Item — HN Reader

Technically yes, but with the advent of academia.edu and the cratering public profile of for-profit academic publishers like Elsevier, it's becoming normal. In my field, at least, there's a perception that Elsevier and Wiley won't further damage their reputations by going after individuals posting papers (although I am surprised they haven't targeted Academia.edu as a whole).

Unrelatedly, the author's odd name "Michael Woodley of Menie" caught my eye. It would seem that he's the heir to a Scottish barony (Menie). I hesitate to even go there, but it's at the very least interesting that the (supposed) decline in general intelligence since the Industrial Revolution is being studied by an ancestral nobleman.

Edit: after reading the article and following up on the author's affiliation, the Ulster Institute for Social Research, this is definitely something to be taken with a grain of salt. The Ulster Institute has ties with "racialist" fringe scientists promoting what is essentially a 21st century take on eugenics. The paper is not necessarily inherently flawed because of this, but certain assumptions in it (like the uncited claim that lower socioeconomic classes have been historically correlated with lower g) seem fishy to me as a result.

4 comments

Updating my earlier response -- these aren't just "ties", the Institute was founded, and is headed, by a noted White Nationalist.

The source I'd picked up the item from is, it seems, quite the racist himself. I should have seen it earlier given the topics he covered and how he was doing so in his blog.

The area of research interests me, but I'm exceptionally dubious about this paper.

Oh, and Woodley appears to be the son of Michael Woodley, aerial effects coordinator for several James Bond films. The elder acquired the estate in 1995. So this doesn't appear to be old money, per se.

Do you have a specific reference to the fringe racist science at UISR? I am not familiar with the organization.

I do find associations with the Flynn Effect and via the Southern Poverty Law Center (a group focused on black rights and equality in the US) a biography on Richard Lynn:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/pro...

“I am deeply pessimistic about the future of the European peoples because mass immigration of third world peoples will lead to these becoming majorities in the United States and westernmost Europe during the present century. I think this will mean the destruction of European civilization in these countries.” —Interview with neo-Nazi Alex Kurtagic, 2011

More via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lynn

The source who tipped me off to this particular article is a UK psychologist who posts some interesting and occasionally provocative material on his blog.

I have to agree that the whole concept of assessing population trends in "g" is pretty tainted at this point. For some reason, this subject tends to attract a certain kind of person with an axe to grind.

> yes

This answered the question.