Jonathan Anomaly

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Jonathan Anomaly (1975–) is an American far-right eugenicist and pro-natalist, who promotes embryo selection and what he calls "genetic enhancement" or "liberal eugenics." Anomaly is associated with the "human-biodiversity" online network and blogsphere. He has published articles for far-right magazines including Aporia, Quillette and the antisemitic site The Unz Review that are mostly nonsense, with the exception of a stopped clock article that opposes factory farming.

Anomaly defends discredited theories on racialism and race and intelligence. Similar to Nathan Cofnas who he co-authored an article with, Anomaly tries to present himself as a centrist and libertarian between both alt-right and hard left-wing extremes, 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. In 2023-2024, Anomaly was a speaker at conferences attended by white nationalists and neo-Nazis including the Natal Conference, Vitalia and Manifest.

In August 2024, Anomaly appeared on the far-right podcast Lotus Eaters with ex-UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin. As part of an undercover investigation by Hope not Hate, Anomaly in October 2024 was exposed as the co-founder of a biotech-eugenics company named PolygenX which claims to have "developed a way for parents pursuing IVF treatment to analyse the genetic data of their embryos and identify which of them will have the highest IQ." HnH has revealed PolygenX has ties to neo-Nazi Martin Sellner.

Around the time Anomaly was exposed by HnH he deceptively began deleting his articles and podcasts on far-right websites.

Background

Anomaly's birth name was Jonathan Beres. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1975. He has a PhD in philosophy from Tulane University. From 2010-2017 he was a senior lecturer at Duke University. He was an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego. Anomaly is currently the director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics in Quito, Ecuador. He lost in the Round of 64 in the 2019 Name of the Year competition.

Pseudoscience and controversial writings

Eugenics

Anomaly discussing eugenics on CSPI's podcast.

Anomaly published a provocative article "Defending eugenics" in a peer-reviewed bioethics journal. It has been harshly criticised, with nearly 200 academics signing a letter of complaint to Monash Bioethics Review for publishing the article. Anomaly has most controversially argued that 20^th century court decisions upholding the right of the state to forcefully sterilize undesirable people are morally defensible but as a self-described libertarian says he does not favour state intervention but eugenics voluntarily practiced by individuals such as prenatal screening tests and genetic engineering. Anomaly is an outspoken supporter of polygenic embryo selection and has rebranded his pro-eugenics views "genetic enhancement." He has been widely criticised for espousing eugenics but claims he only supports "liberal eugenics" opposed to coercive eugenics or state-enforced eugenics policies. Critics, however, such as Dr. David Gibbs, a Professor of History have argued this contentious distinction is ambiguous and consider his views to be akin to Nazis:

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.

His eugenics views and far-right connections have been criticised in a blog post on altrightorigins.com. Anomaly was a speaker at the International Society for Intelligence Research 2019 annual conference promoting what he called "cognitive enhancement" (a euphemism for eugenics). White supremacist Emil Kirkegaard was also a speaker at the same event. In 2022, Anomaly promoted eugenics on the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology podcast in a discussion with Richard Hanania titled "Building Better People."

Creating Future People

In 2020, Anomaly authored Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement with a second edition published in 2024. 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 Emil Kirkegaard, Anatoly Karlin, Jordan Lasker and Ives Parr for Aporia Magazine.

Racialism and hereditarianism

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. He's also published a peer-reviewed article defending this sort of race-based junk science. In 2019, he co-authored a paper with Bo Winegard arguing that diversity between groups is compatible with political liberalism. He also co-authored a paper defending the hereditarian hypothesis with Bo Winegard and Ben Winegard.

Aporia Magazine

In 2022, Anomaly co-authored an article with Diana Fleischman for the far-right Aporia Magazine and also appeared on their podcast multiple times. However, in around August 2024, he tried to whitewash his association with extremists by removing his name from the article and podcasts. Despite this, archived webpage captures still show his name on the article in May 2024. Anomaly had in fact appeared on Aporia's podcast alongside Bo Winegard 10 times including discussing HBD, politics, and eugenics. Hope not Hate has reported Anomaly is still associated with Aporia such as hosting its live events:

Anomaly’s representative claimed that he asked Matthew Frost, Aporia’s founder, to remove any material featuring him from the website, as over the course of 2023, he began to disagree with its editorial stance. Anomaly nevertheless hosted a live event for Aporia in New York in February 2024 and many of his podcast appearances remain live on the website. He furthermore reposted four articles from Aporia on his Substack page this year, the most recent being July 22nd 2024. On December 26th 2023, Anomaly reposted an article titled: “The case for race realism.”

Quillette

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. Between 2017 and 2018 he published several articles in Quillette including an article defending Jordan Peterson.

Pro-natalism

In 2017, Anomaly published an article titled: "Selfless Reasons to Have More Kids".

Aside from speaking at the Natal Conference, Anomaly co-authored an article in 2018 titled "If you’re reading this essay, you should probably have (more) children".

Similar to far-right activists such as Steve Sailer and white nationalists in general, there is an underlying racial basis to Anomaly's pro-natalism viewpoint:

By the end of the current century, the population of sub-Saharan Africa alone is expected to triple. The problems this creates may eventually be mitigated by important efforts to supply contraception to poor women. But telling people in developed countries who are well-placed to have children to refrain from doing so is misguided. If anything, they should reproduce more, not less.

