Premature Birth and Genius

Sent Before Their Time: Genius, Charisma, and Being Born Prematurely
Edward Dutton
Australia: Manticore Press, 2022
328 pages, $24.95 softbound

Ed Dutton’s latest book marks a return to the theme of genius, which he previously explored in The Genius Famine (with Bruce Charleton, 2016) and At Our Wit’s End (with Michael Woodley of Menie, 2018). There is no universally recognized definition of genius. The word always implies high intelligence, and may imply nothing more, as when a certain IQ score—there is no agreement exactly which—is said to constitute “genius level.” But Dutton is interested in men who have “made a disproportionately large impact on human history,” often through revolutionary contributions to the disciplines in which they work: Newton, Mozart, Michelangelo, Archimedes, Darwin, and so forth. Others have been great statesmen or religious leaders. All have been extremely intelligent, but intelligence by itself is insufficient for genius-level accomplishment: many who possess the necessary brain power never use it to achieve great things.

Intelligence is a highly polygenetic trait, so outlier high IQ requires the inheritance of an improbable number of alleles all pulling in the same beneficial direction. But the case is otherwise with some of the other traits associated with outstanding achievement. Geniuses, as Dutton explains, are marked by a certain personality profile.

They are low in ‘rule-following,’ permitting them to ‘think outside the box’ and so to generate original ideas, and they are low in altruism and empathy, meaning that they don’t care about the probability that their ideas will offend vested interests. They are obsessed with truth, and they wouldn’t anticipate that their ideas would offend even if they did care. In many cases, they are also high in anxiety, meaning that they are constantly thinking and have a desperate desire to make sense of their world.

Low empathy and high anxiety are not, prima facie, especially desirable traits, so as prerequisites for genius, they may appear counter-intuitive.

An analogy may be helpful. A person ignorant of viticulture would probably assume that the best wine would be produced by the best soils. In fact, when vines are planted in especially rich soil, the result is an enormous profusion of leaves and very few grapes. High-quality wine grapes are grown in relatively weak—but not too weak—soil: it is precisely the vine’s struggle against a suboptimal environment which brings out the best in grapes. Genius seems to involve a similar dynamic. (This, incidentally, is what makes eugenic intervention such a delicate matter: nature may be acting more wisely than any possible human agent by allowing certain normally sub-optimal traits to survive within a population.)

Few things would appear more sub-optimal for human flourishing than premature birth. Humans have evolved to spend nine months in the womb, and being born significantly (= more than three weeks) earlier is traumatic and stressful. Dutton’s list of risks associated with prematurity is sobering: “blindness, vision problems, underdeveloped lungs resulting in frequent infection, deafness, poor muscle tone, mobility problems, difficulties with fine motor skills, developmental delay, heart problems, high blood pressure, infertility, birth defects, depression, ADHD, autism, psychopathic personality, low self-esteem, never having a relationship nor having children, low IQ (especially low spatial and Mathematical IQ),” and much more besides. The more premature the birth, the greater the odds of problems developing.

And yet children born prematurely, or with exceptionally low birth weight, are statistically overrepresented among outstanding high-achievers. Dutton’s examples include “Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Goethe, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, [and] John Keats.”

This is certainly not because preterm birth contributes to high intelligence; as mentioned above, the two correlate negatively. “If you are born prematurely or small,” Dutton explains, “the brain is unlikely to develop properly. . . . [I]t leads to a form of mild mental handicap.” Yet when such a handicap happens to combine with exceptionally high genetic intelligence, a kind of synergy comes into play that makes for outstanding achievement. This is because, as Dutton explains, the brain has an extraordinary ability to rewire itself: “if it loses an area, it can be expected to strengthen the other areas.” This leads the prematurely born (colloquially known as “preemies”) to think in unusual ways, meaning that they are prone to look for solutions where others might not. As Dutton puts it, geniuses “are almost childlike in the degree to which they are imaginative, meaning they ask questions few others would ask and make connections that few others would make.”

A recent neuro-imaging study offers some clues to how this works:

A subject had to press a button as quickly as they could each time a new letter came onto a screen, unless it was the letter ‘x.’ Controls used ‘proactive’ brain activation, meaning you are working on a task and you are mentally prepared for new, unexpected, things to happen. Preemies used ‘reactive’ brain activation (Olsen et al., 2018). According to Norwegian neuroscientist Alexander Olsen, they were unprepared for change and ‘their brains reacted as if they were encountering something new each time. … It suggests their brains are hyper-vigilant due to the suboptimal organization of the central nervous system.’

Geniuses often have extremely narrow intelligence: while they achieve outstanding things in specialized fields, they may also be highly impractical, failing at tasks that do not require exceptional intelligence and that ordinary people master easily. A famous example is that Albert Einstein never learned to drive a car.

Extreme examples of this sort of lopsided intellectual development are found in “idiot savants”—now more politely and properly known as “autistic savants.” Such persons may be unable to tie their own shoelaces, and yet play the piano masterfully or display outstanding mathematical ability. Autistic savants are overwhelmingly extreme pre-termers. So it should not be surprising that genius, which represents a milder form of the same phenomenon, is often associated with preterm birth.

Geniuses are also often erratic in their ability to pay attention. Despite their intelligence, most do not do that well in school because they easily become bored. Sir Isaac Newton, e.g., was never a good student and nearly failed his degree at Cambridge. Young geniuses tend to be the sort of boys who today get diagnosed with ADHD—which, interestingly, is also statistically associated with preterm birth. And yet this comes not of any intrinsic inability to concentrate, but of a disinclination to concentrate on anything they find less than fascinating. When they do come across such a thing, typically involving some unsolved problem, they are capable of working on it compulsively to the exclusion of all else.

Asked the secret of his discoveries, Newton said: “I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.” In other words, he had an ability to focus on a problem obsessively, not letting up until he had fully solved it. There are anecdotes concerning him getting distracted by a problem while walking up or down a staircase and remaining standing there for hours on end. Oblivious to all around him, he sometimes even forgot to eat while in such a state.

But it may take a long time for a genius to find his true calling. Many have been late-bloomers, or made their discoveries in a field other than that in which they were formally trained. In contemporary parlance, they might be said to have difficulty “finding themselves”—though of course it is not really “themselves” they are looking for, but a suitable problem to which they can devote their utmost efforts.

New ideas always offend vested interests, so they are more likely to be formulated and spread by persons with autism spectrum disorders, which make it difficult for them to empathize with others. They may fail to anticipate the offence their ideas will cause or, if they do anticipate it, not care about this. As an example of the first tendency, Dutton cites the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. His view of society as based on human contract without reference to the divine will ran counter to the Christian thinking of the seventeenth century. Yet when the English parliament denounced his Leviathan as a book “tend[ing] to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness,” Hobbes himself was apparently among the few taken by surprise. He hastily destroyed many of his own unpublished manuscripts for fear they might be compromising. Other original thinkers, such as the late J. Philippe Rushton (on whom Dutton has written a monograph), may know full well that their ideas will cause offense, but actually derive enjoyment from the discomfiture of more timid and less original colleagues.

Finally, genius is associated with anxiety, in particular a desperate desire to make sense of the world in which they live. This may go directly back to the experience of the fetus finding itself in an unaccustomed environment for which it is unprepared. It is certainly not due to high intelligence, which—as I was somewhat disappointed to learn—actually correlates with intellectual conformity. As Dutton explains:

People who are more intelligent are better at noticing what the dominant worldview is, better at realizing the social benefits of conforming to that dominant world view, and better at forcing themselves to believe it and coming up with superficially convincing arguments for so-doing. This, of course, better permits them to attain social status.

