Friday, November 27, 2009

Education

West Virginia Students Protest Controversial Psychologist

March 12, 2009 05:30 PM ET | Alison Go | Permanent Link | Print

About 50 West Virginia students, many from the Black Student Union, protested a lecture by the controversial psychologist J. Philippe Rushton, who has developed an intelligence hierarchy based on race, the Daily Athenaeum reports. In his published work "Race, Evolution, and Behavior," the University of Western Ontario professor "places Asians on the superior end of a spectrum, blacks on the inferior end, and Caucasians between the two," according to the paper.

Rushton's lecture mostly referenced his research into altruism, but the protest focused primarily on his more controversial topics. "You call it science, we call it racism," read one sign. And as one student said, "You can say what you have to say. Our whole goal is for people to not be infused with his ignorance."

Tags: West Virginia | colleges | activism

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Reader Comments

Science Supports Rushton

"Our whole goal is for people to not be infused with his ignorance."

A truly ironic statement given the likelihood that the protestors have never read a single of Professor Rushton's peer reviewed articles.

Rushton's Law of Three' the amazingly reliable rule is that any important difference (be it physical, mental, developmental, temperamental,or behavioral) that can be found between Asians and Europeans, a similar relationship will most likely be found between Europeans and Africans. Regardless of the correctness of Rushton's theory for explaining this consistent relationship [4], the data he uses to verify the relationship itself is, to quote Frank Miele of Skeptic Magazine, "...replicable".

This is called eugenics

Dear All,

"Dr." Rushton is engaging in the spread of eugenics. The derivation of the word "eugenics" is "good breeding." Look it up in the dictionary or Google it. Eugenics was a completely faulty "science" that was use as the basis of the Nazi Holocaust, the segregation movement in the U.S. and other low points in the history of human culture. It was used to de-humanize (cause the perception that they were less than human) certain groups of people, such as ethnic groups, mental retarded people, etc. so that they could be exterminated. Rushton is to be quietly ignored. It is the basis of racism. For more data on eugenics, download the pdf "Creating Racism: Psychiatry's Betrayal" at http://www.cchr.org/#/publications/pamphlets

Both of you need to stop for a moment....

Keystone, you are only looking at the surface of the problem which is easy to do because sometimes protestors (of any cause & any race) don't express themselves succinctly enough. The reason this expression misses the mark is not lack of intelligence, but an inability to explain the "feelings" reports such as Dr. Ruston's invoke in those deemed superior. History has proven time & again that these "feelings" often get turned into "actions" and sometimes even "laws" (spoken & unspoken)which violently and oppressively impact those deemed inferior by the report.

Flyboy you are taking the bait, and displaying a total lack of understanding (due to inexperience - not lack of intelligence). What is really happening here is a classic example of a researcher trying to make themselves known - you know - get on the radar of the world -controversy sells books and gets you lucrative speaking engagements.

Anyone with intelligence knows that it is rather difficult to measure intrinsic intelligence, there are too many factors involved to find pure subjects! Now, you can measure discipline, habits, priorities and cultural mores. Those can skew a report like this one and yes, Blacks come out on the bottom when it comes to intellect as a priority. But then so do poor White Americans.

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