#inhumane gender deniers

[coochiequeens]

Uproar in football stadiums: There can't be two genders

24th matchday, FC Ingolstadt vs. Dynamo Dresden: Banner in the Dresden fan block "THERE IS ONLY ONE RIDICULOUS DFB... AND TWO GENDER".

A fan poster claims there are only two genders. The DFB sports court punishes this. Now mass protests are breaking out in stadiums. Is a super-woker DFB embarrassing itself? Are football fans queer deniers? Is the over-political DFB president making a mistake once again? Or is the gender debate simply reaching a new dimension?

The scandal began as a real satire. The German Football Association's sports court has imposed a fine on Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen because fans there claimed that there were only two genders. The DFB is the world's largest sports association, Bayer Leverkusen is top of the Bundesliga and on the way to the championship - the stage for the gender criminal court could hardly be bigger. The club has to pay a total of 18,000 euros “because of discriminatory, unsportsmanlike behavior on the part of its supporters”. Fans held up a banner at the game against Werder Bremen that read: “There are many styles of music, but only two genders.”

The incriminated banner triggered a rather cheerful discourse between harmless rival fan groups from Werder Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen. Bayer Ultras had described themselves as the supposedly cool "Raverkusen" in a choreography in the game against Freiburg, whereupon the Werder fans countered the Leverkusen team as music philistines in the subsequent game with a "Beer King ≠ Techno Club" banner. They responded with the now scandalized Bayer banner “There are many styles of music.” With the reference to the "but only 2 genders", the Rhinelanders probably wanted to make fun of the left-wing orientation of the Bremen Ultras after they had mocked their own taste in music. Such fan teasing is normally part of the rich, coarse and universally laughed-at part of German football culture.

But the fact that the DFB is now trying to publicly punish the Leverkusen fans as inhumane gender deniers is causing a lot of football fans to shake their heads and feel indignant. To justify its punitive action, the DFB wrote on From federal politics, the Green Party's sports spokeswoman, Tina Winklmann, immediately supported the DFB, saying the poster was "inhumane and discriminatory."

Discussion about DFB leadership breaks out

Many fans see it differently and simply do not want to be banned from the idea that there are two genders. The DFB's punitive action is therefore triggering a wave of similar sanctioning actions in other stadiums. Dynamo Dresden supporters displayed a giant banner that read: "There is only one ridiculous DFB... and two genders!" The DFB now also wants to take action against this with penalties. In Braunschweig, fans made a giant banner with the inscription “Dear Sir or Madam, Period.” In Cottbus you could read meters high: "There are only 2 genders - both despise the DFB". In Chemnitz they read in giant letters: "There are only two genders, even a blind person can see that! DFB fan shop: men, women, babies and children". The fans were referring to the two-gender DFB shop.

Now the DFB should actually punish all possible clubs and fan groups, because new “two-gender” posters are added every weekend. But behind the scenes there is also a discussion about the DFB and its leadership.

Some criticize that the DFB is putting unnecessary additional strain on the already heated relationship between the DFB, DFL and fans because of the planned investor entry into the DFL. Others criticize the DFB, which is becoming increasingly left-wing politicized and demonstratively “woke” under its president Bernd Neuendorf. The long-time SPD professional politician Neuendorf works closely with the SPD Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in his positioning for demonstrative diversity. Joint party membership sometimes leads to over-political actions, as was the case at the World Cup in Qatar, when the two staged the one-love prank.

The appointment of Andreas Rettig (liked to be called "Antifa-Andi" in the scene) as the football association's new sports director is also seen as a demonstrative signal for activist association management. In November 2022 he appeared as spokesman for the SPD and gave a lecture in Bochum on the topic of “The social responsibility of professional football”. One of the oddities of the DFB's politicization is that the Hamburg communications agency BrinkertLück was hired under Neuendorf. She was in charge of the SPD chancellor election campaign for Olaf Scholz, and today BrinkertLück is the “lead agency for the DFB product world”.

Freedom of expression and biologists' resistance

The two-gender scandal is attracting attention beyond the football scene because it is an example of where the boundaries of what can be said lie in the diversity debate. The DFB penalty decision acts like a political correctness edge in the gender culture war currently taking place. The fact that, in addition to biological sex, social gender identity should also be respected and tolerated is widely undisputed, even among football fans. Since 2018, in German civil status law, gender entry has been possible in addition to male and female.

The great resistance to the DFB language police is explained less by the lack of tolerance towards queer footballers and more by the question of what one is allowed to say in public and what is not. If the sentence "There are two genders" is really criminalized and publicly stigmatized, then the deep freedom reflexes of the open society will be violated. Because the gender debate, like all other debates, is subject to the constitutionally protected freedom of expression.

Germany's most prominent biologist, the Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, even vehemently advocates the principle of two genders: "Of course there is a spectrum when it comes to gender, the social sex, while when it comes to biological sex there is only female or male. Over. End." The Federal Government's Queer Commissioner, Sven Lehmann, however, claims: The view that there are two genders is unscientific. There are many genders. The Nobel Prize winner responded to this in an "Emma" interview : "That's unscientific! Mr. Lehmann may have missed the basic course in biology." And further: "It is completely clear that transsexuals should not be discriminated against. If people are treated badly, that is bad. But they cannot impose their ideas on everyone as facts." If the Nobel Prize winner were to say something like that in the football stadium, the DFB would fine her.

Translated into English by google

[koholinthibiscus]

My Tumblr Journey and mental health

What the hell is this?  Where am I? What do I do and how do I do it?

You often hear of people getting to their 30′s and feeling more comfortable in their skin and just owning, accepting and loving themselves.  Well, maybe it’s because I need psychotherapy, and maybe it’s because I’ve come into adulthood in a period with huge economic and political upheaval as well as a pandemic; but I don’t feel that way.  I feel simultaneously old and young.  clueless about young things (like tmblr) and clueless about old things (like mortgages... even though I have one) 

I’ve deleted Facebook and use twitter sparingly these days so the reason joined this site is to purely vent.  To write my thoughts out and send them into the internet ether to languish, probably ignored.  But just getting it out might make all the difference to my physical and mental well being so I’m just going to give it a shot and see where things go. 

I feel terribly alone and isolated.  I have a type of social anxiety that you probably wouldn't notice.  You might just think I’m an idiot or a bitch.  You might barely acknowledge my existence.  I’m pretty average so I may not register.  But when I’m done talking I will think and think and think about it.  How did I come across?  why the fuck did I say that?  You think I’m a fucking idiot don’t you?  I will simply torture myself forever and ever.  And I avoid social interaction, especially with new people, as much as I can.  I can just about manage in a workplace setting but all my energy for this is taken up with that. 