An obsessive devotion to truth above all else is thus no consequence of mere intelligence, but it does appear characteristic of the high-anxiety genius personality profile.

Psychologists have not reached agreement on the precise number and character of factors which make up human personality, but a five-factor model is currently popular. J. Philippe Rushton pointed out, however, that all five factors on which this model is based correlate positively to some degree. This led him to speak of a General Factor of Personality (GFP) analogous to ‘g,’ the general factor of intelligence. The GFP amounts to a measure of how pro-social a person is. Those high in GFP, writes Dutton, have

the kind of personality type and behaviors that underpin many socially desirable traits, the degree to which someone approximates to the type of person that makes for friendliness, helpfulness, being a ‘good neighbor;’ for peaceful, orderly, cooperative, hard-working, placid citizens. A person who is high in GFP is the kind of person who ‘gets on in life.’ [Such traits] evolved as an adaptation to complex and stable societies so that people would ‘get along together.’ So a person with high GFP would be sociably extroverted, be empathetic and be concerned with the feelings of others, conscientious and self-disciplined in pursuit of socially-approved goals.

It should be clear by now that the genius is unlikely to have a personality of this sort, desirable as it may be in other respects. Instead, the genius is

self-sufficient and indifferent to the opinions of others or to normal social aims. Such a person is wrapped up in his own personal goals and making judgments using his own internal, subjective evaluation systems. He will work very hard and for long periods on his own projects but will not willingly go along with other people’s plans and schemes.

In part, such qualities represent survivals from a fast-life strategy better adapted to unpredictable environments.

There are many specialized forms of activity in which one may accomplish at genius level, and some involve variations on the basic genius profile we have just outlined. An artistic genius is more likely to score high on the ‘divergent thought’ aspect of Openness-Intellect, one dimension of the five-factor personality model, and are also higher in Neuroticism, than scientific or philosophical geniuses. As Dutton writes, “the Neurotic is constantly thinking about aspects of life, meaning that they are continually generating thoughts, making them creative as an indirect consequence of their anxiety.” Depression is also associated with artistic genius. While about 20% of people in Western countries experience depression at some point in their lives, one study of high accomplishment found figures of 41% for eminent artists and 72% for eminent writers. In what may seem a paradox, depression can even contribute to the ability of certain extraordinary men whom Dutton calls political and religious geniuses to influence others:

Depression is associated with profound religious experiences, which are adaptive because they force the person out of their depression and provide them with a sense of deep existential meaning (Newberg et al., 2002). With this certainty and positivity, they can then inspire others, as do charismatic figures. It has also been found that charismatic leaders tend to be high in psychopathic traits (Post, 1994) includ[ing] superficial charm, grandiosity (and thus confidence), and the ability to manipulate others. It is traits such as these that are the essence of ‘charisma’ (Sargent, 1957).]

An example of a religious genius is Charles Wesley, founder of Methodism. Dutton’s account is worth quoting at length:

It is 1726, in a room at Christ Church College, Oxford. It is evening, just after college dinner. A small group of students are singing, but this is no ordinary hymn practice. Their eyes are closed. They seem to be in a trance, with looks of intense peace on their faces. They live according to what they call ‘the Method.’ They meet after dinner every day to discuss how they have used that day to witness for Christ, to read the Bible together, and to pray. Some people call them Methodists. They call themselves ‘the Holy Club’ (Pearson, 2011, p.193).

The Holy Club was recently founded by the rather charismatic student who seems to be leading the singing, Charles Wesley (1707–1788), the son of a Lincolnshire vicar. Wesley would go on to lead one of the largest religious revivals in the history of English Christianity: Methodism. He also wrote thousands of hymns, articulating and inspiring the religious sentiments of Englishmen who remained in the Church of England and did not join his breakaway movement. In inspiring people to be more religious, Wesley inspired them to follow the dictates of traditional religiousness: go forth and multiply, cooperate with your neighbor, make sacrifices to repel the invader, who, unlike us, does not have God on his side; believe that your life has eternal significance and that you, and your people, are uniquely chosen by the Lord. As we will now see, in doing so, Wesley indirectly helped his own people — the British — to triumph in the battle of ‘group selection’ against other peoples. Wesley was born two months prematurely (Cairns, 2015, p.81). When he was born, he seemed ‘more dead than alive.’ Charles didn’t even cry until several weeks after his birth (Cavendish, December 2007). But he pulled through. If he hadn’t, then we wouldn’t be able to sing ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!’ at Christmas.

So geniuses, while always unusual personalities in certain respects, need not resemble the deeply uncharismatic recluse Isaac Newton. Some are, in Dutton’s words, “the kind of people whom you’d follow to the ends of the earth, who can inspire you to super-human feats.”

Geniuses often fail to marry or reproduce, but they still increase the inclusive fitness of their peoples. It is possible, therefore, that they are the product of an unconscious group selection strategy, as has been argued by Michael Woodley and A. J. Figueredo:

Their inventions do not benefit themselves or even their families. There are examples of geniuses who treat their families appallingly, receive little credit for their invention, and end-up living in penury. Their innovations benefit the group of which the genius is a member. The inventions which kicked-off the Industrial Revolution, for example, allowed the British population to soar in size and wealth and to expand around much of the globe. Clearly, then, a successful society needs to maintain an optimum but relatively low number of geniuses. It cannot be too many, because a society full of uncooperative, impractical dreamers will be dominated by a more internally cooperative and practical one. And it cannot be too few, or the society will be dominated by one which has the appropriate number of geniuses to allow the necessary level of innovation.

With dysgenic selection having taken hold in the West since the late Nineteenth Century, we are seeing a decline in the number of geniuses; this is not sufficiently offset by a much higher survival rate for premature children. With the collapse of group selection, Dutton also predicts the rise of ‘evil geniuses,’ brilliantly talented men whose achievements harm rather than enhance the evolutionary fitness of their group, for example, by promoting extreme individualism, a preference for outgroups over one’s own group, feminism, anti-natalism, and other harmful ideologies. Clearly many such people exist in our society, but few of them merit the title of genius. Dutton considers Winston Churchill and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (both born prematurely) as two possible cases, but decides in both cases that the evidence is inconclusive.

Dutton has a personal interest in prematurity, having been born three months early himself, and he includes a chapter on his own experiences growing up preterm. As he wryly notes, this autobiographical chapter puts him in the forefront of academic fashion, as many young scholars are now making their reputations with accounts of the intersectional oppression they have personally experienced.

37 replies
  1. Annaliese Hargrove
    Annaliese Hargrove says:

    Not sure what Wesley thought he was creating, in terms of Methodism, but I do know that he had several crises involving doubts about the strength of his faith. I also know that Methodism changed from being churches wherein the primary goal was to nurture the souls and bodies of the congregants, to being churches that are now merely social justice activism centers, funded by the goats sitting in the sanctuary every Sunday. This most certainly was not Wesley’s primary vision, but is instead a reflection on what American Protestantism has become.

