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A journey into the divisive ‘science of race’

Ruth Hunt spoke to GAVIN EVANS about his book that exposes the all-too modern phenomenon of 'racist science' — in the form of IQ tests and even the infamous 11-plus exam — championed by the government

THE FUTURE of Britain is in trouble, with Cummings still in his job, the rise of alt-right commentators, the demise of traditional news, and theories that make no sense being accepted by people who view experts as the enemy.

Journalist and author Gavin Evans has written Skin Deep: Journeys in the Divisive Science of Race, a book that will open your eyes to the problems we face and how to challenge those who try to divide us.

With the dangerous and ugly alt-right on the rise it might seem odd that it is linked to the 11-plus exams that many older people in our society had to take, and some who still do. For these students it was their first experience of being separated by IQ – “intelligence quotient”.

Many of those who failed it found it was a traumatic time, not only separated from friends, but with feelings of worthlessness that have persisted decades later. For others, the sense of bitterness is still present, of how unfair the process was, as those children with well-off parents were able to access private tuition so they could pass the exam.

In Skin Deep, Evans, who grew up in South Africa and was involved in the anti-apartheid movement, explains how systems that rank people according to IQ, are working from the false assumption that it is innate, with the 11-plus that included an IQ component being a classic case.

One of the reasons why the 11-plus exams were introduced was due to the “twin studies” evidence, Evans says. “The eminent psychologist, Cyril Burt produced studies of separated identical twins that apparently showed they had almost identical IQs despite growing up in wildly different environments.

“For example, one twin was being raised by a shepherd and another by a landed aristocratic family. After his death it emerged that all of Burt’s twins were invented — a massive case of scientific fraud.”

“The 11-plus exams that he helped inspire meant that middle-class children had a strong chance of going to academic grammar schools,” Evans said, “while working-class children went to second-rate secondary-modern schools.

“Incidentally, they also discriminated against girls because there were more boys’ grammar schools, and against northern children because there were more southern grammar schools.

“So, even though this was claimed to be a meritocratic system, it actually worked against social mobility, which is one of the reasons why it was replaced by the comprehensive system.”

Such ideas regarding how much of intelligence was innate in individuals, social groups and amongst races has been debunked — but that didn’t deter those with such beliefs from firing off publication after publication waiting for gullible editors to bite.

Now, with the conditions ripe, there has been a revival of ideas around IQ and “race science” by commentators who claim to be defenders of free speech, speaking a “truth” that the politically correct brigade and corrupt mainstream media are allegedly trying to withhold from the masses.

“These commentators claim to be talking about ‘scientific fact’ but the problem is they are ignoring the actual evolutionary scientists working in this field, who have come to majority positions on the fact that there are no population-based differences in average intelligence, making no population group inherently more intelligent than the other.

“Yet such results won’t be discussed by these figures,” says Evans. “Instead they will carry on cherry-picking bits they agree with and making huge assumptions with little or no basis in fact.”

It was for this reason that Evans wrote Skin Deep and its 2014 predecessor Black Brain, White Brain.

“I thought these assumptions needed to be critiqued. Prominent public figures like Steven Pinker, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris Andrew Sullivan and others were (and still are) promoting a variant of race ‘science’ that was, in fact, utterly at odds with real science.

“In particular, they were using the cat’s paw tactic by arguing that Ashkenazi Jews were innately more intelligent than the rest. I devoted a whole chapter to this claim, showing why it is unscientific and plain wrong.”

More generally, Evans felt he needed to take on the claims of racist “science” from several angles. First, archaeological — showing that people with modern intelligence were producing art in caves in Africa 100,000 years ago.

Secondly, he has illustrated how in terms of genes there are not significant population differences when it comes to any form of cognition, and in terms of IQ theory, that differences between average IQs at population level have nothing to do with genetics.

“The genetic component to IQ is significantly exaggerated at an individual level. But the more significant error is to assume that because individual genetic inheritance plays a part in ability to perform in IQ tests, so it must be at the level of the population group and this is wrong.”

