International Society for Intelligence Research

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The colorful pseudoscience
Racialism
Icon race.svg
Hating thy neighbour
Divide and conquer
Dog-whistlers
v - t - e

International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR) is a scientific society for psychologists who specialise in human intelligence that has gained notoriety as some of its members and speakers have promoted eugenics and racialist pseudoscience.[1][2] ISIR was founded in 2000 by Douglas K. DettermanWikipedia and the society's official peer-reviewed journal is Intelligence.

Similar to the London Conference on Intelligence, ISIR has been a magnet to far-right extremists and white nationalists. Past speakers of the annual ISIR conferences include Jonathan Anomaly, Arthur Jensen, Emil Kirkegaard, Jordan Lasker, Richard Lynn, Gerhard Meisenberg, Charles Murray, Helmuth Nyborg, Bryan Pesta, Heiner Rindermann, Russell T. Warne, Emily Willoughby and Michael A. Woodley of Menie.[3][4][5][6]

Matthew Archer of the far-right Aporia Magazine and white supremacist Edward Dutton attended ISIR 2023.[7][8]

Controversy[edit]

“”The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field. Yet Richard Lynn, who has called for the “phasing out” of the “populations of incompetent cultures”, serves on the editorial board of Intelligence, along with fellow director of the Pioneer Fund Gerhard Meisenberg, who edits Lynn’s journal Mankind Quarterly. Two other board members are Heiner Rindermann and Jan te Nijenhuis, frequent contributors to Mankind Quarterly and the London Conference on Intelligence.
—Ben Van Der Merwe, NewStatesman[9]

Some members of ISIR and editors of Intelligence are proponents of hereditarianism and have right-wing to far-right political beliefs.

Editorial Board of ISIR[edit]

The current ISIR Board Members are[10]:

  • Rosalind Arden
  • Timothy C. Bates
  • Roberto Colom
  • Thomas R. Coyle (President)
  • Andreas Demetriou
  • Kirsten Hilger
  • Rex Jung (Treasurer)
  • Guy Madison
  • John Protzko
  • Emily Willoughby

Among these, Robert Colom and Guy Madison have published papers in the white supremacist journal Mankind Quarterly.[11][12] Madison has co-authored a paper with Edward Dutton.[13] John Protzko is a reviewer for Emil Kirkegaard's pseudoscientific OpenPsych journal.[14]

Editorial Board of Intelligence[edit]

An article published by The Guardian, "Racism is Creeping Back into Mainstream Science", noted in January 2018:[15]

“”Both Gerhard Meisenberg and Lynn also serve on the editorial board of Intelligence, a psychology journal also published by Elsevier. Meisenberg has authored at least eight articles for it over the years, including one in 2010 on the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans, and another in 2013 on the relationship between "national intelligence" and economic success. While journals are free to publish whatever they deem worthy, subject to peer review, the choice of who to appoint to an editorial board is important because these members help shape its policy and scope. According to Elsevier's own guidance for editors, they "should be appointed from key research institutes". Lynn is listed on Intelligence's board with no affiliation whatsoever.

Sometime after this criticism, Meisenberg and Richard Lynn were removed from the Editorial Board and are no longer listed.[16] Prior to Lynn and Meisenberg being removed from the Editorial Board, the Editor-in-Chief of Intelligence, Richard Haier had defended both; after being questioned about how he felt having Mankind Quarterly editors on the board of his journal, he responded: "throwing people off an editorial board for expressing an opinion really kind of puts us in a dicey area. I prefer to let the papers and the data speak for themselves."

The current Editorial Board includes:[17]

Of these, Haier is known to have controversially defended The Bell Curve and he was a signatory on Mainstream Science on Intelligence.Wikipedia Despite the name of this public statement, the Southern Poverty Law Center has noted that only 10/52 signatures were psychologists who specialised in human intelligence and most were not experts, some not even qualified:

Not only were the majority of the 52 signatories not experts in IQ measurement, but some had no relevant qualifications at all. Garret Hardin, for example, was an ecologist and anti-immigration activist, while Vincent Sarich was an anthropologist who gained notoriety for making racist and homophobic claims in his undergraduate courses (he later admitted to The New York Times that these assertions were not based on established scientific facts).[18]


