Spiteful mutant hypothesis

Edward Dutton pioneer of the Spiteful mutant hypothesis

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The spiteful mutant hypothesis or Social Epistasis Amplification Model (SEAM) is a pseudoscientific hypothesis developed by Michael A. Woodley of Menie, Matthew Sarraf and Edward Dutton. It argues that deleterious genetic mutations in carrier humans can be externalized onto non-carriers via social epistasis. It is a hypothesis designed to justify a racialist worldview as outlined in Dutton's book Race Differences in Ethnocentrism. This is despite the concept of human races has been disproven by modern global genetic analysis, starting with Cavalli-Sforza et al.'s monumental study. Dutton primarily uses the spiteful mutant hypothesis to denigrate anyone who isn't conservative and who doesn't share his own far-right political views — he has labelled feminists, liberals and supporters of Black Lives Matter as "spiteful mutants".

The concept of genetic epistasis (not social epistatis) is well-established and known to be widespread in organisms; it was first recognized in 1907. Genetic epistasis is when the variations of one gene influences the expression of a different gene in an organism.

The term "social epistasis" was coined in 2007 based on a study of ants. It is defined as inter-organismal genomic interactions, whereby the genome of an organism can influence another organism's gene expression and hence phenotypic development and condition (including behaviour) both negatively and positively. The former issues from deleterious mutations that can social-epistatically alter patterns of gene expression in pathological ways and in mutations with deleterious effects on both carriers and non-carriers; this has been called "spiteful mutations" by Woodley.

SEAM has only ever been observed in eusocial species, for example termites, ants, and naked mole rats that live among close genetic relatives within colonies in which the vast majority of individuals cooperate to aid relatively few reproductive group members. Human behaviour is remarkably different in the sense that cooperation and division of labour occurs in societies composed of many individuals that are not so closely genetically related. Furthermore, there is not a reproductive division of labour. Although one study has suggested humans are eusocial, this idea was challenged when first proposed and is widely rejected based on the fact there is no reproductive division of labour, and "human society sustains a high level of cooperation among genealogically distant individuals." Woodley and Dutton however erroneously argue that the human species is eusocial and deleterious mutations in humans "extend beyond their effects on individual carriers".

The spiteful mutant hypothesis relies on Emil Kirkegaard's dubious research that attempts to show mental illness has a high prevalence amongst people who are politically left-wing. Dutton and Kirkegaard have discussed their similar views on The Jolly Heretic. Kirkegaard however doesn't support the spiteful mutant hypothesis, writing "Mutant stuff is Woodley-Dutton territory, not me." Jean-François Gariépy has been critical of the spiteful mutant hypothesis and has described it as ridiculous.

Social Epistasis Amplification Model

Sarraf and Woodley (2017) correctly point out research on eusocial insects has "found that the adaptively optimal development of members of different castes in insect societies depends on certain inter-caste genotypic interactions, or social epistases", but from this they wrongly extrapolate "humans, require certain patterns of interorganismal genetic interaction to achieve and maintain adaptive optima at the individual and group levels". Humans though are not eusocial. Totally ignoring the latter, SEAM was originally developed to explain the decline in fertility rates below replacement fertility (2.1 children per woman), particularly of Western populations over recent decades. Woodley, Sarraf and Dutton term "spiteful mutations" what they consider to be behaviour-altering maladaptive traits and ideas to group-fitness or survival. Woodley defines a spiteful mutation as follows:

A mutation is spiteful if it degrades the fitness of carriers and also undermines, or incurs opportunity costs on, the fitness of conspecifics with whom carriers enter into social epistatic transaction, e.g., by imposing sociocultural conditions that disincentivize procreation.

Woodley's colleague Aurelio J. Figueredo concedes "SEAM as applied to humans still lacks fully satisfactory empirical support". No shit. Sarraf and Woodley (2017) however have argued the theory of social epistasis amplification explains the outcome of John B. Calhoun's rat utopia experiment.

Arslan et al. (2018) have criticised Woodley for misrepresenting their work.

Social epistasis

Social epistasis has been proven to exist in eusocial insects, such as species of bees, wherein the individual bee's phenotype is affected by the overall genotypic composition of the colony: "trait expression by individual honeybee workers is modulated by the genotypic composition of the colony, indicating that individual-level phenotypes are properties of the composite "sociogenome." There is no evidence for social epistasis in humans who aren't eusocial, furthermore, Woodley has claimed it is not "ethically possible to conduct experimental tests of this model [SEAM] in humans" meaning by definition the spiteful mutant hypothesis is a pseudoscience since it cannot be ethically tested or falsified.

