Jonathan Anomaly

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The Anomaly himself
The colorful pseudoscience
Race & Racialism
Icon race.svg
Hating thy neighbour
Divide and conquer
Dog-whistlers

Jonathan Anomaly (1975–)[1][2] is an American far-right eugenicist[3][4][5] who promotes what he calls "genetic enhancement"[6] and "liberal eugenics."[7][8][note 1] Anomaly is associated with the "human-biodiversity" online network and blogsphere. He has published articles for far-right online magazines including Aporia[9], Quillette[10] and the antisemitic website The Unz Review[11] that are mostly nonsense, with the exception of a stopped clock article that opposes factory meat farms.[12]

Anomaly defends discredited theories on racialism and race and intelligence. Similar to Nathan Cofnas who he co-authored an article with,[13] Anomaly tries to present himself as a political centrist and libertarian between both alt-right and hard left-wing extremes,[14] when his own views concerning issues such as race and eugenics have much in common with the alt-right. Anomaly's race and eugenics papers are often cited by holocaust deniers, alt-right and white nationalists. In 2022, Anomaly was a speaker on holocaust denier Lipton Matthews podcast.[15] In 2023, Anomaly was a speaker at conferences attended by white nationalists and neo-Nazis including the Natal Conference and Vitalia.

Background[edit]

Anomaly was born Jonathan Beres.[1] He has a PhD in political economy from Tulane University.[16] From 2010-2017 he was a senior lecturer at Duke University.[17] He was an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego.[18] Anomaly is currently the director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics in Quito, Ecuador.[19]

He lost in the Round of 64 in the 2019 Name of the Year competition.[20]

Pseudoscience and extremist views[edit]

Anomaly speaking at the Longevity Biotech Conference in 2024

Eugenics[edit]

Anomaly published a provocative article "Defending eugenics" in a peer-reviewed bioethics journal.[21] It has been harshly criticised,[22][23] with nearly 200 academics signing a letter of complaint to Monash Bioethics Review for publishing the article.[24]

Anomaly has most controversially argued that 20th century court decisions upholding the right of the state to forcefully sterilize undesirable people are morally defensible but as a libertarian favours the state only discouraging the reproduction of those with certain traits deemed "unfit" such as heritable diseases, low cognitive ability, and lack of impulse control. He has been criticised for espousing eugenics but claims he only supports "liberal eugenics" opposed to coercive eugenics or state-enforced "negative eugenics" policies (critics, however, such as Dr. David Gibbs, a history professor at UA, argue this distinction is ambiguous):

During the panel discussion, Gibbs also brought up Anomaly’s “Defending Eugenics” research paper, implying that the scholar approves of Nazi-style eugenics against certain populations.

Gibbs went on to quote from the paper, underscoring Anomaly’s observation that “Nazi policies had dysgenic effects” and that “Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Ashkenazi Jews—arguably among the most intelligent and productive people of the twentieth century—was not only morally outrageous, but contrary to what any reasonable eugenics program would hope to achieve.”

[...]

Anomaly, who was present at the event, challenged Gibbs’ interpretation of his work, stressing that his paper was taken out of context.

The paper on eugenics is defending liberal eugenics, which means that when we have the technology to select embryos we ought to allow parents to do that as individuals. I'm Jewish, and the idea that you would smear me as somehow defending Nazism is so disgusting and is so taken out of context.[25]

His eugenics views and far-right connections have been criticised in a blog post on altrightorigins.com.[26]

Racialism and hereditarianism[edit]

Anomaly co-authored an article "We shouldn't obsess about race and IQ, but we should openly discuss it" that defends racialism and hereditarianism. In regard to the latter, he cites with approval the dubious research of HBD pseudoscientist Gregory Cochran.[27] He's also published a peer-reviewed article defending this sort of race-based junk science.[28] In 2019, he co-authored a paper with Bo Winegard arguing that diversity between groups is compatible with political liberalism.[29] He also co-authored a paper defending the hereditarian hypothesis with Bo Winegard and Ben Winegard.[30]

In 2022, Anomaly was a speaker on the far-right Aporia Magazine podcast.[31]

Natal conference[edit]

Jonathan Anomaly being interviewed by Richard Hanania

Anomaly was a speaker at the far-right Natal Conference in 2023 with far-right extremists including Kevin Dolan and Raw Egg Nationalist.[32][33]

Some at the conference are interested in the genetics of the children they believe everyone should be having. Evolutionary biologist Diana Fleischman and writer Jonathan Anomaly argue that genetics are destiny. (“I shouldn’t say Good quality children,” Fleischman says after speaking at length about how people with mental illness are statistically likely to marry other mentally ill people and pass those genes along to their children, suggesting some children are indeed biologically better than others.)[34]