I feel unheard, unseen and unsatisfied.  I feel a lump in my throat and a weight in my chest.  I feel exhausted and headachey most of the time.  I can’t bear this current situation.  I have a visceral hate for my country.  I can’t bear sad news.  I can’t cope with news that implicates humans as ignorant, unsympathetic, inhumane creatures.  I feel deep sadness at the existential threat our planet faces and confusion and sadness when I realise that barely anyone in my real life feels the same urgency and guilt.  I have changed my lifestyle (probably not enough) to try and alleviate the guilt but it hasn’t worked.  

So I get into things to try and distract myself; fandoms, stories, subjects, video games, novels and I feel sad about it because I feel useless “not good at it” or that they’re a waste of time.  I hate myself so much that my hobbies make me sad. How stupid is that?  I’ve recently been getting into DnD during lock down and watching critical role.  I enjoy it but it makes me sooooo sad and jealous that I don’t have a strong friend group like that who can enjoy playing DnD with the same level of fun, ease and camaraderie.  It literally hurts my heart and I’ve been feeling weird for days.  So I’ve tried to make myself better by consuming things.  I’ve bought a new set of dice and bought some unrelated books.  

I skip from one subject or thing to the next feeling unsatisfied and discontent.  I don’t practice things, I don’t finish things.  I give up. And I feel like I’m giving up at life. I am lazy and stupid.  My hobbies, likes and interests feel like a plaster over a gaping wound and was working but it’s not any more. Getting lost in a fantasy world just makes me feel sad I can’t create my own or be with a group of friends, either on line or on person where I can create together. 

I am petrified of parent hood.  I have an amazing 3 year old.  She is a marvel. But I have a constant dread of failing her. Doing too much, doing too little.  I want her to strive for happiness.  Take on hard things, work at things till she’s good at them, whatever it may be.  I honestly don’t care what as long as she enjoys it, has a passion for it and is ultimately happy.  I want to push her, but I don’t want to push her too much.  I worry about sending wrong messages.  I worry about not doing enough with her.  I do not want to bring her up the way that my mother brought me up. I am terrified of repeating the same mistakes. 

I’m ultimately a kind person who is trying their best but can’t unleash my true potential due to depression, anxiety and self-confidence issues.  I get so angry and sad at people who don’t follow the same ideals as me.  which.... isn’t ideal.  I can’t stand TERFs, racists, ableists, misogynists, right wing people, climate change deniers, ignorant people.  I can’t stand it when people think that poor people only have themselves to blame.  I hate capitalism and colonialism.  I want to change the way the world operates even if it is to my detriment as a white CIS English women living in comfort.  I feel trapped in suburbia where nothing changes and no one looks or is different.  

I don’t mean to fetishize certain communities with that statement and I reliaze that it’s probably ignorant of me to suggest that everyone is the same too, given that I struggle to interact with people.  And I’m not suggesting that I’m some sort of special flower  or that ‘I’m not like other women’ (eeww) either, I know there are people out there I would probably get on with but like I say, I struggle.

It frustrates me when people don’t feel the same way politically.  I think that people’s politics are based on their morals so I struggle with conservatives for example.  I don’t understand them or where they come from.  I want things that people need to be owned by the public and free at the point of access, healthcare being the main one and I fear for the future of the NHS.  Yes, even if it means higher taxes (but I obviously want the super rich taxed more) I don’t believe billionaires should exist.  I want universal basic income.  If the human race keeps breeding, if we keep suffering from pandemics, if we progress technologically to the point where mechanization is even more prevalent, we will not need people to have jobs.  We need UBI to level the playing field.  And I want a vegan world.  All of the above makes my head swim with anger and despair.  What type of world will my child have to endure when she gets to my age?  I fucking hope it’s better than this.  I can honestly say that I believe I am on the right side of history with my politics.  It is ultimately about being kind and humane.  But no... I’m probably seen as a soft SJW snowflake keyboard warrior twat by my family (which is why I went off facebook).  Even though I have a masters in Gender studies and a career in social justice work, but sure, I’m just after the ‘internet points’ or want to look ‘woke’.  I feel like not many people truly know me and if they do know all of the above and don’t like what  they see,  I don’t know man, that kills me.  I want people to think well of me. I want people to think I am a good person. 

I could yap on for ages about this honestly but it would make little sense.

I think I wanted to start this as a place to get my feelings down because I am starting a journey of therapy soon.  My sessions should begin in September but I feel the need to get stuff out now.  I’m having a bit of a shit time in my head right now and I felt like I would burst. 

I’m already worried that I will appear stupid and self centered.  There is nothing particularly wrong with my life.  I have a good job that I love but am also petrified of it and of getting it wrong so I self sabotage, worry and don’t believe in my abilities and I’ve been doing that since college.  (I need to un pack how I feel about work and my actions around it, I have a lot of thoughts, maybe for another time) 

I pick the spots on my face till they become angry red welts, I pick the skin around my nails till they get infected and then I hate myself for how I look, even though it was my fault in the first place.  I don’t shower, don’t wash my face, don’t get enough sleep then look in the mirror and see my greasy lank hair, baggy grey eyes and bad skin and I just hate myself.  Is this an analogy for the entirety of my personality? I am my own worst enemy and I need to give myself a fucking break.  Easier said than done. 

Things to unpack in therapy: 

My work 

My politics and how I interact, deal with people who don’t feel the same way as me

My child hood and family dynamics - It’s fucked up y’all. 

My Child

My husband 

My past relationship

The sick thing I do at night when i think about horrible things, like the death of my child for no god damn reason. (Is it punishment?) 

It’s frustrating being so aware of my issues and not feeling able to do anything about it. 

It’s probably an effect of lock down but I have been feeling really bad consistently for a very long period of time now and it’s exhausting.  I always have peaks and troughs, feel great to OK for sometimes a good few months then it just comes down on me like a bag of hammers and I feel like death for 2-4 weeks.  

I’ve been having those hiccups more often and for longer.  I’m so fucking tired man.  A couple of months ago a I had a terrible headache for 4 days, could barely move and felt tearful all the time.  I just thought it was a migraine attack at the time (which I very very rarely have) but I coincided with a particular event that I’m not ready to talk about (It’s really not that juicy it’s quite fucking pathetic actually) and I think it was a major depressive episode. 

