This is a book that pulls no punches. It argues that both intelligence and conscientiousness are heritable traits (as shown by twin- and adoption-studies); and that people who are low in these traits have, over roughly the past century, had the most siblings and the most children of their own. Thus Richard Lynn maintains that 'the eugenicists were right' -- pace many modern experts in genetics whom Lynn chastises for falling by the wayside. Further, Lynn condemns the Roman Catholic Church for backing monogamy and priestly celibacy; and for opposing abortion and the more effective types of contraception. The book closes with Lynn promising a companion volume in which the modern policy implications of dysgenic trends will be considered.
What is impressive in all this is the sheer quantity of modern evidence that is available to illustrate the author's empirical claims. Time and again, Lynn is able to report highly significant dysgenic correlations of around -.20 between the traits that concern him and indices of achieved fertility. The evidence is principally from the West; but, by using educational and socio-economic data in relation to fertility, the same underlying trends can arguably be detected in other countries too. (The exception is in Black Africa, where contraception is so little used that typical upper-class families have around the same six children as do those of agricultural workers). Despite the total lack of interest of today's criminologists in genetic factors and fertility, Lynn finds evidence suggesting that "the fertility [of British] criminals is 77 percent higher than that of the British population as a whole." Thus Lynn can even begin to address the West's problem of ceaselessly rising criminality.
In recent years, liberal-left, 'anti-elitist' and 'anti-racist' students at today's universities have made sensible and open discussion of heredity and its policy implications difficult and even dangerous. This is why, in my own book, The g Factor (1996, Wiley DePublisher), I avoided dysgenics -- and indeed any unequivocal eugenic conclusions -- and concentrated merely on educational recommendations that would, if accepted, have begun to move Western thinking towards a sensible recognition of the need to cultivate valuable human qualities. Will Richard Lynn be able to turn the egalitarian tide by a head-on approach?
From 1960, the standard objection to dysgenic ideas was that previous surveys (finding dysgenic trends) had ignored those people in modern populations who remain unmarried and childless -- not uncommonly because of low mental ability, psychosis or a criminal record. Such people are necessarily ignored in the easiest and most common type of social survey that studies schoolchildren and asks them for their parents' occupations and the number of children in the family. The errors of such neglect were pointed out in the influential reports by Higgins et al. (1962) and Bajema (1968). However, these authors' own studies themselves involved small and unrepresentative samples that positively over-represented individuals having IQ <70. Such people may indeed in the past have had few children (not least because of locked single-sex wards in mental subnormality hospitals) but they are only 2.5% of the population and their own procreative restraint -- if it still continues -- will be easily overshadowed by the state-assisted fertility of the 13.5% of people who fall between IQ 70 and IQ 85. In fact, both in Britain and the USA, much larger and more representative modern studies find that people of above average IQ have fewer children than people of below-average IQ (Kiernan & Diamond, 1982 [following up 13,687 British infants born in 1946]; Van Court & Bean, 1985 [studying around 12,000 US adults, born 1890-1964]).
So do any problems remain for Lynn's thesis? A few deserve consideration, as follows.
(a) In Kiernan & Diamond's study, participants were only 35 years old. Such participants' families would not always have been completed -- especially perhaps in the case of women with careers (who would arguably have been relatively bright). Moreover, Van Court & Bean's study found lower negative correlations between vocabulary and fertility in older cohorts (whose families would certainly have been complete, at least for females). Plainly, in this key matter, further research is definitely necessary.
(b) It would be much more satisfactory for a book on dysgenic trends to be able to report falling levels of intelligence. Instead, Lynn has to explain away the 'massive world-wide IQ rise' that was noticed in the 1980s by himself and the New Zealand political scientist, James Flynn. Surprisingly, Lynn's view is that intelligence levels have indeed improved -- probably because of better nutrition. Unfortunately, Flynn himself does not think real intelligence has increased -- only that a few 'problem solving skills' have improved. Worse, Lynn thinks there has actually been genetic deterioration; so he needs to say that the Flynn effect is even bigger and even more real than ever Flynn himself has claimed. This strains credibility, especially since, despite assiduous researches, no-one yet knows of any dietary manipulation at all that will definitely raise intelligence in growing children. It would probably be easier for Lynn to take the way out of his dilemma that I offer in The g Factor. This is to say -- not unlike Flynn -- that IQ tests are open to 'strategies' and often favour the 'quick guesser' over the testee who works slowly and aims for greater accuracy. Arguably, post-1945 'liberalism' in schools steadily produced less fear of punishment for incorrect answers and has thus boosted IQ scores artificially. To think modern children more 'test-sophisticated' than those of former generations was the standard explanation once the secular IQ rise was first observed in 1942 (by L. Wheeler) and confirmed in 1948 (by R. D. Tuddenham), in 1965 (by N. Bayley), in 1967 by H. D. Ro'sler, and in 1972 (by L. K. Koppen-Thulesius & H. Teichman). It is not really clear why Lynn wants to abandon it.
