Dear Sir,
Facing the "30-point difference in IQ between whites and sub-Saharan blacks," Jerry Coyne (Times Literary Supplement, 25 Feb. 2005, pp. 3-4, `Legends of Linnaeus') reports he knows of "no evidence" for a genetic or evolutionary explanation of this racial difference. Well, Pittsburgh physiologists reported in 2000 that cognitive impairments are associated with the gene e4; and this gene is at least three times as common in Negroes, Pygmies and Bushmen as in East Asians, with whites falling in between (American Journal of Medical Genetics, Dec. 4; 96(6):707-11).
As to evolution, the selection pressure for higher intelligence in East Asians and Caucasians was probably the Ice Age. This mainly boosted those stuck or otherwise staying in northern latitudes, for other out-of-Africa emigrant groups who crossed Asia and escaped southwards (e.g. across the frozen Bering Strait southwards down into the warmer Americas) did not themselves get much of an IQ boost (Native Americans today having an average IQ of 89). Perhaps, in return for these advices, Jerry Coyne could reciprocate by providing his own evidence that, in height, "the Japanese are predicted to outgrow Americans within a decade" - upon which remarkable basis he expects a closing of the black-white IQ gap despite no narrowing at all of this gap having occurred during the whole past century of multi-billion-dollar humanitarian efforts in the USA directed to boosting black intelligence.
I am yours sincerely, -- Chris Brand.
HERO OF EUTHANASIA
A brave ex-soldier, Andrew Wragg, 37, of Sussex, went on trial for smothering his ailing and wheelchair-bound ten-year-old son, Jacob, who was suffering the grotesque hereditary degenerative disease, Hunter's Syndrome, involving dwarfism, deafness, respiratory problems, hyperactivity, aggression, claw hands, digital contracture, excessive hair growth, double incontinence and predictable death in adolescence. Wragg and his pretty wife, 41, had been under great strain after two miscarriages and a termination when it was found that a new unborn child was carrying the disease, and Mrs Wragg had once told doctors not to resuscitate Jacob if he lost vital signs. In evidence a nurse at Jacob's school who knew the family said Andrew Wragg and his son "adored each other"; family and friends (including a former girlfriend) testified that he loved Jacob and got on well with him; and Andrew Wragg claimed actually to have had his wife's support at the time of the killing (Scotsman, 8 iii) - as suggested by her having "gone hysterical" (according to a female police officer) when police tried to resuscitate Jacob.
{The decorated ex-SAS man thus showed more sense than British law, which promptly put him on trial for murder though he himself had phoned the police immediately to admit manslaughter under diminished responsibility. Wragg killed his son immediately after returning from stressful service in Iraq, during which time Jacob had deteriorated so that he no longer recognized his father.} {Finally, the jury at Lewes Crown Court proved divided and was discharged - a fine victory for the courageous, sensible and humane Wragg, who turned out to be newly engaged to a "stunning brunette" (said the Sun).}
LEFT SPLITS OVER HARVARD PEECEE TYRANNY
Britain's Grauniad Education and the American Sociological Association continued to bash President Summers, and `Prof' Steve Jones (who snaffles Galton's money while disagreeing with Galton's views) and Baroness Susan Greenfield bad-mouthed Summers to the Observer; but Nature (3 iii) defended him as "a champion of scientific research" who merely needed to watch his lip and Times Higher quoted approvingly the verdict on today's Harvard University by ex-student Ross Gregory Douthat (author of Privilege): "intellectual rigour is eclipsed at Harvard by personal ambition and PC." America's Jewish Press (3 iii) carried a strongly supportive article from Ed Koch (Mayor of New York, 1978-1990) which concluded:
Shame on the presidents of three major institutions, Princeton, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for joining the howling mob with their condemnation of Summers. If, under these circumstances, the president of Harvard can be brought down with The [New York] Times leading the pack, everyone is in danger.
