Ixtab
10-01-2011, 11:28 PM
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Interview with Richard Lynn
Alex Kurtagic
Professor Emeritus of Psychology Richard Lynn is a key reference in the literature about human biodiversity. Son of a renowned botanicist, Professor Lynn has over the past twenty years become known for his research involving race differences in intelligence, something he has combined with his interest in personality and economic performance. My first encounter with his work was in 2004, via his 2001 book, Eugenics: A Reassessment. I first corresponded with him in the mid 2000s, while in an effort to find out whether there were any plans to re-print the sought-after companion to the abovementioned volume, Dysgenics (a new and updated edition—something I subsequently suggested to him—was published a few months ago). In this extensive interview, we find out more about this independently minded scholar, including his recollections of the Britain of his early years, his early career, and professional development. We also get a few rare insights into his daily life and personality.
You were born in 1930, a citizen of the British Empire. How do you remember the Britain of your childhood and what strikes you the most, on a personal level, when you compare it with the Britain you know today? What are some of the everyday features of life that were taken for granted in the 1930s, but which would seem inconceivable today?
Three things strike me. First, there has been a huge increase in the standard of living. Up to around 1950, telephones, refrigerators, automobiles, and even radios were luxury items that only the fairly rich could afford. Today, all these things, as well as new items like televisions, mobile phones and computers, are possessed by almost everyone.
Second, and also up to around 1950, Britain was a very law abiding country. Crime rates were about 10 per cent of what they are today. Many cars did not have locks because it was taken for granted that no-one would attempt to break into them. An uncle of mine made a living as stamp dealer. He used to send out booklets of stamps each of which was priced to potential purchasers, who would take out those they wanted and send back the booklets together with a cheque for those they had taken. No doubt it will be amazing to the younger generation today that it was possible to run a business in this way.
Third, and again up to around 1950, Britain was an all-white society. I do not remember ever seeing a non-European before this time. This began to change as a result of two developments.
The first was the British Nationality Act of 1948, which conferred citizenship and the right to live in Britain on all members of the Commonwealth and Empire. The Commonwealth comprised Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, while the Empire consisted of the Indian sub-continent, about one third of sub-Saharan Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia, most of the Caribbean islands, and a number of smaller territories. This act meant that huge numbers of non-Europeans—some 800 million—had the right to live and work in Britain. Curiously, the probable consequences of this act were not much debated in the House of Commons. Enoch Powell, at that time a new MP raised the question of whether this was a sensible measure and Clement Atlee, the Labour government’s Prime Minister, assured him that very few British subjects would take advantage of this opportunity. This was, of course, wrong. Only a few weeks after the act was passed into law, the first boat—the Windrush—of West Indians arrived in Britain. It was to be followed by many more.
The second development responsible for the transformation of Britain into a multiracial society was signing up to the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which allowed entry of a large number of asylum seekers. The result of these two developments was that the number of non-Europeans (of all races) living in Britain recorded in the census of 1951 was 138,000. By 1971, that number had increased to 751,000, and in 2001 census it had increased 3,450,000. These non-European immigrants are almost entirely in cities, in a number of which they today comprise approaching half the inhabitants.
Traditionalists have a tendency to romanticise the past, and imagine that the man of yesteryear was incomparably harder, cleverer, more articulate, more self-reliant. Evidence from research goes some way to support the view (e.g., your own book, Dysgenics). Even films like Scott of the Antarctic (1948) show Englishmen in an altogether different class from what we can expect today. But does the romantic view of today’s nostalgics—many of whom were born only a few decades ago—really accord with your own observations from your early years? Were the English really that much hardier? Is the gap between, say, a modern 25 year-old and their counterparts from yesteryear really as noticeable as it is made out to be?
The modern 25 year-olds have a higher IQ but is less honest than their counterparts from yesteryear. Whether they are more or less hardier is difficult to say.
When I was growing up, the year 2000 was far away and seemed incredibly futuristic. How did you imagine the future during your early years? And how did, when it finally arrived, the year 2000 differ from what you had imagined?
I never imagined the changes that have taken place, and nor did many others.
What where the key texts and authors that most impacted you during your early years?
Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius, Cyril Burt and Ray Cattell on the decline of genotypic intelligence arising from dysgenic fertility, and Hans Eysenck’s work on personality.
