Economists versus Eugenicists, 1776-1900
Anti-Irish caricatures, the hypothesis that some races contain little intra-race variation, and how economists keep arguing–normatively and positively–for the rough equality of humankind: It’s all in Peart and Levy’s book The Vanity of the Philosopher.
The book is highly recommended to GNXPers with any interest in the complicated historical relationship between genetics and social science. The major value-added comes from the oft-ignored tension between economic theorists and evolutionary theorists. Well, that and the cartoons.
The book builds on Levy’s earlier work How the Dismal Science Got its Name. A free, abbreviated version of that story is here, and is wiki’d here.
For some HBD newbies, the best part of Vanity will be the discussion of the Irish: In the early days of Darwinism, the people of the Emerald Isle were Exhibit A (or B) of an inferior race. Peart and Levy have a great discussion of how 19th century intellectuals hoped the Irish to evolve to become as well-mannered as, say, the English. And in the 19th century, whenever attacks on the Irish started up, attacks on abstract, unrealistic, ahistorical economic theory were rarely far behind. Funny, that…
Oh, one more reason to take a look at Vanity: Peart and Levy slide the knife into Charles Dickens, a sight always to be relished.
Labels: Economics
Very interesting. I had pictured Dickens as a social reformer sort of along the lines of a modern liberal, but clearly the picture is more complicated than that.
Mencius might be interested, since he’s such a fan of Carlyle and a detractor of economics.
“Red Tories” weren’t such an odd thing back then. Ruskin once said “I am a Tory of the sternest sort, a socialist, a communist.”
Levy & Peart got smacked down by James Surowiecki regarding Galton at Overcoming Bias a while back.
Yeah – it’s pretty funny that Peart and Levy wade into the Carlyle-Mill debate, 150 years later, without bothering to spend 5 minutes on teh Interwebs and ascertain who was actually right.
I mean, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Or sad if it wasn’t so funny. Or something like that.
BTW, I feel the Occasional Discourse is a much more aesthetically satisfying experience in Google Books (preceding link) than the electronic transcription.
If you haven’t read it yet, you’re in for an explosive, intestine-churning treat. Follow with the Latter-Day Pamphlets, then Shooting Niagara. Print out all three, and take ‘em for a long weekend on acid in the desert. Your medulla will be a whole new medulla – I promise.
My brief interactions with Peart and Levy have not been impressive.
The key thing about economists versus eugenicists is that the eugenicists — Galton, Pearson, Fisher, Spearman, Burt, Hamilton, and the like — made huge break-throughs in statistics, genetics, and evolutionary theory.
What have economists contributed outside economics?
An apples to apples comparison would be in the field of statistics, where my reading of the history of statistics is that we owe dramatically more to eugenicists than to economists.
Yeah – it’s pretty funny that Peart and Levy wade into the Carlyle-Mill debate, 150 years later, without bothering to spend 5 minutes on teh Interwebs and ascertain who was actually right.
I find it surprising that you’re supporting Carlyle, since his argument (Blacks must be enslaved forcefully) goes against a point you made previously, namely, that slavery is defined a voluntary long-term labour contract. Carlyle explicitly states that, due to the African’s nature, forcefully imposing slavery upon him is a natural necessity. At least, that’s what I get from the following passage:
If Quashee will not honestly aid in bringing out those sugars, cinnamons, and nobler products of the West Indian Islands, for the benefit of all mankind, then I say neither will the Powers permit Quashee to continue growing pumpkins there for his own lazy benefit; but will sheer him out, by and by, like a lazy gourd overshadowing rich ground; him and all that partake with him,?perhaps in a very terrible manner. (…) the gods wish besides pumpkins, that spices and valuable products be grown in their West Indies; thus much they have declared in so making the West Indies:?infinitely more they wish, that manful industrious men occupy their West Indies, not indolent two-legged cattle, however “happy” over their abundant pumpkins! (…) Quashee, if he will not help in bringing out the spices, will get himself made a slave again (which state will be a little less ugly than his present one), and with beneficent whip, since other methods avail not, will be compelled to work.2
I cannot come up with a charitable interpretation of the above passage, or the other quotes. I just see Mein Kampf-esque racial entitlement in overworked Victorian prose.
On a side note, I don’t see any explanation for why is should be “Quashie” that should be whipped away from his pumpkin fields and into extracting Carribean spices, rather than, say, Mr Carlyle himself.
“What have economists contributed outside economics?”
I agree that historically eugenists have made larger contributions to statistics, but for the record Harold Hotelling, one of the pioneers of Principle Components Analysis, was an economist. And some economists have been major contributors to mathematical game theory. Though it could be said that Hotelling (and some others) were primarily mathematicians who happened to work in economics as well.
Incidentally, some economists have also been eugenists: Keynes and James Meade come to mind.
