One of the strangest ironies of our time is that a body of thoroughly debunked “science” is being revived by people who claim to be defending truth against a rising tide of ignorance. The idea that certain races are inherently more intelligent than others is being trumpeted by a small group of anthropologists, IQ researchers, psychologists and pundits who portray themselves as noble dissidents, standing up for inconvenient facts. Through a surprising mix of fringe and mainstream media sources, these ideas are reaching a new audience, which regards them as proof of the superiority of certain races. The claim that there is a link between race and intelligence is the main tenet of what is known as “race science” or, in many cases, “scientific racism”.
Gavin Evans, “The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’“
Content warning: This post discusses racism and related prejudices, with explicit mention of the words of prominent white supremacists.
1. Introduction
Racial stereotypes are among the most persistent and damaging beliefs that humans have ever held. Stereotypes have justified wars, genocides, colonialism, chattel slavery, and myriad forms of abuse.
Each generation has attempted to justify racial stereotypes through the methods it deems most authoritative. In the past, racial stereotypes might have been accepted on religious grounds or on the testimony of respected community members. In recent times, proponents of racial stereotypes have sought to use science to justify their beliefs.
Since its inception, scientific racism has taken its hypotheses largely from existing racial stereotypes and claimed to confirm the truth of many such stereotypes. As each purportedly scientific justification for racial stereotypes is shown to be first ill-founded, then patently unscientific and finally ridiculous, new justifications are invented in an endless stream of motivated attempts to justify racial stereotypes.
It would not do for altruists to play a role in the promotion of scientific racism. Unfortunately, there has been far too much discussion, and even advocacy of scientific racism within effective altruism and allied movements. This series, “Human biodiversity” tackles the latest iteration of scientific racism, human biodiversity (HBD) and its role in the effective altruist ecosystem.
My strategy will be to work from the outside in, beginning with the worst offenders and working inwards towards those whose views are comparatively better. Perhaps not coincidentally, this will involve moving in rough outline from authors who are best described as EA adjacent towards authors better described as effective altruists.
On the one hand, this is comforting news: though none of the behaviors described in this series are good, some of the very worst are also some of the most distant. On the other hand, beginning with adjacent authors will help us to see how many of those authors’ thoughts and actions have directly influenced thought and action within the effective altruist community.
Before discussing how HBD has influenced the effective altruist community, I need to say a few words about what HBD is and why it is harmful. That is the project of this post.
2. Discourse norms and ground rules
The difficulty with discussions of race science is that it is impossible to carry out such discussions without violating discourse norms that are deeply held by many readers.
Effective altruists often support open discussion of ideas, decoupled from any consideration of the harms that these ideas, or discussion of them, may cause. Many effective altruists will be upset that I am attempting to shut down discussions of race science. Effective altruists will be upset that I do not argue against the factual truth of race science. And effective altruists may be upset by the risk to the careers and reputations of those whose views are discussed in this series. These objections are likely to be further magnified by members of adjacent communities, such as the rationalists.
Many other readers may have opposite worries. These readers will worry that I am pandering too strongly to effective altruists by speaking directly to them, explaining matters that should already be understood, such as the inappropriateness of propounding race science. They will worry that it is inappropriate to speak unemotionally about many of the behaviors discussed in this series. And they will worry that I have pulled my punches, seeking the most achievable forms of change within the effective altruist community at the expense of more ambitious goals, which many would view as required by basic moral decency.
My sympathies lie with the latter group, and it is with considerable trepidation that I position myself uncomfortably in between two sets of discourse norms while believing that one set of norms is wrongheaded. I hope that readers will understand my decision to speak in a way that is more likely to increase the reach and impact of this discussion, and I hope that I will not personally cause any more harm than necessary in broaching these extremely fraught topics.
To stave off the worst harms, I will adopt two ground rules.
First, comments will be closed on all posts in this series. I have seen the type of content that is produced in discussions of these issues by effective altruists and their allies. I will not publish such content.