    • Gerry
      Gerry says:

      To understand Wesley one needs to understand what occurred at a place called Hernhut in Moravia under the leadership of Count Ludwig Von Zinzendorf. The Wesley brothers and in particular John Wesley was a failure as a Minister of God, that is until he on a voyage across the ocean witnessed the peculiar Germans from Moravia. He couldn’t understand their lack of fear in the midst of a storm and their enormous faith. He then met the Moravian Peter Boehler who led him into a more fuller understanding of Christ. He also learned and experienced what the Moravians had experienced that is the blessings of the Holy Spirit. It is said that what occurred at Hernhut was something just as powerful if not more so than what occurred in Acts 2 when the Spirit came. I have here in my possession a great little book date of pub 1928 by a John S. Groenfeld and it was a wonder to read:

      pg. 84-87

      To ask an apparently dying minister and a missionary at that, if he is saved, might almost seem an act of presumption and impertinence. But Christendom today may well thank God for this faithful Wesley. For, as Dr. Charles Nutter, a well-known Methodist hymnologist, recently wrote in The Methodist Review:

      “More than six thousand of Charles Wesley’s hymns have been published. Wesley wrote verses from the time of his conversion in 1738 until the time of his last sickness in 1788, fifty years; but six thousand hymns would be one hundred and twenty a year, ten a month, or one hymn every three days for fifty years.”

      The majority of his hymns testify to his great experience of salvation. Peter Boehler had told him:

      “If I had a thousand tongues I would praise Jesus with every one of them.”

      This prompted Wesley shortly after his conversion to write the immortal lines:

      “O for a thousand tongues to sing
      My dear Redeemer’s praise;
      The glories of my God and King,
      The triumphs of His grace.
      “He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
      He sets the prisoner free;
      His blood can make the foulest clean,
      His blood availed for me.”

      The question has been asked whether this amazing experience made by Charles Wesley may truly be called his conversion. He himself so regarded it. The change it worked in him was indeed radical. Old things .passed away; all things became new. This experience of salvation caused him, who according to his own testimony was building his hopes of Heaven on his own endeavors and had nothing else to trust to, to cry out in anguish of soul,

      “Depth of mercy, can there be
      Mercy still reserved for me,
      Can my God His wrath forbear,
      Me, the chief of sinners sPare?
      “I have long withstood His grase,
      Long provoked Him to His face,
      Would not hearken to His calls,
      Grieved Him by a thousand falls.”

      Having found pardon and peace at the Cross, Wesley soon discovered that he can enjoy this experience of salvation only as he continues to abide in the Crucified One. Hence he utters the touching prayer:

      “For ever here my rest shall be,
      Close to Thy Pierced side; ‘
      This all my hope and all my Plea,
      For me the Saviour died.
      My dying Saviour and my God,
      Fountain for guilt and sin,
      Sprinkle me ever with Thy- blood,
      And cleanse and keep me clean.”

      A number of years after his conversion Wesley wrote another great hymn on the atonement, “Arise, My Soul Arise Its theology and its language still bear witness to the power of that great experience of salvation into which under God Boehler had led him. The third and fourth stanzas are distinctty Moravian in their teaching and phraseology:

      “Five bleeding wounds He bears,
      Received on Calvary;
      They Pour effectual Prayers,
      They strongly Plead for me:
      ‘Forgive him, oh forgive, they cry
      Nor let that ransomed sinner die”

      Birth Genius? More like what Christ said one must be born again!!!!!

      Pg. 68 here is the truth:

      “This he yet again explained from the Scriptures which describe the state the Apostles were in from our Lord’s death (and indeed for some time before) till the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. They then had faith, otherwise He could not have prayed for them that ‘their faith might not fail.’ Yet they had not in the full sense ‘new’ hearts’; neither had they received the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

      Who can fail to find in these lines of John Wesley the seed truths, if not the sum and substance, of those doctrines and experiences which became the mighty slogans of Methodism ? Thus great revival waves continued to go out from Herrnhut, reaching ultimately to the uttermost parts of the earth. And now its great human Ieader, Count Zinzendorf, is about to be called home. To his family and friends the dying saint triumphantlysaid: “I am going to my Saviour. I am ready. There is nothing to hinder me now. I cannot say how much I love you all. Who would have believed that the prayer of Christ, ‘that they all may be one,’ could have been so strikingly fulfilled among us ! I only asked for flrst-fruits among the heathen, and thousands have been given me. Are we not as in Heaven ! Do we not live together like the angels ! The Lord and His servants understand each other’. I am ready.”

      A few hours later as his son-in-law pronounced the’ Old Testament benediction, “The Lord bless thee and
      keep thee, the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee, the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace,” this dear servant of God fell asleep in Jesus and was absent from the, body and at home with his Lord.

      More than four thousand followed him to his resting place on the Hutberg, among them Moraviarn ministers from Holland, England, Ireland, North America and Greenland. On his tombstone the following in_ scription was placed:

      “Here lie the remains of that immortal man of God, Nicholas I,ewis, Count and Lord of Zinzendorf and Pattendorf ; who through the grace of God and his own unwearied service, became the ordinary of the Brethren’s Church, renewed in this eighteenth Century.. He was born in Dresden on May, 26th, 1700, and entered into the joy of His Lord at “Herrnhut May 9th,1760. He-was_appointed to bring forth and that his fruit should abide.

      Bishop Evelyn Hasse has called attention to the following fruit to be found on the Moravian tree in the garden of the Lord:

      “It was the Herald Church of the greatest European Revival ever known, having been a reformed Church sixty years before the Reformation.

      “It was one of the sources of the Evangelical Revival here in England, and no small factor in its spread.

      “It led the way in the Missionary Revival. having as a Church, been engaged in evangelizing the heathen more than half a century before the rest of Protestantism.

      In the Educational Movement it did pioneer work, both from the religious side and also as a part of the Revival of learning.

      “It published the flrst Protestant Hymn Book in Europe, both in Bohemian and German; it issued here in England in 1754 what Dr. Gregory in his Hymn book of the Modern Church has described as the earliest great Catholic collection with which I am acquainted, which deserves a place beside Palgraves Treasury of Sacred Songs.”

      I most love this quote. why? Because of the sentence which sums up my own experience of salvation:

      ” Either illumination took the place of logic, or reason became intuitive.”

      Enjoy:

      “I have written and preached much on the Holy
      Spirit, for the knowledge of Him has been the most
      vital fact of my experience. I owe everything to
      the gift of Pentecost. * * * I came across a prophet,
      heard a testimony, and set out to seek I knew
      not what. I knew that it was a bigger thing and a
      deeper need than I had ever known. It came along
      the line of duty, and f entered in through a crisis
      of obedience. When it came I could not explain
      what had happened, but I was aware of things unspeakable
      and full of glory. Some results were immediate.
      There came into my soul a deep peace, a
      thriling joy, and a new sense of power. My mind
      was quickened. I felt that I had received a new
      faculty of understanding. Every power was alert.
      Either illumination took the place of logic, or reason
      became intuitive. My bodily powers also were
      quickened. There was a new sense of spring and
      vitality, a new power of endurance, and a strong
      man’s exhilaration in big things. Things began to
      happen. What we had failed to do by strenuous endeavor
      came to pass without labor. It was as when
      the Lord Jesus stepped into the boat that with all
      their rowing had made no progress, immediately
      the ship was at the land whither they went. It was
      gloriously wonderful.”-(Dr. Samuel Chadwick, of
      Cliff College, England.)

      “Never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith
      and peace which came to my soul, not long after
      a first decisive and appropriating view of the Crucified
      Lord as the sinner’s sacrifice of peace, from a
      mor:e intelligent and conscious hold upon the living
      and most gracious personality of the Holy Spirit
      through whose mercy the soul had got that blessed
      view. It was a new development of insight into the
      love of God. It was a new contact as it were with
      the inner and eternal movements of redeeming
      goodness, a new discovery in divine yssgq1sss.”-
      (Handley C. G. Moule, Bishop of Durham.)

