A review of the book "Eugenics: A Reassessment by Richard Lynn, released 2002.

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A review of the book "Eugenics: A Reassessment by Richard Lynn, released 2002

Eugenics: A Reassessment by Richard Lynn, 2001. Published by Praeger Press as part of the "Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence" series edited by Seymour W. Itzkoff.

This book is a remarkable achievement because it brings back eugenics at a time when it has already arrived; but no one is admitting to its triumphant return. Richard Lynn has finally announced its arrival and has produced a remarkable work that is complete, a pleasure to read, and leaves no doubt that we are entering a new era: humans are about to go through the most rapid genetic transformation imaginable, and the outcome of this apocalypse cannot even be imagined. Is this just hype like the Y2K scare? Hardly: it is real and it is here to stay and Lynn's book shows just how profound it will be. New human species will be born, and a racial/species war will precede the ultimate victory for those who have the ego-strength to see what is coming.

The Left, led by Marxists like Montagu, Boaz, Gould, Lewontin, Rose, Kamin et al., captured the reins of ideological propaganda and convinced the West that "race" did not exist and that eugenics was pseudoscience. They managed to do this through sheer force of character and the willing passiveness of the public to believe what they were told. Repetition and deception along with moral duplicity allowed these intellectual terrorists to neuter Western society into believing in an egalitarian and false human nature. We are just now freeing ourselves from those shackles that were placed upon us to keep us from challenging the very concept of racial differences and group evolutionary strategies.

The book covers eugenics from top to bottom so I will discuss just some of the most interesting or informative aspects of the book. First, Lynn finally puts to rest the notion that equates Nazism with eugenics and eugenics with the Holocaust. Many scholars have corrected this misinformation, and Lynn summarizes it elegantly. In short, Nazi Germany did not have a sterilization program for the mentally retarded or insane that was any broader in scope than other countries at the time. Per capita, Sweden had sterilized far more people, as did many other Western countries. When it came to euthanasia, there was basically one purpose when beginning in 1939 they needed to free up resources and make room in the hospitals for the war effort. Euthanasia had nothing to do with eugenics. And with regards to the Holocaust, the Jews were killed because they were seen to be behind the spreading of communism and they were viewed as a highly intelligent and capable race of people who would compete with Germany's goal of world domination. So as it turns out, Germany's eugenics' program was never very developed or aggressive: they had war on their minds. Other countries were much more assertive as eugenics was supported by socialists as well as the general public. But to make a case for Marxism in the last few decades, it was very beneficial to link the defeated and hated Nazis with eugenics and racism. When this stuck in the public's mind, radical environmentalism was on its way to being largely unchallenged.

Today, this mindset is still in place. In numerous articles and surveys, different racial groups are compared and typically the status of Blacks is compared to that of Whites, and the disparity is blamed always on racism or the government's failure to act strongly enough to make everyone equal. Never is the point made that different racial groups have incomes equivalent to their average IQs, with Blacks on the bottom and Jews and East Asians at the top. It is always taken for granted that different racial groups are on average equally intelligent, and yet only sociologists and cultural anthropologists still embrace this myth and perpetuate it through the media by routinely issuing new studies and surveys that ignore genetic differences. Lynn shatters the racial equality myth summarizing succinctly what is known today. He even includes a formula for estimating the expected intelligence of your children based on the parents IQ and the average IQ of the general population that the parents belong to.

He also tackles the "if everyone is intelligent, who will mow my lawn?" argument. With numerous examples, explanations, and hypotheses about a future world of geniuses, he puts this conundrum to rest. In short, even geniuses are capable of doing the dishes and mowing the lawn. If highly intelligent Jews can share the manual workload on an Israeli Kibbutzim, then a eugenic state of geniuses can also. I would also venture a guess from the evidence that the only intelligent people who would resist doing their share of the more tedious tasks would be those with the behavioral trait of low conscientiousness. And as I will discuss later, this is the only behavioral trait that probably has no benefit to society and should be bred out of the general population anyway.

Which brings us to psychopathy, conscientiousness and agreeableness. Once we all agree that a eugenics' program should reduce genetic disease and raise general intelligence, the only question left is should we tamper with human behavioral traits? Psychometricians, astonishingly, have settled on the use of the Big Five behavioral factors: conscientiousness, agreeableness, introversion-extroversion, open-mindedness, and neuroticism. Lynn puts to rest, as do many other psychometricians, any notion that the last three have any consequences in the workplace in general. That is, many different combinations of these three factors can be of benefit or a hindrance depending on the task. So Lynn concentrates on the first two that in combination results in a psychopathic personality.

He demonstrates convincingly that from all the available research, psychopaths along with low intelligence are responsible for society's problems with crime, drug addiction, unwed mothers, drug abuse, rape, child abuse, unemployment, etc. These people are the underclass. And they result from the combination of two behavioral traits. They almost universally have low conscientiousness and agreeableness or altruism. (Lynn explains that altruism would be a better term than agreeableness but that term has now "stuck" as the common descriptor for this behavioral trait). That is, people who are both highly unconscientious and disagreeable are pathological, and both of these traits are highly heritable.

From this observation, Lynn softly recommends that a eugenics' program should include a reduction of both unconscientiousness and disagreeableness. But I have to take issue with this recommendation. My interpretation is that only unconscientiousness has no value in modern society, and that its elimination will eliminate the psychopaths, especially in a nation state with an extremely high average intelligence. Such a society should be able to deal with the occasionally exceptionally disagreeable person. There is no need to get rid of disagreeableness because a highly altruistic state may be extremely vulnerable to indoctrination and subjugation. This seems to be why the West is now in a dysgenic spiral downward, the more Scandinavian races have a maladaptive level of altruism that allows others to become parasitical towards them. This is a dangerous combination and though the society may benefit internally from altruism it can also be overtaken by other racial groups who are far less altruistic and benevolent.