In the late 1960s the comprehensive schooling system was introduced in Britain. Comprehensive schools do not select for aptitude, which meant pupils of divergent ability are thrown hidgety-pidgety into the nation’s classrooms and changed the atmosphere within. What was the atmosphere like the schools you attended during the 1930s and 1940s? What were their virtues and vices? What do you think has been the effect on the population of comprehensive schools, bearing in mind that by now 90% of Britons have attended them?
I went to the Bristol Grammar School which was and is an elite academic school, so the atmosphere was scholarly. The comprehensive schools differ a great deal according to where they are and the population they serve. In the country, where the people are virtually entirely indigenous and fairly well disciplined, I think the comprehensive schools are fine. In the cities with their multiracial populations they are not so good. There are many comprehensive schools in which few of the students speak English as their first language, or even at all, so this makes teaching difficult. Black children are a particular problem because of the high prevalence of disruptive behaviour, as a result of which they are expelled or suspended at approximately seven times the rate of whites and Asians. There is the same problem in the United States.
Many of the establishment politicians and academics that are inconvenienced by your research today are a direct product of the 1960s. How did you view those involved in the 1960s upheavals and subculture at that time? Were you, as was Kevin MacDonald in his day, able to sample some of those specimens?
I was opposed to the so-called “progressive” movement in education, which included the abolition of the grammar schools and their replacement by comprehensives, and the abolition of streaming and setting by ability, and so on. In 1969 Brian Cox, who was Professor of English at the University of Manchester produced the first of four Black Papers on Education. These were an attack on progressive education, a body of ideas of the 1950s and 1960s that was designed to produce a more equal society. Its policy objectives included the use of discovery methods instead of the rote learning of arithmetic number bonds and tables, the replacement of learning to read by phonetics by the whole word method, the abolition of streaming by ability, the end of examinations, the dismissal of correct spelling as unimportant, and the closing down of the grammar schools and their replacement by comprehensives. It was believed that all these things had hitherto favoured middle class children and were therefore unjust. By the late 1960s many of these progressive objectives had been achieved in numerous schools. Children no longer sat in rows of desks and listened to the teacher. The desks were thrown out and replaced by tables which the children sat around doing their own thing.
Naturally, streaming children by ability, or tracking as it is known in the United States, was disapproved of by the progressive educationists because it identified some children as more able than others. In many schools it was abolished altogether and teachers were assigned the task of teaching children of all abilities in the same class. Many head-teachers recognized that this was pretty well impossible and they devised various ways of tackling the problem.
Later in 1969 Cox and Dyson produced a second Black Paper, for which Sir Cyril Burt, Hans Eysenck, and I contributed articles. I wrote on article on intelligence and I argued that educational attainment is principally determined by intelligence and secondarily by the values acquired from the family, that intelligence is largely determined genetically, and that there are innate social class differences in intelligence that would ensure that children from middle class families would always tend to do better in any system. I argued that the progressive agenda would reduce the educational standards of the most able and cited the much lower standards in American comprehensives compared with the selective European secondary schools as proof of this. I also argued that the grammar schools were a valuable conduit by which able working class children could rise in the social hierarchy. Sir Cyril Burt and Hans Eysenck also contributed articles and made similar points.
In 1970, Cox and Dyson produced a third Black Paper to which I contributed an article on the arguments for and against streaming by ability and setting by aptitude in particular subjects. I reviewed the studies on streaming and concluded streaming raises educational standards for all children. The fourth and last Black Paper appeared in 1977. I contributed an article on the merits and demerits of competition. It is one of the articles of faith of progressives that competition is undesirable and should be discouraged. I argued to the contrary that competition is natural, is a motivator for achievement for children, and introduces them to the idea that effort is required for success and that success is rewarding.
Looking back on these disputes of the 1960s and 1970s, I think all the points I made in my contributions were valid. We lost the battle to save the grammar schools, nearly all of which were closed down during the 1970s by Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams and replaced by comprehensives. But this has not achieved the social equality sought by progressives. Most middle class parents have reacted by moving to affluent catchment areas where the comprehensives have reasonably high standards, or by sending their children to private independent schools. The effect of this has been to divide society more rigidly along class lines than it was previously. We won the battle on progressive play and discovery methods and on tracking and streaming, and by the early twenty-first century virtually all comprehensives had adopted tracking and streaming or setting by aptitude for maths, science, and foreign languages. By the twenty-first century it has become universally agreed among experts that intelligence is largely genetically determined and this has become widely accepted among the informed public.