      “Often have I said to myself, as I have read Moravian
      history, and felt the sweet strength of the
      Moravian literature of devotion and praise: Si non
      essem Anglicanus uttnem fierem Moraaus; ‘lf I
      were not of the English Church I would fain be of
      the l’Iolavian’.”-(Bishop Moule, of Durham.)

      WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO WE NEED A REPEAT TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      So Charles Wesley wasn’t born a genius and he would know doubt have agreed 100% and gave the glory and honor to him to whom it is rightfully due!.

      Cheers

      • Al Ross
        Al Ross says:

        In a perfect Christian Society , just like a perfect Communist Society , there will be no change and , as it necessarily follows , no History.

        Well , we might remember Cromwell , the expeditor of Jewish importation , laying down the welcome mat by obligingly abolishing Xmas.

        We will all live in accordance with your beliefs because there will be no individuals , simply organisms that are part of a species that possess no separate consciousness.

        How happy you will be. Not all of us , though.

        • charles frey
          charles frey says:

          In 63 I spent Christmas at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge invited by its Headmaster’s son at Heidelberg.

          I marveled at the original horse pistols mounted on a saddle, displayed at the Headmaster’s Lodge in its two story foyer.

          At our first dinner there, Dr. Thomson had OC’s dining hall chair brought to the table for me to sit on, with Cromwell carved into its back.

          On that occasion, he showed me a glossy 8 X 11 photo of Cromwell’s severed head, with remnants of the fence post on which he had been impaled. He pointed out a characteristic wart on C’s face, for positive identification, before he, their Chaplin and their gardener buried it, ” hopefully for the last time ” and unmarked, on their grounds.

          The head arrived encased in a glass box at their gatekeeper’s cottage, with a died out estate’s lawyer plea to please accept it as belonging to a former student.

          Dr Thomson instructed his gatekeeper to recommend to the messenger/lawyer to give it to Parliament instead.

          ” Oh, I have already done that Sir, but Parliament declined, stating, that he was MUCH TOO CONTROVERSIAL A FIGURE YET “.

          Be careful when you make war on Christmas while promoting Hanukkah; was my takeaway.

    • JM
      JM says:

      ” This most certainly was not Wesley’s primary vision, but is instead a reflection on what American Protestantism has become.”

      And Australian and likely for all the (once) Anglosphere. From a national asset to a national scourge.

  2. brsrkr76
    brsrkr76 says:

    Off topic. Sorry. Does anyone know if Darkmoon is back up anywhere yet? It must’ve been kicked off the .me platform. T’was a favorite site of mine.

  3. RonaldB
    RonaldB says:

    Your review is excellent. As an avid follower of Dutton, I can recognize your summary of his thinking is generally right-on.

    I should note that what you term as “dysgenic selection” is actually lack of selection. That is, the harsh environment kills off mutants and produces a fairly homogeneous group. The very harsh environments, such as the arctic, creates a very specialized group where the individualist traits needed for genius are just not there. Once the environment stops selecting out genetic mutations, there is no reason for functional, as opposed to dysfunctional, genes to predominate. As the society becomes more mutant, it declines. Dutton often speaks of the natural decline of every civilization, due to its success in keeping all its citizens, functional and dysfunctional, alive.

    It occurs to me there is a structural element to a civilization’s decline. That is, the experience of genius suggests that to advance technologically, a society must have a certain tolerance for outlier personalities that are individually dysfunctional. As our society becomes feminized and more focused on order and conformity, it is unable to make use of even those geniuses who are available. Counter-culture eliminates not only non-conforming political ideas, but advances in decentralized technology and advances in biological knowledge such as racial, ability, or intelligence differences. If I’m correct, it would mean our civilization would be able to limp along a little longer than the rate of genetic deterioration would indicate. Put another way, the emphasis on wokeness and conformity is hastening our demise.

  4. charles frey
    charles frey says:

    A nanosecond after reading the heading of this essay I thought of Winston Churchill and was subsequently gratified to find him mentioned here.

    However, he can’t be classified as having been ordinarily premature, and thus brilliant, since he was extracted as a result of his mother having suffered a severe fall while riding in their buggy on their estate.

    Of course only a genius, or swinish politician, would assent to the forced repatriation of half of the ca. 5 million anti-Stalinists who fled westward before the Red Army, many of whom he incinerated at Dresden, whose anniversary we can commemorate in four days from now. OPERATION KEELHAUL.

    What genius would SIMULTANEOUSLY prepare OPERATION UNTHINKABLE, his plan to attack the Soviet Union, with ex-Wehrmacht troops held at the ready in their undisturbed, but augmented formations, US Airforce, RAF and Royal Navy for the Baltic front.

    His entire Valentine Day’s exhibition over Dresden, was to convince Stalin, that airpower would henceforth rule the day: irrespective of Stalin’s ca. 4 to 1 superior number in artillery, tanks and tougher troops.

    While the Red Army pushed ever further westwards, his planes would eradicate their supply lines and bomb their modern factories behind the Urals, accidentally dropping a few bombs over Moscow, en route. Perhaps his one ton bombs filled with poison gas, which he held at the ready for his planned, but Staff-nixed 2,000 bomber attack on Germany.

    But then again, perhaps he was a genius. Who else could convince the jews and their Focus Group to consistently cover his enormous and always overdue Royal Purveyor liquor bills. Or allow him to retract the advertisement in the paper, offering the sale of his family’s estate.

    Naaah ! It was his mother’s fall.

    • Stoffel Makwassie
      Stoffel Makwassie says:

      What authority do we have that Churchill was a genius? His own? That gives him about as much credence as Jordan Peterson. Churchill was nothing more than a drunken poltroon (the Fuhrer’s words), a coward, and a compulsive liar. He was simply born into the right circumstances, and stayed there due to string pulling. What an abhorrent creature.

      • Emicho
        Emicho says:

        “born in the right circumstances, and stayed there due to string pulling”
        Yeah, he looks nothing like his father(or his mother, a voracious social climber and THE aristocratic strumpet of the day) but remarkably like King George V. Just saying.

        • charles frey
          charles frey says:

          King George V, was mercy-killed by his personal physician, which didn’t exactly make the papers.

          Regretted by millions, Churchill was prematurely retractable from the womb after his mother’s insufficiently severe fall.

      • charles frey
        charles frey says:

        He was also a journalist at the front during the Boer Wars.

        During those pre-TV days, the British public got its filmed news during Pathe News screenings, prior to the feature film. Not unlike everywhere in the West.

        One such pre-feature screening showed, what purported to be in situ filming, depicting the Boers tearing British, South Africa-born babies out of their incubators and flinging them on the ground. [ Like slightly later accounts of German soldiers bayonetting Belgian babies ].

        How is it, that, as a journalist, he was unaware, that said clip was produced in a probably jew-owned Studio north of London. Already ingratiating himself with jews like the Beit brothers from Germany, heavily invested in said war.

        Repeated by these people on US national newscasts, with the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States, who claimed to have witnessed, as an Army nurse, Iraqi soldiers doing the same in Kuwait.

        Her immaculate makeup, coiffure and beringed hand care suggested, that she never once did as menial a labor as washing her own dishes.

        Regrettably, FOX is falling in line with the current US msm with the Ukraine dilemma, with only Tucker fraying its edges.

  5. Titus
    Titus says:

    Dutton likes to think himself a genius, and his whole work is aimed at proving this thought.
    His theories are entertaining, but that’s pretty much it.

    • SebastianX1/9
      SebastianX1/9 says:

      Absolutely. All of these pseudo-scientific, reductionist-materialist correlations only serve to bolster the case that the socially rude, unpleasant, autistic, nonathletic Dutton is, viola!, a genius himself. I find his work threadbare and wholly unscientific (then again, I was a physicist so I despise this attempt to apply “science” to the human condition); but what I most objectionable is Dutton himself – genuinely unbearable personality. And he’s not a genius.