I think I’m done now, I’m emotionally exhausted after reading this through and my throat hurts from trying not to cry.  Maybe this is the start of my tumblr journey maybe I’ll delete it all in a few days I don’t know.  I had to try something. 

[tombeane-blog]

Only If You Can Keep It

"It’s harder to create a positive vision of what you stand for than it is to simply point elsewhere and say you’re against that."

A. E. Housman 1859-1936

Mainstream America is now caught in a doomward spiral of defending who we are and what we believe in.

Regardless of all of the other problems in the world, in my opinion, the biggest threat to America is the forced division into competing victim groups and the continuously fueled culture wars. Everything else can be solved - but for America to survive, we must change course on this one.

"What's past is prologue"

William Shakespeare - The Tempest

Engraved on the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.

An absolutely imperative psychological tactic used by every side in every war in history was turning your enemies into something horrible and evil.

We turned innocent American farm boys into merciless German and Japanese killing machines by convincing them that their enemies were inhuman, vile monsters.

Many thousands of Japanese soldiers and their families threw themselves off cliffs or huddled in caves to be burned alive because they were convinced being taken prisoner by American torturers and rapists would be worse.

The Nazis convinced the German population that Jews were corrupt and thieving and twisted subhumans and not 'like us'. This gave permission for good people to look the other way while they tortured and exterminated 6 million of them.

We are well on to a similar perilous path in America, instigated by government, by culture and by media.

One day you are told you are in group A and must hate group B. The next day, you are in group M and must hate those evil bastards in group R. Then you are led to believe that what you thought were your allies in group A are really sellouts and now need to be canceled.

If as we are told, many people in America are irredeemably racist from birth and the system itself is racist, it authorizes other groups to look the other way as laws and norms such as liberty and speech are restricted and dissenting voices are relegated to second class citizen status and marginalized. (There is a very good reason that Freedom of Speech was the very first amendment to the Constitution. Look at Russia today. First order of business by the Russian Government - control the media.)

Every issue, every topic, every discussion is presented as good against evil. "Don't elect them, they want to put ya'll back in chains!"

Some twist or ignore or redefine the meaning of the Constitution - for the greater good of ever-morphing victim groups.

Social platforms, instead of a means of discussion, are used to silence or block or shame or threaten those evil ones - again for the greater good.

If you question climate change you are a science denier and need to be silenced.

If you question the efficacy of windmills or solar panels or electric vehicles, you are destroying the planet.

If you question quotas. If you question gender. If you question what's being taught to your children. You are dangerous and probably a terrorist.

Everyone on the other side must be labeled and exposed. "Maybe they are the ones not wearing masks?"

And if finding the individuals is too difficult, let's just call the system itself racist- the country is evil - our history - our books - our songs - our heroes - everything is a problem for someone somewhere and should be shunned, diminished or destroyed.

And what does the government do? It feeds the frenzy. And it grows and it grows and it assumes more power to control and it grows some more.

It plays one group against another and takes from one group to give to another and passes laws that favor groups or ideologies or industries that appease this group or that group.

Each and every one of us must be classified into one of only two types. You must stand as victim or kneel as oppressor. Move away from the middle. Silence is acquiescence.

And the crazy part is that social media has transformed America from a 'power to the people' Democratic Republic to a place where everyone is ruled by a small vocal minority.

I remember the 60's. Tune in, turn on, drop out. They told us it was all about freedom of speech and freedom to be left alone. And now these are the elites. These are the ones inventing COVID restrictions. These are the ones running our colleges and elementary schools and the ones teaching children they are racist at birth.

Once the despotic rulers were powerful and rich kings and autocrats and dictators.

But today even these elite overlords are themselves controlled by angry social misfits hiding anonymously in the shadows typing away on Twitter or Facebook.

Is there anything America can unite behind anymore if we believe we are an evil, oppressive, genocidal, systemically, irredeemably racist society - both past and present?

Will "America" - America the beautiful, the beacon of freedom, the shining city on a hill - survive being broken into thousands of competing ideologies, victim status and special interest groups?

I don't know the answer but it doesn't look promising.

[republicstandard]

Reflections on the London Conference on Intelligence

At the beginning of this year, honorary senior lecturer at the University College London Dr James Thompson came under fire for having organised an annual event called the London Conference on Intelligence. After the event was described in the London Student as a “eugenics conference with neo-Nazi links”, several prominent news outlets released the claims and described the conference as a “controversial conference”, a “conference on eugenics”, a “eugenics conference”, and a “secret eugenics conference” with “neo-Nazi links”. First, it is apparent that reporters parrot each other, and do not bother to check the credibility of the sources. Second, the articles published by the London Student, the Guardian, and Complex (see the links above) mention as one of their sources the Southern Poverty Law Center, a strongly ideologically charged organization. It accused, for example, the distinguished political scientist Charles Murray of being a white nationalist, despite the fact that he has described race and gender based identity politics as “toxic” both for Whites and for the members of other races.

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I would like to tell a more accurate story about the London Conference on Intelligence, from my personal point of view. I am a Belgian PhD student living in Germany. I studied Classics in Liege from 2008 to 2013, and then Egyptology from 2013 to 2015. I am now a PhD student at the University of Göttingen. After I read Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, I became very interested in human nature in general and in human intelligence in particular. While I was still a university student in Belgium, Dr. Thompson started a very informative blog providing detailed in-depth discussion of recent findings in intelligence research. In 2015, he announced the event (but not the location) on the blog, which led me to attend three years in a row and to make a presentation at the 2017 conference. Nowadays, I want to combine my background in Egyptology with my deep interest in human intelligence, by conducting research on the intelligence of the ancient Egyptians. In the following, I would like to describe what I learnt, what I saw and what I heard at these three conferences. I would also like to address some of the charges made against the organizers and some of the participants.

A conference on intelligence in London

The conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research has been the central annual gathering of intelligence researchers for more than 15 years, at different locations all over the globe. The London Conference on Intelligence takes place in London every year, in memory of the so-called London school. The London school comprises some highly influential psychologists in the field of intelligence research: Charles Spearman (1863-1945), Hans Eysenck (1916-1997), and John C. Raven (1902-1970). It is known for establishing several key bases of contemporary intelligence research, such as the g factor, the heritability of IQ, factor analysis, and the correlation coefficient – which is one of the most important statistical tools used in psychological research. William Revelle, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, even wrote in his account of Spearman’s life: “It may be said that all of modern psychometrics is merely a footnote on the work of Francis Galton and Charles Spearman.”

