Ethnocentric Critiques of the London Conference on Intelligence

In January 2018, the anti-science Left that dominates British academia descended into spasms of fury. For decades it has done all that was within its growing power to stop scientists who refuse to let emotion stand in the way of their calling to pursue the truth from researching group differences in intelligence, and especially race differences. Researchers who have dared extend the logic of Darwinian Theory to human sub-groups would lose funding and have papers rejected out of hand from journals by increasingly Politically Correct reviewers, and they might even find themselves fired from their jobs.

But in January 2018, it was revealed that precisely these heretical researchers had been polluting the holy of holies for years. They had been holding an effectively secret conference, by invitation only, at one of Britain’s top universities — University College London — annually since 2015.

Toby Young

The evil of presenting the most straightforward theory based on the evidence, regardless of what dogmas this might undermine, had been happening under the Left’s very noses! UCL’s student newspaper, The London Student, revealed that the conference, organised by UCL honorary lecturer Dr James Thompson, had attendees that included Richard Lynn. Prof. Lynn had established that there are consistent race differences in IQ. It was also attended by numerous other academics connected to the race realist academic journal Mankind Quarterly, edited by Dr. Lynn, including one who had made a presentation on eugenics. Indeed, another version of the exposé, in the satirical magazine Private Eye, revealed that one of the attendees was Toby Young, a prominent conservative media pundit in the UK. His attendance insured that the ‘secret racist conference’ or ‘eugenic conference’ was reported in all the national newspapers and was even mentioned on television. The London Conference on Intelligence had ultimately come to the student journalists’ attention because Young had rashly mentioned it in a recently published speech to a leading conference on intelligence held in Montreal the previous summer.

Leftist students protested in front of UCL (see above photo) and petitioned for Thompson to lose his honorary position. UCL responded by launching an investigation, which is on-going, into Thompson’s failure to tell them that the conference would include ‘controversial’ people and topics. UCL stressed, of course, that they defended free speech, but opposed ‘racism’ in all its forms.

The conference presentations are now available online. They are a daring and fascinating mixture of subjects: race differences in intelligence, dysgenic fertility in the West, the impact of national testosterone levels on per capita Nobel prizes and even race differences in prevalence to ethnocentrism.

But there was one heretical theory which none of the presentations explored and which seems to neatly explain why the conference ended up being revealed at all. It is Kevin MacDonald’s theory that people — and especially highly ethnocentric people such as the Jews — will generally act in the interests of the ethnic group to which they belong. Accordingly, MacDonald’s analyses of anti-Western, anti-nationalist philosophies shows that Jewish people are hugely over-represented, especially at the highest levels. Cultural anthropology, which promotes multiculturalism in Western countries, was founded by Franz Boas. Marxism, named after its founder, attempts to undermine religion and tradition. Postmodernism, whose leaders included Jacques Derrida, attempts to foster a sense of nihilistic atomization in which nothing means anything. All of these scholars were ethnically Jewish. They were promoting Jewish interests, whether consciously or not, by espousing their particular worldviews, all of which are founded on dogmas — such as that ‘truth’ is subjective and merely the ‘truth’ of those with power, meaning it must be deconstructed — rather than the empirical method. Clearly, that which undermines a sense of European identity and certainty is good for European Jews, as they will maintain their identity.

Of course, there are variations in how ethnocentric people are and one of the papers at the London Conference on Intelligence explored the reasons for these differences, part of them being genetic. But sometimes you find a case which manifestly embodies MacDonald’s theory and with the London Conference on Intelligence you have it.

The author of the London Student’s expose was Ben Van der Merwe. The article was entitled ‘Exposed: London’s Eugenics Conference and its Neo-Nazi Links’ and the young Oxford native described the conference as ‘dominated by a group of white supremacists.’ Whether or not this descriptions are accurate, the research at the conference certainly seems to imply that immigration is bad for Europe’s IQ, that race differences in intelligence are significantly genetic, meaning that race differences in accomplishment have nothing to do with ‘racism,’ that Europeans are highly accomplished for primarily genetic reasons, that ethnocentric groups always destroy their competitors eventually, that Europeans are a separate genetic group, and that eugenics helps a group to survive and flourish.

