I received this in an email from the local LibDems – as a joke, I hasten to add.
It does cause me some difficulty. I had to dig deep to get past the second question and avoid voting UKIP, but then found it almost impossible to skip past the Greens to my home as a Lib Dem!!
Craig,
(1) “What is pathetic is your view that the British are “A race”
(2) or that what you would doubtleas (sic)view as “miscegenation” would in some way make Britons any worse.
(3) Ethnic purity does not exist,
(4) and if it did there is no reason to consider it desirable.”
I split your comment that way because it asserts four different propositions.
Re: (1) Did I say that the British are a race? Possibly, although having a training in biology I do not like the term because it has no precise operational definition. However, here’s an operational definition: An interbreeding group within a species largely separated from other groups. The nations of Europe, were, until the modern age, races in that sense.
What is pathetic about that?
Nothing, obviously. So Me 1, Craig zero.
Re: (2) It is probably a mistake to make assumptions about what someone with some expert knowledge in a field in which you are evidently largely ignorant “doubtless view(s)”. But if you had read every comment on your own blog ?” not that I consider that obligatory ?” you would remember that I had said a week or two ago that immigration no doubt raises the IQ and energy of the British population.
So, Me 2, Craig zero.
Re: (3) Bollocks Craig. Go tell the Yanomamo that their just the same as the Scotch (although I’ll admit they’re both primitive, the Scots particularly).
http://indian-cultures.com/Cultures/yanomamo.html
So, Me 3, Craig zero.
Re: (4) This is based on a false premise (see response to (2) above) and is therefore irrelevant.
So, Me 4, Craig zero.
Proportional representation is a better system than first past the post, which is a kind of race, but under present circumstances I’m not sure about the wisdom of a radical change to the electoral process at this jucture.
What system would one use? Would one have a 5% barrier for small parties? Would one count votes over the entire country or in individual constituencies? Do we really need 650 MPs anymore? What about the House of Lords?
Alfred – “You up in the middle of the night again”
I don’t regard 2 o’clock as particularly late, especially when I don’t have to get up early next morning. I was out with my ceilidh band, playing a gig in honour of a nice lady’s birthday, got home just in time for last orders at the local pub, back home about 1.30, type a few irrelevant things under the influence of Beer, and go to bed, no problem. Musicians’ hours.
populism – “In general, ideology or political movement that mobilizes the population (often, but not always, the lower classes) against an institution or government,”
So it would be populist if people went along with it, but as you say, they don’t ?
But logic-chopping aside, I can see some of that, yes. I’d say the BNP were the party of defining groups of “others” as a target for negative feeling among those it defines as its audience. (With a strong potential for claiming victimhood when the deluded populace fails to recognise its own best interest – but I suppose they’re all prone to that).
If you think I’m displaying bias, I’d agree with you. I don’t like them. I’m pretty damn sure that if they ever get their way, I’ll end up listed among the “problems” they’re offering to “solve”. And I go further, identifying my own self-interest with that of the country at large – it seems an unhealthy and undesirable direction for us to move in.
Their decision to go anti-war is “interesting”, I’ll grant, not to say seriously wild-eyed; my experience is that the anti-war people round here have been more worried about being attacked by them than seeing them offering any support or help.
What’s your bias ? From time to time you seem to say you’re merely offering points for our consideration without necessarily supporting them, but I don’t see you putting any other party’s positions in the same way. It seems to have some connection with your idea of putting people into rigid categories and wanting to see them competing to outbreed each other ? which I won’t try to take any further, given your response to previous attempts.
Richard,
I’m glad you had a pleasant evening. Late nights ?” music. The possibility should have occurred to me as many of my family are musicians.
“I’d say the BNP were the party of defining groups of “others” as a target for negative feeling among those it defines as its audience.”
I think you express the common impression. However, I have studied the BNP quite closely, and I see nothing of this targeting of negative feelings. If you watch Griffin’s public pronouncements on U-Tube you will notice that he repeatedly states that he blames the problem of mass immigration on the politicians not the immigrants and he repeatedly asserts that immigrants who have “paid their taxes and bought into our society” have nothing to fear from the BNP. He has even spoken slightly bizarrely of immigrants as seasoning in the soup, or some such expression, which is surely not negative.
The origin of the general view of the BNP is not altogether clear to me. The fact that the leadership is made up of ex-Nazis or fascists is obviously a factor. But people can and do change their minds and people forget. Few, for example, condemn Jack Straw (and non the Labour Party) because Jack Straw was, and probably still is, a Commie bastard. So I think there is more to the negative view of the BNP than the past associations of some members.
