updated 10 March 2008
Academics are fascists. Political correctness (PC) fascism—the dictatorship of virtue—has a grip over academia in the West. This is evidenced by the plight of a few lone voices of dissent: Chris Brand, Lawrence Summers, David Irving, Frank Ellis, Helmuth Nyborg and James Watson. Many scientists working in evolutionary biology shrewdly employ PC—but intellectually dishonest—strategies by simultaneously supporting Darwinism and radically criticising it. A few choice examples are given: Stephen Jay Gould, Rose, Lewontin and Kamin, Steve Jones and Jared Diamond. Readers are reminded of the hopelessness of the humanities and the social sciences, alerted to the failure of the multi-disciplinary approach and warned against trusting the hapless attempts of an aspiring Renaissance Man. The twin evils of egalitarianism and feminism, both rife throughout academia, are actually authoritarian and antiscientific. Any scientific discussion of immigration—which fails in both theory and practice—is off limits. Many trees have been wasted on criticism of The Bell Curve, whilst an objective analysis shows that Herrnstein and Murray actually understated their case. Dan Agin and Ben Goldacre attack bad science, and rightly so, but the irony is that they themselves are guilty of some of the very worst. The deficiencies of the PhD process are well known to anyone who has been subjected to such an ordeal, whilst the dumbing-down, pettiness and transparency of UK universities will be familiar to most staff. I conclude with my thoughts on how best to tackle the problem.
Academics are fascists who aspire to belong to an elite in-group which is both superior to, and detached from, the rest of society. Academics fall largely into three groups: politically correct (PC) fascists, those sympathetic to PC fascism and a small number of cowards. I am never sure whether the cowards simply recognize the hopelessness of attempting to voice their non-PC position, are afraid of losing their cushy academic jobs, or a combination of the two. Either way, they offer little hope of restoring reason and it is easy to feel like a lone voice in a sea of insanity. Most social science consists of not-even-veiled attempts at pushing political ideology, and no dissent is tolerated. Whilst many in the natural sciences voice opinions which are little better. Universities are the most PC fascist places on the planet. Throughout the West, the PC liberal left in academia have formed their own smug in-group (I should know, I’m from the liberal left myself). Academics are blessed with intelligence (by adulthood, intelligence is 80%–90% heritable (Lynn and Vanhanen 2006)) that places them firmly in the right hand tail of the distribution of IQ. Their contempt for those beneath them (referring to young men as ‘chavs’, denigrating young women for looking attractive, etc.) is both misplaced (because intelligence is largely genetic) and inconsistent (because they claim to be egalitarian). The academic liberal left hate ordinary people. Not only does egalitarianism have no place in science, but denying (i.e. lying about) heritability is harmful because it implies that any differences between individuals or groups must be man-made, so someone must be to blame.
‘Political correctness is an ideology that classifies certain groups of people as victims in need of protection from criticism, and which makes believers feel that no dissent should be tolerated.’ (Browne 2006, p. 4). There exists a miniscule number of academics who are neither PC fascists, sympathetic to PC fascism, or cowards. There are so few, in fact, that I can list all the notable members of this group, and what became of them.
The PC line is ubiquitous, even among the best scientists. For example, for theoretical reasons, we can not transcend our genes: everything we do is either reproduction or instrumental to it. The great Dawkins, Dennett and Pinker apparently disagree—or are they in fact being politically correct? For more information on political correctness, see Sewell (2007b).
