Misuse of Evolutionary Theory to Advocate for Racial Discrimination.

A recent book review, available on line from the International Society of Human Ethologists [ISHE] by Peter Gray, entitled “Misuse of Evolutionary Theory to Advocate for Racial Discrimination and Segregation: A critique of [Frank] Salter’s On Genetic Interests,” attempts to try and separate genetic interests as a part of evolution from what today’s moral system should be. He makes some goods points, but they are stretched pretty far to try and show Salter as misguided.

Following my comments on some of his objections I have posted the full review plus a review by Kevin MacDonald in the same issue of ISHE.

Gray states, “We use evolutionary theory to help us explain why people do what they do, not to decide what they should do. We even use evolutionary theory to help us understand better how to reduce those behaviors that we deem to be morally objectionable…. In summing up his argument, in the ‘Afterword,’ Salter writes, ‘My primary aim has not been to explain human behavior, but rather to offer social and political theory about what individuals should do if they want to behave adaptively.’ What we should do, according to Salter, is discriminate by race. We should do this because it is in our genetic interest to do so.”

However, if I am aware of my genetic interests, and it seems that most people are, they of course already do discriminate by race. What Gray fails to understand is that there is state sanctioned discrimination and individual discrimination. If I hire my brother rather than a more qualified person for my business, I am discriminating in favor of my genetic interests. If I hire my brother for a position he is not qualified for, and I am a manager in a public organization, it falls under nepotism, it is very common, but it can be ruled illegal.

Now, if I am Black and an advocate of affirmative action, and I lobby for the government to give preferences to Blacks over Whites, then is this not based on the genetic interests of Blacks? Why is it we recognize the genetic interests of indigenous peoples, oppressed and non-oppressed minorities, and yet whenever Whites ask for the same consideration, it all of sudden becomes racism.

He then states, “Over and over again [Salter] uses the terms ‘adaptive,’ ‘genetic interest,’ and ‘reproductive interest’ as if they refer to human values. In one place he makes this remarkable claim: ‘I conclude that it is certainly not a theoretical truth that one ought to defend one’s genetic interests. However, it is immoral to prevent those who do value their reproductive interest from nurturing it.’ His argument is that those who choose not to discriminate racially as a means to support their genetic interests have no moral right to pass laws that would prevent others from doing so!”

“Notice that Salter’s ‘logic’ here would apply to any behavior that promotes the reproduction of one’s genes. I’m sure that Salter is not in favor of rape. But his logic states clearly that it would be immoral to pass laws against rape if that behavior is in someone’s genetic interest. When you think of it, most of our laws—laws against rape, murder, stealing, exploitation, slavery, and the like—are interfering with someone’s ability to pursue their genetic interest.”

Of course Gray is taking the issue too far towards anarchy. But in fact, the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments understood genetic interests quite well, and forbade murder, rape, slavery and genocide only against the tribal members, not outsiders. Value systems change, and today we have all agreed that we would prefer to live in a safer society where rape, murder, pillage and plunder are banned because we do want our genetic interests secured. A society that is violent hurts everyone and there are few winners. However, during times of war, these prohibitions are relaxed and we go back to our old tribal ways.

I think Salter chose his words very well when he states that people have a right to NURTURE their genetic interests. This could simply be a matter of respecting my right to defend my genetic interests through free speech, rather than pass hate laws that favor minorities over the majority, and to live in such a way as to separate myself from other races voluntarily, or to send my children to private schools that teach genetic interests to their children. That is, action can be taken that does no harm to other races, while advancing one’s own genetic interests. Founding the state of Israel for example was for the genetic interests of the Jewish people. Gypsies try to enhance their genetic interests by following a code of ethics that allows them to steal and con other races without remorse. The Japanese protect their genetic interests by not advocating open borders or multiculturalism, and we respect their desire to do so.

My interpretation then of what Salter is advocating is merely the right to assert that I have a genetic interest, and it is immoral to try and prevent me from pursuing it so as long as I do not harm others. I am allowed to diminish other’s genetic interests if their policies are advocating taking resources from me, like the recent attempt to get the G8 nations to provide aid to African nations.

What Salter is advocating then is a policy where it is immoral to prevent nations, or groups, or individuals from pursuing their genetic interests as long as those pursuits do not violate established democratic laws.