And Benjamin Guy Van der Merwe, who was born in 1996, should have some understanding of this, as he is Jewish; his mother’s maiden name being Goldman. Van der Merwe’s co-author on the piece — she is not named on it but has stressed her involvement on Twitter — was Emma Frances Yeomans. She is the daughter of Prof. Martin Yeomans, who lectures in psychology at the University of Sussex, in the southern seaside town of Brighton, famous for its vibrant gay scene. Miss Yeomans seems to be rather conflicted about her identity. She is clearly ethnically Jewish and she writes regularly for Jewish News, with some of her Times of Israel pieces glowingly quoted on pro-Israel websites. However, her less than modest website stresses that she is a ‘Christian’ at what is, seemingly, a rather liberal Christian Church. Her Twitter page, however, emphasises that she is ‘faithfully LGBT’ — this being a support group for homosexual Christians.

So, Yeomans, by acting as she does, is promoting her genetic interests. She advocates for the ethno-state of Israel and writes for a newspaper which helps to maintain a sense of Jewish ethnic separateness. Yet she attempts to damage those involved in research, the results of which might lead to Europeans acting rather like she does. In addition, it has been shown — indeed one of the conference presentations looked at this — that homosexuality is a reflection, in part, of what is known as ‘developmental instability’; of something going wrong early in development. This is, in part, a reflection of mutant genes, explaining why homosexuality positively correlates with other markers of mutation, such as depression, neurological disorders, left-handedness and many more. To the extent that the London Conference promotes eugenics, it promotes the removal of the kinds of genes which Miss Yeomans carries: genes which, if widespread enough, would lead to a society of physically and mentally ill people with no desire to breed. So, shutting down discussion of such issues is in Miss Yeomans’ genetic interests. It makes sense from the gene-eye-view.

These budding journalists interviewed two anti-science scientists, to get official condemnation for the conference into their articles. One was a gentile, but the other, Dr Adam Rutherford, is also Jewish. He told them that ‘there are more differences between two people of the same race than between races,’ and thus James Thompson was a scientific ignoramus for accepting the idea of ‘race.’ Of course is Lewontin’s fallacy: Rutherford ignores proof that when lots of miniscule differences are in the same direction they add up and so lead to a situation where there are demonstrable genetic differences between races — differences which allow important and correct predictions to be made about everything from reaction to certain drugs, to personality, to sporting ability. But, of course, one’s motivation to promote one’s genetic interests — and thus destroy anything which might discourage Europeans from believing that they are an ethnic group just like the Jews — can easily overwhelm logic.

The other journalist who did not merely report, but produced on an Op-Ed for the (left-wing) Guardian on the conference was also motivated by her ethnic interests. Angela Saini is a British journalist who is ethnically Indian. She condemned the conference as eugenicist and racist, for arguing that there are innate race differences in ability. Yet, as James Fulford has noted on V-Dare, in her book Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World, she explains that India is built on “the ingenuity of its people,” which surely implies that non-Indians have less ingenuity; precisely the way of thinking — presented with huge amounts of evidence — she argues is unthinkable when it comes to Europeans. Andrew Joyce, writing in TOO, makes similar points, noting: “Racial hurt seeps from the page [of Geek Nation], and my own instinct suggests that Saini may well be engaged in a form of self-deception, submerging her own ethnocentrism and ethnic grievances in a swamp of superficial egalitarianism.”

The London Conference on Intelligence brought the culture war in British academia into stark relief. The reaction against it was so strong because it was realised that at worst some very eminent and accomplished scientists are on the other side and, at best (perhaps unconsciously) that they are in the right and that their detractors are hypocrites. This is especially obvious when it comes to allegations of eugenics. As Kevin MacDonald has noted, the Jews rigorously practiced eugenics for centuries. Dr Adam Rutherford would not be a scientist and Ben Van der Merwe and Emma Yeomans would not be studying at a top university if the Jews had not. Angela Saini is a product of the Indian caste system, which is little more than a system of eugenics. High caste Angela’s ancestors have only married other high caste — and thus, on average, relatively intelligent — people for millennia.

These people wouldn’t exist without the system they condemn. In fact, does Miss Yeomans really think that her intelligent father married her mother, Judy Pitchford, (who runs the ‘Sussex Godly Play Network’) at random? Of course he didn’t. Evolutionary psychological research is quite clear on why he married her. Martin married Judy because he found her physically attractive (meaning fewer mutant genes than other interested females), because she was genetically similar to him, and because her personality and intelligence level were also relatively attractive, in terms of what he could get from what was available. Miss Yeomans is directly a product of eugenics — as we all are unless our parents made a point of marrying someone they found utterly repellent in every way. And unless we make a point of breeding with those who disgust us, then we are practicing eugenics as well.

But Miss Yeomans won’t care about this because, unlike the scientists at the conference, she is only to a limited extent motivated by reason. She is strongly motivated by her genetic interests, and this is precisely why she reported on this conference and did so in the way she did.

James Andrewes is the pen name of a journalist living in Manchester, UK.