Anomaly therefore is only encouraging people from so-called developed countries to reproduce.

Techno traditionalism

Anomaly has described his own ideology as "techno traditionalism". The ideology basically mixes eugenics and transhumanism with traditional social conservatism.

In March 2024, he published an article titled: "The radical conservative case for genetic enhancement."

Speaking at right-wing to far-right conferences

Natal conference

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

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.)

Vitalia

Anomaly speaking at Vitalia's Longevity Biotech Conference in 2024.

Anomaly spoke at a Vitalia conference in Jan-Feb. 2024, alongside the white nationalist Anatoly Karlin to promote eugenics and life extension.

Manifest 2024

Anomaly attended the right-wing Manifest conference in June 2024 alongside the white supremacist Richard Hanania:

Billed speakers from the broader tech world included the Substack co-founder Chris Best and Ben Mann, co-founder of AI startup Anthropic.

Alongside these guests, however, were advertised a range of more extreme figures.

One, Jonathan Anomaly, published a paper in 2018 entitled Defending Eugenics, which called for a “non-coercive” or “liberal eugenics” to “increase the prevalence of traits that promote individual and social welfare”. The publication triggered an open letter of protest by Australian academics to the journal that published the paper, and protests at the University of Pennsylvania when he commenced working there in 2019. (Anomaly now works at a private institution in Quito, Ecuador, and claims on his website that US universities have been “ideologically captured”.

[...]

Several controversial guests were also present at Manifest 2023, also held at Lighthaven, including rightwing writer Hanania, whose pseudonymous white-nationalist commentary from the early 2010s was catalogued last August in HuffPost, and Malcolm and Simone Collins, whose EA-inspired pro-natalism – the belief that having as many babies as possible will save the world – was detailed in the Guardian last month.

The Collinses were, along with Razib Khan and Jonathan Anomaly, featured speakers at the eugenicist Natal Conference in Austin last December, as previously reported in the Guardian.

PolygenX and Heliospect Genomics

See the main article on this topic: PolygenX

In October 2024, an undercover investigation by Hope not Hate revealed Jonathan Anomaly co-founded a biotech-eugenics company for polygenic embryo screening named PolygenX (renamed Genotribe) and works for a similar company named Heliospect Genomics. Both companies have strong links to far-right activists. According to another source, "A US-based startup called Heliospect Genomics is charging parents tens of thousands of dollars to 'screen' embryos they conceive for their IQs."

Views on factory farming

In 2015, Anomaly published a peer-reviewed article in Public Health Ethics criticising factory farming. Anomaly does not suggest people should give up eating meat completely for plant-based diets but argues "governments should require factory farmers to change the way they raise animals" by improving animal welfare such as shifting to "free range" farming by "increase roaming space and access to fresh air". These arguments are rejected by vegans and animal rights activists such as PETA who point out animals on “free-range” farms still endure pain and suffering. Anomaly has also published a paper discussing the issues "factory farming raises for human health". In 2018, Anomaly suggested in a Quillette article replacing factory farming with "lab-grown" meat (in vitro meat). By the 2020s, Anomaly and co-author Diana Fleischman were supporting in vitro meat. Misleadingly, Anomaly and Fleishman in their article(s) do not mention the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in the production of in vitro meat. The production of in vitro meat requires a growth agent to support cell growth which is usually foetal bovine serum obtained from the fetus of slaughtered pregnant cows.

Whitewashing his far-right associations

Between August and October 2024, Anomaly went on a deletion-spree to remove articles he had written for far-right sites including Aporia Magazine. His name has also disappeared on Aporia in relation to his podcast appearances (they can still though be accessed on Podchaser). Anomaly's podcast discussion on eugenics with white supremacist Richard Hanania was also taken down from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology website although it can still be listened to on Podchaser. Anomaly has further deleted his author page on the antisemitic The Unz Review (a webpage capture exists). Anomaly was previously a mutual follower on X of Emil Kirkegaard and Aporia Magazine's account but unfollowed both around the time Hope not Hate wrote an article documenting his far-right connections. Despite this pretense, HnH have pointed out that Anomaly continues to have strong links to Aporia including hosting their live events and restacked an Aporia article on Substack as recent as July 2024. Although unfollowing Aporia —Anomaly continues on X to follow the editors of Aporia: Noah Carl, Bo Winegard, as well as its podcast host Diana Fleischman. He also follows ex-UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin. Bizarrely, in response to HnH mentioning that Anomaly had appeared on the far-right Lotus Eaters with Benjamin, a representative of Anomaly said his appearance was "the furtherance of debate with those who he knew held different views to him."^{Do You Believe That?} In reality, Anomaly throughout the discussion agreed with practically everything Benjamin said and did not once question or dispute him.

RationalWiki

In September 2021, Anomaly filed a misleading defamation complaint to Google in an attempt to deindex this article. The complaint was unsuccessful. Anomaly lied in his complaint to falsely claim the article said he advocates sterilizing undesirable people. The edit history of the page instead shows this statement was never there, rather, that he argued in the 20th-century "the right of the state to forcefully sterilize undesirable people" is "morally defensible". This is apparently sourced to his writings.

In October 2024, Anomaly was suspected of using meatpuppet accounts to remove factual information he published at The Unz Review.

External links

• Jonathan Anomaly's published papers
• The Superbaby Factory – Hope not Hate's investigation into PolygenX