    • RonaldB
      RonaldB says:

      I listen to Dutton’s videos and have read several of his books.

      I think you’ll find his first definition of “genius” in his book “The Genius Famine”. While Dutton is very bright, he certainly doesn’t meet his own definition of genius, and as far as I know, has never claimed to.

      For me, the most important question is, does Dutton’s work significantly advance the science of the socio-biological influences on behavior, genius included though not exclusively.

      The really important question is, can scientific knowledge be used to maintain our society and civilization? The average IQ of the population is getting lower each year by a predictable amount. This is not due to laziness or even immigration, but through the technological progress that allows every person to survive, however unfit. There may not be a solution to this dilemma, but if there is, it must come through uncompromising examination of the science. I think this is where Dutton’s real contribution lies.

      • Howard K. Ehrlich
        Howard K. Ehrlich says:

        It is interesting why IQ is getting lower.

        Progress in medicine has been rapid the last 100 years or so while during this time IQ has steadily rissen.

        Does massimmigration of high IQ asians and lowe IQ aggressive third wolrlders (subsahariuan africans and arabs come to mind) have a lowering effect on IQ.

        It could have. As was mentioned in the text geniouses often do not do super great in school due to different reasons. So they would be among the first pushed out by high IQ extremely hard working asians from better universities. And this would mean it is less liely their genious bloom so to speak. In many ways it could also lead to less geniouses due to higher education can sharpen the mind i.e. develop it i.e. make people smarter.

        In “documents of elders of zion” the 300 jews (now it’s 3000 at their annual getogether, is that in israel, world jewish congress), say that geniouses are the enemy in effect and that jews should work against them.

        Has jewish controll and media and academia worked against geniouses? Quite possible given the aformentioned text and that many geniouses have been against jewish dominance and strategies and are more likely to see and observe and act against jewish policies that are harmful to white christians.

        And the afformentioned text may or may not betrue, but many do think so and it has certainly reflected many jewish policies over time correctly.

        Also it could be that an effect of aggressive low IQ people and integration could be that the males that are attractive to women are strong physically that can protect them against the aggression of the non white hordes imported by you know who.

        These people may be great at sports, these men or similar but may not be the smartest allways.

        Although I am sure many smart people are also great at sports anyways…

        So this may be two negative factors. And if all top positions at universities are by smart asians and the like white society neds less high IQ whites and geniouses…

        But I do think this will punish itself, because whites are more inventive, intuitive and in general different. I do in no way think whites are superior in all aspects and I value all ethnical groups, we are just different.

        • Andrew F.
          Andrew F. says:

          I moved to Sweden 2 years ago and a girl I worked with told me the largest football team in Stockholm, most of the supporters had gypsy or tattar background.

          Tattare in Sweden comed from when an east indian group arrived (they are from different casts and parts of India, probably an army that got beaten and also tend to be mixed with white Europeans more than gypsies. The language they speak is gypsy/ east indian like and they are a hidden minority).

          The other teams suppoerters used to scream: Solna tattare at them.

          I saw a thing regarding the covid 19 virus that people with a gene that is common in India and also 16 % of Europes population has it, are often more sick and weak from the virus than others.

          I suspect the people with this gene has gypsie or tattar background but to a small extent.

          Apparently other racial backgrounds can’t be detected with a DNA test after 5 or 6 generations.

          If this is so, then we now have 16 % with this racial background, maybe 25 in one generation, then 40 % in two generations, 60 to 70 % in three generations.

          Given the low IQ and difference of the averege east Indian this could explain the drop in IQ.

          Hence racial and environmental issues combined.

          Also a lot of the elite in Sweden has this racial background.

          The leading owners of industry, the wallenbergers, their forefather only had one a child with a tattare housekeeper, hence the whole family has this background and they seem to have mixed with jews. So we have Tattare jews.

          The owners of h&m are simularly of tattar background, jewish background and gypsy background.

          And they steal and musrder.

          So this is a disaster for Sweden and these inbred bastards certainly control alot of the state.

          And tattare and part gypsies are the most etno centric occupying race ever. They control everything and push their own genetics at every instance in media, commercials, politics you name it.

          It is an occupation of Swedish territory by a hostile racemixed lowlife terror race in my view.

          This certainly could lead to lower IQ of Swede’s population aswell as less ingenuity inventiveness and the like.

        • Andrew F.
          Andrew F. says:

          Also there was one of these persons that got alot more sick from the virus on the telly. Some blonde bobybuilder from a smaller town.

          He looked a bit gypsy / tattare to me.

          And Solna is where this gypsy tattare football team is based, it is the largest and closest suburb to Stockholm inner city. Lot’s of perons with the afformentioned background there I would assume.

  6. John E. Howard III
    John E. Howard III says:

    I think it is important that geniouses reproduce.

    If one believes genetics are needed to produce geniouses, and I guess most people here think so, we should encourage geniouses to have many children and also encourage them not to mix with other races or racially mixed (such as part gypsies arabs or africans).

    More geniouses means more progress and great things. There are very few geniouses they should become more.

    Hence white society should uplift it’s geniouses and shine light on their achievements in order to benefit our civilization.

    Especially since our civilization in many ways rest upon and is dependent on geniouses.

    Where as in many other cultures it is upper smartness but not genious, more team players if one may say so as a tendency.

    Hence geniouses should be encouraged to have many children.

    Their achievements celebrated and so on.

    Especially now with the competition between ethnical groups and regions geniouses qare needed more than ever.

    Maybe white societies have a tendency to “hate on” to use the n-word term ” playa hatin’ ” on geniouses. I guess this is different in different regions but that this tendency for example not to recognize artists such as Mozart and Bach during their lifetime given their obvious genious, is such a disgrace to white societies.

    Is it jelousness. Are white people due to the ice age and evolution more negative and don’t see possibilities more than other ethnical groups. Has hardship made us less likely to see oppurtunities and grab them and embrace progress by geniouses? Like: “everything is allways a struggle, why will anything succeed?” negative attitude…

    I am certainly not negative in this way but look at history and this has certainly been a trait if many white societies.

    The attitude may be a bit like: “who is this fancy Mozart and Bach fellas with their genious music, why are they better than most other people wee wee”. And: “why are these people so tallented in this field and most oters not wee wee”.

    It’s a disaster and it will continue and continue untill white people change their attitude.

    BELIEVE, SUPPORT and BENEFIT from GENIOUS!

    So therefore it is of uttermost importance we recognie

    • Tim Folke
      Tim Folke says:

      I enjoyed and appreciated your comment!

      I was in Mensa for some years, and it is my personal opinion that, while geniuses have indeed made some very remarkable contributions to society (Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. William Pierce come to mind but there were/are many others), of greater value to the existence of a folk and a future for their children are those who embrace common sense, know the truth, appreciate beauty, and are willing to summon the courage to uphold the same.

      • John E. Howard III
        John E. Howard III says:

        I think everyone is important.

        People who are not as genious as the most genious or even upper mediocre can be great teamplayers and contrubute to greatness in their way.

        Also even “mediocre” people can have their value.

        Just saying it is a fact WHITE zivilization has been greatly defined and pushed forward by geniouses, just a fact.

        And in competition with other parts of the world the only way for us to survive is by supporting our greatest strengths and one of our greatest strengts are geniouses.

        And not everyone with a high IQ is a genious.

