GENETIC FACTORS CONFIRMED
Cognitive and affective differences emerged as strongly heritable in new research from King's College London on an impressive 1,116 pairs of twins. When Julia Kim-Cohen and co-workers asked how well children were doing relative to their degree of environmental deprivation, IQ differences were 45% genetic and differences in anti-social behaviour were 70% genetic (Times, 14 v; Child Development, 2004)).
PAEDOHYSTERIA PARADISE
The full resources of Britain's criminal `justice' system were used over two years to persecute, convict and jail for a further two years a senior schoolmaster, 48, on whom a 14-year-old female religious studies pupil had developed a crush (Daily Telegraph, 14 v). The pair went everywhere together, being thought of as uncle and niece, and had sex over six months; and the girl - by this time 16 -- was in tears as Doncaster Crown Court delivered its savage verdict. The teacher had 23 years teaching experience without a spot on his character.
{By contrast, a Black Malawian asylum swindler, Feston Konzani, 28, was given only a 10-year stretch after he had ruined and shortened the lives of three British females (one only 15) by infecting them with HIV/AIDS during unprotected sex.}
`PATRIOTS vs PEECEE' BANDWAGON ROLLS
A critical Sunday Herald warned that, with Robert Kilroy-Silk's determination answering general public cynicism about other parties, there could a political landslide in Britain in June (16 v). Likewise the centre-left Independent noted that UKIP had a £2m warchest, star backing from explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, astronomer Sir Patrick Moore and former racing driver Sir Stirling Moss, and 12% support in the polls (compared to 7% in 2003) (15 v). Kilroy-Silk also got mentioned in the Scotsman and Guardian of 15 v.
------------------------------------
Comments? Email Chris Brand.
Some history.
-----------------------------------
Thursday, May 06, 2004
THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
This 2003 volume (edited by Danish psychologist Helmuth Nyborg), which may prove the last big bang from the London School, was extensively quoted and discussed by ‘neoeugenicist’ Matt Nuenke.
Perhaps the most incisive sentence in the book, a second Festschrift for Emeritus Professor Arthur Jensen, was "Critics of biological determinism are like members of a fire brigade, constantly being called out in the middle of the night to put out the latest conflagration, always responding to immediate emergencies, but never with the leisure to draw up plans for a truly fireproof building” – actually a quote from g-basher Stephen Jay Gould which ironically but pithily sums up the left’s failure over the years to build its own convincing account of general intelligence.
It recalled Earl Hunt's remark of c. 1999 that, in nature/nurture debates, nature theorists were the stompers and nurture theorists the stompees.)
Reviews were also provided in Occidental Quarterly (a fine summary of the book’s central if familiar thrust by editor Kevin Lamb) and to the publisher Elsevier by twin study expert Tom Bouchard and Cambridge learning theorist Nicholas Mackintosh – the latter doubting that g’s central causal role in its data nexus was finally established but properly deploring his cognitive/experimental colleagues’ lack of respect for Arthur Jensen. (The two Elsevier reviews were eventually published in the subscription-only journal Intelligence, March-April 2004.)
Evidently, the new volume* does a fine job of exposing ‘the collective fraud’ (Nyborg, Linda Gottfredson [URLs for her publications]) of g’s opponents; acutely, Nyborg observes that Gould et al. used to criticize sociobiology for Just So stories, but today, faced with the massive edifice of the London School’s century-long work on the g factor (first observed by Charles Spearman in 1904), Gould et al. themselves can only resort to telling Just So stories themselves (most commonly about hypothetical genetic-environmental interaction effects occasionally observed under extreme experimental manipulations in plants). Nuenke’s substantial effort will help enlighten those who have not wanted to fork out the 70 pounds demanded for the volume by Elsevier and help make up for the failure of the world’s cowardly scientific press to produce a single review in the nine months following publication.}
*The book includes a chapter by C.R. Brand, D. Constales and H. Kane.
------------------------------------
Comments? Email Chris Brand.
Some history.
-----------------------------------
This 2003 volume (edited by Danish psychologist Helmuth Nyborg), which may prove the last big bang from the London School, was extensively quoted and discussed by ‘neoeugenicist’ Matt Nuenke.
Perhaps the most incisive sentence in the book, a second Festschrift for Emeritus Professor Arthur Jensen, was "Critics of biological determinism are like members of a fire brigade, constantly being called out in the middle of the night to put out the latest conflagration, always responding to immediate emergencies, but never with the leisure to draw up plans for a truly fireproof building” – actually a quote from g-basher Stephen Jay Gould which ironically but pithily sums up the left’s failure over the years to build its own convincing account of general intelligence.
It recalled Earl Hunt's remark of c. 1999 that, in nature/nurture debates, nature theorists were the stompers and nurture theorists the stompees.)
Reviews were also provided in Occidental Quarterly (a fine summary of the book’s central if familiar thrust by editor Kevin Lamb) and to the publisher Elsevier by twin study expert Tom Bouchard and Cambridge learning theorist Nicholas Mackintosh – the latter doubting that g’s central causal role in its data nexus was finally established but properly deploring his cognitive/experimental colleagues’ lack of respect for Arthur Jensen. (The two Elsevier reviews were eventually published in the subscription-only journal Intelligence, March-April 2004.)
Evidently, the new volume* does a fine job of exposing ‘the collective fraud’ (Nyborg, Linda Gottfredson [URLs for her publications]) of g’s opponents; acutely, Nyborg observes that Gould et al. used to criticize sociobiology for Just So stories, but today, faced with the massive edifice of the London School’s century-long work on the g factor (first observed by Charles Spearman in 1904), Gould et al. themselves can only resort to telling Just So stories themselves (most commonly about hypothetical genetic-environmental interaction effects occasionally observed under extreme experimental manipulations in plants). Nuenke’s substantial effort will help enlighten those who have not wanted to fork out the 70 pounds demanded for the volume by Elsevier and help make up for the failure of the world’s cowardly scientific press to produce a single review in the nine months following publication.}
*The book includes a chapter by C.R. Brand, D. Constales and H. Kane.
------------------------------------
Comments? Email Chris Brand.
Some history.
-----------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