These bases are no longer seriously contested. According to Richard Haier, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, Past President of the International Society for Intelligence Research, and Editor-in-Chief of Intelligence,

“the data that support a major genetic component to intelligence are compelling and the number of genetic deniers and minimizers is diminishing rapidly” (The Neuroscience of Intelligence, Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 40).

Nevertheless, these established facts are still perceived as controversial outside of academia, and the very idea that cognitive ability is influenced by genes may, as such, be met with accusations of eugenics. The science of individual differences in cognitive ability has aroused several prolific critics such as Steven Rose, Richard Lewontin, and the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. It is telling that Gould’s celebrated The Mismeasure of Man received most of its praise from newspapers and pundits in the public debate, whereas most of the negative reviews were published in academic journals (see S. Larivée, “Vices et vertus de S. J. Gould”, Revue québécoise de psychologie 23, 2002, p. 8).

Accusations of eugenics

So, what about the claims about the event being a “conference on eugenics”? Let us first clarify what eugenics actually means. In general, the word “eugenics” refers to attempts to favour genetically influenced qualities which are deemed desirable, such as intelligence, health and good character. Inasmuch as such traits are heritable (their variation in the population is genetically influenced), the main mean for eugenics has been to encourage the reproduction of individuals who have such qualities to a high extent and discourage the reproduction of those who do not, or who have traits deemed undesirable. The word “eugenics” also refers to a specific movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which favoured the implementation of such policies. To this end, many different means were conceived of, but the best known of the general public are probably the laws aiming at the sterilisation of the mentally retarded; such laws were passed in a number of US States and European countries. Hence, the word “eugenics” has become associated with compulsory sterilisation in the minds of many, and this word has been thrown at a number of people for the purpose of disqualifying them altogether, despite the fact that they were not in any way concerned with sterilisation. For instance, the expression “eugenic abortion” has been used to criticize women who choose to abort foetuses with detected disabilities. This attitude neglects to take into account the important difference between the end in itself on the one hand, and the means to this end on the other hand. One may reject compulsory sterilisation without denying that a high intelligence, a high conscientiousness and an optimal health enable an individual to benefit the group he belongs to, or, conversely, that an individual born with severe disabilities can impose a heavy burden on the members of his family. Today, modern genetics offers prospects for gene editing and embryo selection, the ethical problems of which are hardly equal to those of compulsory sterilisation.

The reporters never explain precisely why they describe the event as a “eugenics conference.” However, a possible reason for this accusation is the presence of a quote by intelligence researcher E. L. Thorndike (1874-1949) on the first page of the program of the 2016 London Conference on Intelligence. Its author does indeed refer to “selective breeding” as a mean to “alter man’s capacity to learn, to keep sane, to cherish justice or to be happy.” But the quote does not promote the usage of sterilisation or of any other aggressive practice, since “selective breeding” does not necessarily refer to such practices. To give only one example, if a private company decides to give an important part of its benefits to highly altruistic couples so that they use the money to have a lot of (presumably) altruistic children (all psychological traits being under genetic influence); this is indeed selective breeding, yet the practice hardly seems inhumane or unacceptable.

In any case, across the years, the attendees of the London Conference on Intelligence have debated a wide variety of topics, most of which had nothing to do with eugenics. These topics include the efficiency of early childhood intervention for improving IQ (2015), the relationship between colour acuity and intelligence (2015), the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees (2015), publication bias (2016), emotion recognition ability (2016), the use of ancient European DNA for understanding the evolution of human intelligence in the Bronze Age (2017), the impact of exposure to heavy metals on cognitive ability (several years), and the use of psychometrics for the description of evolutionary life history strategy (several years). My own presentation was about the ways of assessing the cognitive ability of ancient Egyptians and about the impact of their difficult life conditions on their cognitive ability.

Other topics have been the relationship between intelligence and religiosity (2017), and political orientation (2015), and between personality and political orientation among high-IQ people (2016). Others speakers addressed topics like the possible causes of average difference in IQ between countries (2015 and 2016), the hypothesis of a decline in heritable general intelligence since the early or mid-19th century (2015 and 2016), sex differences (2016 and 2017), and race differences (2015 and 2017).

Average differences between races or ethnicities

One of the main criticisms that has be raised against the conference organizers is that it allowed the presence of researchers who have sustained the view that human races differ, on average, in intelligence and personality, and that these differences are likely to be partly the result of genetic factors. This view might appear incredible and repulsive to some, especially to those who hear about it for the first time, and it is very tempting to think of those who sustain it as racists. But this would be a lazy answer to a difficult question. First, it is crucial to keep in mind the distinction between what is and what ought to be. To the best of my knowledge, the researchers who consider some ethnic groups to be endowed with a higher or lower average IQ have never said that these groups ought to be so, or that this situation was desirable. In fact, many of them have explicitly deplored what they consider to be an abhorrent reality. Serge Larivée, a French-Canadian psychology professor at the University of Montreal, wrote that he deplored the existence of individual and group differences in intelligence (Le Québec sceptique 60, p. 62-66), and most recently, radio host Stefan Molyneux explained during his interview on the Rubin Report: “It is unbelievably heartbreaking” (34:33), and a bit later: “This is one of the most difficult facts I’ve ever had to absorb in my life” (34:39).

Second, many of the researchers working on this topic have repeatedly emphasized the fact that they are talking about average differences, which cannot and should not be generalized to all the individuals within each group. Here are a few examples:

“It really must be emphasized that there is enormous variability within each of the populations. Since these distributions clearly overlap, it is always problematic to generalize from a group average to any particular individual.” (J. Philippe Rushton during his 1989 debate with David Suzuki, at 31:51) “If you were an employer looking for intellectual talent, an IQ of 120 is an IQ of 120, whether the face is black or white.” (R. Herrnstein & Ch. Murray, The Bell Curve, Free Press, 1994, p. 313). “Even though Jewish and Asian immigrants as a whole have made a positive eugenic impact on the U.S. population, the best approach to immigration policy would be to select immigrants as individuals rather than by ethnic group. There is a large range of desirable and undesirable qualities within each group.” (R. Lynn, Eugenics, Praeger, 2001, p. 223).

Had they really been racists, they would probably not have bothered with such caveats, and had they been white supremacists, they would probably not have written that the average IQ of East Asians is higher than that of people of European descent (see, among others, The Bell Curve and the tribune Mainstream Science on Intelligence).