Spiteful mutation crankery

Dutton has argued that spiteful mutations "include any thought process that leads to a group's sub-replacement fertility" and lists atheism, liberalism, antinatalism, feminism, nihilism, LGBT (especially homosexuality), asexuality and multiculturalism as maladaptive ways of thinking i.e. ideas, beliefs and (sexual) orientations antithetical to reproductive success:

Woodley calls spiteful mutants — who exhibit these spiteful mutations of the mind. They advocate things which, basically, would be washed out in evolutionary conditions because they’d make you destroy yourself. They’d make you go against evolutionary imperatives. Examples would be encouraging childlessness in women, homosexuality — which is a reproductive dead end — and welcoming aliens into one’s territory who then become fierce competitors for resources. And those people will advocate those things, and then, they will cause those with whom they associate — even if the associates are not mutants — to express their own genes sub-optimally because we’re adapted to be with people who are normal. And the mutants will want to take over, as this will be maladaptive for their group.

The second consequence of this breakdown is what has been called the "spiteful mutant." When people carry mutations that make them inclined towards maladaptive behavior, they will damage the genetic interests even of non-mutants. They will do this, firstly by espousing maladaptive ways of thinking — such as that women should heavily limit their fertility or even have no children at all — influencing many non-mutants to damage their own genetic interests. Secondly, they will critique and otherwise undermine societal structures that act to optimize adaptive behavior, such as religion.

If one is wondering where Dutton publishes this crankery, look no further than white supremacist Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute.

Spiteful mutations as atheism

Dutton has been criticised on the basis that many of the ideas and beliefs he considers to be maladaptive are correlated with higher intelligence. As an example, a meta-analysis of 83 studies has demonstrated that atheists are more intelligent, on average, than religious believers including Christians, so "how can high intelligence be compatible with the idea that atheists have harmful mutations?" Dutton himself co-authored a study showing a negative relationship between religiosity and intelligence meaning atheists and agnostics, on average, are smarter than religious believers. To explain how high intelligence could be maladaptive, Dutton argues that atheists might be too intelligent because a study of American Mensa members revealed that they have a much higher risk for psychological and developmental disorders including autistic spectrum disorder. However, only individuals with very high IQ rather than general high IQ have a higher risk; Dutton's argument is therefore dubious.

While studies have shown that religiosity is associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety and suicide, psychologist Scott A. McGreal has criticised Dutton for overstating the extent to which religiosity is associated with better physical and mental health. For example, he notes "A [2015] survey of 59 countries found that a positive relationship between religiosity and self-rated health occurred only in 20 countries; in 37, there was no relationship, and in two there was actually a negative relationship". New research has also shown that "people possessing strong religious beliefs and convinced-atheists tend to share similarly positive mental health. The worst mental health is observed in those with more ambiguous, confused, and weaker religious or spiritual beliefs." The link between religiousity and better health is more complicated than Dutton's pigeon-holing of people as religious versus non-believers since some subgroups within "nones", meaning non-religious, share positive mental health alongside those with strong religious beliefs.

Dutton appears to completely ignore the relationship between religion and schizophrenia. A number of studies have shown higher prevalence of hallucinations (a symptom of schizophrenia) in those with higher religiosity. In a review of 70 studies, Gearing et al. (2011) reported 30/70 (43%) have found a relationship between hallucinations and religious beliefs in the supernatural.

Dutton argues religious people are not spiteful mutants because they tend to have more children than non-religious people. For example, the average US Mormon female has a fertility rate of 3.4, while Catholic, 2.5 — both above replacement fertility (2.1). This sharply contrasts, to atheist, 1.6, and agnostic, 1.3. There are though some religious groups with sub-replacement fertility and Dutton conveniently doesn't discuss those. In the US, Jews have a fertility rate of 2.0, and mainline Protestants a fertility rate of 1.9. In India, Jains have a fertility rate of 1.2, Sikhs, 1.6 and Buddhists 1.7. In some religions, individuals are expected to remain unmarried and to abstain from sex completely, for example monks and priests in various sects of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Christianity. Also there have been celibate religious sects throughout history who are forbidden to procreate such as the Shakers. Dutton does briefly mention religious celibates in his writings but provides an ad hoc explanation to explain away evidence that contradicts his view about religiosity and fertility:

In much the same way, a religious celibate, whose activities help to reassure and inspire his society to maintain its religiosity — with all the evolutionary benefits that come with that — can be understood to be effectively promoting his genetic interests. As such, it would be to the benefit of a society that it included a small but optimum minority of people who were extremely religious, to the extent of not wishing to have children. This is good for group selection as, in a religious context, it inspires deeper faith in the group's spiritual cause.

