Thread by @AdamRutherford

I can see this damn Andrew Sabisky situation is not going away. I have written two books about Eugenics and race, teach it, at the place where it was founded, in the lab named after its creator, Francis Galton, where I was an Undergrad and still am a Fellow, so, some thoughts 1/n

2/n like Cummings, he appears to be bewitched by science, without having made the effort to understand the areas he is invoking, nor it’s history. Here’s a para from #HowToArgueWithARacist

The argument that humans are susceptible to selective breeding as in agriculture (as expressed by Dawkins) is not incorrect, though it is simplistic to the point of being almost meaningless. 3/n

The enhancement of specific traits in animals also results in unforeseen and awful side-effects as a result of polygenic effects, pleiotropy and the general melee of the genome. 4/n

His presence at the Intelligence conference held on UCL grounds is problematic, as it is mostly attended by scientifically semi-literate cranks, actual white supremacists, and utter fools, whose self style heretical pose masks not just weirdness, but ignorance and bigotry 5/n

These views on IQ. Well, there are differences on average between different populations, however 1) these numbers are not at all right and appear to be derived (I think) from fraudulent research by the actual racist Richard Lynn, the figurehead of this crank movement. 6/n

2) though cognitive abilities are most certainly heritable, this confused statement (and others) indicates a failure to understand this concept. Attainment gaps are far better explained by environmental differences than genetic
(This is all in my book btw) amazon.co.uk/Does-Race-Exis…

I could go on about the scientific illiteracy much further, but the moral repugnance is overwhelming. Though the U.K. never had a formal Eugenics policy, despite the idea being founded here, in my lab, IQ was used in the involuntary sterilisation of 10s of 1000s in the US 8/n

Along with disabilities, homosexuality, alcohol abuse, mental health problems, vague criteria that we now know are highly polygenic and highly environmentally constrained 9/n

I see Toby Young and others are now invoking free speech as a defence of Sabisky’s views. Fine, but that doesn’t green light him into advising government with scientifically incoherent and ahistorical opinions. 10/n

I am all for scientifically minded peopel advising government. In fact I am all for scientists advising government. From this perspective, Sabisky and indeed Cummings look bewitched by science without doing the legwork 11/n

Instead this resembles the marshalling of misunderstood or specious science into a political ideology. The history here is important, because this process is exactly what happened at the birth of scientific racism and the birth of eugenics. 12/n

‘I’ll know my song well before I start singing’. If Cummings wants some real scientific advice, he should ask scientists. Cos it’s a hard rain's a-gonna fall 13/13

Addendum: I'm block happy these days. You use insults, I block. I only see responses from people who follow me, so I have to seek out the race weenies, and then I block. If you can't be civil you can jog on.

That's the way it is.
bit.ly/1yVFLXk

15/13 Just another point as this has blown up: I don’t see much point on hand waving flappage about Eugenics unless you have a better grasp of the science, and a tight grip on the history.

16/13 It is not the same as animal breeding, historically, politically, scientifically. Eugenics is poorly defined in all three categories too, as we use modern medical genetics to eradicate diseases by selection and genetic modification.

17/13 hand-wavey discourse about CRISPR edited embryos or PRS selected embryos tend to be in the realm of science fiction rather than biologically plausible. Cummings blog is indicative of that.

Here’s proper expert, m’colleague @ewanbirney with some further depth ewanbirney.com/2019/11/why-us…

Btw: RA Fisher is up there as one of the greatest scientists in history. Modern biology rests upon his shoulders along with a handful of others, many from UCL. He was also not without racist and eugenicist views, as were many of his contemporaries.

https://twitter.com/royalsociety/status/1229314597221552128?s=21

https://twitter.com/royalsociety/status/1229314597221552128

Again, let us know our own history and understand how people can be simultaneously outrageous geniuses, and similarly have offensive views. One day I will write a biography of the Modern Synthesis.