Instead of equating the opinion of Richard Lynn, Charles Murray, Linda Gottfredson, and those who share their views with the promotion of white supremacy, it would be much wiser to insist that racism is unacceptable no matter whether this opinion is right or wrong, because:

As already explained, these are just average differences. There are intelligent individuals and unintelligent individuals in every ethnic group. To judge people by the colour of their skin rather than the content of their character is deleterious not only for those who are discriminated against, but also for the ones who discriminate, because they are losing many opportunities of interacting with talented individuals.

“Being more intelligent” than someone does not mean “being superior” to this person. Although intelligence is highly valued in society and is associated with success in many life areas, it is not all that matters, and it would be utterly ridiculous to assess the value of a human being on the sole basis of intelligence. Perhaps those who accused the aforementioned researchers of promoting the idea that some races are “superior” to others are revealing their own inability to dissociate “intelligence” from “superiority”.

Moreover, the critics of Lynn, Murray and Gottfredson might even run the risk of confusing the public about the fact that equal rights do not require equal abilities. The point has already been made several times:

“To rest the case for equal treatment of national or racial minorities on the assertion that they do not differ from other men is implicitly to admit that factual inequality would justify unequal treatment.” (Fr. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, Chicago University Press, 1960, p. 86) “But to fear research on genetic racial differences, or the possible existence of a biological basis for differences in abilities, is, in a sense, to grant the racist’s assumption: that if it should be established beyond reasonable doubt that there are biological or genetically conditioned differences in mental abilities among individuals or groups, then we are justified in oppressing or exploiting those who are most limited in genetic endowment. This is, of course, a complete non sequitur.” (A. Jensen, Genetics and Education, Methuen, 1972, p. 329) “If someone defends racial discrimination on the grounds of genetic differences between races, it is more prudent to attack the logic of his argument than to accept the argument and deny any differences. The latter stance can leave one in an extremely awkward position if such a difference is subsequently shown to exist.” (J. C. Loehlin, G. Lindzey & N. Spuhler, Race Differences in Intelligence, W.H. Freeman, 1975, p. 240) “But it is a dangerous mistake to premise the moral equality of human beings on biological similarity because dissimilarity, one revealed, then becomes an argument for moral inequality.” (A.W.F. Edwards, “Human Genetic Diversity: Lewontin’s Fallacy,” BioEssays 25, 2003, p. 801) “In fact, pinning a message of tolerance to the claim that all humans are essentially the same underneath the skin is dangerous. It suggests that if there were real differences, racism would be justified.” (B. Winegard with B. Winegard & B. Boutwell, “On the Reality of Race and the Abhorrence of Racism,” Quillette, June 23, 2016)

Finally, I would like to make the point that understanding possible differences between races or groups in general is in fact useful and beneficial for all, although this may seem counterintuitive to some. First, it is not necessarily harmful to be aware of the differences that exist, so long as we can all basically agree on what the scientific evidence indicates and we do not make the fallacy of attributing a group mean to any one individual. Researchers need to be careful to take precautions to this end, as they have repeatedly done. Second, realistic knowledge about group differences in abilities is useful – if not decisive – for alleviating grievances related to group differences in outcomes. To give only one example, since IQ is an important predictor of educational achievement, it could enable the policymakers and the public to understand the causes of the over-representations of Asians and the under-representation of Blacks in the universities where affirmative action is not enforced.

Crucially, it could enable them to know how far we are from the goal of eliminating discrimination: if the proportions of enrolled students in those universities correspond to what one would expect with an average IQ of 105 for Asians, an average IQ of 100 for Whites and an average IQ of 85 for Blacks (on these numbers, see the tribune Mainstream Science on Intelligence), it will mean that, overall, these proportions are primarily the result of a selective process which is based on the educational level of the applicants. By contrast, much damage can be caused by a theory of systemic racism which ignores the scientific study of group differences in intelligence – for instance, by highlighting the socio-economic differences between Whites as a whole and Blacks as a whole without taking into account the existing studies that compare the outcomes of Whites and Blacks of similar IQ (such as this one; see also chapter 14 of The Bell Curve). Such a theory is intrinsically inflammatory: it implies that all disparities are necessarily due to oppression, discrimination and prejudice (some of them certainly are, but the idea that all disparities are caused by discrimination is undermined by some studies and in particular by the large scientific consensus on the fact that neither IQ tests nor scholastic achievement tests are biased against any American-born, English-speaking ethnic group), and because this is supposed to be ingrained in more or less every human context, it also implies that people who do very well would have done even better had they had lighter skin. Thus, it encourages Blacks to despise Whites and blame them for any difficulties they experience, and this, in turns, encourages Whites to despise Blacks. Furthermore, quotas and affirmative action run the risk of harming the ethnic groups that they intend to help, by depriving them of their self-confidence and from the satisfaction that comes from knowing that one has succeeded through one’s own competence and efforts. As Linda Gottfredson explains in one of her academic publications:

“According to the social privilege theory, high-achieving groups (at least European whites) are therefore automatically guilty of profiting from an oppressive social system, and low-achieving groups are being robbed of what is rightfully theirs. Every inequality becomes more evidence of entrenched evil. The talk of brotherhood 50 years ago is replaced by the talk of reparations; the hope of mutual respect among the races by mutual resentment.”

Let us hope that it is not too late for reconciliation and mutual respect.

The Mankind Quarterly and the Ulster Institute for Social Research

Much of the media campaign consisted of “guilt-by-association.” The most prominent instances refer to the academic journal Mankind Quarterly and to the *Ulster Institute for Social Research, and connections that have been made between these and various statements and individuals. As will be shown, these are both legitimate institutions that have made, and continue to make, valuable scientific contributions. More importantly, however, it must be emphasized that mere association with a person or institution cannot provide any ground for criticism. It is a truism and a central principle of every free and democratic society that each individual can only be judged by his/her behaviour and character, and not by the behaviours and characters of those he/she associates with. It is agreed that some general attitudes could probably be gleaned from someone’s membership in an organisation such as a political party. To attempt to do so for the journals that a researcher publishes in is wrongful.

The Mankind Quarterly was founded by, among others, Corrado Gini (1884-1965), a prominent Italian statistician who was the president of the Istituto Centrale di Statistica from 1926 to 1932, that is, under the fascist regime. Of course, neither the editors nor the authors can be held responsible for the political activities of a former editor who died more than fifty years ago. That would be like calling “Nazis” the Egyptologists who published in Probleme der Ägyptologie, a book series that was founded by Egyptologist and NSDAP member Hermann Kees.

