telegraph. 31 August 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
- ^ Lynn, Richard (Winter 1974). "Review: A New Morality from Science: Beyondism". Irish Journal of Psychology. 2 (3).
- ^ Kurtagić, Alex. "Interview with Richard Lynn". Archived from the original on 25 September 2011. Retrieved 22 July 2023.
- ^ a b Rodgers, Joseph Lee; Wänström, Linda (March–April 2007). "Identification of a Flynn Effect in the NLSY: Moving from the center to the boundaries". Intelligence. 35 (2): 187–196. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2006.06.002.
- ^ a b Jones, Garett (2015). Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own. Stanford University Press. pp. 50–51. ISBN 9780804785969.
- ^ te Nijenhuis, Jan; Cho, Sun Hee; Murphy, Raegan; Lee, Kun Ho (July 2012). "The Flynn effect in Korea: Large gains". Personality and Individual Differences. 53 (2): 147–151. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2013.04.010. hdl:10468/617. S2CID 15188907.
- ^ Voracek, Martin (5 April 2006). "Phlogiston, fluid intelligence, and the Lynn–Flynn effect". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 29 (2): 142–143. doi:10.1017/s0140525x06389030. S2CID 145798658.
- ^ Flynn, James R. (November–December 2013). "The 'Flynn Effect' and Flynn's paradox". Intelligence. 41 (6): 851–857. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2013.06.014.
- ^ Richard Lynn: Dysgenics: genetic deterioration in modern populations Westport, Connecticut. : Praeger, 1996., ISBN 978-0-275-94917-4.
- ^ Ramsden, E. (2007). "A differential paradox: The controversy surrounding the Scottish mental surveys of intelligence and family size". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 43 (2): 109–134. doi:10.1002/jhbs.20219. PMID 17421031.
- ^ Lynn, Richard (2001). Eugenics: A Reassessment. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 26. ISBN 9780275958220.
- ^ Hamilton, W. D. (2000). "A review of Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations". Annals of Human Genetics. 64 (4): 363–374. doi:10.1046/j.1469-1809.2000.6440363.x.
- ^ Mackintosh, N. J. (2002). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations. By Richard Lynn. Pp. 237. (Praeger, 1996.) £48.95, 0-275-94917-6, hardback". J. Biosoc. Sci. 34 (2): 283–284. doi:10.1017/S0021932002212833. S2CID 71188386.
- ^ Richard Lynn (2001), "Eugenics: A reassessment". Praeger, Westport, Conn, p. 301. ISBN 978-0-275-95822-0.
- ^ Thompson, James (July 2012). "Richard Lynn's contributions to personality and intelligence". Personality and Individual Differences. 53 (2): 157–161. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.03.013.
- ^ Richard Lynn, reply by Charles Lane (2 February 1995) "'The Bell Curve' and Its Sources". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
- ^ Lynn, Richard (1 March 2002). "Skin Color and Intelligence in African Americans". Population and Environment. 23 (4): 365–375. doi:10.1023/a:1014572602343. ISSN 0199-0039. S2CID 145386366.
- ^ "Publications". Rlynn.co.uk. Retrieved 21 August 2010.
- ^ Hill, Mark E. (2002). "Skin Color and Intelligence in African Americans: A Reanalysis of Lynn's Data". Population and Environment. 24 (2): 209–214. doi:10.1023/A:1020704322510. S2CID 141143755.
- ^ Lynn, Richard (1 November 2002). "Skin Color and Intelligence in African Americans: A Reply to Hill". Population and Environment. 24 (2): 215–218. doi:10.1023/a:1020756306580. ISSN 0199-0039. S2CID 65100365.
- ^ Feldman, Marcus (11 December 2014). "Echoes of the Past: Hereditarianism and A Troublesome Inheritance". PLOS Genetics. 10 (12): e1004817. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004817. ISSN 1553-7404. PMC 4263368. PMID 25502763.
- ^ Hunt, Earl (2010). "11". Human Intelligence (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 436. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511781308. ISBN 9780521881623. OCLC 567165797.
- ^ Kanazawa, Satoshi (1 July 2012). "The evolution of general intelligence". Personality and Individual Differences. 53 (2): 90–93. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.05.015. ISSN 0191-8869.
