#race 'science'

[readingsquotes]

The US National Institutes of Health describes scientific racism “an organised system of misusing science to promote false scientific beliefs in which dominant racial and ethnic groups are perceived as being superior”.

The ideology rests on the false belief that “races” are separate and distinct. “Racial purity is a fantasy concept,” said Dr Adam Rutherford, a lecturer in genetics at University College London. “It does not and has not and never will exist, but it is inherent to the scientific racism programme.”

Prof Alexander Gusev, a quantitative geneticist at Harvard University, said that “broadly speaking there is essentially no scientific evidence” for scientific racism’s core tenets.

The writer Angela Saini, author of a book on the return of race science, has described how it traces its roots to arguments originally used to defend colonialism and later Nazi eugenics, and today can often be deployed to “shore up” political views.

In multiple conversations, HDF’s organisers suggested their interests were also political. Frost appeared to express support for what he called “remigration”, which Ahrens had told him would be the AfD’s key policy should the party win power.

...

The principal benefactor

Andrew Conru founded his first internet business while studying mechanical engineering at Stanford. In 2007, he hit the jackpot, selling his dating website Adult FriendFinder to the pornography company Penthouse for $500m.

In recent years, the entrepreneur has turned his attention to giving away his money, declaring on his personal website: “My ultimate goal is not to accumulate wealth or accolades, but to leave a lasting, positive impact on the world.”

His foundation has given millions to a wide and sometimes contrasting range of causes, including a Seattle dramatic society, a climate thinktank and a pet rehoming facility, as well as less progressive recipients: an anti-immigration group called the Center for Immigration Studies, and Turning Point USA, which runs a watchlist of university professors it claims advance leftist propaganda.

[bet-on-me-13]

The weirdly competent Doctor

So! The Watchtower's Medical Bay is a hub of constant Activity. With the number of Heroes who work under the Justice League, there are always injuries, health check-Ups, and illnesses that need healing.

But with the amount of Variant Biologies that those Heroes have, it's always a guessing game as to how to help them best. Some Metahumans react positively to penicillin, but others react like it's their Kryptonite. Some Aliens have anatomy similar to Humans, others are so different you can't tell the Stomach from the Bladder.

So when they hired a New Doctor for the Medical Bay, they had to run him through an entire Course on Variant Biologies and how best to treat specific Heroes. It was long and difficult to remember fully, but it was necessary for him to know.

But then the new Doctor started correcting Them.

"Actually, Martian's react better to the Syrup of Eucalyptus Plants better than Penicillin, since Eucalyptus is very similar to a medicinal plant from Mars which they used in many of their antibiotics."

"I don't think just pumping double doses of sedative is the best way to calm down a Speedster, that could have adverse effects on their body. Perhaps try Psychic Intervention? Their minds move a Mile a Second, but if you can calm them down their bodies will follow suit."

"Of course you use Micro-Doses of Kryptonite to operate on Superman! What else would you do?! I don't know, maybe ask JLD to enchant your Equipment to make use of Kryptonian suseptiblity to Magic? The Kryptonite is just gonna give him Cancer!"

Of course the Doctors didn't take kindly to being rudely corrected by a newbie, and Fired him on his first day.

Then a few days later their usual Treatments don't work, and they decide to give those strategies the Quack Doctor gave them out of desperation.

And Lo and Behold, they work! Martian Manhunter is fully healed and feels much better than the previous times he has needed surgery. Apparently they used a different Antibiotic that worked better with his Biology. Which was incredible, how had they figured it out?

Another Doctor you say? One who was experienced on Martian Biology and Medicinal History? He would very much like to meet with the man!

...

What do you mean you fired him for talking back?!

[vague-humanoid]

[thererisesaredstar]

Glory to Labour! Glory To Science! These are our Minds, These are our Hands! (1970)

[antifainternational]

TFW when you're a white supremacist and science keeps disproving that your European ancestors were white.