http://www.wermodandwermod.com/newsitems/Richard%20Lynn%20-%20with%20wife%20(medium).jpghttp://www.wermodandwermod.com/newsitems/Richard%20Lynn%20-%20with%20J%20Philippe%20Rushton%20(medium).jpg
Interview with Richard Lynn
Alex Kurtagic
Professor Emeritus of Psychology Richard Lynn is a key reference in the literature about human biodiversity. Son of a renowned botanicist, Professor Lynn has over the past twenty years become known for his research involving race differences in intelligence, something he has combined with his interest in personality and economic performance. My first encounter with his work was in 2004, via his 2001 book, Eugenics: A Reassessment. I first corresponded with him in the mid 2000s, while in an effort to find out whether there were any plans to re-print the sought-after companion to the abovementioned volume, Dysgenics (a new and updated edition—something I subsequently suggested to him—was published a few months ago). In this extensive interview, we find out more about this independently minded scholar, including his recollections of the Britain of his early years, his early career, and professional development. We also get a few rare insights into his daily life and personality.
You were born in 1930, a citizen of the British Empire. How do you remember the Britain of your childhood and what strikes you the most, on a personal level, when you compare it with the Britain you know today? What are some of the everyday features of life that were taken for granted in the 1930s, but which would seem inconceivable today?
Three things strike me. First, there has been a huge increase in the standard of living. Up to around 1950, telephones, refrigerators, automobiles, and even radios were luxury items that only the fairly rich could afford. Today, all these things, as well as new items like televisions, mobile phones and computers, are possessed by almost everyone.
Second, and also up to around 1950, Britain was a very law abiding country. Crime rates were about 10 per cent of what they are today. Many cars did not have locks because it was taken for granted that no-one would attempt to break into them. An uncle of mine made a living as stamp dealer. He used to send out booklets of stamps each of which was priced to potential purchasers, who would take out those they wanted and send back the booklets together with a cheque for those they had taken. No doubt it will be amazing to the younger generation today that it was possible to run a business in this way.
Third, and again up to around 1950, Britain was an all-white society. I do not remember ever seeing a non-European before this time. This began to change as a result of two developments.
The first was the British Nationality Act of 1948, which conferred citizenship and the right to live in Britain on all members of the Commonwealth and Empire. The Commonwealth comprised Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, while the Empire consisted of the Indian sub-continent, about one third of sub-Saharan Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia, most of the Caribbean islands, and a number of smaller territories. This act meant that huge numbers of non-Europeans—some 800 million—had the right to live and work in Britain. Curiously, the probable consequences of this act were not much debated in the House of Commons. Enoch Powell, at that time a new MP raised the question of whether this was a sensible measure and Clement Atlee, the Labour government’s Prime Minister, assured him that very few British subjects would take advantage of this opportunity. This was, of course, wrong. Only a few weeks after the act was passed into law, the first boat—the Windrush—of West Indians arrived in Britain. It was to be followed by many more.
The second development responsible for the transformation of Britain into a multiracial society was signing up to the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which allowed entry of a large number of asylum seekers. The result of these two developments was that the number of non-Europeans (of all races) living in Britain recorded in the census of 1951 was 138,000. By 1971, that number had increased to 751,000, and in 2001 census it had increased 3,450,000. These non-European immigrants are almost entirely in cities, in a number of which they today comprise approaching half the inhabitants.
Traditionalists have a tendency to romanticise the past, and imagine that the man of yesteryear was incomparably harder, cleverer, more articulate, more self-reliant. Evidence from research goes some way to support the view (e.g., your own book, Dysgenics). Even films like Scott of the Antarctic (1948) show Englishmen in an altogether different class from what we can expect today. But does the romantic view of today’s nostalgics—many of whom were born only a few decades ago—really accord with your own observations from your early years? Were the English really that much hardier? Is the gap between, say, a modern 25 year-old and their counterparts from yesteryear really as noticeable as it is made out to be?
The modern 25 year-olds have a higher IQ but is less honest than their counterparts from yesteryear. Whether they are more or less hardier is difficult to say.
When I was growing up, the year 2000 was far away and seemed incredibly futuristic. How did you imagine the future during your early years? And how did, when it finally arrived, the year 2000 differ from what you had imagined?
I never imagined the changes that have taken place, and nor did many others.
What where the key texts and authors that most impacted you during your early years?
Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius, Cyril Burt and Ray Cattell on the decline of genotypic intelligence arising from dysgenic fertility, and Hans Eysenck’s work on personality.