Gray continues, “To abet racial discrimination while minimizing interracial conflict, Salter proposes that the world should be parceled into racially defined nations, within which members of each racial group can work for the good of their own kind unhampered by the interests of other races…. He is particularly concerned with the migration of non-Caucasians into Western Europe and North America and their disproportionate use of welfare funds, which he feels we Caucasian would terminate if we were more aware of our genetic interests.”

There is of course a lot of confirming data that lends credence to the proposition that a homogenous nation, without racial conflict, is a more peaceful society and one where a feeling of fraternity can flourish. Societies where races mix are always prone to competing interests, with a host of problems from treating the groups differently to violence. Salter in fact has looked at nations based on their racial makeup, and conflict around the world is directly connected to racial conflict within societies. So the question remains, how can separation of races into their own nation-states abet racism when there is no racial group to discriminate against? Elimination of racial discrimination is exactly what Salter’s proposal would obtain.

Gray then tries to distinguish family genetic interest from kin genetic interest, by claiming that we care for our families because we are caregivers to children. This is a rather odd argument, because it mixes up the proximate or short term objective of caregiving with the ultimate evolutionary purpose of why we provide for care in the first place—because it is adaptive to do so. People don’t only provide care for their children when they are young, they also have a vested interest in their children’s future well being after they become adults, and also in the resource acquisition of grandchildren.

An interesting observation of postmenopausal women shows that they actually work harder in their advanced years, providing help to their children and their grandchildren—sometimes to the point of being intrusive. I have observed this pattern in my relatives, where older mothers will aggressively go after family inheritances for the benefit of their grandchildren. What I have observed is that it accelerates as they get older, exactly as predicted by evolutionary psychologists. (grandfathers may not be far behind grandmothers in this obsession, but they seem to go about it somewhat differently.)

Another indication of the importance of genetic interests is in adoptions. Adopted children can become quite obsessed with finding out who their real parents are. If parents were only for caregiving, children would not be so anxious about finding out who their biological parents were. The same is also true with the interest people have in establishing their family trees—they want to know who they descended from, not who their caregivers were.

Gray continues, “Salter’s fantasy world is one of powerful racially (“ethnically”) defined nations, each of which confines itself to its own territory, each of which works with patriotic pride to promote the interests of its racially homogeneous inhabitants without interfering with the rights of other nations to promote the interests of their inhabitants. The interests to be promoted, of course, are genetic interests…. Salter’s formula for the world seems to me to be precisely the recipe that would activate those tribal instincts that lead to territorial expansion, war, and genocide. If our own genetic interest is the prime motivator, then why not expand our genes into new territories and kill off the inhabitants or enslave them—when we think we can get away with it—to aid our genetic kin?”

There is today and in the past no shortage of aggressive nations willing to go to war for the interests of the ruling elite, or when the population can be whipped up into a patriotic fervor for revenge. However, there is no indication those powerful nation-states, even those like Japan where there is a shortage of land, automatically move towards expanding their territories. I think quite the opposite is true in a modern technological world. A very prosperous, homogenous, nation-state can compete with other nations via using free trade, technology, and improving government efficiency over belligerency that can lead to violent conflict.

Gray then sets up the false dichotomy that humans can either think in terms of all humans equally, or think in terms of racial differences and fraternity. There is no reason why there needs to be an either or perspective. Racially defined nation-states have no need to dominate, enslave or murder people in other nation-states. A nation-state can act in such a way that treaties with other nations will advance the genetic interests of their own people as well as those from other races. Treaties for open trade, sharing resources, protecting the world environment, helping other nations from going to war with each other, etc. There is every indication for example that the homogenous Scandinavian nations have been at the very forefront in trying to bring about peace and prosperity to other nations regardless of the racial separation of those helped.

