Cancelling Kierkegaard … No, Not Soren Yet! By James Reed
Professor Ed Dutton, a brilliant politically incorrect biodiversity researcher who publishes books faster than most people can read them, often has illuminating articles on Vdare.com, usually taking apart the woke culture. Here is yet another story of the cancellation of an academic, the Danish scholar Emil Kirkegaard. This item is just reporting for the record, but the surname got me thinking about whether the system would today move to cancel another Kierkegaard, Soren Kirkegaard (1813-1855), the existential Christian philosopher, if that is a possible philosophical position. I am sure that today’s woke folk would find a way to cancel anyone. Ultimately the children of the revolution, in each generation, eat the parents of the revolution.
“What do Cultural Marxists do once they’ve driven brave truth-focused researchers who dare to discuss “race,” such as Noah Carl [Cambridge college sacks researcher over links with far right, by Richard Adams, The Guardian, May 1, 2019] or Michael Woodley, out of the universities and forced them to be “independent scholars”? What’s the next step in the drive to suppress empirically accurate research that makes them feel bad? Answer: prevent these scholars from attending any academic conferences in their field, above all, if you can intimidate a black putative ally to turn on them.
VDARE.com readers know Emil Kirkegaard, the Danish independent scholar who writes about intelligence. He and I recently collaborated on a study about testicle size and testosterone levels relative to race, so he is obviously unafraid to follow the science where it leads. But his courage did not serve him well in late July when he was scheduled to speak at the annual conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research in Vienna, Austria. Kirkegaard has presented at ISIR many times, but that was before the Woke Reformation tightened its hold on science. The keynote speaker, Abdel Abdellaoui [Tweet him], a genetics researcher at the University of Amsterdam, threatened to boycott the conference if Kirkegaard spoke. Kirkegaard was summarily uninvited. The affair is another example of what’s been happening to scientists who venture into forbidden territory, not least race and IQ. But worse, it proves that the Woke Left can scare one generally sound scientist into attacking another.
Noah Carl, now an “exiled researcher” and “moderate conservative,” as he bills himself, just explained what happened on his Substack.
Kirkegaard was supposed to deliver a paper titled Neuroscience of intelligence in the ABCD study—which, not insignificantly, conference organizers had accepted after Kirkegaard submitted it beforehand.
But that didn’t matter. When the cry that “Kirkegaard Is A Racist!” went up, the organizers ducked into the bushes. Carl writes:
[T]en days before the conference was due to start, Abdel Abdellaoui (the keynote speaker) announced on Twitter that he was boycotting the conference in protest at Kirkegaard’ s participation. He claimed not only that Kirkegaard is “racist,” but that he lacks the “credentials of a bona fide scholar” and that his scientific work is “subpar.” No specific evidence was provided for these assertions.
Although the relevant tweet did not exactly go “viral,” it generated a fair amount of attention, having been signal-boosted by Adam Rutherford. Several other complaints apparently followed, including a student petition at the University of Vienna—where the conference was due to be held. These complaints prompted the conference organisers to cancel Kirkegaard’s talk. The keynote speaker then announced that he would be speaking after all.
[The ISIR Vienna affair, Noah’s Newsletter, Substack.com, August 3, 2022]
Even more disturbing than the reaction of people who should know better is the backstory, which involves Abdellaoui, an Ethiopian at the University of Amsterdam. For Abdellaoui studies intelligence and dysgenics himself. And early this year, with David Hugh-Jones of the University of East Anglia, he published Natural Selection in Contemporary Humans is Linked to Income and Substitution Effects [University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2021-02].
This paper analyzed the relationship between 33 polygenic scores and fertility using the UK Biobank sample of 409,629 British whites. Using the proxy of alleles associated with educational achievement, it found that Britain is selecting for low IQ and genetic sickness, and that these are genetically related traits.
In other words, native white Britons are suffering from serious dysgenics with regard to intelligence and health.
Beyond that, the paper found that genes caused social class differences because social classes are significantly genetic castes. They are based upon genetic differences in intelligence. That means efforts to “level up,” as Boris Johnson terms it, are largely futile.
Writing for The Telegraph, one of Britain’s most widely read newspapers, Sarah Knapton summarized the paper under this striking headline: Britons are evolving to be poorer and less well-educated [July 6].
What I call “Genuine Science” Twitter, including Kirkegaard, observed the obvious truth. Tweeted Kirkegaard:
The mainstreaming of dysgenics. If only we knew what to do about this. Maybe if someone had sounded the alarm, say, 100 or 150 years ago.
That was an allusion to the writings of Sir Francis Galton.
But what I call “I Love Science” Twitter—Woke types who become scientists because science is prestigious, not because they want to make sense of the world—condemned it as inherently “bad science,” and as “promoting eugenics.”
Naturally, in the lion’s den World of Woke, even Ethiopians who step out of line are not safe. So Abdellaoui had to do something. On July 13, he stunningly and bravely announced on Twitter that he would not keynote ISIR 2022 if Kirkegaard appeared.
I was scheduled to give the opening keynote lecture at this year’s @ISIRonline conference in Vienna, but when I saw in the program that @KirkegaardEmil would be speaking, I had to cancel. There is no way I will be on the same speaker list as that careless racist lunatic.
Given his hate speech (google him, scroll trough [sic] his twitter), subpar scientific output, lack of credentials of a bona fide scholar (he’s not part of a PhD or any credible research program), I can’t see a reason to justify his presence at a serious academic conference.
He makes my work and that of my colleagues significantly more difficult and seems obsessed with justifying the difficulty of lives of many people that are part of marginalized groups. I have also been asked to talk next year at ISIR 2023, which I am open to in principle.
