This book is very similar to Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" except it attacks eugenics more straightforwardly and is even more shameless; just a series of lies and half-truths.  But first, let me say  that the eugenics movement at the turn of the century did have two  fundamental stumbling blocks: a belief in simple Mendelian principles of  heredity, and a belief in class and elitism. Until universal education  finally took hold in only the last few decades, where bright students are  encouraged to get advanced degrees, elitism or a sense of aristocracy and  moral certitude was part culture. But culture changes.  So this book, like  Gould's, uses old arguments against new concepts that are no longer  relevant.What is even more strange however, is that almost every  diatribe against understanding group differences and investigating why and  how humans behave has now been turned around.  At one time, like folk  medicine, folk eugenics was in fact largely pseudoscience in that doctrine  drove the science without adequate academic peer review or oversight.  But  now, the opposite is occurring.  The radical egalitarians, those die-hard  Marxists that reject science they do not like, are attacking academically  reviewed work without providing any evidence to the contrary. This is how  he describes pseudoscience, and it is in fact what this book is all about.   Half-truths and accusations against behavior genetics and evolutionary  psychology, fields that have now matured and are solidly in the mainstream.  And social scientists? Still floundering around trying to make sense of  failed programs and broken promises.  They accuse institutional racism for  poverty but they provide no proof or evidence. They claim that  redistribution of wealth will make everyone equally smart without one study  to show that this is possible. The Gouldian Marxists have now become the  Pseudoscientists, fighting a rear-guard defense by making claims and  accusations that are clearly incorrect.This book was written in 1995,  but it reads like it was written in 1970. The author has conveniently  ignored all of the most recent research in human evolution, sociobiology,  and differential psychology. It is as if, in order to make his claims seem  credible, he had no way of addressing the scientific progress made the last  thirty years.  And just over the last five years the few caveats he may  have had about such matters as the correlation of brain size to  intelligence have been laid to rest. Numerous recent studies from around  the world using sophisticated MRI methods have confirmed that intelligence  does correlate with brain size, and is different for men and women for  different parts of the brain.  This is just one example of the obfuscation  conjured up in this book.So is it good reading? By all means. Existing  Marxists will have their prejudices reinforced, while those of us who are  unabashed empiricists can take pleasure in the hackneyed attempts at  dislodging good solid science. That is, it was for me a pleasure to read  because on almost every page, the arguments against eugenics could be  turned around against the radical environmentalists. It is similar to an  atheist reading the bible to confirm, chapter after chapter, the  inconsistencies and absurdities of the text to reaffirm their position.

Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History PDF

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