1500 words

JP Rushton was a highly controversial psychologist professor, teaching at the University of Western Ontario for his entire career. In the mid-1980s, he proposed that evolution was “progressive” and that there was a sort of “hierarchy” between the three races that he termed “Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid” (Rushton, 1985). His theory was then strongly criticized scientists from numerous disciplines (Lynn, 1989; Cain, 1990; Weizmann et al, 1990; Anderson, 1991; Graves, 2002). Rushton responded to these criticisms (Rushton, 1989; Rushton, 1991; Rushton, 1997; though it’s worth noting that Rushton never responded to Graves’ 2002 critiques). (Also see Rushton’s and Graves’ debate.) Copping, Campbell, and Muncer (2014) write that “high K scores were related to earlier sexual debut and unrelated to either pubertal onset or number of sexual partners. This suggests that the HKSS does not reflect an underlying “K dimension.”“, which directly contradicts Rushton’s racial r/K proposal.

There is a now a new critique of Rushton’s theory out now, by Edward Dutton, English anthropologist, with a doctorate in religious studies, just published at the end of last month (Dutton, 2018). I ordered the book the day after publication and it took three weeks to get to my residence since it came from the UK. I finally received it on Friday. It’s a small book, 143 pages sans acknowledgments, references and the index, and seems well-written and researched from what I’ve read so far.

Here is the plan of the book:

Accordingly, in this chapter [Chapter One], we will begin by getting to grips with the key concepts of intelligence and personality. This part is primarily aimed at non-specialist readers or those who are sceptical of the two concepts [it’s really barebones; I’m more than ‘sceptical’ and it did absolutely nothing for me]. In Chapter Two, we will explore Rushton’s theory in depth. Readers who are familiar with Life History Theory may wish to fast forward through to the section on the criticisms of Rushton’s model. I intend to be as fair to his theory as possible, in a way so few of the reviewers were when he presented it. I will respond to the many fallacious criticisms of it, all of which indicate non-scientific motives [what about Rushton? Did he have any non-scientific motives?]. However, I will show that Rushton is just as guilty of these kinds of techniques as his opponents. I will also highlight serious problems with his work, including cherry picking, confirmation bias, and simply misleading other researchers. In Chapter Three, we will explore the concept of ‘race’ and show that although Rushton’s critics were wrong to question the concept’s scientific validity, Rushton effectively misuses the concept, cherry-picking such that his concept works. In Chapter Four, we will explore the research that has verified Rushton’s model, including new measures which he didn’t examine. We will then, in Chapter Five, examine the concept of genius and look at how scientific geniuses tend to be highly intelligent r-strategists, though we will see that Rushton differed from accepted scientific geniuses in key ways.

In Chapter Six, we will find that Rushton’s theory itself is problematic, though not in the ways raised by his more prominent critics. It doesn’t work when it comes to a key measure of mental stability as well as to many other measures, specifically preference for oral sex, the desire to adopt non-related children, the desire to have pets, and positive attitudes to the genetically distant. It also doesn’t work if you try to extend it to other races, beyond the three large groups he examined [because more races exist than Rushton allows]. In Chapter Seven, with all the background, we will scrutinize Rushton’s life up until about the age of 30, while in Chapter Eight, we will follow Rushton from the age of 30 until his death. I will demonstrate the extent to which he was a highly intelligent r-strategist and a Narcissist and we will see that Rushton seemingly came from a line of highly intelligent r-strategists. In Chapter Nine, I will argue that for the good of civilization those who strongly disagree with Rushton must learn to tolerate people like Rushton. (Dutton, 2018: 12-13).

On the back of the book, he writes that Rushton had “two illegitimate children including one by a married black woman.” This is intriguing. Could this be part of Rushton’s motivation to formulate his theory (his theory has already been rebutted by numerous people, so speculating on motivations in lieu of new information seems apt)?

Some people, such as PumpkinPerson, may wonder why Dutton is attacking someone “on his team“, but he addresses people who would ask such questions, writing (pg. 15):

“But on this basis, it could be argued that my critique of Rushton simply gives ammunition to emotionally-driven scientists and their friends in the media. However, it could be countered that my critique only goes to show that it is those who are genuinely motivated by the understanding of the world — those who accept empirical evidence, such as with regard to intelligence and race — who are prepared to critique those regarded as being ‘on their side.’ And this is precisely because they are unbiased and thus do not think in terms of ‘teams.’”