- ^ Rindermann, H. Cognitive Capitalism: Human Capital and the Wellbeing of Nations. Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 299-303.
- ^ Flynn, James R. Are we getting smarter?: Rising IQ in the twenty-first century. Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 33-35.
- ^ McGreal, Scott A. (1 November 2012). "Cold Winters and the Evolution of Intelligence". Psychology Today. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
- ^ a b Nechyba, Thomas J. (March 2004), "Review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations", Economic Literature, 42 (1): 220–221
- ^ a b c d Richardson, K. (2004), "Review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations", Heredity, 92 (4): 359, doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800418
- ^ Ervik, Astrid Oline (June 2003), "Review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations", The Economic Journal, 113 (488): F406–F408, doi:10.1111/1468-0297.13916
- ^ a b Palairet, M. R. (2004), "Reviews the book "IQ and economic development"", Heredity, 92 (4): 361, doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800427
- ^ Race Differences in Intelligence, Washington Summit Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-59368-020-6
- ^ Chin, Kristi A. (2017). "Book Review". Personality and Individual Differences. 109: 237. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.01.028.
- ^ Herrnstein and Murray 1994; Lynn 1991a; Lynn 2006
- ^ Rushton, J. P. (2006). "Lynn Richard, Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis, Washington Summit Books, Augusta, Georgia (2005), 318 pp., US$34.95, ISBN 1-59368-020-1". Personality and Individual Differences. 40 (4): 853–855. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.10.004.
- ^ Lynn, R. and Vanhanen, T. (2002). IQ and the wealth of nations. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-97510-X.
- ^ In RDiI Lynn surveys NGO reports of four different signs of severe malnutrition – underweight, anemia, wasting, and stunting – for five developing regions, ranking Latin America as suffering the least malnutrition, followed by the Middle-east, Asia/Pacific, Africa, and finally South Asia, suffering the worst malnutrition of any region (ch. 14).
- ^ Lynn, Richard (2011). The Chosen People: A Study of Jewish Intelligence and Achievement. Washington Summit Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59368-036-7.
- ^ Lynn, Richard; Irwing, Paul (September 2004). "Sex differences on the progressive matrices: A meta-analysis". Intelligence. 32 (5): 481–498. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2004.06.008.
- ^ a b Rojahn, Johannes; Naglieri, Jack A. (1 May 2006). "Developmental gender differences on the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test in a nationally normed sample of 5–17 year olds". Intelligence. 34 (3): 253–260. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2005.09.004.
- ^ Lynn, Richard; Backhoff, Eduardo; Contreras, L. A. (January 2005). "Ethnic and Racial Differences on the Standard Progressive Matrices in Mexico". Journal of Biosocial Science. 37 (1): 107–113. doi:10.1017/S0021932003006497. ISSN 1469-7599. PMID 15688574.
- ^ Lynn, R. (2010). "In Italy, north–south differences in IQ predict differences in income, education, infant mortality, stature, and literacy". Intelligence. 38 (1): 93–100. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2009.07.004.
- ^ Cornoldi, Cesare; Belacchi, Carmen; Giofrè, David; Martini, Angela; Tressoldi, Patrizio (2010). "The mean Southern Italian children IQ is not particularly low: A reply to R. Lynn (2010), Intelligence" (PDF). Intelligence. 38 (5): 462–470. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2010.06.003.
- ^ Felice, Emanuele; Giugliano, Ferdinando (2011). "Myth and reality: A response to Lynn on the determinants of Italy's North–South imbalances☆". Intelligence. 39 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2010.09.004.
- ^ Robinson, David; Saggino, Aristide; Tommasi, Marco (2011). "The case against Lynn's doctrine that population IQ determines levels of socio-economic development and public health status, Robinson et al. (2011)". Journal of Public Mental Health. 10 (3): 178–189. doi:10.1108/17465721111175056.
- ^ Cornoldi, Cesare (2013). "Problems in deriving Italian regional differences in intelligence from 2009 PISA data, Cornoldi et al. (2013)" (PDF). Intelligence. 41: 25–33. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2012.10.004. hdl:11577/2537083. S2CID 144996291.