What seems significant to me are the repeated and bizarre missteps. For example, being secretly filmed talking about people who “walk like monkeys.” When this went public it was immediately denied by Griffin as “an outrageous lie.” But here’s an interesting fact. According to an article in the Guardian by Ben Goldacre, denials may enhance belief in what is denied if the denial comes from someone people don’t trust.
http://www.badscience.net/2010/05/evidence-based-smear-campaigns/
So here’s a great mechanism for the BNP to ensure that it is held in such contempt that anything it supports will be the subject of dark suspicion. With such a mechanism in place, what to do?
The money and the Zionist interest that control the country want:
(a) War to destroy Islam and to crush Russian and Chinese nationalism (this is a long term project to culminate in the Great Siberian War in which China and Russia mutually annihilate as was supposed to happen to Germany and Russia during WWII, although the Russians, unfortunately, came out it with a huge standing army that necessitated the early re-armament of Germany),
(b) Free movement of capital, goods and people, i.e., globalization and mass migration,
(c) Destruction of local democracy and sovereign states,
(d) The institution of global governance,
(e) The destruction of Christianity as a culture-forming influence,
(f) Homogenization of culture world-wide, i.e., KFC, MacDonalds Starbucks at every corner of every city in the world, etc.,
(g) The establishment of a new feudalism under which the masses, suitably culled, genetically improved and indoctrinated are ruled by a handful of global monopolies.
The BNP are against all these things. The BNP are feared and hated. Hence, everything comprising their program is automatically suspect. Which means that the major parties can carry on doing what no one wants without fear of anyone seriously considering the alternatives.
I recall an undercover film on TV about the BNP’s ‘red, blue and white’ festival in which Nazi songs were sung and one person made a joke about Auschwitz which I will not repeat.
Jack Straw and Richard Reid abandoned Communism and joined the Labour party. I call that a step in the right direction. The corresponding action for BNP members would be to forsake the organisation and turn to the Tories, and perhaps some of them have done so.
PS. That should be John Reid, not Richard Reid.
Abe,
You miss the point. Actually, you miss two points. First, the BNP have a different platform to the Tories. They say they want to bring the troops home, end outsourcing and off-shoring of jobs, mass immigration, and other things the Tories do not believe in.
Second, the whole point of the BNP, I am suggesting is to have no supporters other than a few knuckle-draggers who, though allowed to say nothing, create the right atmosphere, thereby helping to discredit the platform that the BNP allegedly espouses.
There’s an interesting U-Tube video of the BNP’s Martin Wingfield telling members to expect essentially zero result for the BNP during the forthcoming election. In other words, we gotta keep the knuckle draggers on board even though we will alienate everyone else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia7-XPo5Cko&feature=PlayList&p=5400187434C8F6D9&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=24
A bit subtle for folks like you and Craig, perhaps. But please try not to misunderstand what I am saying.
I’ve never raised a finger to my wife in anger, since you ask. Now I’ve answered your question, perhaps you’ll have the courage to answer mine. Are you a racist, Alfred?
Glenn,
Tell me what a racist is and I’ll tell you if I am one.
You may think my question is unnecessary, but since racist is perhaps the most common term of abuse in the liberal lexicon, its meaning has become relatively obscure.
Alfred
My point is that you shouldn’t be a BNP member (or supporter) at all. This is a racist organisation which would maintain a ‘whites only’ policy if the law did not compel them to do otherwise. It is not a coincidence that racist terrorist groups such as Combat 18 are associated with it.
Being a Tory is a move in the right direction, because they are not harmful in the way that BNP are.
But people can repent of racism. I met such a person once, who was both an ex-racist and ex-psychiatric patient. A more famous example would be the late South African editor Donald Woods, friend of Steve Biko. He described himself as ‘highly racist’ in his youth. I would recommend his books ‘Asking for trouble’ and ‘Biko’ on which the very good film “Cry Freedom” was based.
Alfred – for my definition, being a racist simply means regarding those of other races as inferior in terms of character or ability. It can also mean one who negatively discriminates on account of race.
Ah the wonderful cuddly face of the BNP -clean living, hard-working pillars of the community. But no – remember the expose on what they really look like?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/now_thats_real.html
There is some variation amongst this bunch of Simian thugs, though. The BNP candidate for Banff & Buchan, Richard Payne, is hardly the most threatening specimen of the Aryan race. And he’s actually nextusCanadian.
http://scotland.bnp.org.uk/2010/01/richard-payne-to-stand-in-banff-buchan/
Actually Glenn, I have to go, so without waiting for your definition, I’ll define racism for you and show how it is that you and just about everyone else is more or less of a racist.