        Hence more geniouses will benefit our zivilisation and is the way forward in my humble yet genious opinion…

      • John E. Carmichel
        John E. Carmichel says:

        Humans or white people do not exist for the sole purpose of bnefitting our group.

        We are created in based on GOD.

        The greatest art, science and inventions make for greater than life experiences, experiences that uplift to a higher level is a way of expressing it.

        So art itself or the greatest science and inventions are in themselves important to people in that they speak to us at a deeper level.

        But yes it has the addedd bomus of benefitting our race because like it is to a degree somewhat an expression of very unique beings from more or less what one may call racial groups and therefore it is the utter strength resiliance and POWER of unique individuals from our RACE and hence it is the uttermost strongest POWERFUL resistance we have in EFFECT.

        In many ways SUPREMACY on an individual level that displays the POWER of our kind even though not everyone or very few of our own race can do, it is members of OUR race that do ITTTTTTTTTT !!!!

        Go bazokas go berzerk.

        Time to live what’s for desert.

  7. Bobby
    Bobby says:

    Thank you Roger for this very insightful piece. I always admire your clear and fluid writing style.

    In my time I have known people who are extremely inept in just about everything in their lives and can barely cope with everyday things but because they are brilliant in just one thing, and usually obsessed with it, they achieve great success and are admired my many.

    I have also known people who can do no wrong, their talents in all of life are seemingly remarkable. Yet, at the same time, these same people never achieve any real success and seem to struggle through much of life.

    Anyone interested in this subject should read: “Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century.” By Charles Slack.

    I don’t know if Goodyear was born prematurely, and I read that book years ago. But it would be interesting to find out. Even when he was thrown into debtor’s prison, Goodyear with no formal training, continued to work on bringing synthetic rubber to the masses. His whole life was beyond wretched and he was never compensated for his world changing invention.

  8. andyay
    andyay says:

    A fascinating article. I was completely unaware of the connection between premature birth and “genius.”
    I’ve wondered, at times, if the wisdom of the ancients wasn’t derived, in part and at intervals, from the superior cognitive specialization of those whom we now classify as “autistic savants.”
    In terms of complex mathematics or astronomical calculations, polyglottal facility or cartographic surveillance, idiot savants may have influenced human development more profoundly than we are yet prepared to give credit to.

  9. Emicho
    Emicho says:

    Talking about inteligence & genius, I know this is a very popular topic among visitors to this site, especially European genius(although is there actually any other kind?).
    The only TV I watch these days is old 60’s, 70’s and sometimes early 1980’s British television productions, as I personally feel this was the only era they made television for adults.
    I’ve spent years beavering away trying to find these productions online, as though I’ve found many, I haven’t ever found a comprehensive list of what was actually top quality to work from.
    If anyone else is interested in such things, I could give them a list of what I think are the best and where to find them/what are worth buying.
    Anyway, to the subject at hand, this series: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0F3f0Fwr7Q4 represents all that is incomparable about this era of television. It’s called Microbes and Men(as I say, no list or article I’ve ever come across has recommended this, I’d never heard of it till yesterday), and deals with the European men of genius who took the medical profession out of the middle ages midway through the 19th century. Saving countless lives and an unquantifiable amount of human suffering.
    It’s quality matches any production of the era.
    I’m only on episode 3 of 4, but they speak of how less than a hundred years ago the majority of medical practices going on hadn’t really progressed passed what it was based on, the work of the ancient Greeks. Of course this was said 50 years ago, but it’s astounding how quickly it advanced in the 20th century before regressing so quickly in the 21st, so that after the Covid hoax, average people now have probably less trust in a profession than 150 years ago, when most of them didn’t really know what they were doing.
    And one that’s proven itself to be beyond corrupt, with a few notable exceptions, just outright criminal beyond belief.
    These decent, patriotic, kind Christian 19th century humanitarians, contrasted with today’s scalpel & drug, cruel, money-grubbing ghouls defies belief. The simple Christian nurses in their nun-like attire, bursting with mercy, verses trousers-wearing, self-obsessed dancing nurses of today, putting out music videos from forced empty hospitals, jabbing kids with God knows what, it boggles the mind.
    Truly, we are seeing what a society without God looks like. It shocks us now, try being reminded of Christendom in the 1800’s, the horrors, tragedies & challenges they faced compared to us, the courage they faced them with, and the orderliness, kindness, gentleness, the simple goodness of the majority, it just makes you weep for what we’ve lost.

  10. Lucius Vanini
    Lucius Vanini says:

    Speaking of the passing on of intelligence, I’m a lot more concerned now about the passing on of UNintelligence, given that White Conservatives in America are hell-bent on abolishing abortion and might be closer to quashing Roe vs. Wade than they’ve ever been. Blacks, as we know, are the demographic with the least intelligence. They have a higher rate of pregnancy but have kept their numbers down through abortion, which they use about five times as often as Whites do, such that if there’d been no Roe vs. Wade their numbers would’ve likely been twice as great as they are–at least. Their use of abortion as birth control has, among other things, spared Euromericans literally millions of violent physical attacks.

    What’s more, the women who have the most abortions are typically the more troubled, less self-controlled and less intelligent members of their community, as are the men who impregnate them. Which means of course that if all or most of their pregnancies come to term there must be a sharp rise in the number of troubled, wayward and backward individuals. Burgeoning trouble both politically and in terms of White personal safety!

    The Right is basically sleepwalking toward a calamitous worsening of an already dire situation. Under the influence of ideology clearly designed to make the Europe-descended vulnerable–ideology which has already impaired their instincts of self-preservation–White America is bent on shooting itself in the foot in yet another way, one which can be avoided so easily through mere inaction, without effort, without risk; and White Nationalists hardly give the matter a thought!

    I challenge anyone to refute any of the salient points in “White Partisanship & Roe vs. Wade.”
    https://theeuropeanfamily.com/f/white-partisanship-roe-vs-wade

  11. Trudie
    Trudie says:

    Blacks have on average a week shorter gestation time than Whites. Geniuses? Proof – “they are low in rule following.”

  12. charles frey
    charles frey says:

    Allow me to draw your attention to a superb example of some of the above theories.

    Google the video with its self-explanatory title:
    AUTISTIC SINGER KODI LEE WINS GOLDEN BUZZER ON AMERICA’S GOT TALENT 2019

    Kodi is also blind and accompanies himself on the piano. Is Kodi’s mother’s race mixing perhaps relevant ?

  13. Sanjay
    Sanjay says:

    Dutton exclusively specializes in Hypothesis Formulation due to his exclusively high verbal intelligence. However, he relies on actual scientists to test his hypothesis, such as Mr. Kirkegaard and Dr. Woodley of Menie. As I understand it, Dutton fails to grasp much of the factual nature of humans. He seems to me to keep on slipping into Freudian Psychoanalytic interpretations of human behavior, instread biological ones. In fact, Dr. Woodley of Menie called him out on this very fact, live on the Jolly Heretic; Woodley accused him of thinking too much like a sociologist as opposed to a biologist. To me, it seems like Dutton comprises the very traits he accused Dr. Rushton of – being a Fast-Life History Strategist. Dutton seems to me to not really be interested in the mathematically quantified verification of his prolific hypothesis formulations, but rather just in receiving donations and creating numerous “dime-a-dozen” books filled with endless hypothesis in the hopes of achieving high sales. Again, live on the Jolly Heretic, Dr. Woodley of Menie called Dutton on in being too interested in achieving public fame, instead of mathematically verified truths. I’ve sent Dutton many long emails pointing out what I perceive as his scientific fallacies, hoping to forgive him if he at least attempts to address these issues; however, he has disregarded all of my emails. In the interest of complete honesty and my underlying sentiment to be universally altruistic, I must disclose that fact that I only possess average General Intelligence, and as such, everything I have just stated could be false. Anyway, here are some of the comments I have left on Dutton’s channel regarding his behavior:

    My understanding is that Dutton flatters himself by referring to himself as “autistic” and “scientific.” I instead find him to be poetic, a manifestation of one with an asymmetrically high verbal intelligence that is not balanced with sufficient quantities of quantitative and visuo-spatial ones.