- ^ D'Amico, Antonella (2012). "Differences in achievement not in intelligence in the north and south of Italy: Comments on Lynn (2010a, 2010b), D'Amico et al. (2012)". Learning and Individual Differences. 22: 128–132. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2011.11.011.
- ^ Pace, F.; Sprini, G. (1998). "A proposito della "fairness" del Culture Fair di Cattell". Bollettino di Psicologia Applicata. 227: 77–85.
- ^ Lynn, Richard (Spring/Summer 2012) "North-South Differences in Spain in IQ, Educational Attainment, per capita Income, Literacy, Life Expectancy and Employment". Mankind Quarterly, v. LII, n. 3&4, pp. 265–292.
- ^ Lynn, Richard; Sakar, Caner; Cheng, Helen (May 2015). "Regional differences in intelligence, income and other socio-economic variables in Turkey". Intelligence. 50: 144–149. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2015.03.006.
- ^ Rushton, J. Philippe (2008). "The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ and Inequality Worldwide, R. Lynn. Washington Summit Publishers, Augusta, GA (2008). 378 pp., US $18.95 (PB), ISBN: 1-59368-028-7". Personality and Individual Differences. 45 (1): 113–114. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.03.008 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
- ^ Templer, Donald (Fall 2008). "The Truly Disadvantaged" (PDF). The Occidental Quarterly. pp. 125–127.
- ^ Meisenberg, Gerhard (Winter 2008). "The Global Bell Curve". The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies. 33: 513–516.
- ^ Saini, Angela (22 January 2018). "Racism is creeping back into mainstream science – we have to stop it". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
- ^ Johnson, Wendy (2009). "The global bell curve: Race, IQ, and inequality worldwide". Intelligence. 37 (1): 119–120. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2008.08.001.
- ^ Avner Falk. "Anti-semitism: a history and psychoanalysis of contemporary hatred". Abc-Clio, 2008, p. 18.
- ^ Andrew Wroe. "The Republican party and immigration politics: from Proposition 187 to George W. Bush". University of Illinois Press, 2008, p. 81.
- ^ "ISAR". Ferris.edu. Retrieved 21 August 2010.
- ^ Rowman & Littlefield; ISBN 0-7618-2041-8.
- ^ More by Charles Lane (December 1994). "The Tainted Sources of 'The Bell Curve' | The New York Review of Books". The New York Review of Books. 41 (20). Retrieved 21 August 2010.
- ^ More by Charles Lane, Harry F. Weyher (2 February 1995). "'The Bell Curve' and Its Sources | The New York Review of Books". The New York Review of Books. 42 (2). Retrieved 21 August 2010.
- ^ Kamin, Leon (February 1995). "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life". Scientific American. Vol. 272. Archived from the original on 22 October 2007.
Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity. Lynn is widely known among academics to be an associate editor of the racist journal "Mankind Quarterly" and a major recipient of financial support from the nativist, eugenically oriented Pioneer Fund.
- ^ Kamin, Leon (February 1995). "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life". Scientific American. Vol. 272. Archived from the original on 22 October 2007.
In 1992 Owen reported on a sample of coloured students that had been added to the groups he had tested earlier. The footnote in "The Bell Curve" seems to credit this report as proving that South African colored students have an IQ "similar to that of American blacks", that is, about 85 (the actual reference does not appear in the book's bibliography). That statement does not correctly characterize Owen's work. The test used by Owen in 1992 was the "nonverbal" Raven's Progressive Matrices, which is thought to be less culturally biased than other IQ tests. He was able to compare the performance of colored students with that of the whites, blacks and Indians in his 1989 study because the earlier set of pupils had taken the Progressive Matrices in addition to the Junior Aptitude Tests. The black pupils, recall, had poor knowledge of English, but Owen felt that the instructions for the Matrices "are so easy that they can be explained with gestures". Owen's 1992 paper again does not assign IQs to the pupils. Rather he gives the mean number of correct responses on the Progressive Matrices (out of a possible 60) for each group: 45 for whites, 42 for Indians, 37 for coloreds and 28 for blacks. The test's developer, John Raven, repeatedly insisted that results on the Progressive Matrices tests cannot be converted into IQs. Matrices scores, unlike IQs, are not symmetrical around their mean (no "bell curve" here). There is thus no meaningful way to convert an average of raw Matrices scores into an IQ, and no comparison with American black IQs is possible.