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary gives three definitions of racism, which I quote from memory:
(1) Belief that a person’s character or abilities are determined by race;
(2) Belief that the races of mankind can be ranked in a hierarchy;
(3) Discrimination on the basis of race.
Re: (3) I am crazy about Vietnamese girls’ beautiful china dolls’ noses, and had I not first met an incredibly beautiful English girl who agreed to my proposal of marriage I would undoubtedly have sought out with ruthless discrimination any Vietnamese girl who would have married me.
Re: (2) I have no doubt that the races of mankind (they don’t exist according to Craig, which means I suppose that racism is an imaginary evil) can be ranked in various ways. Tutsis are taller than Hutus, for example, and Americans are fatter than Armenians. But perhaps what is meant is that the races can be ranked from good to bad, or ugly to handsome, or smart to stupid, or just superior to inferior.
To a biologist the idea of superiority is simply silly. Humans are products of evolution like every other one of God’s creatures. As such, natural selection will have tended to adapt them to their environment, including the social environment, which varies greatly between communities.
So tall or short, fat or thin, smart or dumb, we can assume that variation among relatively self-contained human populations are adaptive. Period.
Re: (1) Do you know, I always thought the English tend to a certain stodginess, you know, the sort of people who take to accountancy, pig farming and running a grocery store in Grantham, whereas my highland Scots ancestors seem to have a little more life, poetry and music in their veins. And it would seem logical to attribute such differences in temperament to adaptation to different social environments.
The Scottish highlanders lived rather like many Africans, in smallish clans or tribes, fighting small wars with neighbouring clans, stealing cattle, engaging in a bit of rape and pillage when the opportunity arose, but otherwise, mostly bumming around telling tales, singing songs: hence the musical and poetic inspiration. I mean, don’t you notice a difference in temperament between, say, Desmond Tutu and the Archbishop of Canterbury? Heck if they made Desmond Tutu Archbishop of Canterbury, I’d at least think about becoming an Anglican.
Of course, in most respects, differences among populations are quantifiable only by comparison of means and there will be many exceptions to any generalization based on population means.
For example, that old cannibal Idi Amin was likely a dour bastard, and there are no doubt a few highlanders with a grievance whom it would not be hard to distinguish from a ray of sunshine. But on balance, yes, I think Africans and highlanders are temperamentally a little different from your average English shopkeeper.
Abe,
I think I have studied the current face of the BNP more carefully than you have. They are not explicitly racist. In fact they explicitly state that they are not racist. They have also stated years ago that they are not totalitarian. You may not believe a word they say, in which case you are like most other people, but that is another matter.
The BNP’s opposition to mass immigration is no proof of racism. There are many reason for opposing mass immigration, economic, social and cultural, none of which have to do with racism.
As for the Tories not being harmful, they’ll certainly be harmful to the Afghans as will New Labor and the Lib-Dems. Whereas the BNP say they would not be. So who are the racists and the anti-Islamic bigots?
H
Alfred
The current face of the BNP is defined by the need to appear respectable. I’m not just talking about immigration which all major parties intend to restrict in various ways. That’s why I referred to the result of an undercover operation on their red,blue and white festival.
I am indeed like most people in disbelieving their claim not to be racist. Their roots are in the National Front, one of whose members, Robert Relf, became notorious in the 70s. I remember a near-unprintable hate letter of his being printed in the papers as a specimen. They’re bad company.
So far as Afghanistan are concerned, the only justification for being involved there is to prevent attacks here that originate there. If the BNP were convinced through secret intelligence of such a link, I wouldn’t see them pulling out.
Glenn,
Thanks for the definition, which you must have posted as I was making a response to your question. As you see, by your definition, I’m in the clear. To a biologist, ideas of racial supremacy are simply stupid. Like saying a human is superior to a tapeworm, or a smallpox virus, whereas we all know that the latter are both superior to an academic dean or anyone running for political office.
Abe,
You think the more Afghans we kill (I say we, meaning Canadians and Brits) the less likely it is we will all die in an ‘orrible way due to a Taliban terror cell, cutting throats and blowing up the Parliament Buildings?