(c) Lynn's thesis of falling conscientiousness is not assisted by his invoking tobacco use as an index of lack of conscientiousness. Smoking, after all, has been in steady decline among Western adults for the past two decades.
(d) It is a pity that Lynn does not spend more time cajoling the reader who rejects the whole topic of dysgenics outright for fear that public discussion of it will only to lead to unacceptable (state-) eugenic policies. In fact, it is not difficult to provide such reassurance. All that is required is just one single scheme that would probably have eugenic effects while not involving an unprecedented or unacceptable breach of civil liberties. Such a scheme does indeed present itself. Currently, it is clear that all major political parties in all Western countries are proceeding to make their citizens take more personal responsibility for their own futures -- notably for health and nursing care in old age, and for the higher-educational costs of their children. Plainly, most people will look to insurance to pay such costs; and the operation of motor vehicle insurance schemes over the years suggests that such provision can be made entirely adequately and uncontroversially -- even insuring people against the costs of accidents in which they themselves have been negligent or worse. Given such precedents, it would surely make sense to charge parents the full costs of such operations of the criminal justice system as their own children may be deemed to require. To levy such charges would be reasonable so long as parents were given ample opportunity to prepare -- whether by procreative restraint or by taking out suitable advance insurance. Here is the answer to the person who refuses to contemplate state eugenics. Advance delinquency insurance (ADI) can be justified positively, just like other obligatory insurance; it infringes civil liberty no more than happens already in other areas where citizens are obliged to pay their way; and yet it would look likely to have the additional effects that the eugenicist desires -- especially because, just as different drivers are charged different premiums, the ADI premiums would presumably be higher for some potential parents than for others. Of course, the eugenic schemes that Richard Lynn promises to discuss in a further volume may be superior to ADI in strictly eugenic terms. Yet if Lynn's eventual proposals are to be widely read and discussed, my guess is that they will need to include some options, like the above, that pose no significant threat to liberty. It is a pity that no such sweetener is offered in Dysgenics itself -- especially as the book's publication in Britain has coincided with the rise to power of a 'New Labour' party whose backroom boys expressly champion genuine personal insurance as a way of solving the problems of the welfare state that proved to be beyond Mrs Thatcher.
Richard Lynn has performed a valuable service in bringing together
the evidence about present dysgenic trends and presenting it to
effect and with his usual clarity. There is plainly reason to
believe that the West has brought natural selection for intelligence
and conscientiousness to a halt, and that we have for some time
been breeding in irresponsible ways for which our grandchildren
may curse us as they struggle to cope with the phenomenon of unemployability
for people of around IQ 90 in advanced, information-based societies.
It is to be hoped that psychologists will read Dysgenics
with open minds and ask the American Psychological Association,
the British Psychological Society, the Galton Institute and similar
bodies in continental Europe to ensure that the requisite new
research in this field is undertaken with despatch.
Chris Brand
Department of Psychology
University of Edinburgh
1997
{For more on freedom, responsibility,
voluntary eugenics and the g factor, go to http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/
and
http://www.crispian.demon.co.uk.
Re eugenics, see especially: Personality, Biology and
Society, Section 20.}
References
BAJEMA, C. J. (1968). 'Relation of fertility to occupational status, IQ, educational attainment and size of family of origin: a follow-up study of the male Kalamazoo public school population. Eugenics Quarterly 15, 198-203.
BRAND, C. R. (1996). The g Factor. Chichester : Wiley.
HIGGINS, J. V., REED, E. W. & REED, S. G. (1962). 'Intelligence and family size: a paradox resolved. Eugenics Quarterly 9, 84-90.
KIERNAN, K. E. & DIAMOND, I. (1982). 'Family of origin and educational influences on age at first birth: the experiences of a British cohort. London : Centre for Population Studies, Research Paper No. 81.
VAN COURT, Marianne & BEAN, F. D. (1985). 'Intelligence and
fertility in the United States: 1912-1982. Intelligence 9,
23-32.
{HOLLYWOOD FOR EVERYONE! For
a proposal of self-chosen marital contracts that would at once
be liberating and have eugenic effects, see 'Get Real About Race!'
in the hip hop magazine, downlow -- published
on the Internet at <http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html>.
The idea that there need be no contradiction between
is also pursued in Chapters 3 and 4
of Chris Brand's book The g Factor -- withdrawn by Wiley
DePublisher for political incorrectness but available via
Inter-Library Loan.}