Spiteful mutations as homosexuality

Some studies have shown that homosexuals have higher intelligence on average than heterosexuals. Dutton is aware of this and tries to explain it in line with the spiteful mutant hypothesis through his bizarre speculative "Gay Shaman Theory":

In addition, as there is evidence that homosexuality is associated with elevated intelligence, as mentioned above, and there might be an important connection between the priestly class and the fostering of "genius." But it is worth mentioning at this stage that this association may imply that homosexuality remains in the population because it produces a caste of highly intelligent people whose innovations strongly help their group interests.

It is noteworthy, however, that there is little evidence in shamanistic societies that shamans actually have homosexual relationships with each other. Indeed, the evidence is that they do not, though they are often feminized males. Thus, it could be argued that homosexuality, by virtue of promoting religiosity and possibly genius, stays in the population. However, this only happens because homophobia is likewise selected for. Homosexuality and homophobia, selected together, ensure that homosexuals promote religiosity and group interests but do not invest their energy into homosexual relationships or promote it to the society at large, which would be of little benefit to their group. Instead, they invest their energies in the raising group morale through inspiring religiousness. I have termed this "Gay Shaman Theory."

Another criticism of homosexuals being spiteful mutants is Dutton's incorrect claim that homosexuality "is a reproductive dead-end" and maladaptive to reproductive success. This is because there has been a significant increase in same-sex couples seeking IVF treatment and surrogates. A report from the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) in the UK revealed there has recently been a 12% increase in female same-sex couples seeking IVF treatment, while surrogates rose by 22%. The most recent year (2017) for which figures are available from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for same-sex parents, reveals the number has increased to 18,000 families in UK (up from 12,000 in 2013).

Spiteful mutations as liberalism

Dutton has described individuals with left-wing in particular liberal political views (so-called SJWs) as spiteful mutants on the basis that right-wing conservatives have more children on average than liberals and the latter are below replacement fertility. A 2018 study shows that while this is generally the case today, political "moderates" (a.k.a. centrists) nevertheless have a slightly lower fertility rate (1.6) than "extremely liberal" individuals (1.7) when mean fertility rate data was analysed for 100 countries world-wide in 2010-2014. Another complication is that when looking at the fertility data for Western countries, prior to the 1990s, the pattern of conservatives having a higher fertility rate is much more blurred; in fact, "extremely liberal" individuals as opposed to conservatives had the highest mean number of children. Dutton's argument clearly doesn't make sense since the same left-wing ideology he is now describing as maladaptive for reproductive success was formerly (about four decades ago) associated with the highest fertility. Arguably therefore it is not liberalism as a political ideology that has changed its values and ideals, but individuals over time that identify as liberals, having changed their lifestyles.

Spiteful mutations as Marxism

Dutton has misleadingly claimed that Marxism as an ideology is "understood to be maladaptive, and this is evidenced by the fact that those who hold to ideologies that are related to Marxism — such as postmodernism, nihilism, and atheism — have limited fertility". Karl Marx though had seven children and opposed Malthusian arguments to limit population growth. Furthermore, he "bitterly attacked and condemned Malthus and his ideas more than a half a century after Malthus published his famous Essay on Population in 1798." Contemporary Marxists deny overpopulation. Paul R. Ehrlich, co-author of the neo-Malthusian book The Population Bomb, has said that the far-left in modern times find "the advocacy of limiting population growth immoral" and have attacked him for wanting to globally lower-fertility rates.

Spiteful mutations as multiculturalism

“”The Church of Multiculturalism, and its Black Lives Matter conversion rallies, is a Church with "spiteful mutants" as its priestly class.