(Ed Koch is a lifelong Democrat but voted Republican for the first time in 2004 since he found the Democrats' Presidential candidate John Kerry was insufficiently tough on terror.) The Stanford Daily also backed Summers to stay (3 iii), as did the Miami Herald's Ana Veciana-Suarez (5 iii) and palaeo-conservative top politico Pat Buchanan (8 iii, suggesting cogently that Summers' real sin against PeeCee religion was simply to mention the concept of "intrinsic aptitude" which could, after all, explain race as well as sex differences). {As to the original issue itself, a Gallup Poll showed only 10% of Americans believe `there is a male superiority in maths because of genetic factors present at birth' (10 iii) - a fine achievement for the left from a generation of its dominating state education.}
KINSEY BEATS PRUDES, FEMINAZIES AND PAEDOHYSTERICS
Celebrating the new biopic on the life of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey (whose Indiana University research institute faced down howling mobs in both 1953 and 1998), the Observer (6 iii) carried a sympathetic feature article saying that sex research on perversions was today accepted even in America's `Jesusland' mid-West.
TOP PEECEE GOON CAUSES CHAOS
Leftists and multiculturalists were thrown into a tizzy as the U.K.'s Black Commission for Racial Equality boss Trevor Phillips (who last year upset the applecart by calling for `integration' of immigrants - see this Diary for 2004) said some Black boys would benefit from segregated teaching that countered their culture in which "being clever is unfashionable." PeeCee people hurled themselves about fuming that such minimal and sensible attention to individual and group differences was likely to prove ineffective and even illegal, though Phillips had actually provided some evidence of successful segregation schemes. One Black head teacher thought Phillips' idea worth trying, but the National Association of Head Teachers condemned him as irresponsible. The BNP had a lot of fun with the issue: http://www.bnp.org.uk/news_detail.php?newsId=212. The Guardian carried a story of Black children complaining about Phillips's proposal for educational apartheid, one saying "It makes me feel like I am being put down"; and the paper's correspondents were also hostile; but a leading article admitted there might be something to be said for Phillips's idea, since new research in St Louis had found boys doing 21% better after eight months of being taught separately from girls. Phillips tried to cover his backside by demanding new efforts be made to penalize "racial misconduct" in policemen. (Mr Phillips was sending his own two daughters to the North London Collegiate School, where fees were œ9,500 a year.)
THE g FACTOR REACHES Spectator READERS
Nine years after The g Factor explained the need to educate children according to their abilities, and was promptly withdrawn for alleged `racism', its argument was summarized in words of one syllable for the Speccie by Daily Mail columnist Michael Hanlon. {A sign that the British right is gingerly taking its head out of the sand about genetic differences? For such daring souls, their first stop should be to read TgF itself - free and without worrying anyone will see them.}
TV ALLOWS A SMIDGEON OF RACE REALISM
Britain's Channel 4 TV, having first balanced its books with a programme urging that all desirous immigrants be promptly admitted, allowed whacky Sextator man Rod Liddle to interview demographer David Coleman (Oxford University) and worry a little about the future nature of Britain as immigrants and their babies reach 15% of the population by 2010, perhaps generating White flight as in Holland. Liddle even once mentioned the term `Black', saying that Blacks were rather (well, 35-fold) over-represented as carriers of HIV/AIDS. The price of this ripple of realism was that Enoch Powell had to be condemned as "paranoid" and wrong (though Enoch correctly predicted the rise and rise of PeeCee); and IQ received no mention - no more than did the names of Richard Lynn and myself.
BLACK PROBLEMS ADMITTED
As Prime Minister Blair announced a new bumper handout to Africa (so long as corruption figures could be fiddled downwards), the liberal-left Guardian admitted that sub-Saharan Africa had been in economic decline since 1980 and wrote (11 iii, `Analysis', Larry Eliot): "Africa's biggest challenge, if it is to compete in the global economy, is its deficit in human capital" - though IQ itself could not be mentioned. Rather backing this up, new figures from Britain showed that, while only 20% of Asians have partners outside their race, 30% of Black females do so, and 70% of Black males - Blacks apparently taking a dim view of their chances with their fellow ethnics (11 iii, Steve Pope). {With the Grauniad prepared to make such admissions, it was not too surprising that it should be "delighted" with Britain's judges and House of Lords over their standing up to the tin-pot tyrannizing of Messrs Blair and Clarke, both busily trying to rescind habeas corpus as their nationalism-avoiding response to Islamofascist terror (11 iii, Leader).}
ANTI-RACISTS MOCKED
With a little telephoning, journalist Sean Thomas (who kindly described me as a "noted psychologist" in the Speccie two years ago) discovered that Britain's major affirmative-racist organizations (Metropolitan Police, Commission for Racial Equality) back people for hiring and promotion simply on the basis of their self-declarations of race - so frit are they of admitting that race has anything to do with biology or genetics. Thanks to ST's work, the high road for White kids to get into Oxford became clear..