One can doubtlessly find papers in Mankind Quarterly that were later proven wrong or that applied poor scientific standards compared to the current level of knowledge or methodology. But this is true of all scientific journals. Cherry-picking the worst examples is an unscientific practice, and applying it to even more prestigious journals will reflect badly on most of them. Today, Mankind Quarterly publishes research articles whose data can be checked, theories or hypotheses related to these data, and book reviews, and is not in any way concerned with proposing specific policies. Inasmuch as these articles contain errors, as most articles do, they should be criticized on the basis of empirical evidence, not with ad hominem attacks.

Furthermore, there is no ground for claiming that the editors Gerhard Meisenberg and Richard Lynn determine the content of the journal on the basis of their personal political convictions, whatever these convictions may be. The views expressed in Mankind Quarterly often contradict each other, and some of them have directly challenged the opinions of Lynn and/or Meisenberg; for instance, in the September 2017 issue, Richard Lynn presented his views on sex differences, and his article was followed by replies written by James R. Flynn and Roberto Colom.

What has been said about the Mankind Quarterly can also be said about the Ulster Institute for Social Research, which has published a number of monographs written by Richard Lynn, John Harvey, Tatu Vanhanen, Edward Dutton, and Jelena Ĉvorović, as well as Festschrifts edited by Helmuth Nyborg. In a general way, these books look like gigantic scientific articles: they are very dense, full of graphs, very instructive, and not especially entertaining. Again, if mistakes are found in some of them, the criticisms must be based on evidence, not personal attacks. Moreover, while statistics can always be misused, data which are the result of properly conducted research should never be suppressed for fear of misapplication.

The Pioneer Fund

The London Student’s article mentions connections between the Pioneer Fund and individuals who attended the conference. It is justified to consider the funding sources of scientists, insofar as there is reason to question their integrity and academic freedom due to conditions associated with the funding. According to University of Montreal Professor Serge Larivée, however, the Pioneer Fund representatives “formally agree not to influence the researchers so that they publish results which support their ideology.” (Le Québec sceptique 60, p. 65; my personal translation). In the present case, the claim of “neo-Nazi links” constitutes an ad hominem attack which, from a scientific point of view, is devoid of any validity.

One may then ask why some intelligence researchers applied to the Pioneer Fund. The main reason, I think, is that intelligence has come to be seen as a highly controversial topic in the decades following the publication of Arthur Jensen’s “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?” As Richard Haier explains:

“Given the racial inferences and the hot emotional atmosphere, few researchers or their students opted to focus their careers on any questions at all about intelligence. Getting federal research support for researching intelligence became virtually impossible. Almost overnight, intelligence research became radioactive.” (The Neuroscience of Intelligence, p. 44).

Through its funding, the Pioneer Fund has made possible important studies which, otherwise, could probably not have been carried out. One of the best known is probably the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, which constitutes, among others, a decisive contribution to our understanding of the heritability of intelligence. The Pioneer Fund also made possible the publication of two important books by Arthur Jensen that are still often cited in our days: Bias in Mental Testing (1980) and The g factor (1998). Neither book is a work of racial advocacy and, despite the accusations that have been made against him, Arthur Jensen has made it clear that he favoured equal opportunities and the application of identical standards of excellence for all students regardless of race (see Fr. Miele, Intelligence, race, and genetics. Conversations with Arthur Jensen, Basic Books, 2002).

Other claims

As mentioned, most of the media onslaught is nothing more than “guilt-by-association.” This is particularly true of the claims made by the London Student. Once again, speaking at a conference does not imply that the organizers or the other participants approve all your statements, or that you approve theirs. On a similar note, J. Philippe Rushton wrote in 2008 in an email to a journalist: “So far I have resisted making policy recommendations… and have appeared at many other places including academic ones where they don’t agree with me and I don’t agree with them.” (see here at 4:07).

It is also worth noting that some authors of the harsh criticisms levelled against the conference organizers seem to be very poorly informed when it comes to the current state of intelligence research. The Cheese Grater, magazine of the Students’ Union UCL, describes as “sexist” the tweet in which James Thompson writes that men have, on average, bigger brains than women. But in 2016, during his review of the literature on the biological foundations of intelligence, Lars Penke, Professor at the University of Göttingen, explained that there is now a wide agreement on that question:

“We know that there is a robust sex difference in overall brain volume. Men have, on average, a 10% bigger brain than women. Still, in representative samples that cover the whole range of intelligence variation, you usually don’t find a mean difference between the sexes” (see here at 7:39).

The most startling comment I have found so far comes from an opinion piece published in the Independent: the 2017 conference of the respected International Society for Intelligence Research, which was held in Montreal in July, is described as a “Canadian pro-eugenics conference.” All these sensationalist claims are likely to strengthen the following opinion, expressed by Stefan Molyneux about mainstream journalism:

“The mainstream media is not in the business of delivering information to consumers. They are in the business of delivering consumers to advertisers.”

Secrecy?

Another aspect of the London Conference on Intelligence is its relative lack of publicity: whereas the 2014 and 2015 conferences were announced on Dr. Thompson’s blog, the 2016 and 2017 conferences were announced only to the speakers and to those invited by them or by the organizers. This may explain why the event has been described as “secret.” A friend of mine, who did not attend the London conference, raised the concern that the researchers attending the event might not have their views challenged by the colleagues who disagree with them. This is a valid point that deserves careful attention, although one should not assume the participants agree on all the topics that were discussed at the conference.

First, it is not uncommon to have small conferences with a limited number of participants in order to provide the possibility of long, in-depth exchanges between researchers, instead of congresses of hundreds of scientists who run between parallel sessions, some of which feature researchers who speak to an (almost) empty theatre. Second, the fate of earlier intelligence researchers working on race differences in intelligence illustrates that it was not unreasonable for Richard Lynn and Helmuth Nyborg to think that a conference accessible only by invitation was more suited for ensuring their security: Arthur Jensen, one of the best known researchers working on race differences in intelligence, has received death threats; Hans Eysenck, who publicly agreed with Jensen’s views, was physically attacked at the London School of Economics. The small-sized London Conference on Intelligence enables the researchers to present their data, have exchanges about them, and talk about the possibilities of testing their hypotheses without any fear of retaliation. If they were deprived of any possibility of expressing their views, it would be good neither for them, neither for the society as a whole:

“The silence deprives society of information that it needs to have. In this light, a special advantage of what we might call “enclave deliberation” is that it promotes the development of positions that would otherwise be invisible, silenced, or squelched in general debate.” (C. Sunstein, Going to Extremes, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 152)