Noah Carl[edit]

Anomaly was a signatory to a petition organised by Quillette supporting the disgraced academic Noah Carl who was sacked from University of Cambridge for his links to white nationalists like Emil Kirkegaard and publishing Islamophobic papers in the OpenPsych pseudojournals.[35]

Creating Future People[edit]

In 2020, Anomaly authored Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement with a second edition published in 2024.[36][37] In the book, Anomaly defends eugenics and argues for "enhancing traits that might benefit future people" (p. viii) including "cognitive enhancement" by gene editing and embryo selection. The book has been promoted by white nationalists and far-right eugenicists including Anatoly Karlin and Ives Parr for Aporia Magazine.[38][39]

Notes[edit]

  1. A reviewer of Anomaly's book points out: "This is eugenics but Anomaly is not frightened of embracing this title. His is a version of what Nicholas Agar calls liberal eugenics. This is to be contrasted with that form of eugenics which gets it its bad reputation: officially enforced discrimination against those deemed inferior (and at its most murderous extreme a genocidal cull) on the basis of a single prescriptive model of what makes for a better human. Anomaly, like Agar, thinks eugenics is best left in the hands of parents."

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Jonathan S Anomaly. radaris.com.
  2. https://philpeople.org/profiles/jonathan-anomaly
  3. https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/17/eugenics-austin-texas-natal-conference-women-misogyny/
  4. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/04/natal-conference-austin-texas-eugenics
  5. https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/10/penn-defending-eugenics-jonathan-anomaly-ppe-bioethics
  6. https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/03/27/the-radical-conservative-case-for-genetic-enhancement/
  7. http://heretica.com.hr/intervju-jonathan-anomaly-selekcijom-gena-moci-cemo-birati-cak-i-crte-licnosti/
  8. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.12756
  9. https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/embryo-selection-healthy-babies-vs
  10. https://quillette.com/author/jonathan-anomaly/
  11. What the Alt-Right and Regressive Left Have in Common. unz.com.
  12. https://quillette.com/2017/08/17/case-factory-farming/
  13. What the Alt-Right Gets Wrong About Jews by Jonathan Anomaly & Nathan Cofnas (March 15, 2018) Quillette (archived from March 27, 2019).
  14. Anomaly, Jonny. What the Alt-Right and Regressive Left Have in Common. Quillette. March 23, 2018.
  15. What's the future of Liberalism?. youtube.com.
  16. https://murphy.tulane.edu/people/jonny-anomaly
  17. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5485-0121 Since 2018
  18. Jonathan Anomaly, Hayek Lecture, Monday, April 15, 130 Social Psychology, 4:30 p.m.. hope.econ.duke.edu.
  19. Jonathan Anomaly. jonathan-anomaly.com.
  20. https://deadspin.com/pope-thrower-is-the-2019-name-of-the-year-1834945703
  21. Anomaly, Jonathan. 2018. “Defending Eugenics: From Cryptic Choice to Conscious Selection”. Monash Bioethics Review 35(1-4): 24-35.
  22. http://allegralaboratory.net/petition-against-race-realism/
  23. Reiheld, Alison. A Gimlet Eye: The Journal of Controversial Ideas and Jonathan Anomaly’s “Defending Eugenics”. November 16, 2018.
  24. Ryan, Tess. Open Letter to the editors of the Monash Bioethics Review. ACRAWSA. December 4, 2018.
  25. Nelson, Shannad. Prof accuses Jewish academic of backing Nazi-style eugenics
  26. https://altrightorigins.com/2021/04/27/eugenics-not-well-born/2/
  27. Anomaly, Jonathan and Brian Boutwell. A Reply to John McWhorter. National Review. July 12, 2017.
  28. Anomaly, Jonathan. Race Research and the Ethics of Belief. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. March 15, 2017.
  29. Jonathan Anomaly, Bo Winegard: The Egalitarian Fallacy: Are Group Differences Compatible with Political Liberalism?
  30. Dodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis
  31. Human Biodiversity & Political Philosophy. Aporia Magazine.
  32. Natal Conference. natalism.org.
  33. Revealed: US pro-birth conference’s links to far-right eugenicists. theguardian.com.
  34. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/28/natalism-conference-austin-00150338
  35. https://twitter.com/Tilley101/status/1125013523015307265
  36. Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement. routledge.com.
  37. Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement 2nd Edition. routledge.com.
  38. The Biosingularity is Near. nooceleration.com.
  39. Creating Future People. aporiamagazine.com.