    Dutton constantly contradicts himself. One day he will say that eugenics is not desirable because for a race to be optimally Group Selected, only a small percent must have high intelligence and be responsible for leading the nation, while the rest need to have average and below average intelligence so they can do jobs that require more muscle than brains. But then the next day, Dutton will say that the European “elites” are in fact not responsible for either leading the nation towards adaptive or maladaptive paths, and such beliefs are just “conspiracy theories.” Dutton has mentioned his support for Dr. Woodley’s Social Epistasis Amplification Model where the argument is made that when the elites of a Group-Selected race undergo mutations, it can result in the brains of the elites being affected to where they suggest maladaptive behaviors for their race, resulting in epigenetic changes in behavior of the masses where they now engage in such maladaptive behaviors. But then once again, Dutton will the next day say that such thinking that elites have influence on the masses in just a “conspiracy theory.” Again, such non-scientific thinking would be predicted by one who possesses asymmetrically very high verbal intelligence and insufficient quantitative and visuospatial ones.
    ____________________________________

    Dutton constantly complains that his guests speak too slowly, and also was extremely agitated about the fact that Dr. Woodley of Menie used to speak much slower than him on the show. I posted the following regarding Dutton’s complaints:

    One can recite poetry quite rapidly; however, quantitative and visuo-spatial reasoning takes more time, which is why Dr. Woodley of Menie had to slow down when answering questions. This is why on a computer, graphics processing requires a lot more resources than word-processing applications. One actually needs a separate GPU for descent graphics processing, while word-processing can be sufficiently handled just by the CPU.
    ______________________________________

    Perhaps because of my intellectual deficiencies I have the views that I do, but I find most of the host’s guests to be “strange.” They seem to either be “mid-wits” and/or just engaging in fraud. I just don’t see them offering any new data that is of moderate or higher value, let alone ground-breaking data that gives us significantly new understanding of reality that we did not have before. Even Emil Kirkegaard rarely offers any new data and rather seems to just replicate studies that have already been carried out. Perhaps this is the effect of dysgenics/mutational load where genius level scientists are extremely rare. I myself have contributed nothing, except for pointing out the shortcomings of others. In fact, the only actual individual who currently seems to offer major “big-picture” level new understandings of the world is Dr. Woodley of Menie – reformulating the breeders equation to encorporate the variable of generation quantity, discovering the part of the brain responsible for the Flynn Effect, discovering the correlation between life-history strategy and the level of correlatedness between the veral, quantitative, and visuo-spatial intelligences, and discovering the cumulative effects of mutations of things like religiosity. Dr. Woodley seems to me to be on the level of MacDonald’s discovery of Ashkenazi Group-Selected evolution and eugenic practices, Lynn’s discovery of dysgenic trends, and Jensen’s and Spearman’s mathematical forumulation of general intelligence. I am curious to know what counts as “macro-innovations” in the last ten years. It has been discovered that contemporary innovation is at the rate of 25% of that in 1860 or so. What are these macro-innovations? I would like to see a list of the macro-innovations for the last ten years. I tried to search the internet but could not find anything. It’s hard for me to find highly conspicuous macro-innavations such as past macro-innovations such as the light bulb, combustion engine, steam engine, radio, television, battery, electricity, the transistor, typewriter, propeller airplane, microwave oven, etc.
    _______________________________________

    Once again the host is confused and contradicts himself. First, Dr. Woodley of Menie writes a paper in which he concludes that in contemporary times, European Psychopaths successfully use contraception, and it’s the relatively K-Selected people who successfully have children because they emotionally desire it. Thus, contemporary Europeans are becoming K-Selected. However, the host then on a previous show says that the latest evidence shows that overall, Europeans are actually becoming R-Selected and that Dr. Woodley is incorrect. The host cites evidence such as increasing breast size and decreasing age of first menstruation. However, now on this show, the host disregards his previous claim and says we are actually becoming more K-Selected, as Woodley theorized.

    Then, the host says that low ‘g’ is an R-Selected trait, when Dr. Woodley has theorized that within races, ‘g’ has no correlation to life history strategy; it’s only at the group level that ethnic median ‘g’ is positively correlated to slower life history strategies.
    _______________________________________________

    Finally, Dr. Roger Devlin has chosen to purchase Dutton’s book, read it, and review it here. However, I have found most of Dutton’s hypothesis to not be logical, therefore, I am not willing to read any of his books, except for those he writes with Dr. Woodley of Menie, where Woodley does all the science, and Dutton just puts his name on it.

  14. Sanjay
    Sanjay says:

    My apologies, Moderator, but my original post contained too many typos, so I am re-posting it with the corrections, please delete the original post and approve this corrected version, thank you very much:

    Dutton exclusively specializes in Hypothesis Formulation due to his exclusively high verbal intelligence. However, he relies on actual scientists to test his hypothesis, such as Mr. Kirkegaard and Dr. Woodley of Menie. As I understand it, Dutton fails to grasp much of the factual nature of humans. He seems to me to keep on slipping into Freudian Psychoanalytic interpretations of human behavior, instread of biological ones. In fact, Dr. Woodley of Menie called him out on this very fact, live on the Jolly Heretic; Woodley accused him of thinking too much like a sociologist as opposed to a biologist. To me, it seems like Dutton comprises the very traits he accused Dr. Rushton of – being a Fast-Life History Strategist. Dutton seems to me to not really be interested in the mathematically quantified verification of his prolific hypothesis formulations, but rather just in receiving donations and creating numerous “dime-a-dozen” books filled with endless hypothesis in the hopes of achieving high sales. Again, live on the Jolly Heretic, Dr. Woodley of Menie called Dutton out in being too interested in achieving public fame, instead of mathematically verified truths. I’ve sent Dutton many long emails pointing out what I perceive as his scientific fallacies, hoping to forgive him if he at least attempts to address these issues; however, he has disregarded all of my emails. In the interest of complete honesty and my underlying sentiment to be universally altruistic, I must disclose the fact that I only possess average General Intelligence, and as such, everything I have just stated could be false. Anyway, here are some of the comments I have left on Dutton’s channel regarding his behavior:

    My understanding is that Dutton flatters himself by referring to himself as “autistic” and “scientific.” I instead find him to be poetic, a manifestation of one with an asymmetrically high verbal intelligence that is not balanced with sufficient quantities of quantitative and visuo-spatial ones.