`LIBERTY vs HUMAN RIGHTS' -- EXCLUSIVE --
Such was the title of a fine leader in the Sunday Times (13 iii) complaining that Britain's subscription to the European Human Rights Act (or our judges' interpretation of that subscription) was putting the courts in control of matters that should be decided by Members of Parliament or just personal choice. In the past year, `human rights' have protected the privacy of celebrities Naomi Campbell (wanting to hide her drug addiction) and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones (who had struck a lucrative deal that the only photos of their wedding would be by OK magazine); they have given British prisoners a princely œ162 million for having to use chamber pots at night; they have given gypsies common land without payment; they gave a Preston tax-evader œ10,000 because he had not been prosecuted in quite the right way; they overturned the decision of a Muslim headmistress that she didn't want her schoolgirls' bodies fully covered by the hilbab; they gave Army volunteers a right to "care" from regimental sergeant majors - warned not to taunt or tease teenage soldiers tired of doing press-ups; and they prevented several foreign Muslim males from being detained on serious warnings from the intelligence services. Correctly, the Sunday Times concluded that "the Human Rights Act has become the refuge for those with barely deserving and sometimes undeserving cases."
{Subsequently, Conservative leader Mr Michael Howard seriously courted popularity by promising to scrap Britain's Human Rights Act if it could not be sensibly amended. He called the HRA a "charter for chancers." - His move came in response to UK local authorities saying they would give up the task of moving on gypsies because of the latter's many Euro-decreed `rights.'}
{The Sun, the UK's top-circulation tabloid, quickly came out against puffed-up `human rights' for gypsies (18 iii); and, no sooner had I sent a message of support, the Sun was being discussed on BBC radio as likely to switch its support at the widely expected General Election to the Conservatives. Apparently, just as Mr Howard had found his stronger opposition in recent weeks to immigration and crime resonating with voters, the Sun had noticed higher-than-expected popular support for its anti-gypsy-`rights' campaign. Perhaps reciprocating the Sun's coming support, Mr Howard, speaking in Scotland, backed the paper's anti-`human-rights' position. He said the 1998 Human Rights Act was "a charter for chancers [that] makes a mockery of justice" by encouraging a tide of "politically correct" litigation.}
TOP LEFTIE DEPLORES "CEASELESS IMMIGRATION"
The cause of immigration realism was given an important boost as ex-New Statesman columnist Julie Burchill denounced much `asylum seeking' as just `slave labour' (Times (Review), 12 iii). "From now on," she wrote, "anyone who dismisses me as a racist because I am against ceaseless immigration to this country - by those tens of thousands of people each year who are in no peril whatsoever - and the inevitable driving down of the wages of the poorest that it brings, will be dismissed by me, in turn, as a mere stooge of the boss-class, a supporter of forced and/or slave labour and a despicable enemy of the multicoloured British working class."
DISCRIMINATION AT LAST!
It was learned from research at Oxford that the University discriminates against applicants who are female, Asian and have been educated at independent schools (Daily Telegraph, 15 iii). Evidently the University has been finding its way towards recognizing IQ as what it wants - and thus cut down on applicants who tend to over-use rote memory, hard work and cramming.
[Note from John Ray: I am getting lazy in my old age so I have not included above the few hyperlinks that Chris has given -- but you can find them at the bottom of Chris's original page here if you want to follow anything up.]
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Comments? Email Chris Brand.
Some history.
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