[teaboot]

One of the most bizarre feelings imo is finding out about a prejudice you didn't know existed

Like. I only recently found out that there's areas IN MY OWN COUNTRY where discrimination against Italian people is a genuine problem

Like

I definitely know WHY I always assumed Racism was a prejudice more dependant on differences in skin colour but holy shit damn yeah okay so there's also ultraviolet racism too huh, we're all just drinking the shitty bitch water then

[ravenkings]

[stopmakingliberalslookbad]

Principles that so-called "leftists" have abandoned since October 7th

Being against religious fundamentalism: You guys used to think that fundamentalism was a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, you still believe that OTHER religions that are fundamentalist are bad, but Muslim right wing religious fundamentalism is very much okay with you. When you express support for religious fundamentalist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Islamic Republic, you are supporting suppression against women, LGBT people, and Jews (though the latter doesn't bother you at all). These are not resistance groups, they are terror groups.

Anti-racism: Mocking Israeli accents is suddenly funny to you. Jews aren't oppressed any more and antisemitism isn't as important as other forms of ethnic hate. It's okay to discriminate against people based on where they're from (the treatment of twenty year old Eden Golan is a particularly disgusting example). Indigeneity expires if you're Jewish. You support land back efforts for everyone but Jews. You employ the noble savage stereotype against Palestinians, because "That's just their way!" Holocaust inversion and even denial? NBD. Jews are trying to take over the world and are bloodthirsty monsters who support genocide. And the blatant tokenization is horrific. Some of you have even used the expression "Good Jews".

Being against ethnic cleansing: You bleat about the non-existent "genocide" in Palestine (and it is NOT a genocide according the the actual definition of the word), but your only solution is to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East instead of supporting the two state solution.

Anti-nationalism: Jewish nationalism is bad. Arab nationalism is good. There are 22 Arab states and over fifty Muslim states, but even the two state solution in which there would be 22 Arab states, over fifty Muslim states and one Jewish state isn't enough, because Jews bad. Arab and Muslim conquest and imperialism? It's a good thing, ackchuyally!

Belief in science: Genetic studies prove that all ethnic Jews (yes, that includes Ashkenazi Jews) are indigenous to the Levant, but you guys seem to believe that we fell out of the sky. Archaeology proves that Jews were there first, but those findings are "fake" according to you.

Once again, I am asking why are you guys willing to sacrifice your principles for Palestine?

[dostoyevsky-official]

I was a bit sad to hear that I'm assumed to be fascist, as a tech worker who has no major issues with slate star codex. But I guess the culture war stuff can wait until after the US has sorted out its constitutional crisis.

If you have no major issues with Scott Alexander Siskind Slate Star Codex, you have no major issues with his ongoing discussion of race science, racial IQ differences and "human biodiversity". This has been known and litigated for years. It keeps cropping up. The most recent example is from January 15, 2025: How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates is entirely based on the work of an infamous racial scientist:

Richard Lynn was a scientist who infamously tried to estimate the average IQ of every country. Typical of his results is this paper, which ranged from 60 (Malawi) to 108 (Singapore). People obviously objected to this, and Lynn spent his life embroiled in controversy, with activists constantly trying to get him canceled/fired and his papers retracted/condemned. His opponents pointed out both his personal racist opinions/activities and his somewhat opportunistic methodology.

Those horrible activists. Must've been more "culture war stuff" from woke moralists who don't understand science.

For 50 years, Richard Lynn has been at the forefront of scientific racism. An unapologetic eugenicist, Lynn uses his authority as professor (emeritus) of psychology at the University of Ulster to argue for the genetic inferiority of non-white people. Lynn believes that IQ tests can be used to determine the worth of groups of people, especially racial groups and nations. The wealth and power of nations, according to Lynn, is due to their racial intelligence and “homogeneity” (or “purity”). He argues that the nations with the highest IQs must subjugate or eliminate the lower-IQ groups within their borders in order to preserve their dominance. Since the 1970s, Richard Lynn has been working tirelessly to place race, genes, and IQ at the center of discussions surrounding inequality. [...] Lynn also recycles Nazi-era arguments for Nordic superiority within the “Caucasoid” group, claiming that a “north-south continuum” exists, with people from northern Europe having evolved to be more intelligent than their southern neighbors. [...] Lynn is referring to his belief that racial groups have genetically determined behavioral patterns, and that crime, disruptiveness, and antisocial behavior are part of minorities’ genetic makeup. In this way, Lynn has provided a veneer of scientific respectability to long-discredited racist theories like those popularized by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein in The Bell Curve. [...] Lynn is one of the few remaining “race scientists” who is willing to explicitly endorse addressing these supposed problems through eugenic policies. [...] Lynn unabashedly suggests just that, favoring a “parental licensing scheme” in which “couples would have to apply for and obtain a license to have children.” He also believes that there is “a good case for reviving the sterilization of the mentally retarded and criminals,” and has promoted a “commendable scheme” targeting poor mothers which “would require sterilization as a condition of receiving welfare.” (x)