So, why are these ideas gaining so much traction? This was the third element, Evans wanted to show — how the claims of race science were being magnified by the web-based alt-right.

Evans believes the popularity for these ideas comes from an underlying socio-economic cause, with sections of populations feeling left behind by the rapidity of changes in post-industrial economies. Those most resentful of these changes tend to be white men who can’t cope with the idea of women and people of colour doing better than them.

“Their hatred and insecurities are hugely magnified by social media. They seek each other out on forums. They might follow the same alt-right figures on YouTube, such as Stefan Molyneux and Jordan Peterson.

“If they have an obsession about ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories, they might be influenced by the anti-vax movement. They then get further sucked in towards alt-right groups promoting race science. This is a kind of radicalisation not only by the alt-right but by algorithm too.”

For these social-media elements, Evans believes the platforms must take responsibility as publishers of the hateful material hosted on their sites.

“Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and other social-media platforms can no longer get away with denying that they are publishers. Their algorithms steer users towards contentious posts and this includes ones punting fake news, racist material and so-on. Twitter has made some progress in this regard, but Facebook less so.

“Mark Zuckerberg has made a few noises about reform but in practice little has improved. They still use Breitbart and other far-right news sources as their trusted news-monitoring ‘partners’.

“Allowing racist comment on social-media platforms seems to me like the equivalent of falsely shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded space. It should simply be taken down.”

This isn’t helped when one of the “heroes” of Brexit and a key advisor to the Prime Minister, Cummings, has written in overly long rants in his blog about his assumptions on the relation between educational performance, IQ and genetics.

Evans illustrates how Cummings makes a number of fundamental errors:

“He equated IQ with intelligence. They are not the same thing. There are other forms of intelligence (creative, practical, long term memory, emotional/perceptive, wisdom and so-on) that are not covered by IQ tests.

“What these tests measure is abstract logic. Abstract logic does have an inherited component although this has been exaggerated, partly through the misreading of twins’ studies.

“But IQ is also sensitive to environment, an aspect Cummings has not recognised, probably because he has not read much on this subject. Studies of identical twins raised in significantly different class and educational environments reveal big IQ disparities, up to 30 IQ points.

“Studies of adopted children show that those adopted into stable working-class families have a small IQ increase; those adopted into middle-class homes show a bigger IQ increase and those adopted into wealthy homes show an even larger IQ increase. The reason relates to exposure to ideas and particularly to abstract logic.”

When Johnson was filmed entering Number Ten, the camera angle picked up Cummings slouched against a wall, staring at his phone. Unlike the rest of those inside, he looked unkempt, wearing a t-shirt with battered jeans.

This is an image he has carefully cultivated — to be an outsider and seemingly above the law as shown in the 2016 referendum and more recently during the strict lockdown measures.

As we move into unchartered times, with Cummings still at the helm with Johnson — and as some argue, having a huge influence on policies and the direction of travel, Evans is deeply concerned about what this means for the future.

“For one thing, he has a record of flirting with race science. Not only did his piece on IQ, biology and educational performance for Michael Gove include claims that seemed to come directly from the bible of race science, The Bell Curve, but he ran a piece on his own blog site by Andrew Sabisky, advocating eugenics and claiming that black Americans were innately less intelligent than white.

“You don’t host that kind of nonsense unless you have some sympathy with it. Later he employed Sabisky before the exposure of his views forced a retreat.”

But, as Evans argues, it goes way beyond this. “Boris Johnson, a lazy man, has become reliant on him, seeming to believe Cummings’s own view that he is the brightest penny around (which is bizarre — when you read Cummings’s verbose raves, it is hard to avoid the view that his intelligence is hugely over-rated). Cummings appears to have the adolescent view that that chaos is a fine thing.”

“In so many ways, I think he’s a dangerous man.”

Skin Deep: Journeys in the Divisive Science of Race is published by Oneworld Publications

Gavin Evans is a journalist and author and lectures at Birkbeck, and Ruth F Hunt is an author and freelance journalist.

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