    Dutton constantly contradicts himself. One day he will say that eugenics is not desirable because for a race to be optimally Group Selected, only a small percent must have high intelligence and be responsible for leading the nation, while the rest need to have average and below average intelligence so they can do jobs that require more muscle than brains. But then the next day, Dutton will say that the European “elites” are in fact not responsible for either leading the nation towards adaptive or maladaptive paths, and such beliefs are just “conspiracy theories.” Dutton has mentioned his support for Dr. Woodley’s Social Epistasis Amplification Model where the argument is made that when the elites of a Group-Selected race undergo mutations, it can result in the brains of the elites being affected to where they suggest maladaptive behaviors for their race, resulting in epigenetic changes in behavior of the masses where they now engage in such maladaptive behaviors. But then once again, Dutton will the next day say that such thinking that elites have influence on the masses in just a “conspiracy theory.” Again, such non-scientific thinking would be predicted by one who possesses asymmetrically very high verbal intelligence and insufficient quantitative and visuospatial ones.
    ____________________________________

    Dutton constantly complains that his guests speak too slowly, and also was extremely agitated about the fact that Dr. Woodley of Menie used to speak much slower than him on the show. I posted the following regarding Dutton’s complaints:

    One can recite poetry quite rapidly; however, quantitative and visuo-spatial reasoning takes more time, which is why Dr. Woodley of Menie had to slow down when answering questions. This is why on a computer, graphics processing requires a lot more resources than word-processing applications. One actually needs a separate GPU for descent graphics processing, while word-processing can be sufficiently handled just by the CPU.
    ______________________________________

    Perhaps because of my intellectual deficiencies I have the views that I do, but I find most of the host’s guests to be “strange.” They seem to either be “mid-wits” and/or just engaging in fraud. I just don’t see them offering any new data that is of moderate or higher value, let alone ground-breaking data that gives us significantly new understanding of reality that we did not have before. Even Emil Kirkegaard rarely offers any new data and rather seems to just replicate studies that have already been carried out. Perhaps this is the effect of dysgenics/mutational load where genius level scientists are extremely rare. I myself have contributed nothing, except for pointing out the shortcomings of others. In fact, the only actual individual who currently seems to offer major “big-picture” level new understandings of the world is Dr. Woodley of Menie – reformulating the breeders equation to encorporate the variable of generation quantity, discovering the part of the brain responsible for the Flynn Effect, discovering the correlation between life-history strategy and the level of correlatedness between the veral, quantitative, and visuo-spatial intelligences, and discovering the cumulative effects of mutations of things like religiosity. Dr. Woodley seems to me to be on the level of MacDonald’s discovery of Ashkenazi Group-Selected evolution and eugenic practices, Lynn’s discovery of dysgenic trends, and Jensen’s and Spearman’s mathematical forumulation of general intelligence. I am curious to know what counts as “macro-innovations” in the last ten years. It has been discovered that contemporary innovation is at the rate of 25% of that in 1860 or so. What are these macro-innovations? I would like to see a list of the macro-innovations for the last ten years. I tried to search the internet but could not find anything. It’s hard for me to find highly conspicuous macro-innavations such as past macro-innovations such as the light bulb, combustion engine, steam engine, radio, television, battery, electricity, the transistor, typewriter, propeller airplane, microwave oven, etc.
    _______________________________________

    Once again the host is confused and contradicts himself. First, Dr. Woodley of Menie writes a paper in which he concludes that in contemporary times, European Psychopaths successfully use contraception, and it’s the relatively K-Selected people who successfully have children because they emotionally desire it. Thus, contemporary Europeans are becoming K-Selected. However, the host then on a previous show says that the latest evidence shows that overall, Europeans are actually becoming R-Selected and that Dr. Woodley is incorrect. The host cites evidence such as increasing breast size and decreasing age of first menstruation. However, now on this show, the host disregards his previous claim and says we are actually becoming more K-Selected, as Woodley theorized.

    Then, the host says that low ‘g’ is an R-Selected trait, when Dr. Woodley has theorized that within races, ‘g’ has no correlation to life history strategy; it’s only at the group level that ethnic median ‘g’ is positively correlated to slower life history strategies.
    _______________________________________________

    Finally, Dr. Roger Devlin has chosen to purchase Dutton’s book, read it, and review it here. However, I have found most of Dutton’s hypothesis to not be logical, therefore, I am not willing to read any of his books, except for those he writes with Dr. Woodley of Menie, where Woodley does all the science, and Dutton just puts his name on it.

  15. Barkingmad
    Barkingmad says:

    Boy, what an interesting article and certainly something to chew on. The comments, too.

    “Dutton also predicts the rise of ‘evil geniuses,’ brilliantly talented men whose achievements harm rather than enhance the evolutionary fitness of their group, for example, by promoting …harmful ideologies.”

    Geniuses, both evil and well meaning – who needs them anymore. They are not always (if ever they were) all that smart, even when they are not evil, as Dutton points out. I’d rather live in a society where all persons of at least average intelligence can easily tell the difference between association and causation, especially as regards sickness but not limited to that area. The inability to do this is the curse of so many of our medical “geniuses” (Pasteur – step right up), one ghastly result being the development of vaccinations, a treatment in which deliberate poisoning of the bloodstream (ca. 70 doses by the time you’ve finished high school) is automatically considered a prevention of illness when what is really occurring is the obstruction of the external manifestation of interior disorder.

    99.9% of medical doctors and probably genius-level researchers never look any farther than the mere presence of certain microscopic entities and then conclude that this is the basic cause of acute illness, and therefore these wicked little entities must be wiped out at any cost. Cause and effect are never proved, it’s all taken on faith: you can go back to ancient times and see that everyone, not just the great minds, held to the view that sickness is always caused by “something out there” with no personal involvement.

    The capacity to really burrow into things is probably a function of the individual’s basic world view, which has nothing to do with IQ. Our medical geniuses almost never think any more deeply than what technique they can invent which will prevent unpleasant symptoms. What a silly, vain, tragic view of life.

  16. Sanjay
    Sanjay says:

    Millions of people around the world consume Dutton’s products, and by doing so, they may be getting a false understanding of the world. Dutton himself has publicly claimed that he was born with low quantitative and visuo-spatial intelligence, but a very high verbal one (similar to me). As such, when he uses a study to come to a conclusion, he is unable to determine if their are any mathematical errors in the study he is using, rendering the study invalid. For example, Dutton has been using Perkin’s book “The Welfare Trait” to make public claims that welfare very strongly facilitates high fertility among European-Englishmen who are unintelligent and Psychopathic. However, Dr. Woodley of Menie called Dutton out on his fallacy live on the Jolly Heretic show; Woodley, who actually possesses high quantitative and visuo-spatial intelligence, reviewed Perkins mathematics and discovered major errors. While the use of welfare did indeed facilitate an increase in fertility of European-Englishmen with low intelligence and Psychopathology, the effect was actually a lot weaker than Perkins’ original conclusion.

    Thus, Dutton’s numerous public conclusions are based on numerous studies that he does not have the innate ability to verify for accuracy. Thus, by consuming Dutton’s products, his patrons may be getting a false understanding of the world.

    Another example is where Dutton regularly publicly mentions that relious thinking causes ethnocentric sentiments. He references a study in which test subjects who were religious were asked to have religous thoughts, and a certain part of the brain significantly increased in bio-chemical activity. Then test subjects were asked to have ethnocentric thoughts, and the same brain region saw the increase in activity. The conlcusion of the study was that this specific brain region was responsible for both religious and ethnocentric thoughts/sentiments. Dutton mentioned this on his show, but Dr. Woodly called him out on it live on the show, pointing out that this study has not been replicated, and that with the current Replication Crisis, such a significant conclusion should not be accepted as a conclusive theory untill it has been replicated several times. The Replication Crisis is the ongoing problem where so many studies on the human brain are not being successfully replicated due to the initial studies containing unintentional errors or fraud.

    Thus, Dutton seems to me to use many studies in his conclusions that have not been replicated, and this does not seem to be a problem for him, since he thinks more like a poet than a mathematician. Thus, my suggestion is that no one should consume any of Dutton’s products because they may end up getting an innacurate understanding of the world. I would suggest people read Dr. Woodley of Menie’s research instead: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mmoY0-kAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

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