Well, who knows, you might be right. But it doesn’t seem logical to me. It’s not as if they had anything to do with 9/11. Even Osama is in the clear on that: the FBI saying they have no hard evidence that he was involved in 9/11 — see here:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
Alfred – your argument above, re: Desmond Tutu and the Highlanders, seems to suggest that “temperament” is a matter of genetics. Is that right ?
Alfred
I believe Osama was indeed responsible for 9/11, and that it is naive to think otherwise. The idea that Bush organised the murder of 3000 of his own citizens is a crackpot conspiracy theory as far as I am concerned.
As for Al Qaeda doing a Guy Fawkes, my point is that senior politicians have access to secret intelligence which lead them to believe that terrorist plots originate in Al-Qaeda from the Afghan-Pakistan border, making it necessary to root out the Taleban. Craig has given us good reason for thinking that Uzbekistan is not a reliable source, but I don’t believe that all secret intelligence comes from there.
Richard,
There is abundant evidence of genetic factors controlling temperament, e.g., genes related to bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, etc.
More subtle genetic influences on temperament would be more difficult to establish. But since the mind is an organic machine created through the interaction of genes and environment, its features must reflect underlying genetic variables.
Abe,
Why is it naive to think that bin Laden may not have been responsible for 9/11 when the FBI say they have “no hard evidence” that he was?
I don’t see any point in arguing the point in detail here, since it’s been discussed ad nauseam elsewhere. You might, though, take a look at http://patriotsquestion911.com/. There you will find comment by politicians, scientists, engineers and military and intelligence officers that provide a starting points for anyone wishing to inquire for themselves into a series of rather mysterious and ill-investigated events that provided the United States Government with the much-to-be-desired catalytic event that justified a massive military build-up and an attack on Afghanistan to secure access to Central Asian oil and gas resources.
As for a new terror attack, real or false, you surely don’t believe everything that “senior politicians” say. Remember, Saddam’s WMD, which proved not to exist, his drones of death that were liable to spread death and destruction throughout the west at 45 minutes notice. All bogus as it turned out. I won’t call you naive. But I do suggest that you might examine alternative points of view before dismissing them out of hand.
Alfred, thank you for your reply above, but it appears we are in danger of expanding the term ‘racist’ beyond any useful meaning. To observe that we can indeed select some physical traits and then rank candidate races along a measure of those traits, is so obvious as to be not worth mentioning.
What I was getting to was whether you believe there’s an eminent superiority of one race over another. A sufficiently large and general superiority, that one race could be classed as overall “better” than another. That race would be a sufficiently large enough factor by itself, so that other considerations become vastly less significant.
For instance, would actual intelligence, moral standing and physical well being be less important to you than the simple matter of race?
This is why I said negative discrimination as part of the definition used for our discussion, since you were kind enough to offer me the privilege, rather than simply noting the ability to distinguish various characteristics.
Negative discrimination would disqualify candidates based on race, while overlooking other qualities that might be clearly superior to those of the favoured candidate. Would you tolerate such negative discrimination based on race?
Gentlemen, please… if you want to discuss “Operation stand-down day” and so on, this is the thread in which to do so:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post.html
I’ll be happy to chip in myself. The owner of this blog has made it clear that’s the only thread in which we can discuss the subject, which is fair enough, because enough threads ended up getting hijacked (forgive the pun) by the topic.
As you will find, I am in no small way in agreement with Alfred on this one. As with a surprising amount besides.
One major advantage the BNP has is that it voices positions on some subjects that most of the country will agree with, while none of the major parties has the courage to say anything about it at all. Of course, they hold a set of pretty awful ideas too.
The fact that none of NL, Con or LD even wants to talk about our policy concerning the Global War On Terror, makes a mockery of any concept of democracy in this country. Most people don’t want to be involved with it. Most people put that pretty high up on their concerns, far more than whether some change to NI takes place. But no party dares to offer a change or review in policy, let alone abandon it.
“here is abundant evidence of genetic factors controlling temperament, e.g., genes related to bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, etc.”
Well, yeah, possibly. But before, you were talking about “musical and poetic inspiration” and a tendency to farm pigs. Don’t you think that’s a different kind of a beast ?
Glenn,
You say, “What I was getting to was whether you believe there’s an eminent superiority of one race over another. A sufficiently large and general superiority, that one race could be classed as overall “better” than another. That race would be a sufficiently large enough factor by itself, so that other considerations become vastly less significant.”
