Richard Lynn | |
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![]() Lynn in 2008 | |
Born | Hampstead, England | 20 February 1930
Died | July 2023 | (aged 93)
Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge (BA, PhD) |
Known for | Research concerning race and intelligence |
Spouses |
|
Children | 3 |
Father | Sydney Harland |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychology |
Institutions |
Richard Lynn (20 February 1930 – July 2023) was a controversial English psychologist and self-described "scientific racist"[1] who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, a white supremacist journal.[a] He was lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. Lynn was a professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, but had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018.[7]
Many scientists criticised Lynn's work for lacking scientific rigour, misrepresenting data, and for promoting a racialist political agenda.[b] Lynn was associated with a network of academics and organisations that promote scientific racism.[c] He had also advocated fringe positions regarding sexual differences in intelligence.[24] In two books co-written with Tatu Vanhanen, Lynn and Vanhanen argued that differences in developmental indexes among various nations are partially caused by the average IQ of their citizens. Earl Hunt and Werner Wittmann (2008) questioned the validity of their research methods and the highly inconsistent quality of the available data points that Lynn and Vanhanen used in their analysis.[8] Lynn also argued that a high fertility rate among individuals of low IQ constitutes a major threat to Western civilisation, as he believed people with low IQ scores will eventually outnumber high-IQ individuals. He argued in favour of anti-immigration and eugenics policies, provoking heavy criticism internationally.[9][25][10] Lynn's work was among the main sources cited in the book The Bell Curve, and he was one of 52 scientists who signed an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence",[26] which endorsed a number of the views presented in the book.
He was also on the board of the Pioneer Fund, which funds Mankind Quarterly and has also been described as racist.[27][6] He was on the editorial board of the journal Personality and Individual Differences until 2019.[citation needed]
Lynn is a self-described 'scientific racist'...
Richard Lynn, for example, a self-described 'scientific racist,' ...
...Richard Lynn, who has described himself as a 'scientific racist'.
Hunt, E. 2008 pp. 1-9
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with the scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity
At best Lynn's approach is racial propaganda or biased research driven by a strong prejudice against blacks and a strong need to believe in their genetic inferiority. At worst, Lynn's research arises out of a malicious and dishonest effort to demonstrate the genetic inferiority of blacks
Among this book's strengths are that it argues for a point of view unpopular within the scientific community, it relies on hard data to make its points, its organisation and clarity. Also, the book is expansive in its thinking and argumentation. All of these strengths considered, however, we believe that the arguments advanced in the book are flawed by an omnipresent logical fallacy and confusion of correlation with causation that undermines the foundation of the book.
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