The most obvious impression a fair-minded observer derives from a sustained exposure to the work of the late Arthur R. Jensen (1923-2012), professor of psychology at Berkeley, is that Dr. Jensen was a man of the highest distinction, not just scientifically, but also morally.
Not surprisingly, this often drove the less, shall we say, morally distinguished into paroxysms of rage. From the Daily Mail:
IS THIS MAN TRULY THE WORLD'S MOST LOATHSOME SCIENTIST?
Daily Mail (London)
September 17, 1999 | Copyright
Byline: MARY RIDDELL
TODAY, American eugenics professor Arthur Jensen addresses a gathering of academics in London. The Daily Mail does not agree with his views on intelligence indeed, we profoundly disagree with them. However, we feel that open debate is the best way of establishing the truth and that our readers are quite capable of drawing their own conclusions.
FOR three decades, Professor Arthur Jensen has lived in the shadow of death and violence.
It is difficult, however, to feel sorrow for him. In Australia, he was extricated from a baying mob by 100 police officers.
In Germany, warnings were issued that if he were allowed to lecture he might not leave the stage alive.
On his own university campus, at Berkeley, California, he was, at the height of his vilification, protected against those who threatened to kill him by armed bodyguards.
His car tyres were slashed and his door was sprayed with swastikas by his own students, who gathered in the corridor to hiss as he walked by.
This week, to little fanfare, the world's most demonised scientist arrived in London, where he once learned his theories and where he will deliver the keynote address today at a conference devoted to eugenics, or the enhancement of the human race.
To his supporters, Jensen - an Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology possesses one of the finest scientific minds of our time, worthy of a Nobel Prize.
To his countless opponents, of whom President Bill Clinton is one, he is a dabbler in the unthinkable.
Sadly, the world will never be treated to a Jensen - Clinton debate ...
I didn't know that Bill Clinton ever publicly said a word about Jensen, although I do recall Clinton denouncing The Bell Curve and then admitting he had not read it. I'd like to hear what Clinton said, but Googling 'Bill Clinton Arthur Jensen' brings this blog-post up as my first result.
ReplyDeleteB.B.
So was it really a eugenics conference?
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing is that the piece opens with the Daily Mail stating "we feel that open debate is the best way of establishing the truth and that our readers are quite capable of drawing their own conclusions."
ReplyDeleteBy 2006 Mary Riddell had moved from the DM to the Observer. In discussing the case of Frank Ellis at Leeds University, she makes clear that open debate is not a good thing after all:
"This bigot has no place in the lecture...
Freedom of speech should be cherished and defended, but there is no excuse for tolerating racial lies masquerading as academic truths...
As inspiration, he cites Arthur Jensen, former emeritus professor at Berkeley. I have met Jensen, a eugenicist who, building on the legacy of Francis Galton and Hans Eysenck, argues that a 15 per cent IQ gap between black and white people is genetically ordained. His theories, demolished by mainstream peers, such as Stephen Jay Gould, are hateful. But even Jensen, the scientific racist, has a dispassion lacking in his disciple's echo."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/mar/12/highereducation.uk
The Daily Mail is a rare bird: A newspaper that seems to have improved over the last 15 years (albeit slightly).
ReplyDeleteGilbert P.
The Daily Mail stands high in the Yellow Journalism Department.
ReplyDeleteIn a not totally unrelated note, will you review the Bragging Gap?
Although Bill Clinton may not be a fan of Jensen's work, I know of one former American president who is, or at least was. A little known fact that seems to have gone down the memory hole is that in 1969 while George Bush Sr was serving in Congress as the head of the Republican Task Force on Earth Resources and Population, he invited William Shockley and Arthur Jensen to testify on dysgenic fertility patterns. This seems to have gone largely unmentioned except for in a few conspiracy oriented books. One wonders if Bush Sr's views have changed since he has refashioned himself as a global humanitarian with Bill Clinton at his side.
ReplyDeleteB.B.
Of course, Gould was recently exposed as an ideologue and fraud.
ReplyDeleteAnon.
@ anon,
ReplyDeleteIn the Miele book Jensen reveals that he corresponded with Daniel Patrick Moynihan who had also got into trouble for political incorrectness. Apparently Richard Nixon also followed Jensen's work with interest.