Here, I speak primarily of those engaged in the biological sciences, but also include those working in other natural sciences who hold and voice opinions about evolutionary biology. In practice, science is an institutional and social process, and consists largely of choosing strategies for the advancement of scientific careers. Academics are faced with the choice of two strategies: (1) Low risk/low return: The safe strategy with a minor payoff involves presenting yourself as an adherent to the received view, contributing only refinements of technical detail. You may wish to exaggerate the similarities between your own view and that of the major players in your field in order to throw their mantle around your own shoulders. (2) High risk/high return: Present yourself as a radical revolutionary: a very dangerous strategy that promises great rewards. Exaggerate the differences with the received view to emphasize how original your contributions are. The politically correct will shrewdly choose to combine both strategies. For example, they will simultaneously support Darwinism and radically criticize it. They claim that Darwin was right in the sense that creationists are wrong, yet Darwin was wrong in the sense that they don’t allow for any significant human evolution. See Hull (1988, p. 202) and Carroll (2004, p. 242). I have spent an evening in the pub with a fellow academic who argued, quite sincerely, that height is a social construct (it’s actually 80%–90% heritable (Silventoinen, et al. 2003)). I have since spent an evening with another well-meaning academic who claimed that intelligence wasn’t heritable (apparently undeterred by the fact that a) this is theoretically impossible and b) decades of peer-reviewed empirical research conclude that intelligence is 80%–90% heritable). If height and intelligence were not heritable, they could not possibly have evolved! Typically, my academic friends spend half the evening ridiculing religion thus denying creationism and the other half denying evolution! Indeed, I was explicitly informed by another friend that I was not allowed to discuss evolutionary psychology! I was also informed that my updated location on the Political Compass (despite being slightly left of centre) was unacceptable as it was not firmly in the liberal-left quadrant. This is political correctness in the original, quite literal, sense. It is not possible to engage in any form of meaningful debate with these people when it comes to science and humans; firstly, because their views are far too detached from reality for them to get close to it; and secondly, because they insist that their view of the world is correct, and questioning their view is met with hostility (this is fascism). They are beyond redemption. Interestingly, not only did they both argue by anecdote, but both resorted to personal anecdote and even cited close family members! Both are equipped with the mental faculties required to do science in general, but for psychological and political reasons are unable to apply any form of objectivity to the science of Homo sapiens: such behaviour is both pathological and psychotic. Such politically correct fascists form their own in-group, which leads to communal reinforcement and views which are increasingly detached from reality. All good atheists, they would happily cite evolution and Darwin whilst fighting creationists, but are unable to recognise their own irrational religions: political correctness, egalitarianism and socialism. Scientific illiteracy wedded to political correctness fascism breeds not just bad science, but injustice too: if traits were not heritable, and education is uniform, the implication is that parents would be to blame for every transgression of their offspring.
Academics such as these seek great rewards with little risk; the only victim, of course, is science. The sheer level of ignorance, distortion and flawed reasoning that characterizes the ‘anti-heritability’ camp is unprecedented in science and philosophy of science. See Sesardic (2005). Ordinary people—even children—have a far better understanding of human nature than most academics.
Gross and Levitt (1994) and Sokal and Bricmont (1998) have already provide brilliant exposés of the ‘academic left’’s misguided critiques of science. My attempts to engage in reasoned and scientific debate with the Radical Statistics Group were met with Marxist attitudes and extraordinary naivety. This culminated in eviction from their mailing list and libellous comments from a member of the group. Their political prejudices cloud their judgments (to put it politely) and they seem ignorant of the most fundamental and basic biological and economic principles that enable humans to co-operate through competition and thus generate wealth: greedy people pay more taxes. It is a sorry state of affairs when the people who are paid to help solve the problems of the world are actually working against those they are trying to help.
When disciplines crossover, there is a reluctance to concede that not all subjects are equal: in the US the average PhD physicist has an IQ of 130.0 and the average PhD in public administration just 106.0 (Motl 2006). My attempts to engage with the multidisciplinary Evidence Science programme were met with little evidence of science, but a great deal of censorship (I was forced to remove the scientific content of my messages). The programme is funded in part by taxpayers’ money.
There exists significant social pressure for an academic to be seen as a polymath, Renaissance man or Homo universalis. This is particularly acute in the hard sciences, where there is a realisation that in order to attain mate value, one is required to take an interest in the arts. The downside to this is that academics are happy to wax lyrical about subjects about which they have only a superficial understanding. For example, those who work in evolutionary computation often overestimate their understanding of biological evolution: ‘Evolution has a very specific and really quite simple meaning: It is a gradual process of directed change.’ (Bentley 2002, p. 44 — emphasis added) Concise, definitive and profoundly wrong. Academia breeds overconfidence and arrogance.