Intelligence has a few more controversial staff currently on its editorial board, including Robert Plomin and Heiner Rindermann, the latter whose work "is often cited by racists seeking to prove that immigrants have low IQs".[19] In 2016, Rindermann spoke at a Property and Freedom SocietyWikipedia Conference, delivering an anti-immigration talk: "Cognitive and Cultural 'Enrichment' of Europe by Immigration".[20] Annual conferences by the PFC have been described as "serious academic racist events by the SPLC.[21] Racists who formerly sat on the Editorial Board include: Jan te Nijenhuis, Arthur R. Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton, and Michael A. Woodley of Menie. Woodley was suspended from Vrije Universiteit Brussel in June 2022 after it was discovered that his writings on race were cited by white supremacist Payton S. Gendron in his terrorist manifesto.[22] The journal therefore has been criticized by some for being a racialist pseudojournal.

Russell T. Warne is a writer for the far-right Aporia Magazine and wrote a paper for Mankind Quarterly.[23][24][25]

Linda Gottfredson[edit]

The ISIR formerly elected Linda Gottfredson as president in 2012, who the SPLC notes: "has spent more than three decades fighting against the idea that social equality between black and white Americans is possible, or even desirable." Gottfredson has received research grants worth $267,000 from the far-right Pioneer Fund and in 2015 appeared on alt-righter Stefan Molyneux's YouTube channel for a discussion on race and intelligence, defending the hereditarianismWikipedia hypothesis of infamous racist psychologist J. Philippe Rushton.

Papers[edit]

Intelligence has most controversially published papers by far-right individuals and white supremacists:

Magnus Hansen, a postdoc fellow at the University of Copenhagen, has noted "racialists have their own venues for publication — primarily Mankind Quarterly but also Intelligence".[26]

Conferences[edit]

ISIR organises annual conferences for its members with talks and presentations. Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, Helmuth Nyborg, Bryan Pesta, Heiner Rindermann and Michael Woodley were speakers in 2010.[4]

Far-right crank Emil Kirkegaard attended the 2016, 2017, and 2018 conferences, despite not being a psychologist (his only qualification is a BA in Linguistics).[27][28] Kirkegaard listed himself on the 2018 ISIR conference programme as a research fellow of the "Ulster Institute for Social Research".[29] This is not a formal academic institution and only consists of a website that publishes racist literature, including the pseudo-scholarly Mankind Quarterly.

ISIR 2022 conference controversy[edit]

On 13 July 2022, geneticist Abdel Abdellaoui, a scheduled keynote speaker at the ISIR conference (to be held at the University of Vienna), cancelled attending after complaining about Emil Kirkegaard being allowed to attend as a speaker. Abdellaoui described Kirkegaard as a "careless racist lunatic" and noted he lacks academic credentials.[30] In response to Abdellaoui's complaint, there was an online petition to prevent Kirkegaard from attending the conference. On 16 July 2022, Abdellaoui confirmed Kirkegaard was removed on the speaking list and therefore said he would now himself attend the conference.[31]

Institute of Mental Chronometry[edit]

A welcoming reception and travel arrangements were sponsored at the 2023 conference by an organization called Institute of Mental Chronometry.[32] The organization offered travel support for the 2022 conference.[33]

There is no website or social media associated with the organization, but tax records from 2021 indicate the organization has been nonprofit since 1972 and key employees and officers include David Lubinski and Douglas Detterman.[34]

Tax records from 2004[35] indicate the organization was originally called Institute for the Study of Educational Differences and its president was Arthur Jensen. In an inter-departmental memo, explaining why it would refuse donations from the Pioneer Fund, the University of Delaware claimed that the Institute for the Study of Educational Differences had received six donations from the Pioneer Fund for a total of $337,500[36].

In the July-August 2011 issue of Intelligence, Jensen published a paper, 'The theory of intelligence and its measurement'[37] which states:

Termed “method variance,” this is a major obstacle to the advancement of MC. For that reason, Jensen's Institute of Mental Chronometry commissioned a leading electronics firm to construct a state-of-the-art apparatus to administer, record, and analyze MC experiments.

This appears to refer to a new device and not the Jensen Box which had been introduced in 1987[38]. No evidence has been found yet that development of the newer apparatus has been undertaken.