There have been many other economists that have contributed a lot to the field of statistics – even some contemporary economists:
Granger
Heckman
Tobin
McFadden
White
Right, but considering the enormous number of economists and how well-funded they are, the historic split in contributions outside their fields between economists and the small number of eugenicists is remarkably tilted toward the much-despised minority.
I mean, if David Ricardo or Alfred Marshall had invented the correlation coefficient, we’d never ever hear the end of it. As it is, we almost never hear about the history of statistics because it’s so intertwined with political incorrectness.
Milton Friedman introduced sequential sampling and the Friedman test in statistics. He also helped develop a proximity-fuse for anti-aircraft projectiles. Doesn’t make up for the withholding tax though!
Steve, could you link to where you got into it with Levy & Peart? Or if it’s not online, tell us about it?
An unintentionally funny-line in Supercrunchers features a statistician complaining about how the general public can’t be bothered to learn statistics with a line that went something like “We have to displace the notion that statistics is a right-wing field”. Bryan Caplan’s advice seems apt.
Between 1909 and 1912 John Maynard Keynes published eleven articles in the journal of the Royal Statistical Society. His Ph.D. thesis had the title “The principles of probability”.
While he was not a significant contributor to statistical science in terms of technical innovation, he went on to construct a probabilistic theory of the economy, which was later – and still is at this point in time – bastardized into “Keynesianism” (which some academic and media types refined further to designate “the label I cannot do without when talking about the economy”).
(I won’t go into the details here. On of them would be that the concept of demand management is now being abridged to “consumer demand management” while his ideas about public investment and labour demand management are partly played down, partly completely ignored.)
Steve Sailer is not exactly the judge to call on here. Did he ever yet address Peter Frost’s criticism of his limited understanding of the mechanics of evolution? Why would he want to lay down the rules about how we should evaluate the evolution of science in terms of weighing the importance of the elements of variation, selection and retention in the process of building theories?
@Sailer:
“we owe dramatically more to eugenicists than to economists”
What a beauty of an argument! So the eugenicists were not, in fact, professional geneticists/mathematical biologists/psychologists etc. who would be sort of expected to contribute more to genetics/evolutionary theory/psychometrics etc. than to other sciences – who we would, indeed, a priori suppose to be responsible for all of the advances in their own field in a post-Mendelian world?
Riddle me this: how is eugenicism a profession rather than an intellectual persuasion? How is statistics not a toolbox – just like engineering is an activity, not a science?
How is this whole thing not an “apples and beans are two kinds of meat”-argument?
While clearly the differences between Irish and English average intelligence are not huge – the only study I have been able to find demonstrated that Irish intelligence is indeed the lowest in the British Isles:
***
The social ecology of intelligence in the British Isles.Lynn, Richard
British Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology. Vol 18(1), Feb 1979, 1-12.
Data from 4 studies are presented to show that differences in mean population IQ exist in different regions of the British Isles. Mean population IQs are estimated for 13 subpopulations in the British Isles. Results show that mean population IQ was highest in London and southeast England and tended to drop with distance from this region. Mean population IQs were highly correlated with measures of intellectual achievement, per capita income, unemployment, infant mortality, and urbanization. Regional differences in mean population IQ appear to be due to historical differences dating back to 1751 and to selective migration from the provinces into the London area. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
If the English are sooooo clever, why are they sending young men to die in Iraq? And why is their country over run by Muslims? If that’s intelligence,
I’ll kiss my arse
Joerg: what penetrating criticism do you believe that Frost has made of Sailer?
Regarding eugenicists, the point isn’t that they made contributions to genetics (which is to be expected) but rather that they basically invented modern statistics (which is to be lauded) and did so in large part because of their eugenical theories (which is why they are not lauded). The eugenicists believed that heritability matters. The economists believed it does not. Sailer definitely has a point about the amazing relative strength-to-weight ratio. And the juxtaposition was not his doing, but rather that of the original poster.
While clearly the differences between Irish and English average intelligence are not huge – the only study I have been able to find demonstrated that Irish intelligence is indeed the lowest in the British Isles:
I wonder how much of that IQ difference is due to wide-spread sub-clinical Fetal Alcohol Syndrome among the Irish? I’m not joking, I’d guess that it’s a non-trivial percentage… especially in light of historical opposition to abortion and inconsistent contraception use among the irish catholics…
Eugenecists doing science are likely to contribute more than economists writing footnotes to Adam Smith.
The English are the only know country to have used their Navy to PUSH DRUGS.
“Hyperbole” your some wanker!
Your National Religion was created by a serial murderer & adulterer; & that’s why England is “shagged”. The big problem is in-breeding & lots of incest.
Prince Charles was doing a “walk-about” when he came across this chap who looked like his double. “Did your mother work in the Palace”, he asked. No said Paddy, but my father worked in the stables.”
Ho, ho, ho