Richard Lynn : biography
Richard Lynn (born 1930) is a British Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster who is known for his views on racial, ethnic and national differences in intelligence. BBCNews Friday, 26 April 2002
Lynn was educated at Bristol Grammar School and King’s College, Cambridge in England. He has worked as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter, and as professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He has written or co-written more than 11 books and 200 journal articles spanning five decades. Two of his recent books are on dysgenics and eugenics.
In the late 1970s, Lynn wrote that he found a higher average IQ in North-East Asians compared to "Europeans" (6 points higher in his meta-analysis). In 1990, he proposed that the Flynn effect – an observed year-on-year rise in IQ scores around the world – could possibly be explained by improved nutrition, especially in early childhood. In two books co-written with Tatu Vanhanen he argues that differences in developmental indexes among the nations of the world correlate with, and are possibly caused by, the average IQ of their citizens.
Like much of the research in race and intelligence, Lynn’s research is controversial. He is cited in the book The Bell Curve. He was also one of the 52 scientists who signed "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.Gottfredson, Linda (13 December 1994). Mainstream Science on Intelligence. p A18. He sits on the editorial boards of the journals Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences.Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences publisher’s pages. Lynn sits on the boards of the Pioneer Fund,William H. Tucker, The funding of scientific racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund, University of Illinois Press, 2002. Page 214 an organization that has been described as racist in nature, and of the Pioneer-supported journal Mankind Quarterly, which has been called a white supremacist journal.Joe L. Kincheloe, , Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, pg. 39William H. Tucker, , University of Illinois Press, 2002, pg. 2
Early life and career
Lynn is the son of the British botanist Sydney Cross Harland (1891—1982), Fellow of the Royal Society known for his work on cotton genetics. His parents divorced when he was young and he only met his father again in 1949 upon his return from Peru to become Professor of Genetics at the University of Manchester.
Lynn was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Cambridge University in England. He has worked as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter, and as professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine.
Dysgenics and eugenics
Dysgenics In Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations, Lynn reviews Richard Lynn: Dysgenics: genetic deterioration in modern populations Westport, Connecticut. : Praeger, 1996., ISBN 978-0-275-94917-4 the history of eugenics, from the early writings of Bénédict Morel and Francis Galton through the rise of eugenics in the early 20th century and its subsequent collapse. He identifies three main concerns of eugenicists such as himself: deterioration in health, intelligence and conscientiousness. Lynn asserts that natural selection in pre-industrial societies favored traits such as intelligence and character but no longer do so in modern societies. He argues that due to the advance of medicine, selection against those with poor genes for health was relaxed.
Regarding intelligence, Lynn examines sibling studies. Lynn concludes that the tendency of children with a high number of siblings to be the least intelligent is evidence of dysgenic fertility. Lynn concedes that there has been a genuine increase in phenotypic intelligence, but argues that this is caused by environmental factors and is masking a decline in genotypic intelligence.