In his own words,

“If the evolutionary process is to bring its benefits, it has to be allowed to operate effectively. This means that incompetent societies have to be allowed to go to the wall… . What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of “phasing out” of such peoples. If the world is to evolve more better humans, then obviously someone has to make way for them otherwise we shall all be overcrowded. After all, ninety-eight per cent of the species known to zoologists are extinct. Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality.”

This brief summary is the political project that writing these blog posts advance and reflects who Slate Star is as a person. You have to be profoundly stupid or profoundly racist (but I repeat myself) to think these fascist worldviews don't affect someone's research—indeed, that someone's research isn't a product of, in service of those views—and here I mean both Lynn and Slate Star. To overlook all this and go on favorably citing Lynn is damning. You shouldn't be able to show your face in polite society after this.

Speaking of the political project in question, Lynn funded, and was funded by, neonazis, white supremacists, and hate groups, some violent, throughout his life. He served on the editorial board of Mankind Quarterly, a pseudoscientific racialist journal once described as "written by racists for racists," founded in 1960 by segregationists to advance their cause, and funded by notorious segregationist, anti-semitic, pro-apartheid groups. The people involved in its founding, publication, and articles, including Lynn, were complete pariahs, too racist for what was a racist society—but one that had beaten a blow to nazism and pulled back from those levels of explicit extermination, able to see the link between racial science and the logical teleological end of genocide. The chief founders were Reginald Gates, Henry Garett, G.r. Gayre and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer. The last was a prominent, famous German-Dutch racial scientist and member of the nazi party, who was not only Mengele's PhD supervisor but who encouraged him to go further with his experiments during the Holocaust; he was able to launder his reputation as a "genetics researcher" postwar, though he was unrepentant. Henry Garett was a lawyer who testified against integration in Brown v Board of Ed. Gates was also a famous scientist fired from Howard University for opposing segregation:

Note the language they (Gates) use to carefully disguise their political goals under a mask of detached, clinical, objective science:

The journal was immediately attacked by legitimate scientists who saw through their obvious machinations. The political goals were evident (x):

Mankind Quarterly never disappeared. It remained closely connected to shadow networks of white supremacist organizations and funding called the Pioneer Foundation, partially a trust for Draper's money. Currently, the journal is published through the Human Diversity Foundation (HFD) by the German white nationalist and AfD social media manager Erik Ahrens and Danish neonazi Emil Kirkegaard, who perhaps plays the most important role in organizing HFD, Mankind Quarterly, Aporia Magazine (another online scientific racism rag), and connecting and bringing to prominence white nationalists, racialists, and hygienists worldwide. Both have defended nazis and the Waffen SS.

Kirkegaard is a named author on more than 40 papers published in the journal Mankind Quarterly, a longstanding outlet for race science theories. The topics of Kirkegaard’s inquiries have included whether black Americans earn less than white Americans because of “average intelligence differences”, comparing penis size, testicle size and “breast-buttock preference” by race, and an attempt to show that in Denmark those with “Muslim names” have lower IQs. The geneticist Adam Rutherford told the Guardian that Mankind Quarterly and similar periodicals were so discredited that it would be “career suicide” for a genuine academic to publish in them. Kirkegaard’s positions appear closer to racism than science. “Africans,” Kirkegaard wrote on his blog in July, “are prone to violence everywhere.” [...] Nonetheless, Kirkegaard enjoys some influential connections. The recordings show him claiming that in 2019 he was among the “online dissidents” that the tech billionaire and rightwing donor Peter Thiel flew to Silicon Valley for discussions. (x)