- ^ Kamin, Leon (February 1995). "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life". Scientific American. Vol. 272. Archived from the original on 22 October 2007.
Lynn chose to ignore the substance of Crawford-Nutt's paper, which reported that 228 black high school students in Soweto scored an average of 45 correct responses on the Matrices—HIGHER than the mean of 44 achieved by the same-age white sample on whom the test's norms had been established and well above the mean of Owen's coloured pupils.
- ^ "Call for re-think on eugenics". BBCNews Friday, 26 April 2002.
- ^ Evans, Gavin (14 November 2003). "He'll be weighing brains next". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
- ^ Wicherts, J. M.; Dolan, C. V.; van der Maas, H. L. J. (2010). "A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans". Intelligence. 38 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2009.05.002.
- ^ Skeem, Jennifer L. (2003). "Psychopathic personality and racial/ethnic differences reconsidered: a reply to Lynn (2002)". Personality and Individual Differences. 35 (6): 1439–1462. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00361-6.
- ^ Jackson, John P. (June 2006). "Argumentum Ad Hominem in the Science of Race". Argumentation and Advocacy. 43 (1): 14–28. doi:10.1080/00028533.2006.11821659. ISSN 1051-1431. S2CID 142449810.
- ^ "Evolution of race and sex differences in intelligence and personality: Tribute to Richard Lynn at eighty". Personality and Individual Differences. Volume 53, Issue 2, July 2012. Helmuth Nyborg (ed.).
- ^ Meredith, Robbie (14 February 2018). "Calls to revoke 'sexist' professor's title". BBC News. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^ "Status withdrawn from controversial academic". BBC News. 14 April 2018. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
- ^ "Racism Resurgent". FAIR. Jim Naureckas. January 1995. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
- ^ Tillerson, Corey (17 August 2017). The Alt-Right A Reference for the Far-Right Political Movement. The author. pp. 37–39. ISBN 978-1-387-17259-7.
- ^ Slobodian, Quinn (13 September 2023). "The rise of the new tech right: How the cult of IQ became a toxic ideology in Silicon Valley and beyond". The New Statesman.
One of the most prominent psychologists of race and intelligence, Richard Lynn, who died in July, was unwelcome in his own profession but had collaborated with the free-market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs since the 1960s.
Bibliography
- Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P., & Piazza, A. (1994). The history and geography of human genes. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
- Flynn, J. (1982). "Lynn, the Japanese, and environmentalism". Bulletin of the British Psychological Society. 35: 411.
- Flynn, J (1984). "The mean IQ of Americans: massive gains 1932 to 1978". Psychological Bulletin. 95: 29–51. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.95.1.29.
- Flynn, J (1987). "Massive gains in 14 nations: what IQ tests really measure". Psychological Bulletin. 101 (2): 171–91. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.171.
- Lykken, D (2004). "The New Eugenics". Contemporary Psychology. 49 (6): 670–672. doi:10.1037/004835.
- Lynn, Richard (1978). "Ethnic and Racial Differences in Intelligence, International Comparisons". Human variation: The biopsychology of age, race, and sex. Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-529050-0.
- Lynn, Richard (1982). "IQ in Japan and the United States shows a growing disparity". Nature. 297 (5863): 222–3. Bibcode:1982Natur.297..222L. doi:10.1038/297222a0. S2CID 4331657.
- Lynn, Richard (1990). "The role of nutrition in secular increases of intelligence". Personality and Individual Differences. 11 (3): 273–285. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(90)90241-i.
- Lynn, Richard (1996). Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-94917-4.
- Lynn, Richard (2001). Eugenics: A Reassessment. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-275-95822-0.
- Lynn, Richard. (2010). In Italy, north–south differences in IQ predict differences in income, education, infant mortality, stature, and literacy. Intelligence, Volume 38, Issue 1, January–February 2010, Pages 93–100
- Martin, N (2001). "Retrieving the 'eu' from eugenics". Nature. 414 (6864): 583. Bibcode:2001Natur.414..583M. doi:10.1038/414583a. S2CID 30552556.
- Neisser, U. (1997). Rising Scores on Intelligence Tests. American Scientist, Sept.-Oct
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