Conclusion

To conclude, again, I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of understanding the difference between what is and what should be. In order to understand what is, researchers should be able to gather empirical data, to formulate theories on these data, and to present both their data and their theories at academic conferences even when these data or theories may be uncomfortable. On the other hand, empirical facts alone do not tell us what should be, and it is important that scientists warn against any potential misuse of their results, as they have often done. As Norwegian editor and writer Knut Olav Åmås elegantly and simply said:

“No knowledge is in itself evil or dangerous. Only the human use of knowledge can become evil or dangerous.” (Norwegian TV program “Brainwash”, see here at 37:42)

The reporters who wrote on the London Conference on Intelligence do not make such distinction, nor do they distinguish the personal views of researchers from the data that were presented. It is to fear that such reporting can only frighten those who have both the willingness to serve the society that funds them and the courage to present highly unpopular results. As Fatos Selita, Robert Chapman, Kaili Rimfeld and Yulia Kovas explained:

“Bad reporting of science does us all a disservice as it prevents informed and engaged discourse on topics of vital personal, social and cultural importance. It has the power to instil negative perceptions, deprive people of knowledge, and prevent understanding. It also forces some scientists to avoid communicating findings because they are concerned that what they say or write can be manipulated by the media.” (“Save Science from Fiction”, The Accessible Genetics Consortium, March 4, 2016)

The only point that I did not address is the legal aspect of the booking. Since I am not familiar with the procedure which is required for booking a room for an event at the University College of London, I will not make any comments on that matter.

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For me personally, the London Conference on Intelligence has been both one of the most instructive and one of the most fascinating events I have attended so far, along with the conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research. I sincerely hope that it will continue to be held in the following years. In any case, I will take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to organizing the London Conference on Intelligence for all that they have done.

Note: The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or of the individuals with whom the author is associated.

