Move to Substack

Transcript of a short clip in which John Maynard Smith states that, because of their Marxist beliefs, neither he nor J.B.S. Haldane was initially willing to admit that genes might influence human behaviour — A short clip of the late John Maynard Smith talking about political and ideological commitment in science was brought to my attention by James Robertson. Here is the full transcript: Why is it that Hamilton, having had the sort of essential notion, really ran with it, really made it an…

Based on the criteria that have been used to cancel other deceased luminaries, there is no reason to believe that Darwin is immune from cancellation — [Updated: 9th September, 2020.] Recent weeks have witnessed the defenestration not only of Confederate generals, slave-traders, colonialists, Founding Fathers and Union generals, but of many academic luminaries too. The following scientists and philosophers have all been subjected to actual or attempted defenestrations: Sir Francis Galton, Sir Ronald Fisher, Karl Pearson…

Evidence suggests that geographic and socio-economic factors may not be sufficient to explain non-white Britons’ elevated risk of death from COVID-19 — It has been widely reported that non-white Britons (as well as non-white Swedes and black Americans) are overrepresented among those who have died of COVID-19. In a recent paper, Robert Aldridge and colleagues computed standardised mortality ratios for all major ethnic groups in the UK. Compared to the general population…

One reason elite colleges focus on “diversity” is to distract attention from the fact that the students they admit are overwhelmingly from wealthy backgrounds — Achieving “diversity” on campus has been a priority at US colleges ever since the landmark decision in University of California v. Bakke (1978), when the Supreme Court ruled that “the goal of achieving a diverse student body is sufficiently compelling to justify consideration of race in admissions decisions under some…

Considers the total number of life-years that could be lost to coronavirus disease in the UK, under different assumptions — The Imperial College report published on 16 March stated that there could be “hundreds of thousands of deaths” from coronavirus disease in the UK if no measures were taken to actively suppress the epidemic. …

This page lists quotes from various scholars concerning how we should deal with the fact that individuals and populations differ from one another genetically — “Modern advocates of a more far-reaching material equality usually deny that their demands are based on any assumption of the factual equality of all men. It is nevertheless still widely believed that this is the main justification for such demands. Noth­ing, however, is more damaging to the demand for equal…

Analyses the reasoning employed by Judge James Tayler in his judgement on the claim brought by Maya Forstater against her former employer — As is now well-known, thanks to the tweet by J.K. Rowling that went viral, a woman called Maya Forstater recently brought a claim against her former employer, CGD Global, in the employment tribunal. …

Responds to arguments in a recent blog post by Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford and Aylwyn Scally — In a recent “explainer” on “Race, genetics and pseudoscience”, Birney et al. argue that a small number of researchers “have seized upon some of the new findings and methods in human genetics” to make “misleading” arguments about “racial groupings” and the “alleged genetically-based intelligence differences between them”. …

This page lists all recent petitions and open letters targeting individual academics or small groups of scholars — [Last updated: 24th August, 2020.] In recent years, a phenomenon has arise in which a large number of scholars get together to denounce one of their colleagues via an open letter or online petition. All cases of which I am aware are listed below. …