Second, I will not discuss the ground truth of race science. These views have been so often refuted that to argue against them would confer upon them an undeserved legitimacy.
That is how I will proceed. The next order of business is to examine the contents and origins of human biodiversity theory (HBD).
3. What is “human biodiversity”?
The term “human biodiversity” was introduced in 1995 by the biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks. Marks’ proposed usage was rather different from the contemporary usage of the term. Here is how a recent article by Aaron Panofsky and colleagues describes Marks’ usage.
Biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks introduced the phrase “human biodiversity” as a label and a framework for thinking about human difference. The basic aims were to show, first, that human differences are essentially biocultural in character – both biological and cultural diversity are essential to humanity, and neither is reducible to the other. Second, “race,” with its focus on indelible essences, hierarchies, and discrete continental dividing bins is an inadequate framework for understanding human difference. And third, understanding human diversity is simultaneously a project of empirical biological measurement, humanistic interpretation, and critical analysis of ethical and conceptual shortcomings of historical frameworks for understanding.
As often happens within a movement keen to shroud prejudice in a veneer of scientific respectability, the term “human biodiversity” was soon co-opted and driven to a darker meaning, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Marks’ scientific project and the intentional misuse of concepts to support racist theories. Panofsky and colleagues continue:
Online, the idea of “human biodiversity” has flourished, but those responsible have pushed an almost opposite meaning to the one Marks originally intended. The Reddit page devoted to human biological diversity defines it as “the study of human genetics and how they are responsible for our inclinations, behaviors, preferences, abilities, intelligence, life span, and other attributes … Where “normal” human society considers the human mind to be programmable, HBD starts from the other perspective, which is that genetics is the cause and behaviors the effect.” … Marks deployed biological diversity as a way of illustrating how incomplete categories for race/ethnicity are, and how even with continuous refinement they can never be part of a clear-cut classification system that people entrust science to produce. But the human biodiversity movement has inverted this formulation, using it on the one hand for establishing the “Reality of Race” and attacking “Fraudulent Science to Disprove Existence of Race,” and on the other as a warrant for investigating the way that biology determines the social behavior and culture of those races.
How was the term HBD co-opted? In good part, the deed was done by Steven Sailer, who founded a mailing list called the “Human Biodiversity Discussion Group”. Angela Saini writes in a book-length study of modern race science that:
The 1990s marked the early years of electronic mailing lists, and Steve Sailer apparently wanted to use one as a way of pulling together scientists, intellectuals, and fellow journalists to start a private conversation about human difference … Sailer happened to be brandishing Marks’s own neologism, calling his list the “Human Biodiversity Discussion Group” … Sailer’s seemingly innocent email list was not so much a way to discuss science in an objective way but more about tying together fresh science and economics with existing racial stereotypes.
Lest there be any unclarity about who wrested control of the term “human biodiversity” away from Marks and towards its modern racist meaning, let us recall what Sailer has done with the term. Sailer, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a “noted white supremacist,” writes regularly for publications such as VDARE (a website which, according to the Anti-Defamation League, “Posts, promotes and archives the work of racists, anti-immigrant figures, and anti-Semites”) and the UNZ Review (which researchers have repeatedly described as white nationalist) alongside his own blog.
Sailer has explicitly promoted the great replacement theory on which nonwhite populations are replacing white ethnic majorities, thereby destroying Western economies and cultures. Sailer describes a chart (below) comparing European and Sub-Saharan African population projections as the “most important graph” in the world, holding that “The Sub-Saharan African population bomb is the most obvious long-term problem facing global peace and prosperity.”
Sailer has argued that “African-Americans … tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society” and bemoans that “America’s perpetual trouble has been a less-productive black minority“.
Sailer’s hatred extends further, as for example in opposition to nonwhite immigration. Sailer has called for restricting Muslim immigration and ridding the United States and Europe of existing Muslim populations with the rationale that “you shouldn’t let a lot of people with Iron Age barbarian prejudices into your country in the first place, and if you make that mistake, you should rectify it by persuading most of them to leave.” I could say more about Sailer’s beliefs, but perhaps I have said enough.