In 2023 the organization gave a grant of over half a million dollars to Willoughby and James Lee at the University of Minnesota.[39]

ISIR 2023[edit]

The 2023 conference held at Berkeley, California included speakers Richard Haier, Gregory Clark, Emily Willoughby, Steven Pinker and Michael A. Woodley.[40]

Matthew Archer of the far-right magazine Aporia and white supremacist Edward Dutton attended ISIR 2023.[7][8]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Van Der Merwe, Ben (19 February 2018). "It might be a pseudo science, but students take the threat of eugenics seriously" (in en). New Statesman. 
  2. ↑ University Professor has extensive publishing record in racist Eugenics theory. thepioneeronline.com.
  3. ↑ International Society for Intelligence Research 2007. isironline.org.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 International Society for Intelligence Research 2010. isironline.org.
  5. ↑ International Society for Intelligence Research 2019. isironline.org.
  6. ↑ International Society for Intelligence Research 2022. isironline.org.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ten researchers reveal the smartest person they've EVER met!. Aporia Magazine.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Are we really getting smarter?. Aporia Magazine.
  9. ↑ It might be a pseudo science, but students take the threat of eugenics seriously. NewStatesman. 19 Feb 2018.
  10. ↑ ISIR Board Members. isironline.org.
  11. ↑ Counting is not Measuring: Comment on Richard Lynn’s Developmental Theory of Sex Differences in Intelligence. mankindquarterly.org.
  12. ↑ Book Review: The Intelligence of Nations. mankindquarterly.org.
  13. ↑ Life History and Race Differences in Puberty Length: A Test of Differential-K Theory. mankindquarterly.org.
  14. ↑ John Protzko. openpsych.net.
  15. ↑ Racism is creeping back into mainstream science – we have to stop it. The Guardian. 22 January 2018.
  16. ↑ Intelligence: Editorial Board (accessed 26 August 2018).
  17. ↑ https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/intelligence/about/editorial-board
  18. ↑ SPLC Extremist Files: Linda Gottfredson
  19. ↑ Peter Thiel Shamed For Association With Racists. Queerty. 29 Jul 2016.
  20. ↑ Heiner Rindermann, "Cognitive and Cultural ‘Enrichment’ of Europe by Immigration" (PFS 2016).
  21. ↑ Researchers tied to hate groups get invitations. Review Journal. 11 Mar 2007.
  22. ↑ https://www.brusselstimes.com/231696/shocked-vub-suspends-collaboration-with-researcher-quoted-by-buffalo-terrorist
  23. ↑ The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology. Aporia Magazine
  24. ↑ The West's Fertility Crisis. Aporia Magazine.
  25. ↑ Continental Genetic Ancestry Source Correlates with Global Cognitive Ability Score. mankindquarterly.org.
  26. ↑ Wikipedia wars: inside the fight against far-right editors, vandals and sock puppets. SPLC. 12 Mar 2018.
  27. ↑ https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/?p=6841
  28. ↑ https://twitter.com/kirkegaardemil/status/887101208577572865
  29. ↑ 19th Annual Meeting of ISIR: Edinburgh 2018
  30. ↑ https://twitter.com/dr_appie/status/1547159135187238913
  31. ↑ https://twitter.com/dr_appie/status/1548354576138481665
  32. ↑ https://isironline.org/2023/01/isir-2023-berkeley-california-july-26-29/
  33. ↑ https://isironline.org/2022/04/2022-conference-registration-now-open/
  34. ↑ https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942199617
  35. ↑ https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/942199617/2005_11_PF%2F94-2199617_990PF_200412
  36. ↑ https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/academicfreedom/Attachment21-22_Gottfredson_funding-ban-FW&Pcomplaint(9-17-90).pdf
  37. ↑ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289611000341?via%3Dihub
  38. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Jensen box.
  39. ↑ https://cla.umn.edu/psychology/news-events/story/lee-and-willoughby-awarded-grant-explore-cognitive-ability-through-innovative-research Lee and Willoughby Awarded Grant to Explore Cognitive Ability through Innovative Research] (August 17, 2023) University of Minnesota: College of Liberal Arts, Psychology.
  40. ↑ ISIR 2023 Conference program
Retrieved from "https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=International_Society_for_Intelligence_Research&oldid=2685978"