—Edward Dutton

Dutton has most controversially argued that individuals who support multiculturalism and BLM/anti-racist movements are spiteful mutants. His reasoning is that individuals who "put other ethnic groups before their own" are maladaptive and want to destroy their own ethno-cultural group. Dutton is English and emigrated to Finland; he is married to a Finnish woman with whom he has two children of mixed ethnicity — so by his own definition he is a spiteful mutant himself. Dutton claims that ethnocentrism and nationalism predicts high fertility, while multiculturalism predicts low fertility; he also thinks "Multicultural societies have been shown to always degenerate into distrust and war, because people are evolved to want to be with genetically similar people." The latter he bases on the Genetic Similarity Theory (GST) of J. Philippe Rushton which has been heavily criticised for failure to understand the theory of kin selection. As noted by Dawkins, "Kin selection favors nepotism towards your own immediate close family. It does not favor a generalization of nepotism towards millions of other people who happen to be the same color as you."

In 2019, D published The Silent Rape Epidemic: How the Finns Were Groomed to Love Their Abusers in response to the Oulu child sexual exploitation scandal. In the book, Dutton argues the more multicultural and ethnically diverse Finland and the adjacent Nordic countries become, the more inter-ethnic conflict in society and this will lead to civil war:

In his book Ethnic Conflicts, Tatu Vanhanen (2012) has shown that the more ethnically diverse a society is, the higher is the degree of ethnic conflict. Indeed, the correlation between a country's ethnic diversity and its level and intensity of ethnic conflict is 0.66. The more ethnically diverse Finland becomes, the more conflict-ridden it will be and the more these conflicts will be based around ethnicity. In such circumstances, in which two groups are in conflict, Vanhanen shows that people tend to identify more strongly with their ethnic group and are more likely to perceive outsiders as an enemy. Thus, his research indicates that as the population of Finland becomes more ethnically-diverse, many Finns will probably develop their sense of Finnishness and become more nationalistic, while the foreigners will be decreasingly likely to integrate and will feel decreasingly Finnish. This is a recipe for a spiral into increasingly intense ethnic conflict; into low-level civil war.

Dutton has a tendency to quote studies that don't support his conclusions. Vanhanen in Ethnic Conflicts: Their Biological Roots in Ethnic Nepotism (2012) for example ranks countries on a scale of 1-5 based on severity of ethnic conflict (EC): 1 being "minor ethnic incidents at individual and local levels", while 5 "violent conflicts and civil wars; ethnic cleansings and genocide". He calculates the percentage of ethnic heterogeneity (EH) in each country from 1 to 100% to show how diverse ethnically or multicultural countries are. Vanhanen calculates Finland's EC is 1 while its EH 7%. This means Finland is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world with lowest level of ethnic conflict (similar to Iceland and Norway). Yet Dutton promotes a false doomsday scenario that Finland is going to "spiral into increasingly intense ethnic conflict" and civil war in the near-future.

To end ethnic conflicts, Vanhanen has suggested solutions opposite of Dutton's support for ethnic separatism and restricting immigration. He mentions the most effective strategy is large-scale mixing and intermarriage between groups the "biological mixing of conflicting groups would provide the most effective way to reduce and ultimately remove ethnic conflicts." When describing some Latin American countries, Vanhanen notes, "Extensive racial mixing between whites, indigenous peoples and blacks seems to have blurred ethnic boundaries and decreased ethnic conflicts". He also mentions that in the Dominican Republic, "Extensive racial mixing has restrained ethnic conflicts and supported ethnic peace in the country", in Cuba, "Ethnic peace in Cuba can be traced to… the extensive racial mixing of the population" and in Panama, "racial mixing of the population may be a factor which dampens ethnic interest conflicts."

Spiteful mutations as mental illness

Dutton argues spiteful mutations as maladaptive thoughts against reproductive success significantly increase risk of mental illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders because under Darwinian conditions, "these instincts and desires would be comorbid with other maladaptive traits". As evidence, he cites a questionable study by Kirkegaard (2020) provocatively titled "Mental illness and the left" that claims left-wing political views, in particular "extremely liberal" — predicts worse mental health:

Emil Kirkegaard has presented some evidence that self-reported “liberalism” is associated with physical and mental illness and low fertility. There's little doubt that, at least today, “liberalism” has a great deal of crossover with multiculturalism, where an individual puts the interests of other ethnicities ahead of his own. By contrast, conservatism, even when controlling for religiousness, is associated with mental and physical health and with fertility.

Kirkegaard published the study in the far-right pseudojournal Mankind Quarterly. It has only one citation on Google Scholar, an article published by Dutton. A major flaw with the study is excluding clinical depression. The survey does not describe any other mental disorder, rather, survey questions concerning mental health included only Yes/No response to "Do you have any emotional or mental disability?", "Have you ever felt you had a mental health problem?" and "Have you personally ever received treatment for a mental health problem?"

