I do have to do some class work while I’m trapped in the land of lawyers and banks — I’ve got essays being submitted today that I’ll have to grade this evening, and I’m prepping lectures for when I get back. The next couple of weeks are nothing but Darwin, Darwin, Darwin, and after that I’ll be discussing the eclipse of Darwin, the new consensus, and, ugh, eugenics. I was reminded of this excellent essay by Eric Michael Johnson, “Ronald Fisher Is Not Being ‘Cancelled’, But His Eugenic Advocacy Should Have Consequences”, which my students will eventually be reading. I re-read it myself this morning, and was reminded of the contretemps that flared up when Cambridge University chose to remove a stained glass window honoring RA Fisher, and the usual suspects rushed to defend him.
This decision was soon condemned as part of the latest trend in “cancel culture” that followed in the wake of the #MeToo movement toppling other powerful men. According to Fisher’s former student, and current Cambridge Professor of Biometry, A.W.F. Edwards, “a panicking Cambridge institution obliterated the memory of one of its most famous sons” and “joined the cacophony of the echo chamber ‘eugenics and race, eugenics and race.’” University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne blamed the decision on “the spread of wokeness” and argued that you can still honor the good a historical figure accomplished if it outweighed the bad. “Contrary to the statements of those who have canceled Fisher, though, he wasn’t a racist eugenist, although he did think that there were behavioral and intelligence differences between human groups.” Finally, economist and former Reagan Administration official, Paul Craig Roberts, condemned Cambridge University for caving to “ignorant BLM thugs” and declared that we are now “witnessing the surrender of Western Civilization to barbarians.”
I love that he wasn’t a racist eugenist,
he just thought that poor people’s genes were the cause of their poverty, as if that made his ideas OK. He just thought that there were behavioral and intelligence differences between human groups
! What groups
was he talking about?
We do have a 1954 letter from Fisher that clears that right up.
My dear Gates,
Thanks for your letter, It is always good to hear from you. I shall try to answer your quention.
i I agree with you entirely that Penrose and Haldane are both defindtely hostile to eugenics, the last move being to change the name of what used to be called The Annals of Eugenics.
In my opinion, by far the most important work in human heredity is that done by Race, Kourant, and their associates at the Lister Institution, for this shows clearly,what many of us have suspected – the vast number of differences in gene frequency existing between different human races.
I am sorry that there should be propaganda in favour of miscegenation in North America, for I am sure that it can do nothing but harm. Is it beyond human endeavour to give and Justly to administer equal rights to all citizens without fooling ourselves that these are equivalent items.
He’s talking specifically about races, and thinks miscegenation will do harm. If he were alive today, he’d be favoring Project 2025 and looking forward to the Republicans striking down Loving v. Virginia.
I’ve added this essay to my students’ reading list. We’ll probably get to it sometime in November, and I hope it sparks some vigorous discussion.
By co-incidence, I’ve just been reading this: Revealed: International ‘race science’ network secretly funded by US tech boss.
I don’t think Clarence Thomas will vote to strike down Loving v. Virginia. At least, not unless existing inter-racial marriages are “grandfathered” in.
Nobody is ‘cancelling’ Fisher. His papers will still exist. People will still use his statistical tests. All they’re doing is removing a stained glass window because they feel that his advocacy for eugenics means he does not deserve the honour. They could also throw in his denial of the health risks of smoking, given that he was writing screeds to Nature about it long after the evidence was overwhelming (ironically, using statistical tests that Fisher himself developed).
Where is the data on this?
It doesn’t exist.
What data that does exist says the exact opposite.
Hybrid vigor also called heterosis exists. Almost all corn planted in the world is hybrid corn and hybrids are how we feed 8 billion people.
Inbreeding depression has also been known for centuries.
Most of us don’t have to be told to avoid inbreeding by not mating with close relatives.
I’m sure Fisher is overstating his case here.
I seriously doubt there was any “propaganda in favour of miscegenation” in the USA in 1954.
At the best, there were probably calls among a few to legalize interracial marriage on the basis of human rights and anti-racism.
Almost all of us these days in the USA are mixes of one sort or another. The whites are mostly mixes of various Europeans. The fastest growing demographic are multiracial mixes which now make up 10.2% of the population.
Ironically, some of those results of miscegenation have done well. Obama is half Kenyan. Harris is Indian and Jamaican.
JD Vance has three children with an Indian woman
The head of the Senate, Mitch McConnell is married to a Chinese woman.
Reality 1 Fisher 0 He was just wrong a lot about race and racial mixing.
whheydt @ #2 — They probably wouldn’t literally strike down Loving, but return control marriage regulations to the states, which is the theme of the current court. All that would mean for Clarence and Ginni is that they would have to be a little more careful about where they travel. If they live in Virginia then they may have to move.
It seems racism will just never die. I was told the other day in a Facebook post that “You hate your race.” I replied that I’m fine with the human race.
…Jerry Coyne … argued that you can still honor the good a historical figure accomplished if it outweighed the bad.
I would argue that the good someone accomplished doesn’t just have to “outweigh” the bad; it also has to be SEPARABLE from the bad. And in this case, the entire field of eugenics is simply not separable from the racial prejudices that undergirded it from the start, and which is was used to justify.
…Paul Craig Roberts condemned Cambridge University for caving to “ignorant BLM thugs” and declared that we are now “witnessing the surrender of Western Civilization to barbarians.”
So he’s calling all critics of racism “thugs” and “barbarians.” Nothing at all racist about that, nosireebob… :-/
Raging Bee:
You would, would you?
OK. Go on, try it. Argue it.
I would (heh) find it interesting to see how you try to justify the proposition that good which is not separable from bad should not count to someone’s credit.
BTW, it’s not entirely about racism.
U.S. eugenics poster advocating for the removal of genetic “defectives” such as the insane, “feeble-minded” and criminals, and supporting the selective breeding of “high-grade” individuals, c. 1926
(The idea is echoed in The Marching Morons and Idiocracy)
Eugenics was debunked literally a century ago.
As for genuine genetic problems, I am all for germline GM once the genome is better understood.
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/revealed-international-race-science-network-secretly-funded-by-us-tech-boss
For historical context:
(https://victorianweb.org/victorian/history/race/Racism.html)
I note the removed window had been in the dining hall of Gonville and Caius College (usually just called Caius) and such a decision would be made by the college alone especially one as well established and wealthy as this one (colleges at Oxford and Cambridge have a lot of legal independence from their associated university). Cambridge University did not remove the window; the college did.
Well, that’s a particularly confusing instance of nominative determinism at work! Took me a couple of re-reads to figure out “Race” was a person.