I am atheist brought up in the Christian tradition and I believe that the Bible is mostly a collection of myths, some of them making little sense, most of them cribbed from other stories and traditions. Yet I believe that Christianity embodies ideas that have contributed to what is best in Western civilization. The idea, for example, that we are children of God, born in his image and equal in his sight. That is, I think, the right basis on which to approach others, whatever their race, religion or creed. We should, that is to say, regards others as our moral equals, at least until there is evidence to prove otherwise.
That there are physical and intellectual differences among populations seems an inevitable consequence of the fact that there are always genetic differences between essentially isolated populations. The physical differences are potentially measurable, although because phenotype is the product of genotype and environment, a proper comparison is impossible unless one standardizes the environment, a near impossibility unless one raises children of different origins under rigorously controlled, uniform conditions.
Nevertheless, some differences seem pretty obvious: the superior lung capacity and red blood cell count of the Sherpas, the superior tolerance of low core body temperatures in the Innuit, more fast muscle mass in certain African groups, etc. But when it comes to the intellect, the complications are vastly greater because the intellectual environment is vastly more complex than the physical environment. So while theoretically, there must be intellectual differences among the races of mankind, what they are and how significant they are is obscure indeed.
But in any case, to a biologist, physical differences imply a scale of superiority only insofar as they affect survival. If it survives and multiplies, it’s better. But in the evolutionary race, you’re only as good as you were on the day. The future is unknown, therefore, we cannot know what will be superior, in an evolutionary sense, tomorrow.
There is one other way in which one can, and most people usually do, regard and value groups. It is according to personal attachment and loyalty. I don’t consider the British a superior race. Britain has produced some wonderful personalities, great artists and many of those who in recent centuries have contributed most to the advancement of human understanding of the world in which we live. Yet visiting from abroad one cannot help noticing the uncouthness, the materialism, the moral laxity of many of the mass of British people, or the loathsome greed and arrogance of some members of the ruling elite and business executive class.
So I have no illusions about the British. Yet the British nation gave me life and shaped my mind. It is out of gratitude and loyalty that I want to see the British, for better or worse, stay in business for another nine thousand years.
Of course people come and go. They always have. But the impact of immigration is a matter of numbers. On present trends, the outlook for the continuation of the British race in an essentially unmodified form is grim.
That is why I oppose further mass immigration. This has nothing to do with my feeling about immigrants. I am an immigrant. If they are in Britain legally, if they are loyal and if they pay their taxes and otherwise contribute to society, immigrants should have the same rights as any citizen of long British descent. If there are to many immigrants, it is due to a political failure, a failure that must be addressed politically.
Richard,
You quote me:
“There is abundant evidence of genetic factors controlling temperament, e.g., genes related to bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, etc.”
and say:
“Well, yeah, possibly. But before, you were talking about “musical and poetic inspiration” and a tendency to farm pigs. Don’t you think that’s a different kind of a beast ?”
Not really. The Welcome Trust and other research groups have put their fingers on many genes associated with specific diseases including various mood disorders through well-funded medical research programs. That no one has yet has put a finger on the J.S. Bach gene is mainly, I suspect, because there’s no money in it.
But there is likely a genetic basis to such genius: at least three of J.S.’s sons were notable composers.
And the Darwin family showed unusual interest in speculative biology over a number of generations, beginning with Erasmus.
Perhaps less conclusive, a slightly dotty relative of mine, in search of our family’s aristocratic roots, found that our English ancestors farmed pigs for generations, which suggests a hereditary aptitude.
Alfred
I believe that the evidence of Osama’s responsibility for 9/11 is not all public. The idea of the American government killing its own citizens is indeed worthy to be dismissed as far as I am concerned, as the product of lunatics. I don’t believe everything that senior politicians say, but I don’t disbelieve them on principle either. They are worthy to be regarded as democratic representatives, dismissable at elections.
I recall reading an article by a man who felt that 9/11 was a domestic conspiracy. This particular individual is a enthusiast (to put it charitably) about another equally unsubstantiated conspiracy about a certain British hobby club. But this discussion reminded me of David Aaronovitch’s Voodoo Histories, which I am pleased to notice has just come out in paperback (ISBN 009947896X), which I have now ordered. So one good thing about this discussion is that otherwise I might not have bothered to look for it!
“The Welcome Trust and other research groups have put their fingers on many genes associated with specific diseases including various mood disorders through well-funded medical research programs. That no one has yet has put a finger on the J.S. Bach gene is mainly, I suspect, because there’s no money in it.”