For a trait to evolve by natural selection, three conditions must be present: 1) the trait must be heritable; 2) the population must exhibit variation in expression of the trait; and 3) the trait must affect the fitness of an individual (e.g. number of offspring). If, say, intelligence wasn’t both heritable and unequally distributed across the population, it wouldn’t have evolved in the first place. Those who believe in the blank slate and egalitarians are both as scientifically credible as Creationists.
A disproportionate number of female (and even male) academics subscribe to feminism. This is unfortunate, as feminism is unscientific, internally inconsistent and harmful: it is worse than a pseudoscience, it is an anti-science (Sewell 2007a), which runs through their research like a cancer. It has also destroyed the concept of a family, and harms men, women and children. For an excellent and thoroughly scientific demolition of the feminist position, see Moxon (2008).
J. Philippe Rushton’s genetic similarity theory (Rushton, Russell and Wells 1984; Rushton 1989) expands Hamiltonian kin selection and asserts that individuals have evolved to display non-reciprocal altruism towards other individuals in proportion to their genetic-relatedness. On this basis, Salter (2006) argues that all humans have a vital interest in genetic continuity that is threatened by mass migration and proposes Universal Nationalism. In support of Salter’s argument, Vanhanen (1999) found that the correlation between ethnic heterogeneity and institutionalized ethnic conflict was 0.73. Mass immigration works neither in theory, nor practice. Yet any reasoned discussion is out of bounds, unless, of course, you’re pro immigration. UCL has no less than two departments dedicated to research on immigration: the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) and the Migration Research Unit. I have searched their publications, and neither, it would appear, are even aware of the biological reality. Anti-immigration attitudes are innate, and if they were not so, different sub-species (i.e. races) could not have evolved in the first place. See McGregor (1986). The reality is not politically correct, so they avoid the real issues.
Few books have been subjected to as much criticism as The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray 1994). In the light of subsequent research, how has the book stood the test of time? Have the authors been vindicated, or do the critics have a point?
| The Bell Curve | Current best estimate | |
|---|---|---|
| American black/white IQ difference | 15 | 15 (Lynn 2006, Hart 2007) |
| European/black African IQ difference | 25 | 33 (Lynn 2006) |
| East Asian/European IQ difference | 3 | 5 (Lynn 2006) |
| Heritability of IQ | 60% | 80%–90% (Lynn and Vanhanen 2006) |
| Male/female IQ difference | 0 | 2 (Sewell 2007c) |
It turns out that Herrnstein and Murray actually understated nearly all of the controversial issues! It just goes to show that much social science is driven by politics, not science.
Dan Agin is the editor and publisher of ScienceWeek and wrote the book Junk Science (Agin 2006). Ben Goldacre is the author of the The Guardian’s weekly ‘Bad Science’ column and is due to publish a book of the same name (Goldacre 2008). They both rightly target things like alternative medicine and intelligent design as examples of bad science. However, Agin and Goldacre both consider evolutionary psychology junk science. They are profoundly wrong; not only is evolutionary psychology valid science, it is the most popular evolutionary hypothesis for human behaviour (Laland and Brown 2002). In his book, Agin trots out the usual ‘we don’t know everything so we don’t know anything’ and ‘we can’t identify the gene so it can’t be the genes’ myths. He also states that, ‘Not only is evolutionary psychology a junk science, but its conclusions are politically incendiary and dangerous’ (p. 247). Far more dangerous is his dismissal of the best hypothesis we have for understanding human nature. Agin also includes a chapter on race and IQ, and deals with the uncomfortable conclusions by claiming that neither race nor IQ exist. Races exist (Entine 2001; Goodrum 2002; Sarich and Miele 2004; Stowe 2006; Sewell 2007d) and Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza (1994) show that races are genetically distinct (but absurdly—and in the name of political correctness—insist on calling them ‘clusters’). Regarding IQ, over ten years ago experts in intelligence research, Neisser, et al. (1996) and Gottfredson (1997) published in an attempt to put an end to such misinformation. Agin (2007a) includes five ‘facts’ about race and/or intelligence, all five of which are untrue! Whilst Agin (2007b) is entitled ‘Goodbye Selfish-Gene’. When the title is patently false, it’s not a great start to an article. The units of replication, the genes, are selfish, regardless of whether the vehicles (whether individuals or higher-level units) display altruism. Either Agin doesn’t understand this basic fact that Richard Dawkins got right over 30 years ago (Dawkins 1976), or he is downright dishonest. Goldacre states that he finds evolutionary psychologists amusing, ‘their claims sound a bit like “just so” stories, relying on their own internal, circular logic’. Evolutionary psychology uses inference to the best explanation (abduction), a perfectly valid scientific method. See Holcomb (1996). It is true that evolutionary psychology seeks to explain current phenomena by reference to past events, but so does the big bang theory. It is also true that evolutionary psychologists observe data before constructing a theory, but so did Newton. No doubt Goldacre is pandering to The Guardian’s politically correct readership, but PC science is not science at all. Agin and Goldacre would be the first to support evolution when attacking creationism, but seem unable or unwilling to accept that their own minds have evolved, too. Nor do they offer their own alternative hypotheses (this is generally a good idea when criticizing a hypothesis). Agin and Goldacre are guilty of junk junk science.