Lynn then deals with the mechanisms for reducing genetic disease and increasing intelligence. First, he points out that detractors of eugenics are correct in their pessimism of completely eliminating recessive genetic diseases because as they are reduced they become ever more difficult to select against. But he notes that in ten generations, half of all recessive genetic disease alleles could be eliminated. This in combination with genetic testing of the fetus could make the complete elimination of the alleles unnecessary. The genetic disease itself would seldom be expressed in a child.

With regards to increasing intelligence, he makes a good case for how relatively easy it is. Since the heritability of intelligence is so high at around 80% compared to say behavioral factors around 50% or a little less, intelligence is a no-brainer for eugenics. And with new technologies, remarkable jumps can be made in just one generation. He shows how if a normal couple would just genetically select the potentially most intelligent embryos for implantation, the intelligence of the children selected would increase by 15 IQ points. Yes, 15 IQ points in every generation up to the theoretical maximum of about 200 without any new mutations. All we need to do is identify the intelligence genes, and this should be possible in just a few shorts years (Plomin's prediction -- not Lynn's). Eugenic selection for intelligence via genetic testing of embryos followed by IVF is just a few years away. And even if it would cost a couple say $100,000 per child, it would be a bargain in terms of savings in education and increased earnings potential. And the advantages would be passed on to every generation that follows! Now that is one hell of a rate of return on your money. Spend it up front before the child is even born, and the returns are forever.

Up until the last two chapters of the book, Lynn just provides us with what eugenics can do, the mechanics, and ethical foundations for its use. In these final chapters however he states what I also think is the obvious but he is much more sanguine about the outcome. Let me try to summarize his perspective and then I will embellish it. Basically the West is too weak morally (I can't think of any better term) to institute an effective eugenics' program. But the East is capable of making these tough-minded decisions, and especially China. They have already fully embraced a eugenics' policy and as the ruling totalitarian oligarchs shift from communism to nationalism, this lone nation with over a billion people will arise as the world power. They will use a combination of eugenics with a population that is already second to none in intelligence (aside from the Jews) and along with their size will grow in power and technology. But here is where Lynn and I differ. He thinks that once China has dominated the world, we will enter a period of peace even if it is without democracy.

I see a different outcome, based on human nature. There is no point having power unless one can use it to dominate others. As the Chinese eugenic nation state expands, they will not make peace with other races but they will instead subjugate others for financial gain. In addition, they will use the females of other subjugated races to raise their children. That is, human slaves will be used as surrogate mothers. This new elite race of East Asians will not tolerate their own women having to suffer the pains of bearing children when there is a plentiful supply of breeders available. These slave breeders will be kept in perfectly controlled environments for this breeding purpose, to assure that the elite women do not have to suffer any inconveniences. And after birth, East Asian professional caretakers will raise the children so that again, the elite will not have to be bothered by the inconvenience of annoying children. Sound impossible? Read Lynn's book and see which scenario seems more plausible.

But of course, the above plausibility is not really even relevant. What is important is that once eugenics becomes commonplace, and it is recognized that the most intelligent races will dominate the world, then the arms race in eugenics will commence. It may happen within one nation state, it may happen by way of secret cults, it may happen by the wealthiest only using the technology. But it will happen and it will not happen equally to all races or peoples. And this is what an evolutionary arms race is all about. The next 100 years will see a new human species arise --- or the destruction of all humans. But one thing is sure; it will not be peaceably negotiated away. Eugenics is happening now! And it will be accelerating at an exponential rate over the next few decades.

Matt Nuenke, July 2001

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Richard Lynn along with Tatu Vanhanen have a new book coming out in 2002 entitled IQ and the wealth of Nations. In the Summer 2001 issue of Mankind Quarterly they have published some of the findings that will be presented in that book.

Following I have provided the 81 nations where he has looked at the average IQ and the Gross Domestic Product, and it is clear that just like an individual's intelligence has an impact on how successful a person will become, nations also die or succeed depending on their average intelligence. But first a few notes of interest on the numbers.

The "fitted GDP" is a perfect correlation with the average IQ. That is, compare the "fitted GDP" to the actual "GDP" and there will be some anomalies. For example, Qatar has a low average IQ but a high GDP---they are a small oil rich nation with foreigners extracting and exporting the oil for them. Another of course is the once Communist and still Communist countries. They were destroyed economically by an environmental determinist ideology. And it shows in the numbers. Then there is the low intelligence of Ireland and Israel that seems like a mistake. In the case of Ireland, selective migration has caused the more intelligent Irish to emigrate, leaving the poor and less intelligent farmers behind. In the case of Israel, the authors explain, that Jews from many areas are of low intelligence along with Palestinians. However, the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe who dominate the politics of Israel and are the dominant Jews in the United States have an average IQ of about 115.

And one other observation with regards to the average intelligence of a nation and its GDP should be considered. Is it a homogeneous nation or is there a ruling elite? If there is a separate small racial group of highly intelligent people who can direct the nation, the GDP may be higher than one would expect.

Anyway, we will need to wait for the book length analysis to get more information on this fascinating study. But it is just one more way that we can use to show that intelligence is important, and that some countries are just too backward to expect them to join in a common bond with the rest of humanity.

The following table lists the country, then the average IQ, then the gross domestic product (GDP), and then the fitted GDP. The fitted GDP is just the theoretical straight line correlation between IQ and GDP. For example, China should have a GDP of 16,183 based on the average intelligence of the population, but because of Communism, they only have a GDP of 3,105.

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