Obituaries

Goodbye and good riddance to an infamous racist: J. Philippe Rushton, a professor and author of an article claiming there was a correlation between "race" and brain size, died Tuesday of Addison's disease.

The British-born Rushton published more than 200 academic papers and five books during his career but was best known for Race, Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (see a review here).

The uproar caused by his 1989 paper that led to the book provoked then-Ontario premier David Peterson to say he should be fired. Rushton and environmentalist and geneticist David Suzuki argued the theories in a highly publicized debate in 1989.

Rushton presented his notorious findings to the American Association for Advance of Science convention in January 1989, and was “hit with a hailstorm of hostile questions,” the Star reported at the time.

He contended that three races ranked in 1-2-3 order, with Asians first in brain size, intelligence, family stability, sexual restraint and mental stability, followed by whites and then blacks.

Good grief. Good riddance.

More about this despicable individual:

Brian Timney, dean of social science, which includes the psychology department where Rushton actually worked, said Rushton’s legacy “was not a great one.” “His research was not highly thought of,” Timney said. “I work in neuroscience and I expect some academic vigor. He was not vigorous.”

The dean said while the university refused to fire Rushton, he was removed from the classroom for at least a semester during the height of the uproar in 1989. ”There were so many protesters gathered outside his door, he couldn’t get in or out,” Timney said. Rushton delivered his lectures via videotape.

While Rushton may still be a big name in race science circles, at Western University “he sort of disappeared off the radar a long time ago,” the dean said.

More on Hardin

from the article "Theories on East Asian Superiority" by Barry Sautman from The Bell Curve Debate:

"Apart from academics, the [Pioneer] fund aids political organizations and activists. The most favored ($1 million as of 1993) is the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which advocates sharply reducing immigration into the United States. Its board has included prominent politicians and was recently consulted on immigration policy by [then] California Governor Pete Wilson. Its leader in the 1980s and current board member, Dr. Joe Tanton, has made clear that his concern is with 'third world' immigration, as has board member Garrett Hardin, a University of California at Santa Barbara human ecologist.

"Hardin fears an immigration invasion of the United States and praises Japan's efforts to avoid multiculturalism. He received $29,000 from the fund to write a recent book that associates immigration with decay and violence and explicitly endorses ethnocentrism. The book was also funded by the Laurel Foundation, distributor of Jean Raspail's Camp of the Saints, a novel lauded by Hardin that fantasizes about the destruction of the 'white race' in France through an immigrant invasion. Hardin's own book has been glowingly reviewed by Paul Fromm, a Canadian neo-Nazi with connections to [J. Phillippe] Rushton. FAIR in turn praises those financed by the fund as 'responsible, distinguished scientists associated with America's major universities..." (p. 208-209)

The link to FAIR is here. Obviously it isn't to be confused with the media watchdog organization of the same acronym. I do agree with its stance on HB-1 visas, however, but that's in spite of what FAIR says, not because of it. It doesn't change the fact it's been bankrolled in part by a racist foundation.

(I don't recall if Hardin has since died* after all of these revelations, but it really doesn't matter in the end. What reputation he had is down the toilet. Edit: A quick search didn't turn up any obituary, so I am assuming he's still with us in body as well as in spirit.)

Here is a speech Hardin gave which served as the basis of his Filters Against Folly (1985). The website belongs to the infamous racist Canadian psychologist and professor J. Phillippe Rushton.

And the thing is the ideas expressed by these fringe outfits and fringe and not-so-fringe academics are becoming mainstream within the ranks of the Republican Party.

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*--Garrett Hardin died in September of 2003. Somehow I didn't note it on this blog, or, if I did, it didn't show up on a search of the site.