What is a PhD?
Thousands of person-years are spent every year writing PhD theses that remain all but unread (what’s worse, the PhD is the thesis, nothing else matters). Very few people (including PhD students themselves) actually read PhD theses. PhDs tend to be both dull and mediocre. The best part of a PhD is often the literature review, whilst (ironically) the least impressive part tends to be the (necessarily contrived) ‘contribution’. Awkwardly shoe-horned into the (strictly required, yet strangely undefined) thesis format leaves little scope for genuinely original research in the average PhD. In practice, the question-and-answer requirement ensures that most PhDs end up being written backwards, with the question tagged on at the end.
Most aspects of a PhD are both historic and embraced the world over; and are therefore outdated, irrelevant and stuck in a global Nash equilibrium. One size fits all. Regardless of faculty, department or subject, the same (undefined) rules apply. It’s a form of reinforcement learning, there is no clear path.
A PhD is supposed to be an ‘apprenticeship’ to research. Yet some departments recommend that two or three quality journal papers are submitted during the course of the thesis. This is inconsistent, and wrong (note that their supervisor’s name is almost always on the paper). Yet, strangely for an apprenticeship, there is no training. The student simply embarks upon the path of least negative feedback and perseveres.
All PhDs are created equal; none are more equal than others. There is little incentive to do a good PhD. Financial implications ensure that departments would rather a weak PhD be submitted within four years than a good PhD submitted a month later.
The academic world requires you to have a PhD, whilst the commercial world want you to. In the latter, marketing is everything and appearance is reality. Recruiters don’t care what a PhD really means because their customers don’t know.
Qualification-wise, the pinnacle of academic achievement is essentially an exercise in fraud. You play the game and you stick to the rules, but you fool yourself.
PhD Students
Speaking from the UK, with the QAA evaluating the quality of teaching and the RAE assessing staff research, the poor PhD students get squeezed between the two.
Within universities, there is a perverse and unique reversal of the usual customer-vendor relationship. Rather than being treated like a client, the PhD student is considered a parasite.
The commercially sponsored student (who often makes up part of a larger project in a large company) is slave labour. They don’t need to think (the thesis will pass, that’s part of the deal), they need to work. Cheaply.
There are normally a couple of official milestones, which forces the student to write up their PhD in a cumulative fashion — this creates an inefficient path to completion and is an extraordinary waste of time.
Supervisors
As the Internet has given us all equal and easy access to the best of the world’s academics, the notion of a supervisor in the traditional role is now irrelevant and all but historic. The official rules, however, remain unchanged, leaving the student in a constant state of uncertainty.
Typically, the fresh-faced student rides into academia on their technique-cart searching for their issue-horse. Supervisors are unable to spot the problem, because most academics are guilty of this sin. Plenty of academics build a successful career in academia with the dogmatic and biased belief that their technique is superior, regardless of the evidence put before them.
The PhD student pays to be discouraged from doing original research (it’s too risky and takes too long), indeed, the PhD student effectively pays (via joint publications) to enhance the career of their supervisor.