Kirkegaard is also a pedophile:

In a 2012 blog post, Kirkegaard wrote that it would be a "good idea to legalize child porn" because he thinks viewing this content would reduce the number of rapes committed by pedophiles. He’s also stated that he would support lowering the age of consent to 13 or lower if puberty begins earlier. Despite his own views on child porn and age of consent, Kirkegaard has tried to link homosexuality to pedophilia and categorized all left-wing people as pedophiles on his blog. (x)

We've established how these people operate, how they lie, what rhetorical tricks they pull, what their real goals are, what their history is—the holocaust, apartheid, segregation—and what their political project is—AfD, Trump, Thiel, remigration, eugenics. Going back to Slate Star's blog post:

Thanks to Emil Kirkegaard for the blog post that finally cleared this up for me.

Kirkegaard and Slate Star communicated and collaborated on this. You'll find Kirkegaard in the post comments, along with Steve Sailer, yet another prominent American white supremacist. Kirkegaard retweeted this post when it came out, as did dozens of decrepit, committed, hardcore neonazis and white supremacists. Why are they all cropping up here? Why does he keep talking to them? The answer is clear:

Slate star codex is a white supremacist espousing race science. He is in conversation with other white supremacists, he gets published by them, he cites them. They're his friends, colleagues, patrons because he's a fascist neoreactionary. The people retweeting this stuff are among the most vile, despicable creep freaks raising up the spectre of genocidal racial war, segregation, and apartheid—and they are exactly the ones sponsoring or carrying out the constitutional crisis. Chris Rufo, an unhinged nazi DeSantis ally currently ransacking the Department of Education, is friends with Kirkegaard; he's published in Aporia, cited by SSC. SSC is in league with them, but he keeps a winking distance—look at these ideas, look at these studies, I have so much data—of plausible deniability. Not plausible to me.

This isn't new, either. @vilestviolist kindly provided a link to leaked emails from years ago where SSC revealed he agrees with HBD (human biodiversity, a euphemism for race science) and their conclusions, but just like the original editors of Mankind Quarterly, he knows he couldn't say it openly (then):

He does the exact same thing as the founders of Mankind Quarterly in the exact same way. You can't incorporate ideas from neoreactionaries in your worldview and not wind up one yourself. Don't play coy.

In the post I linked at the beginning, he makes the argument—while citing bunk data—that substandard African IQs, around 60-80, can be improved with development. Ostensibly, the argument is for development. In reality, what he's doing is peddling the idea of racial IQ disparities wrapped in the acceptable idea of development and his blundering, bloviating prose. I am not citing anything further from his rank filth post because race science is a pseudoscience; none of this is legitimate. These people have been completely shunned, banned, and cast aside for decades because the political ends of these nonsensical arguments are patently clear.

This is not "culture war stuff." Saying so deliberately obfuscates and minimizes explicit white supremacy, eugenics, and racial hygenism through a pathetic euphemism. It's the same cloaking mechanism that the original racial scientists used. It doesn't get more explicit than that: this is original, old school, classic fascism. In part or in whole, you're constructing a world that entirely excludes non-white people on the basis of pseudoscientific studies on "human biodiversity" falsely alleging innate, biological differences in intellect and capability. If not, you're engaging and taking in the work of someone who dines with fascists, takes their money, and spreads their views. You're being amoral, context-blind, so open to ideas that you're damaging everyone. This isn't a "discussion," there's no legitimate research here; these ideas have real, tangible consequences. You enjoy reading this drivel while pointing, or being pointed towards white supremacy and debunked racist propaganda. There's no coming back from this. At best, you're a complete dupe. Otherwise, you are a fascist.