Dutton argues that “many of the criticisms leveled against Rushton’s work by mainstream scientists were actually correct” (pg 13). This is a truism. One only need to read the replies to Rushton, especially Anderson (1991) to see that he completely mixed up the theory. He stated ‘Negroids’ were r-strategists and ‘Mongoloids’ were K-strategists, but this reasoning shows that he did not understand the theory—or, if anything, he knowingly attempted to obfuscate the theory in order to lend stronger credence to his own theory (and personal biases).

The fatal flaw for Rushton’s theory is that, if r/K selection theory did apply to human races, that ‘Mongoloids’ would be r-strategists while ‘Negroids’ would be K-strategists. This is because “Rushton’s own suggested agents of natural selection on African populations imply that African populations have had a strong history of K-selection, as well as the r-selection implied by “droughts”” (Anderson, 1991: 59). As for Mongoloids, “Rushton lists many traits of Mongoloid peoples that are thought to represent adaptation to cold. Cold weather acts in a density-independent fashion (adaptations to cold improve survival in cold weather regardless of population density); cold weather is normally an agent of r-selection” (Anderson, 1991: 59). Rushton’s own arguments imply that ‘Negroids’ would have had more time to approach their environmental carrying capacity and experience ‘K-selecting’ pressures.

Thus, Rushton’s claim about the empirical ordering of life history and behavioural traits in the racial groups exactly contradicts general predictions that follow from his own claims about their ancestral ecology and the r/K model (Boyce, 1984; MacArthur, 1972; MacArthur & Wilson, 1967; Pianka, 1970; Ricklefs, 1990, p. 577). (Specific predictions from the model could be made only about individual populations after careful study in their historical habitat, as I have pointed out above). (Anderson, 1991: 59) [And it is not possible, because the populations in question should be living in the environment that the selection is hypothesized to have occurred. That, of course, is not possible today.]

Though, near the end of the book, Dutton writes that (pg 148) that “Rushton was not a scientific genius. As we have discussed, unlike a scientific genius, his models had clear deficiencies, he cherry-picked data to fit his model, and he was biased in favor of his model. However, Rushton was a highly original scientist who developed an extremely original and daring theory: a kind of artistic-scientist genius combination.”

The final paragraph of the book, though, sums up the whole book up well. Dutton talks about when Jared Taylor introduces Rushton at one of his American Renaissance conferences (February 25th, 2006):

‘Well, thank you very much and . . . eh . . . and thank you Jared for . . . erm . . . putting on another wonderful conference.’ Rushton was reserved, yet friendly and avuncular. ‘Eh . . . it’s a great honor to be the after dinner speaker; to be elevated up like this.’ He was certainly elevated up. Taylor had even remarked that ‘in a sane and civilized world’ Rushton’s work would have ‘worldwide acclaim.’ Rushton’s audience admired him, trusted him . . . They weren’t familiar with him at all.

All in all, to conclude this little mini-review, I would recommend picking up this book as it’s a great look into Rushton’s life, the pitfalls of his theory (and for the new work and other variables that Dutton shows showed Rushton’s M>C>N ‘hierarchy’). Rushton’s work, while politically daring, did not hold up to scientific scrutiny, since the model was beginning to be abandoned in the late 70s (Graves, 2002), with most scientists completely dismissing the model in the early 90s. Commenting on r/K selection, Stearns (1992: 206) writes that “This explanation was suggestive and influential but incorrect” (quoted in Reznick et al, 2002), while Reznick et al (2002: 1518) write that “The r- and K-selection paradigm was replaced by new paradigm that focused on age-specific mortality (Stearns 1976, Charlesworth 1980).” Rushton’s model, while it ‘made sense with the data’, was highly flawed. And even then, it doesn’t matter that it ‘made sense’ with the data, since Rushton’s theory is one large just-so story (Gould and Lewontin, 1976; Lloyd, 1999; Richardson, 2007; Nielsen, 2009; see also Pigliucci and Kaplan, 2000 and Kaplan, 2002