It will, no doubt, be claimed that the term “human biodiversity” is a neutral term which just so happens to be associated with a few bad apples. That is not the case: HBD advocates include a large number of terrible actors together with a few comparatively moderate popularizers who directly echo portions of the view. Panofsky and colleagues summarize the modern face of human biodiversity theory as follows:
The public face of human biodiversity includes, on one side, writers for the far right, White nationalist outlets like Steve Sailer of the Unz Review and Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, and, on the other, people who are not ostensibly political but willing to write provocatively about topics like race and eugenics like Razib Khan of Discover magazine and Steve Hsu, physicist and entrepreneur of the company Genomic Prediction or centrist liberals like Steven Pinker (2006) who legitimates human biodiversity ideas like the evolution of Jewish intelligence. There is also a large set of less well-known and especially anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers and tweeters in the human biodiversity orbit [such as] humanbiologicaldiversity.com … and the blogger @hbdchick.
Please keep these names in mind, as they will recur throughout the series. Readers who are in doubt about the beliefs and intentions of these writers may read their work for themselves and make up their own minds.
Theories of “human biodiversity” are emphatically not what we would like to see in an altruistic movement. Regrettably, we will see that such views are present in many venues associated with effective altruism and adjacent groups and intellectual traditions.
4. Why propounding HBD is wrong
Why is it wrong to propound or openly debate the merits of HBD? At least three answers come to mind.
FIrst, HBD is false. HBD rests on top of a mountain of low-quality scientific claims that have been repeatedly refuted and continually rebranded to give the illusion of a fresh perspective that deserves another shot. Continued advocacy of HBD flies in the face of scientific consensus. Calls for open debate about the merits of HBD cannot be taken seriously, since the relevant debates were settled long ago. As Angela Saini explains:
Those who are committed to the biological reality of race won’t back down if the data prove them wrong … They will just keep reaching for fresher, more elaborate theories when the old ones fail. If skin color doesn’t explain racial inequality, then maybe the structure of our brains and bodies will. If not anatomy, then maybe our genes. When this, too, produces nothing of value, they will reach for the next thing.
This is, Saini argues, motivated reasoning in service of entrenched racial stereotypes. Such reasoning has little to do with rationality, and should not be confused for serious argument worthy of debate.
Second, HBD harms its direct targets. Proponents of HBD utter and believe degrading stereotypes about racial groups which paint them as less intelligent, more criminal, or otherwise inferior to others. Racial stereotypes insult and degrade their targets. A lifetime of degradation is an important part of ongoing systems of racial domination and control, which brings us to our final point.
Third, HBD has broad and harmful consequences in society today. Racism has been one of the most destructive forces in human history and continues to structure many social interactions today. By giving a platform to HBD advocates, effective altruists and their allies allow racists to shape opinion and ultimately to have an effect on public policy.
For example, my next post will discuss Richard Hanania, a nominally-reformed Nazi who has authored racist screeds such as the insightful essay “Why are black people so loud?“, and whose startling vision of an “anti-woke” EA was discussed in detail in Part 4 of my series on belonging (Section 4.3). This is not a man whom altruists should seek to platform.
The third post will discuss a review of Hanania’s book, The origins of woke, written by Scott Alexander. The problem with giving attention to Hanania’s book comes when we ask what Hanania is trying to do with the book. Surprisingly, Alexander hits the nail on the head in his own review:
[Hanania is] writing this for a group of conservative heavyweights who will set policy if Trump wins in November. He’s reminding them that civil rights law exists, that it’s against conservative principles, and that it’s pretty easy for a president to repeal large parts of it. All the rest of the book is just a booster stage to help it reach those people.
At a time when far-right ideology exerts increasing influence within many governments, and faced with the real threat of a second Trump presidency, racially motivated attacks on civil rights law may lead to the actual erosion of civil rights law in the United States and elsewhere, setting back decades of progress towards racial justice.