The reason Kirkegaard likely omitted data on a wide-range of mental disorders is because many studies show narcissistic personality disorder, Machiavellianism and psychopathy — the Dark triad of personality traits — have highest prevalence among individuals with right-wing, especially anti-immigration political views. In 2018, a survey revealed right-wing voters in the US on average have more psychopathic traits than left-wing voters. A few studies have shown a link between right-wing voters and sadism (for example a 2017 study on the 2016 Austrian presidential election found voters of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria candidate Norbert Hofer, had higher scores in everyday sadism than did left-wing Alexander Van der Bellen voters, as well as having higher scores in narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy). Kirkegaard and Dutton are completely silent on this subject.

Edward Dutton's psychological projection.

A number of studies have shown that conservatives are more happy than liberals and the latter have a higher risk of clinical depression. Kirkegaard and Dutton have latched onto these studies but do not report the reason why liberals are less happy than conservatives. Psychologists Jaime Napier and John Jost in a 2008 study found conservatives are more happy than liberals because they possess an "ideological buffer" against the negative effects of inequality. This means conservatives are able to ignore or downplay inequalities for example by believing the poor are poor because they've not worked hard enough.

Kirkegaard has incorrectly claimed transgenderism is a mental illness. However, transgender people are no longer classified as having a mental disorder by the World Health Organization nor by the American Psychiatric Association. Furthermore, not all transgender people suffer from gender dysphoria. Dutton in 2020 co-authored a study in Sexuality Research and Social Policy arguing that "gender dysphoria is robustly associated with ASD". Turban and van Schalkwyk (2018) though have cautioned "current research has not established an over-representation of gender dysphoria (GD) in those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or the converse."

In an interview for the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance, Dutton claims that interracial relationships involving a black male and a white female result in "elevated levels of mental instability." Dutton uploaded a video to YouTube criticising interracial relationships, which claims that mixed-race adolescents are mentally unstable, and have higher health and behaviour risks.^{[citation needed]} In the same vein Kirkegaard published an essay on his website titled "Is Miscegenation bad for your kids", quoted by VDARE:

Danish blogger and genetics researcher Emil Kirkegaard has brought together all the known studies on the relationship between being mixed-race and mental health. Kirkegaard points out the studies’ findings of elevated levels of suicide, hyper-sexuality, depression, and problem drinking among mixed-race people. [Is miscegenation bad for your kids? by Emil Kirkegaard, Clear Language, Clear Mind, April 1, 2017] He argues that genetic diversity is only good up to a point. Thereafter the alleles are not meant to go together. In extreme cases, you get sterile offspring, such as Ligers.

This racist aspect to the spiteful mutant hypothesis combined with Dutton's approval of ethnocentrism, has attracted neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Dutton knows this is his target audience and he primarily speaks on far-right podcasts, online chats and radio-shows including Red Ice Creations, This Week on the Alt Right (with Mark Collett), identitarian YouTuber Tom Rowsell (a.k.a. Survive the Jive) and conservative activist Robyn Riley to discuss the "decline of Western civilization" by spiteful mutants. On 2 July 2019, Dutton appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast by the Nordic Resistance Movement. Kirkegaard has similarly appeared on white supremacist Tara McCarthy's The Reality Call Show.

Other groups that Dutton and Kirkegaard claim to have a high prevalence of mental illness are vegans, feminists and antinatalists (see below).

Spiteful mutations as voluntary childlessness

Dutton has an intense dislike of individuals who are voluntarily childless (so-called 'childfree'), especially antinatalists — people who are opposed to human procreation for moral or philosophical reasons — as well as people who choose not to have children because of environmental concerns (such as climate change and overpopulation). He describes voluntarily childless people as "highly maladaptive in evolutionary terms" and being a "failure as an organism" for not wanting to reproduce.

