The Future of the Species
Jared Taylor, American Renaissance, July-August 1997
Heredity and Humanity, Roger Pearson, Scott-Townsend Publishers, 1996, 160pp.
In Heredity and Humanity, anthropologist Roger Pearson sums up a lifetime of investigation into the most fundamental human question: the genetic future. In this short, but important book, he traces the course of man’s understanding of heredity, and describes the terrible damage that has been done under the current reign of egalitarianism. He concludes with the cautious prediction that modern genetic research will eventually undermine egalitarian dogma, but reminds us that Nature exacts a high price extinction from any species that flouts its laws.
Dr. Pearson points out that men have always had an intuitive understanding of breeding; that the ancient Greeks, for example, examined the lineages of their spouses with as much care as that of their horses. The discovery of Mendelian genetics and the introduction of evolutionary theory established the basis for a science of heredity, and Dr. Pearson recounts the speed with which eugenic thinking spread across Europe and America. It was soon so well established that the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, under its entry for civilization, predicted that the future progress would include the organic betterment of the race through wise application of the laws of heredity.
This promising beginning was upset by a sequence of misfortunes from which science and society have yet to recover. Dr. Pearson traces the work of anthropologist Franz Boas who, with his disciples at Columbia University, drove biology almost completely out of the social sciences. He also recounts the rise of Marxist genetics, and the damage done by Lysenkoism. After the defeat of Nazism, the minds of nearly all intellectuals were captured by an egalitarianism so fierce that it amounted to willful blindness.
In the latter part of his book, Dr. Pearson describes the difficult, persecuted work of scientists, who have tried to reestablish the importance of genetics. As author of Race, Intelligence, and Bias in Academe Dr. Pearson is recognized as an authority on the subject, and leaves no doubt that the work of Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn, Linda Gottfredson, Thomas Bouchard, and many others is building up a virtually unassailable scientific basis for the racial and genetic views of the early eugenicists.
Dr. Pearson also has high hopes for the Human Genome Project, which will finally vindicate eugenics by demonstrating its principles at the most basic, molecular level. The real question is when the egalitarian media will pass on to the public what is now common knowledge to specialists, and how soon public policy will be based on fact rather than fantasy.
Dr. Pearson expresses some fear that even in the face of the most convincing evidence, Europeans will continue to support dysgenic policies for themselves and to promote the interests of other groups over their own. He finds some of the origins for this behavior in modern versions of Christianity, but notes grimly that Nature provides built-in correctives: Any ethic which has overall dysgenic implications will eventually eliminate the society which adopts it.
Dr. Pearson writes that if Western man does not wake up from his suicidal trance, Lord Justice Lawton of Britain will have been proven right, and the last chapter of this history can be called The Age of Compassionate Fools
Dr. Pearson’s entire career has been an effort to ensure that the age of compassionate fools will not be the final one; that it will be followed by a healthier, more vigorous age. This little volume is his summary of the ills that afflict us and the knowledge that can save us.