[hussyknee]

I think the way people are defending Imane Khelif is as bad as the way she's being attacked. Because of:

The erasure of interphobia and racism in the charge against her, instead framing Khelif as a victim of indirect transmisogyny. As though transmisogyny isn't an outgrowth of the historical white supremacist Othering and dehumanizing of intersex and BIPOC bodies, especially of Black women. This is the legacy of race science, people.

The interphobic and transphobic language used to defend Imane, like "born a female", "biological female", and joining TERFs in scrutinizing Imane's sex characteristics to prove they fall within perinormative and cisnormative standards.

I also saw someone sneer that Angela Carini "looked more like a man than Imane" does so I wish everyone would just log off at this point because they're all terrible.

Can people at least keep focus on the fact that this is the same interphobia and racism that ungendered and dehumanized Serena Williams and Caster Semenya their whole careers that's only amplified by the anti trans rhetoric? Yes, these are all interlocking oppressions inextricable from each other because they're rooted in white supremacist control of reproductive politics. Which is why you need to name them all and stop erasing the oppressions rooted in the victims identities.

[literallynathandrake]

My favorite Disco Elysium moment is when you get a lecture about in game races that lasts 30 real life minutes. The man telling you this projects an air of confidence and knowledge. Even if you don't believe in race science, this man clearly dedicated quite some time learning this much information.

After he is finished telling you the Kojko are inexplicably obsessed with potat, and calling you a member of the Ham Sandwich Race, you can ask where he learned this PhD level knowledge of races, to which he admits he just listened to talk radio a lot growing up.

[murdercide626]

I always thought the Black Arms aliens were pretty neat, but it wasn't until Shadow Generations where I realized just how fascinating they actually are.

On the surface, the Black Arms were presented as a race of reptilians seemingly taking inspiration from both classic UFO invaders and Xenomorph-like aliens, all led by a mysterious, demonic overlord, Black Doom. With a mixture of sci-fi laser guns and strange biotech, they seek to conquer the world and use humanity as a food source. That's all well and good, but we would eventually learn there's more to these space lizards.

At the end of Shadow's first solo venture, we see the titular black hedgehog defeat Black Doom and destroy the massive alien space vessel, the Black Comet, seemingly putting an end to the Black Arms threat once and for all...

HOWEVER, it is later revealed in Shadow Generations that Black Doom had somehow survived his defeat at Shadow's hands, and seeks to rebuild his forces in order to menace Earth once again.

But how did Black Doom survive? Wasn't he, and the rest of the Black Arms, destroyed by Shadow?

Well, it's revealed that Black Doom was able to transfer his consciousness into a lone Black Arms larva that was kept sealed on the space colony ARK all these years, and from it Black Doom grew himself a new body.

This reveals that not only are the Black Arms a hive mind, but each member of the species is just an extension of Black Doom himself. Basically, Black Doom IS the Black Arms! And so long as even a single specimen of that species is alive somewhere, Black Doom will return.

This even extends to Shadow, being a Black Arms hybrid. In Shadow Generations it is also revealed that Black Doom didn't just want Shadow as an ultimate warrior to use as his right hand. Black Doom's ultimate goal for Shadow was to take over his body and use him as his next vessel, becoming the Ultimate Lifeform himself!

This idea that Black Doom can just grow new bodies from his stock of Black Arms soldiers ad infinitum certainly explains how he's so incredibly long lived! This method of immortality is just so fascinating to me.

What's also interesting is how this hive mind differs from other depictions I've seen. Usually, a hive mind is depicted as each member having no sense of self or individuality. All are equal in their lack of identity. But with the Black Arms there is almost paradoxically a true identity among them, a single entity that goes by a name. An entire species that exists only as Black Doom's will made flesh. Each member, each body, though they all have faces, are all ultimately nothing more than the limbs, or "arms", of Black Doom.

[videoreligion]

Death Race 2000 (1975)

[tributary]

quit making arguments about genetics when you do not understand genetics. okay that’s all

[thererisesaredstar]

Science is the Force of Production by Wen Guozhang (1979)

[ataleofcrowns]

i only mean that it isn't typical/representative of that subgroup, i would ask the same thing if there was an asian kurd character

Did you take geography classes in the United States of America? Be honest now.