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Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War none By Barbara Loe Fisher The Vaccine Culture War is heating up.1 Ground zero is America, Europe and other economically developed countries, where the pharmaceutical industrial complex is raising an iron fist to protect multibillion-dollar profits by disempowering the people.2,3,4,5,6,7,8 In America, professors and doctors in academia and government are profiling parents by class and race to shame and discredit those challenging vaccine orthodoxy. Elite members of the highest paid professions in our society are using academic journals and mainstream media to openly preach fear, hate, prejudice and discrimination against people who disagree with them about vaccination. Law Professor: Mothers of Unvaccinated Children Are Criminals “When it comes to vaccines, rich parents get away with child neglect,” the headline in The Washington Post proclaimed on May 10, 2017. The OpEd was written by Linda C. Fentiman, a Pace University law professor promoting criminal prosecution of mothers whose children are not vaccinated.9 She alleged that state legislatures are accommodating “wealthy” mothers by allowing exemptions in vaccine laws, while poor pregnant women have “faced charges of criminal child abuse” and imprisonment for “failing to deliver adequate nutrition or delivering drugs via their breast milk.” She suggested that ALL mothers who don’t vaccinate their children are criminals and should be punished — “regardless of socioeconomic status” — because vaccination is a “collective obligation” and “the science on the efficacy and safety of vaccines is clear.” Boston Herald: Hang People Talking Bad About Vaccines That “punish the mothers” OpEd was preceded by a May 8 Boston Herald editorial revealing just how far the persecution of people advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent has gone. The Boston Herald editorial staff called for the execution of individuals who exercise free speech about vaccine risks and failures. As in, it should be “a hanging offense” to inform parents (especially, to inform parents in “immigrant communities”) that vaccines carry an unpredictable risk of injury or death and often fail to work as advertised.10 Nobody should be surprised. Prejudice and discrimination against groups of people, whether because of the color of their skin, their gender, how they dress, what they eat, where they live, their religious beliefs, their cultural values and political opinions — or simply because they choose to stay healthy in a different way — is always a slippery slope once it is allowed to gain a foothold in society. MD, Professor, Vaccine Developer Calls for ‘Funeral’ of Vaccine Safety and Choice Advocacy In 2011, Dr. Gregory Poland, a University of Minnesota professor of medicine and vaccine developer at Mayo Clinic,11,12 profiled parents concerned about vaccine risks in the New England Journal of Medicine. He said, “Antivaccinationists tend toward complete distrust of government and manufacturers, conspiratorial thinking, denialism, low cognitive complexity in thinking patterns, reasoning flaws and a habit of substituting anecdotes for data.” Then he used a death image to invoke a thinly veiled threat. He asked, “What can we do to hasten the funeral of antivaccination campaigns?”13 CDC on Mothers: Who Are They and Where Do They Live? Trash talk has become the weapon of choice for a select group of professors and doctors using academic journals and mainstream media to humiliate and bully people who disagree with them about the science, policy, law and ethics of vaccination. In the 21st century, it has been going on in earnest since about 2004 when Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials kicked off the Vaccine Culture War by asking this question in the Journal of Pediatrics: “Children Who Have Received No Vaccines: Who Are They and Where Do They Live?”14 The CDC study authors played with the words “undervaccinated” and “unvaccinated” so mothers could be profiled by class and race. They said: “Undervaccinated children tend to be black, to have a younger mother who was not married and did not have a college degree, to live in a household near the poverty level, and to live in a central city. Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a household with an annual income exceeding $75,000 and to have parents who expressed concerns regarding the safety of vaccines and indicated that medical doctors have little influence over vaccination decisions for their children.” There it was, the uncomfortable truth that it is college educated, financially stable middle class mothers independently evaluating the benefits and risks of vaccination rather than blindly trusting and relying on someone else to do their thinking for them. Although the CDC’s 2004 profiling study drew lines between mothers based on race and socio-economic class, there was no discussion of the distinct possibility that those lines would disappear if ALL mothers were financially stable, able to access full information about vaccination, and were truly free to make voluntary vaccine decisions without being punished for the decision they make. Your skin doesn’t have to be a certain color and you don’t have to belong to a certain socioeconomic class — or have a college degree — to figure out that you are not being told the whole truth about risks that doctors insist your child must take. All you have to do is vaccinate your healthy child and witness that child have symptoms of severe vaccine reactions and either die or become a totally different child physically, mentally and emotionally. Delegitimizing Vaccine Exemptions and Those Who Take or Give Them For more than a decade, professors at Johns Hopkins and Emory universities have published articles profiling parents making independent vaccine choices for their children for the purpose of creating a public narrative that delegitimizes vaccine exemptions and the human right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience, religious belief and informed consent to vaccine risk taking.15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24 In 2012 these esteemed professors also put the squeeze on pediatricians to discourage them from exercising professional judgment and conscience when giving children medical vaccine exemptions,25,26 directing them to strictly conform to narrow vaccine contraindications approved by the CDC, which exclude 99.99 percent of children from qualifying for a medical exemption.27,28,29 Since doctors cannot predict who will be harmed by vaccination,30,31 this kind of cruel utilitarian public health policy selects an unknown number of children, who are biologically vulnerable to being harmed by vaccines, for sacrifice. When doctors with big titles in government and academia put a target on the backs of parents and doctors opposing inhumane one-size-fits-all public health policies and laws, it gives a green light for legislators to do the same thing. In 2012, California pediatrician politician Richard Pan lobbied to eliminate the personal belief vaccine exemption for children to attend school. He told The Associated Press that, "In private schools, these are people who have money, who are upper middle-class, and they are going on the internet and seeing information and misinformation.”32,33 Educated Critical Thinkers Eating Organic, Leaning Holistic In 2013, the flames of prejudice were fanned by an online publication profiling parents in a San Francisco community and labeling them “vaccine deniers.”34 The parents were described as “wealthy, educated, liberal leaning” and often working in “technology, law and other white collar professions that demand critical thinking skills,” who put their children at risk by feeding them non-GMO organic food, taking them to holistic doctors, and paying $20,000 a year to send them to private schools where self-reliance, independence and critical thinking are taught. So, by 2015, the narrative about parents being stupid and crazy for questioning the safety of vaccines had morphed into one profiling parents by class and race. The New York Times had no problem running the headline, “Rich, White and Refusing Vaccinations.”35 2015 Measles in Disneyland Unleashes Media Hate Fest Attacking Parents and Civil Liberties And when a measles outbreak popped up in 2015 at Disneyland, it didn’t matter that only 2.5 percent of California children were attending kindergarten with a personal belief vaccine exemption.36 It was an opportunity for the pharmaceutical industrial complex to create a media hate fest that turned into a competition for who could suggest the most egregious violations of civil liberties and the nastiest kinds of punishment for parents declining to give their children every one of the 69 doses of 16 vaccines on the CDC’s poorly studied childhood vaccine schedule.37,38,39 An Arizona State University magazine editor wrote, “Shouldn’t we know where they live? Every single exemption request should be reviewed in a public meeting and approved by a public body (like a city council or school board). And if the exemption is approved, basic information — the parent’s name, address and the vaccinations declined — should be available on the internet via a publicly maintained registry.”40 Professors at major universities suggested the government should impose a tax on unvaccinated people,41 suspend free speech about vaccination,42 and deny elected representatives public office and strip doctors of their medical licenses if they talk bad about vaccines.43 A science writer urged Americans to turn on each other and conduct a “concerted campaign of person-to-person shaming and shunning.”44 A USA Today OpEd stated flatly: “Parents who do not vaccinate their children should go to jail.”45 By the end of 2015, the California legislature had narrowly voted to eliminate the personal belief vaccine exemption, while denying medical care to the children of parents making vaccine choices had become standard behavior in pediatric offices across the country.46,47 Professor and Vaccine Developer: ‘Snuff Out’ Vaccine Safety and Choice Advocates In 2016, the profiling of vaccine hesitant parents based on race and class had become so politically correct in America that two Michigan pediatricians felt comfortable describing them this way: “These parents almost always come from privilege, and they are almost never punished for their actions ... they are by and large white, educated and affluent.”48 By 2017, Peter Hotez, a Baylor University professor of medicine and vaccine developer,49,50 slapped the “high educational attainment and socioeconomic status” label on parents defending vaccine freedom of choice. In Scientific American magazine, he called on the U.S. government and G-20 nations to take steps to “snuff out” the “American anti-vaccine movement.”51 To “snuff out” means to “crush or kill.”52 It is no wonder the Boston Herald editorial staff did not hesitate to suggest that the hangman’s noose was the kind of punishment that these “white, educated and affluent” parents deserved.53 Apparently, you get a free pass to engage in race and class baiting if you have M.D., Ph.D. or J.D. written after your name and or bang the drum loudly for forced vaccination, suggesting that those who refuse to believe get a taste of the whip. History does reveal that it is much easier to wage a reign of terror when the gallows and guillotine in the public square are used to teach unbelievers a lesson. Clearly, the doctors and professors demanding that we roll up our children’s sleeves to prove we are willing to take one for the team are getting nervous. They know that more than 90 percent of American parents are asking pediatricians questions about vaccine safety and want to make voluntary vaccine decisions for their children.54 Professor and Vaccine Developer: Take Away Vaccine Exemptions Wealthy vaccine developers, like pediatrician and professor of vaccinology Dr. Paul Offit,55,56,57 are lobbying to eliminate all vaccine exemptions that have not been approved by doctors, so parents are legally prohibited from exercising freedom of thought and conscience when making health care decisions for their children.58,59,60 Offit believes that children can safely receive 10,000 vaccines at once61 and has contempt for parents who do not agree with him about that. He said, “They’re people who believe they can know anything and know as much as their doctor — if not more — by simply studying it, reading about it.”62 Wealthiest Profession in America: Medical Doctors Offit is a member of the highest paid profession in America — medical doctors63,64 — and he also belongs to an elite academic community where professors of medicine at some universities are paid $3 to $4 million per year,65 which is comparable to pharmaceutical company salaries. In 2011, the annual salary for an M.D. vice president at Merck was $6 million.66 There are about 750,000 medical doctors working in the U.S. and, although currently the top five medical specialties earn an average $400,000 to half a million dollars per year, the average annual income for most doctors is between $190,000 and $240,000, which is more than six times the U.S. median income of about $36,000 and four times the U.S. household median income of $56,000.67,68,69 There are about 33,000 medical doctors working for the federal government, and they are paid an average $206,000 per year.70 Full professors at colleges and universities are paid on average between $140,000 and $220,000,71,72 but some are paid millions.73 Give No Safe Harbor to Race and Class Baiting While doctors and professors certainly have the legal right to make a lot of money, it does not give them the moral right to dictate what other people in society can value, think, believe, say or do. Their vicious attacks on people who disagree with them about health and vaccination is an attack on basic human rights that protect all people, rich and poor, and of every race in every country, against tyranny. Class and race baiting has no place in the public conversation about vaccination and there should be no safe harbor for those who engage in it. Until laws are passed limiting the authority of medical doctors using the heel of boot of the state to violate human rights, the people’s health and freedom will be in danger. Learn more about vaccination and health within NVIC.org. It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.