The number of years a woman has spent in education is inversely correlated with the number of children she will bear in her lifetime and childless women (both voluntary and involuntary) tend to have the highest levels of education when compared to women with children. A 2006 study reported voluntarily childless women in the US have the highest income and prior work experience compared to other women. One thing Satoshi Kanazawa even seems to have gotten right is that more intelligent individuals are more likely to prefer to remain childless than less intelligent individuals. Like atheists (who have higher IQs on average than religious people, but lower fertility) Dutton is left with a dilemma that (voluntary) childless people he dislikes are typically smarter than individuals who produce offspring. As a counter-argument, Dutton has claimed voluntary childlessness is maladaptive because antinatalists have a high risk of mental illness. Umberson et al. (2010) note "the available evidence suggests that childlessness has few costs for psychological well-being and may even be associated with enhanced well-being, at least for certain social groups." A 2015 study found that among unmarried Australian women, the absence of children is associated with better well-being and health than women with children, but that worse health conditions are experienced if childless women are separated, divorced or widowed. Zhang and Hayward (2001) criticise studies on the mental and physical health of childless individuals for lumping voluntary and involuntary childlessness (for example women who want children but can't for medical reasons). They note studies analysing voluntarily childless people reveal they have a tendency to have good mental health and well-being because of desired lifestyle, unlike involuntarily childless persons who are more likely to suffer from depression or loneliness:

One caveat in the interpretation of the effects of childlessness is whether childlessness is voluntary or involuntary. One plausible hypothesis is that childlessness reduces psychological well-being only if it is involuntary. Individuals who want to have children but are unable may feel stressed and perceive that they lack control over their own lives, leading to depressed mood. Persons who are voluntarily childless, on the other hand, view childlessness almost by definition as a desired lifestyle, and over the life course these persons successfully develop their own social support networks that buffer life stressors and enhance psychological well-being (Andrews, Abbey, and Halman 1991; Callan 1987; Connidis and McMullin 1993). Connidis and McMullin 1993 observed, for example, that the psychological well-being of voluntarily childless persons did not differ significantly from that of parents who were emotionally close to their offspring. However, involuntarily childless persons were less happy and more depressed than emotionally close parents.

Dykstra and Hagestad (2007) summarised the research literature on childless individuals' socioeconomic status, health and social networks by remarking "Childless older adults did not emerge as the sad bunch they often are assumed to be". Studies that have analysed generativity between childless individuals and individuals with children have discovered "no difference in this association for childless women and mothers and for childless men and fathers." Avison and Furnham (2015) in their paper "Personality and voluntary childlessness" published in Journal of Population Research found voluntarily childless participants in their study scored significantly higher in independence than those who had or wanted children. Independence as a personality trait means a person prefers to act on his/her own thoughts and feelings rather than be influenced by the views of others. More recently, clinical psychologist Noam Shpancer (2019) has compiled evidence in an article that shows research has "consistently shown negative correlations between having children and marital and life satisfaction. Having children is associated with reduced happiness, particularly for women, and particularly in the U.S., and that link appears to sustain over the long term." In the US, based on the General Social Survey (1972-2016) women having children is associated with a marginally-significant 3 or 4 percentage point decline in happiness compared to childless women. The American Sociological Association conducted a major study and found that parents are more likely to be depressed than people who are childfree.

In 2015, it was estimated that 7.4% of women in the US are voluntarily childless (up from 6% in 2010) and 2.1% are involuntarily childless. An additional 35.6% of US women are childless but this figure is categorised as neither voluntarily or involuntarily childless but temporarily childless meaning women who plan to have children in the future but don't currently have any.

Spiteful mutations as ugliness

Dutton has claimed spiteful mutants including liberals, Marxists and atheists are less physically attractive on average than conservatives and religious people. On 7 September 2019 he delivered a speech at the white nationalist Patriotic Alternative conference titled "Why are Conservative Girls So Attractive and Liberal Girls So Ugly?" The main study Dutton bases this claim on is Berggren et al. 2017. Berggren carried out three separate studies including a web survey in which 2,513 non-Finnish respondents (from Sweden and US) evaluated the facial appearance in terms of beauty or handsomeness of 1,357 female (684) and male (673) Finnish political candidates from 2003-2004. The candidates were from three parties, National Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance. Results showed females and males of the National Coalition Party were rated on average better-looking than the Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance (although for male candidates, rating differences were not statistically significant among respondents from Sweden). Berggren et al. classify National Coalition Party as right-wing, while the other two parties as left-wing. The National Coalition Party though is a liberal-conservative party (combining conservative policies with liberal stances) and is not standard right-wing; socially it is very liberal on issues such as LGBT rights, multiculturalism and immigration. The National Coalition Party is in fact more pro-immigration than the Social Democratic Party; in 2015 it was reported they are most welcoming of immigrant workers from outside EU.