Is it worse to believe in eugenics or to practice dysgenics?
ReplyDeleteOver the short term, the latter will win you more than a few popularity contests. But in the long term, sigh.
"American eugenics professor"
ReplyDeleteIs that a bit of fun on behalf of the writer or was this a common description of scientists in Jensen's field in the early 90's?
Whoa, would I have loved a Jensen-Clinton "debate."
ReplyDeleteAs a Brit I'd like to apologise to everyone for the existence of the loathsome Mary Riddell.
ReplyDeleteLate 90's I mean
ReplyDeleteIs it worse to believe in eugenics or to practice dysgenics?
ReplyDeleteAh but thats the thing, to these people eugenics is a crazed belief, its not real, dysgenics likewise is not real.
Everyone is the same, all outcomes are possible - unless evil, interfering whitey has intervened to degrade someone's life chances of course.
@ vandelay,
ReplyDeleteNo, it's just a despicable example of poisoning the well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
Ah but thats the thing, to these people eugenics is a crazed belief, its not real, dysgenics likewise is not real.
ReplyDeleteWell, to the true believer types eugenics is "pseudoscience," yes. But I just can't bring myself to believe that deniers at the highest levels, who are absorbed in the academic literature, actually think this way. As I see it they're leftwing moral crusaders -- more plainly, liars. In their minds, I sometimes suppose, they are the thin line standing between freedom for all peoples and the appointment of Hitler to the chancellery. What else could explain the incredible hysteria that they respond to straightforward race-talk with?
A minimalist definition of a "eugenicist" could be someone who believes that all this Jensen stuff matters, and that it's going to keep on mattering whether anyone cares to discuss it or not, so best to discuss it, because that way it might be mitigated. Following from this, a "dysgenicist" would be someone who insists that no good whatsoever can come from discussing it, that any attempt at all to mitigate it would have such a devastatingly demoralizing effect on those deemed -- and potentially eventually publicly acknowledged as -- "inferior" that no possible future benefit from eugenics could possibly hope to compensate for it; it'd be pure misery for all concerned, in this view.
Since to fail to practice eugenics is, given the modern welfare state, to practice dysgenics, the question has to be asked: is the greater folly Jensen's, for taking the positions he did, or the does the greater folly redound to the armies of bureaucrats, journalists, academics and activists who rose up to denounce him?
A Clinton-Jensen debate wouldn't be as interesting as you think. Clinton doesn't actually know anything about the subject. He would however play to the cheap seats, quite probably successfully. The two of them would be talking about completely different subjects. Afterwards the usual idiots in the media (ie all of them) would shout that he was the victor.
ReplyDeleteOn this subject the media really isn't interested in the truth. They're trying to actively not think about the truth.
Had I read this article as a young person I would have been more likely to attend a Jensen lecture as otherwise. Not because I had realistic beliefs about HBD at that age, I didn't. But, because I was very attuned to the use of hyperbole in reporting (especially when the hyperbole was unaccompanied by fact) and I would have inferred, correctly, that the author was seeking to hide something (Jensen's work). Such ham handed treatments were a challenge to seek something out. Today's Lefties are cleverer, they simply ignore the offending academic.
ReplyDeleteit's logical that the daily mail would detest eugenics because the practice of it on society at large would ultimately eliminate its reader base.
ReplyDeleteAs an exceptionally bright and focused teenager, Jensen at about age 15 or so, wrote an account of Ghandi's life and thought and drew from it principles of conduct he felt were Ghandian and that he dedicated himself to follow. If
ReplyDeletehe has given permission for this
manuscript to become accessible in due course at this point, it would be of central significance to understanding his refusal to be cowed or compromised.
"eugenics" in the form of selective breeding of farm animals
ReplyDeletebecame widespread (as means evolved of enclosing "commons" ) in
the 18th century and beyond. It
was not "pseudoscience" that within two centuries produced dramatric increases in the amount and quality of milk, etc. It is a dramatic story but it has a way of not being set forth starkly in print, in video.. Shhhhhh.
"eugenics" in the form of selective breeding of farm animals
ReplyDeletebecame widespread
For sheep that would be ewegenics.
*Laughs at own joke*
Mary Riddell is the token leftie in right wing newspapers. They hire her because she's so thick.
ReplyDelete