Enforcer Rutherford stunningly and bravely retweeted Abdellaoui, as Carl reported:
Baffling decision by @ISIRonline to invite Kirkegaard to their meeting. Forget his obnoxity; from a purely academic position:
*His work is of a consistently low standard
*Publishes in cosplaying fake journals that he set up
*No background/scholarly credibility in this or any area
There are 100s of scientists whose work would suit this meeting, and this invitation mocks the whole field—which already attracts more than its fair share of racists, ‘independent scholars’ and LARPing cranks. I support @dr_appie stance.
Of course, these arguments are absurd. People without doctorates—most obviously, Ph.D. students and many professional psychologists—regularly attend and speak at such conferences. In any case, Ph.D.s are a function of recent academic credentialism. Isaac Newton didn’t have one. Neither did Albert Einstein. If Kirkegaard did attempt a doctorate at a Western university, there would be Woke outrage [Will the real Emil please stand up?, Just Emil Kirkegaard Things, Substack.com, July 15, 2022].
The irony is that Abdellaoui’s threat to ditch the conference only highlighted his cognitive dissonance, given that the paper he coauthored proved that Kirkegaard has a point.
Carl replied to Abdellaoui:
I have great respect for you as a researcher, but I’m sorry to hear about this decision. Also, denouncing Emil won’t stop the activists from coming after you.
Russell Warne, a noted intelligence researcher, charitably replied this way:
Wouldn’t an audience open to his work be the people that are most in need of hearing an alternate viewpoint? Your presence would not have “justified” anything. This decision leaves everyone worse off.
I would’ve replied, but Abdellaoui preemptively “blocked” me even though I have never contacted him. He seems rather emotional, and apparently must insulate himself from seeing opinions that upset him.
That explains his threat to cancel if Kirkegaard appeared, as well his own very real fear of being cancelled himself if he appeared with Kirkegaard.
Of course, the half-Indian Rutherford, himself the product of centuries of eugenics and the author of such antiscience polemics as How to Argue with a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don’t) Say About Human Difference, even took a shot at the paper Kirkegaard wrote with me:
This session could’ve been used to showcase credible work by a credible scholar. But instead it is gifted to a silly yet toxic no-mark, one obsessed with race, breast size and testicles.
For his part, Kirkegaard replied with disappointment. “I was actually looking forward to his talk as I much enjoy [Abdellaoui’s] work!” he tweeted. “I know he doesn’t feel the same way but refusing to give a talk like this is pretty childish and indeed against the spirit of science.”
Kirkegaard tells me that Rutherford’s retweet of Abdellaoui led Woke student groups to pressure Vienna University, where the conference was to be held. The university approached the ISIR local host and told him they would not allow the group to meet on the campus unless Kirkegaard was cancelled. Kirkegaard turned up at the conference anyway, though he did not formally present.
Oddly, Abdellaoui left right after his talk. Maybe that’s because intelligence researchers, with few exceptions, do not tend to be Woke and he realized he’d made himself pretty unpopular.
Amusingly, a woman researcher went table-to-table to get support to get Kirkegaard thrown out just for attending, but failed to understand just how much support he had.
What was the point of Abdellaoui’ s campaign? Again, most likely, he moved against Kirkegaard to protect himself.
Last year, the “I Love Science” Twitter feed accused Abdellaoui of publishing “pseudoscience” and accused him of supporting eugenics.
If the Woke can get non-Woke scientists so frightened that they denounce each other, the Woke can make it more difficult for them to work together. It’s a small step from there to what Abdellaoui did: force the cancellation of a colleague. Abdellaoui’s attack on Kirkegaard is exactly what the Woke Left wants: fratricidal infighting that will destroy its opponents.
But that won’t just harm non-Woke academics. It will also harm universities.
As I discuss in my new book The Past is a Future Country: The Coming Conservative Demographic Revolution, universities go through “priestly cycles.” Established in the Middle Ages by truth-seeking geniuses, meaning high-IQ, truth-obsessed autistics, they produced truly ground-breaking research and taught useful information. They accrued prestige and so became attractive to normal-range intelligent people, who tend to be motivated by power and are, thus, socially conformist. That conformity leads to an ever more extreme atmosphere of intellectual conformity—the enemy of the nonconforming ground-breaking genius.
By the time of the English Reformation, conformists had made places like Oxford and Cambridge branches of the Established Anglican church, almost exclusively teaching theology, and demanding that all involved were committed Anglicans. The geniuses were driven out, little research of genuine interest took place, and so the universities declined.
By the 18th century, independent scholars did the most important research and science, sometimes with wealthy benefactors, and sometimes at universities in Scotland, Holland or Germany, which were not part of the church and where the latest science was taught. Universities taught in Latin until the 19th century, so it was possible to study abroad.
So because Oxford and Cambridge trained vicars and were moral “finishing schools” for elite young men, a bit like Eton today, the genuine academic studied at universities outside England, or went on the “Grand Tour,” a private tutor alongside him. Even some prime ministers attended such universities as Groningen and Leiden in Holland (the Earl of Bute), Utrecht in Holland (Pitt the Elder), Leipzig in Germany (Lord North, the premier who lost America), Glasgow (Viscount Melbourne), or just did the Grand Tour (the Duke of Devonshire).
In 1871, to avoid further collapse, the English universities reformed and remodelled themselves after Dutch and German universities. They attracted geniuses anew. So they became highly prestigious, expanding and attracting more and more Rutherford types who drove out the geniuses anew, and the university again became part of a church—the Church of the Woke.
And so the “uncredentialed” independent scientist is rising again. The problem is, weak sisters such as Abdellaoui and communists such as Rutherford are trying to deprive independents such as Kirkegaard of any forum at all, not just a place in the university.
So maybe the cycle won’t reproduce itself. This plunges science deeper into a new Dark Age.”
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