Kirkegaard has cited another study in the journal Politics and the Life Sciences to support Dutton's claim conservatives are more physically attractive than liberals. However, this study is contradicted by other studies that specifically look at conservative versus liberal positions on things like abortion and same-sex marriage. For example, a 2018 study found 51% of women rated above-average in terms of their sex appeal turned out to support "a woman who wants an abortion for any reason should legally be allowed to have one". In contrast, 42% of women rated below-average in sex appeal supported the same statement. Dutton and Kirkegaard who engage in confirmation bias don't cite these studies.

In 2020, groypers and other far-right trolls have adopted Dutton's views and now label arrested or convicted Antifa criminals as spiteful mutants based on their police mug-shots posted on Andy Ngo's social media, with one troll tweeting "ANTIFA mugshots are proof of [Edward Dutton] @jollyheretic's 'Spiteful Mutants' theory."

Spiteful mutations as involuntary celibacy

Michael A. Woodley of Menie on a livestream with Dutton on The Jolly Heretic has argued that incels are spiteful mutants. Woodley is quoted as saying "The incel phenomenon seems to be a function of degraded social epistasis". Woodley thinks incels are spiteful mutants because they are involuntarily celibate and therefore childless. Woodley (born 1984) is in his late 30s and childless himself — so his theory on incels might stem from his own psychological projection.

Spiteful mutations as pedophilia

Edward Dutton has linked pedophilia to the spiteful mutant hypothesis in a video titled "Do paedophiles rule the world". He argues non-religious people and liberals (or individuals with left-wing political views) are more likely than religious people and conservatives to be pedophiles, or have views sympathetic towards pedophilia. There is no research to support these claims since no surveys have ever been conducted on liberal and conservative attitudes concerning pedophilia.

An obvious criticism of Dutton's claim that non-religious individuals are more likely to be pedophiles or sympathetic to pedophilia than religious individuals is the history of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Dutton published a paper in the pseudojournal Mankind Quarterly that touches upon this topic in which he defends his bizarre "Gay Shaman Theory". In his paper, Dutton makes the dubious claim that homosexuality-pedophilia "is not really pedophilia" because "homosexual pedophiles prefer significantly older children, often those that are already pubescent, and the abusers themselves are also more feminine than heterosexual abusers."

On 14 September 2020 Dutton appeared on a podcast with Richard Spencer to discuss the 2020 film Cuties and pedophilia. At the end of the podcast, Dutton claims that Cuties and especially the promotional poster of the film (that recieved so many complaints that Netflix removed its poster), is an example of "negative social epistatis". Throughout the podcast Spencer and Dutton try to link pedophilia-advocacy to so-called Social Justice Warriors. Dutton has relied on Emil Kirkegaard's questionable research to claim there is an "SJW-pedophilia" link. Kirkegaard for example has re-tweeted "Opposing pedophilia is officially a right wing position"^{Do You Believe That?} despite himself having a controversial history of writing distasteful comments about pedophilia and age of consent. In 2012, Kirkegaard wrote that he thinks age of consent is a "fiction" because "even babies consent" and it should be lowered to 13 or younger in his country ([[Denmark). Kirkegaard also wants to legalise child pornography.

“”For ‘age of consent’-fiction (people can consent at any age, even babies consent and disconsent to stuff happening to them!), perhaps a dual approach. Either 13 years old or start of puberty, whichever comes first. There is another potential reason why it is a good idea to legalize child porn.

—Emil Kirkegaard

Dutton and Spencer have repeatedly mentioned groups like the Paedophile Information Exchange as evidence that people with left-wing political views are pro-pedophilia. The PIE group between 1974 and 1984 (when it became defunct) campaigned for the complete abolition of the age of consent, but was widely criticised at the time, including by notable left-wing politicians, for example Labour MP, Peter Hain, an Honorary Vice-President of Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the 1970s, condemned PIE, "Some plain speaking is called for: paedophilia is not a condition to be given a nod and a wink as a healthy fringe activity in society – it is a wholly undesirable abnormality requiring sensitive treatment." In 2013, all three major political parties in the UK (Labour Party, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) rejected a call by a leading public health official to consider lowering the age of consent.

Supporters of SEAM

• Richard Spencer
• Anatoly Karlin
• Lance Welton
• Metapedia
• Patriotic Alternative
• American Renaissance

(all these individuals and groups are white supremacists^{[citation NOT needed]})