I suspect it’s because the ability to conceive of such music is a much bigger and more nebulous thing than a “specific disease”, and an ability to explain it well would involve understanding of many more issues, alongside the features that can be coded for in DNA. Bach’s was a musical family, yes. Do you not think “family” counts for anything, in the sense of what you’re taught, what the people you look up to tell you is important, the things you learn from the people you’re around when you’re a little learning machine ? To suggest that all of that counts for nothing, with “a gene” to supply everything necessary, seems to me daft and I’ll believe it only when it’s shown. As you say, no-one’s been willing to put up the money to test it. Nor would I, for the next few decades.
Likewise, if you have several generations of pig-farming in your ancestry, I’d ask, were these people connected, at all ? Is there any possibility that they learnt from previous generaions that it was a viable way to make a living ? And learnt the tricks of it from them, in a society that would pay for pigs ? If someone carrying these hypothetical pigfarming genes had been somehow whisked away from that environment at birth, founded a thriving dynasty of Antarctic penguin-trainers and had never seen or heard of pigs, and their great-great-grandchildren suddenly developed a helpless craving to farm a specific animal they’d never even heard of, than it might be proof of such a thing. As it is, I’m more inclined to suspect it was as much a result of what they’d learnt.
Which last – the ability to learn would have strong genetic components, yes – again, along with other factors – but let’s not go overboard with the pre-destination.
What I meant by my “not for the next few decades” is, the DNA people have been going great guns since the ’80s, they seem to be learning loads about what can be carried, and explaining all kinds of things (“specific diseases”, as you say), and I think that’s leading to exaggerated claims of being able to explain Everything that way; explanation by genetics is becoming overvalued. And there’s probably no help for it except to plug on until we have a much clearer idea of what can and can’t. But the possibility of looking for a “Bach gene” isn’t (IMO) worth it until we can get beyond that to a grip on the same old question as always, the way that our individual experiences affect, build on, that raw material.
It’s a question of logical typing, basically. To identify chemical malfunctions leading to a disease is one thing, to assert that such music as Bach’s is an outcome of nothing-but-chemistry in the same way, by the same mechanisms, looks like a rather more tenuous hypothesis that hasn’t been demonstrated.
Richard,
” Do you not think “family” counts for anything, in the sense of what you’re taught, what the people you look up to tell you is important, the things you learn from the people you’re around when you’re a little learning machine? ”
Absolutely. As I indicated in talking with Glenn about racial differences, the difficulty of disentangling genetic and environmental factors determining intellectual variation is enormous because of the vast complexity of the intellectual environment.
However, there are some indications that particular intellectual traits could have a rather simple genetic underpinning. For example, many of the most extraordinary analytical geniuses have been severely handicapped socially. Grigory Perelman, the Russian mathematician, for example, who has turned down two prizes of a million dollars (the Fields Medal, and the Millennium Prize), lives a life of almost total seclusion. Socially, Isaac Newton was somewhat more functional, but severely abnormal. Likewise George Cavendish, perhaps the greatest physicist of his age, who would run in panic if approached by a stranger. Cavendish discovered the gas laws and many other things but never told anyone. The extent and importance of his work was known only when his papers were examined after his death. Then there was Kurt Goedel, Einstein’s friend at Princeton, whose incompleteness theorem revolutionized mathematical thought. Goedel died of starvation because he feared he was being poisoned. Einstein, himself, was a little odd. For one thing, he never wore socks!
Such characteristics might be explained by a simple frontal lobe abnormality, that allows privileged access to the unconscious mind, while disrupting various functions necessary for normal social behavior. Newton talked about keeping a problem constantly before his mind until little by little it opened up to his understanding. Einstein talked of thinking deeply about what it would be like to travel on a sunbeam. These remarks suggest a kind abnormal concentration that characterizes many of those who, today, would be considered psychiatric cases. Had Goedel, for example, been suitably medicated, he might have had a well-adjusted social life and accomplished nothing, mathematically, of the slightest importance.
The notion that rather specific genetic factors or combinations of factors can result in unusual intellectual achievement is also suggested by the case of families in which members achieve unusual success in widely separated fields: an interesting topic for research.
“The notion that rather specific genetic factors or combinations of factors can result in unusual intellectual achievement is also suggested by the case of families in which members achieve unusual success in widely separated fields:”
Well, but that could also suggest that it might have something to do with what your upbringing values, also what opportunities are open to the resources available to that family, etc etc. The trick is to find ways of testing these suggestions …
“an interesting topic for research.”
Oh, I agree. And there’s much to be done, before we’ll understand these things.
Abe,
Quit pontificating and find out what you are talking about.
Here’s a start:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25365.htm