These are not the only consequences of race science. “Human biodiversity” theory leads to any number of devastating harms. For example, in a review of John Philippe Rushton’s racist and pseudoscientific writings, the psychologist Harold H. Fairchild writes:
Implications derived from Rushton’s sociobiology inexorably lead to policies that “blame the victim” for her plight, and encourage a laissez-faire attitude toward social inequality. If African Americans are born to be at the bottom of the human hierarchy, then their current status can be viewed as simply part of their biological destiny. One oft-cited author within the scientific racism camp, William Shockley, once called for sterilization incentives to African American women based on low IQ scores. The possibilities for abuse of these theories are legion, as for example, the use of race theories to justify the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Ideological and political agendas are prominently revealed in people’s stands on issues that perplex our contemporary political system (e.g., employment and affirmative action, crime and punishment). For instance, Gottfredson’s (1986, 1987) conclusion regarding the genetic determination of “racial” differentials in employment also questioned the efficacy of affirmative action. Similarly, Eyseneck and Gudjonsson’s (1989) emphasis on genetic determinants of “racial” differences in criminality included strong and clearly stated policy implications: more swift, severe, and restrictive punishments, including the death penalty.
I will try, when possible, to point out throughout this series when HBD is being used to advocate for specific policies. Most of the policies in question will be decidedly unsavory.
“Human biodiversity” also harms members of stereotyped groups in myriad other ways. For example, the political scientist Alexander Barder argues that scientific racism contributed over the past two centuries to a profoundly influential global racial imaginary:
A global racial imaginary construed the world as profoundly hierarchical; it posited that races were intrinsically incommensurable; and that they were subject to an inevitable and enduring struggle … The great fear of the nineteenth century revolved around sexual commingling between races, immigration from the global periphery to the metropole and the resultant degeneracy and decline of white supremacy. The fears of declining white supremacy provoked widespread actions that straddled the domestic and the international and revealed the very relative value placed on human life. Indeed, as Himadeep Muppidi writes, ‘To understand global politics as racialized then is to ask how [international relations] has been historically structured by the fictions of whose lives matter and whose do not’.
Finally, theories of “human biodiversity” have been caught up in a rising tide of alt-right and White nationalist violence. Panofsky and colleagues provide a recent illustration:
The perpetrator of the El Paso massacre in August 2019 issued a manifesto entitled “The Inconvenient Truth” that stated, “I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity and creates identity problems … Cultural diversity diminishes as stronger and/or more appealing cultures overtake weaker and/or undesirable ones. Racial diversity will disappear as either race mixing or genocide take place.” The shooter here draws from “Great Replacement” theory that holds that Western countries are facing “White genocide” owing to a conspiracy to ensure permissive immigration policies, racial differences in birthrates, and the inherent violence of non-Whites. Ideas from human biodiversity have served to inform this world view, but in particular it has offered a genetic rationale for White nationalist violence and a specific focus on the preservation of White biodiversity as a goal … Here we see how human biodiversity goes beyond a supposedly neutral label for an abstract intellectual interest in human differences, to a specific ideological component of a violent worldview.
My country already witnessed a public display of right-wing violence in response to the 2020 election, and many fear a repeat may be in the cards come November. This is probably not a good time to be seriously discussing theories that fuel alt-right groups.
5. Looking ahead
Today’s post introduced human biodiversity theory (HBD) and explained how the term was co-opted from its original scientific meaning to an explicitly racist meaning by white supremacists and other darlings of the alt-right, most prominently Steven Sailer. We also saw three reasons why it is wrong to propound HBD: HBD is false, and harms its direct targets as well as leading to broad and harmful consequences in society today.
The next several posts in this series will discuss the influence of HBD within the effective altruist ecosystem, moving inwards from the worst offenders towards those whose behavior is merely horrible. My aim in these posts will be to give a detailed factual portrait of the views that are held and the influence of these views, which can serve as a basis for later reflection and reform.