In the late 1960s the comprehensive schooling system was introduced in Britain. Comprehensive schools do not select for aptitude, which meant pupils of divergent ability are thrown hidgety-pidgety into the nation’s classrooms and changed the atmosphere within. What was the atmosphere like the schools you attended during the 1930s and 1940s? What were their virtues and vices? What do you think has been the effect on the population of comprehensive schools, bearing in mind that by now 90% of Britons have attended them?
I went to the Bristol Grammar School which was and is an elite academic school, so the atmosphere was scholarly. The comprehensive schools differ a great deal according to where they are and the population they serve. In the country, where the people are virtually entirely indigenous and fairly well disciplined, I think the comprehensive schools are fine. In the cities with their multiracial populations they are not so good. There are many comprehensive schools in which few of the students speak English as their first language, or even at all, so this makes teaching difficult. Black children are a particular problem because of the high prevalence of disruptive behaviour, as a result of which they are expelled or suspended at approximately seven times the rate of whites and Asians. There is the same problem in the United States.
Many of the establishment politicians and academics that are inconvenienced by your research today are a direct product of the 1960s. How did you view those involved in the 1960s upheavals and subculture at that time? Were you, as was Kevin MacDonald in his day, able to sample some of those specimens?
I was opposed to the so-called “progressive” movement in education, which included the abolition of the grammar schools and their replacement by comprehensives, and the abolition of streaming and setting by ability, and so on. In 1969 Brian Cox, who was Professor of English at the University of Manchester produced the first of four Black Papers on Education. These were an attack on progressive education, a body of ideas of the 1950s and 1960s that was designed to produce a more equal society. Its policy objectives included the use of discovery methods instead of the rote learning of arithmetic number bonds and tables, the replacement of learning to read by phonetics by the whole word method, the abolition of streaming by ability, the end of examinations, the dismissal of correct spelling as unimportant, and the closing down of the grammar schools and their replacement by comprehensives. It was believed that all these things had hitherto favoured middle class children and were therefore unjust. By the late 1960s many of these progressive objectives had been achieved in numerous schools. Children no longer sat in rows of desks and listened to the teacher. The desks were thrown out and replaced by tables which the children sat around doing their own thing.
Naturally, streaming children by ability, or tracking as it is known in the United States, was disapproved of by the progressive educationists because it identified some children as more able than others. In many schools it was abolished altogether and teachers were assigned the task of teaching children of all abilities in the same class. Many head-teachers recognized that this was pretty well impossible and they devised various ways of tackling the problem.
Later in 1969 Cox and Dyson produced a second Black Paper, for which Sir Cyril Burt, Hans Eysenck, and I contributed articles. I wrote on article on intelligence and I argued that educational attainment is principally determined by intelligence and secondarily by the values acquired from the family, that intelligence is largely determined genetically, and that there are innate social class differences in intelligence that would ensure that children from middle class families would always tend to do better in any system. I argued that the progressive agenda would reduce the educational standards of the most able and cited the much lower standards in American comprehensives compared with the selective European secondary schools as proof of this. I also argued that the grammar schools were a valuable conduit by which able working class children could rise in the social hierarchy. Sir Cyril Burt and Hans Eysenck also contributed articles and made similar points.
In 1970, Cox and Dyson produced a third Black Paper to which I contributed an article on the arguments for and against streaming by ability and setting by aptitude in particular subjects. I reviewed the studies on streaming and concluded streaming raises educational standards for all children. The fourth and last Black Paper appeared in 1977. I contributed an article on the merits and demerits of competition. It is one of the articles of faith of progressives that competition is undesirable and should be discouraged. I argued to the contrary that competition is natural, is a motivator for achievement for children, and introduces them to the idea that effort is required for success and that success is rewarding.
Looking back on these disputes of the 1960s and 1970s, I think all the points I made in my contributions were valid. We lost the battle to save the grammar schools, nearly all of which were closed down during the 1970s by Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams and replaced by comprehensives. But this has not achieved the social equality sought by progressives. Most middle class parents have reacted by moving to affluent catchment areas where the comprehensives have reasonably high standards, or by sending their children to private independent schools. The effect of this has been to divide society more rigidly along class lines than it was previously. We won the battle on progressive play and discovery methods and on tracking and streaming, and by the early twenty-first century virtually all comprehensives had adopted tracking and streaming or setting by aptitude for maths, science, and foreign languages. By the twenty-first century it has become universally agreed among experts that intelligence is largely genetically determined and this has become widely accepted among the informed public.