Examiners
PhDs smell. They must do, as long as the examiners judge that a thesis smells like a PhD, they pass it. They certainly can’t read them. Why else would we see PhDs that are grounded in irrelevance and/or poor science? The hapless student is never taught why their p-values are misleading and irrelevant. The hapless student likely believes Popper’s view of science is the only one. The hapless student believes (or even ‘proves’) that their algorithm is superior, in the misguided belief that the no free lunch theorems don’t apply to the real world, or to PhD students. Fundamental flaws running through the length of a thesis don’t matter — so long as it smells like a PhD.
Why does no-one ever fail? PhDs pass because the supervisor passes. They never fail because, like lawyers, they take on no risk. If the research is not good enough (or too good), the student will cease to exist before their work has a chance to reach the examiners.
Cash-strapped UK universities are forced to attract more students, whilst political correctness encourages them to strive for equality. The net result is that some universities have introduced ‘soft’ subjects like media studies which attract relatively more women who tend to treat university as a ‘finishing school’ or ‘marriage market’.
There are two sorts of academic in the UK. Those at Oxbridge, and those who wish they were. Unlike the commercial sector, everyone outside (as well as inside) academia knows the score. There are sub-games being played out within the overall game. Some universities select, others recruit. This is why academics have job titles: they fool everyone and they cost nothing. Another sub game is played out in London with Imperial > LSE > UCL > King’s > SOAS > Royal Holloway > others. The US have a different system: $$$ > $$ > $.
Extraordinarily, unlike, say, a personnel department in the commercial world, the Registry within a university (surely the most petty place in the world?) do not appreciate that they exist solely to serve the core business (teaching and research). For example (and speaking from my experience with UCL), submitting a PhD is considered an inconvenience — it means that they have to do something! Despite the cyclical and predictable pattern of an academic year, at certain times of year, one is forced to fill in submission forms literally months in advance. This means that the PhD student is quite literally forced to gamble with their PhD, simply to ensure that The Registry can continue to exist in the only world it knows: linear and inefficient. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, ‘university politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.’
Firstly, make sure that your own house is in order. Purge yourself of all ideologies, purge yourself of all religious thoughts, do not describe yourself as ‘left wing’ or ‘right wing’, but recognise that all significant attacks on science come from the left (and I speak as someone whose aggregate views would be considered centre-left) and take each policy as it comes and use science. Do not use or pander to popular unscientific words like ‘racist’ (race is simply an ingroup marker, and feeling more altruistic towards your own ingroup is natural) or ‘antisemitic’ (Jews are antiantisemitic, by definition). Do not tolerate positive discrimination, egalitarianism or feminist thinking. Understand why socialism is authoritarian and appreciate that socialism was more harmful than Nazi fascism (history is written by the victors). Regardless of your race, recognise that white man has behaved more altruistically than any other sub-species on the planet, to the degree of self-destruction. Do not tolerate a society that is obsessed with victimhood. Do you recognise PC fascist traits in any of your colleagues? Start a ‘fascist watch’ and identify those who are corrupting science, free speech and social justice with their politically correct views.
The academic left’s habit of dressing up politics as science is far more damaging than creationism (which is not taken seriously). The academic left uphold their egalitarian beliefs in the face of all of the real-world evidence. This is sheer blind faith and pious fraud; yet, amusingly, these same people would be the first to sneer at religion. The academic left don’t really believe in evolution at all (let alone understand it), their logic is political: ‘I am of the left, so opposed to anything of the right, religion is synonymous with the right, so I support anything that contradicts creationism, i.e. evolution’. Ideologies are substitutes for religion, they are belief systems based on ideas that are contradicted by history, science and even common sense: Marxism, fascism and socialism were ideologies that failed. Egalitarianism, political correctness and feminism are all ideologies, and are all failing. I would not employ anyone religious, nor an egalitarian for any scientific position, as both positions imply a failure to understand what science and evidence is all about. Such is the absurdity of politically correct Western society, both positions, despite being rational, are almost certainly illegal. Become an academic and witness fascists and cowards contribute to the demise of science and the end of free speech.