Gray’s proposal for a racially blind, multicultural world that lives in peace is the real fantasy world. What needs to be continued is research on how nations with different racial mixtures actually behave. So far, the data indicates that internal strife is reduced when a society is made up of similar ethnies—the more similar the less tension there is. Which type of nation lives the better life should not be that hard to determine. Just like the world survey in IQ and the Wealth of Nations, peace, prosperity, and happiness with one’s homeland should correlate with a racially diverse versus a racially homogenous population. Gray should do his homework and provide some real data showing that Salter’s analysis for the preferred nation-state is not workable.
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On Genetic Interests: Family, ethny, and humanity in an age of mass migration By Frank Salter

Peter Lang (www.peterlang.com), Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, 2003, 388pp. ISBN 3-631-50342-3; US-ISBN: 0-820-46064-8 [Pbk.: $38.95]

Review #1: By Kevin MacDonald Department of Psychology, California State University—Long Beach. [E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)]

One of the unfortunate consequences of the emergence of evolutionary psychology has been a lack of interest in biological fitness in the contemporary world. Frank Salter’s book may change that. I can only agree with E. O. Wilson’s comments on Salter’s book that it is “a fresh and deep contribution to the sociobiology of humans.” This is a brilliant work. As Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt notes, “the synthesis is persuasive; the policy formulations provocative.”

Salter’s starting point is the quantification of ethnic kinship. Because of natural selection, inbreeding, and genetic drift operating over thousands of years, ethnic groups evolving in some isolation from one another become genetically differentiated. Salter draws on Henry Harpending’s extension of Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness to quantify this genetic differentiation—this storehouse of ethnic interest. The analysis assumes more than one population: Ethnic interests only exist in relation to other groups, because within ethnic groups relatedness is by definition zero between randomly chosen pairs due to the fact that all members of the ethnic group share the background genetic uniqueness resulting from the evolutionary history of the group. But when world populations are sampled, genetic variance between groups is on average about 0.125 — equivalent to the kinship between grandparent and grandchild. This is a far from trivial amount, and the result is that humans have an enormous genetic interest in their ethnic groups in relation to other groups. Just as with genealogical kinship where people with larger families have a higher inclusive fitness, this genetic interest becomes enormous because it is tied to the actual number of ethnic group members which, in the modern world, can total in the millions.

A basic theme of the book is that humans cannot rely on their suite of evolved modules to achieve or even perceive their genetic interests in the modern world. Many individuals do not have the same psychological motivation for their ethnic interests that they have, say, for their family. Salter’s reasoning actually reinforces arguments that there are enormous barriers to the evolution of altruism within local groups, since, as noted above, random co-ethnics have zero ethnic kinship. Presumably this is because our evolved psychology was designed mainly for a world of small groups separated by tiny genetic differences.

As a result, Salter turns to rational choice mechanisms which allow humans to make cost/benefit calculations aimed at adaptively attaining evolutionary goals in novel environments. In psychological terminology, these are domain-general mechanisms, most notably general intelligence, that enable humans to make rational, adaptive choices in novel, complex, and relatively unpredictable environments. Examples include making choices about how to allocate ethnic investment — where to draw the group boundaries for the purposes of ethnic identification and mobilization. Rational choice mechanisms are capable of designing adaptive group ethnic strategies for navigating the novel environment, which has produced a “global village” in which ethnic groups that were once separated by insurmountable barriers are now no more than a jet trip away. 

But ought humans care about biological fitness? Just because behavior is adaptive does not imply that “it is right or even sensible under modern conditions” (William Hamilton, quoted on p. 286). Salter is sensitive to the naturalistic fallacy, devoting a great deal of space to the problems inherent in any attempt at developing a morality of ethnic interest — only a glimpse of which can be discussed here. Acting with the knowledge of ethnic interests provided by modern science does not change the morality of acting on behalf of ethnic interests, any more than the morality of being a good parent is altered by the knowledge that parenting evolved to further individual genetic interests. Indeed, Salter often highlights the analogy between families and ethnies, suggesting, for example, that having an ethnic identity in combination with the knowledge that an ethnic group is an extended family would promote a sense of duty to one’s ethnic group. Although Salter shows a genetic homology between family and ethny, he notes that this does not prove any obligation to ethnic kin. Indeed, no obligation can be scientifically proven, not even to one’s children. By the same token, no fallacy is committed by caring about kin and about genetic survival. It is not irrational to feel an obligation to one’s family and ethny.

In reasoning about the morality of ethnic interests, Salter proposes ‘universal nationalism’, in which people are accorded the right to live in an ethnostate, since this would preserve the ethnic interests of the great majority of humans. This would be biologically just according to a reworked version of J. S. Mill’s ethic which Salter calls ‘adaptive utilitarianism’, meaning that a just act is one that serves the adaptiveness of the greatest number. Salter proposes a ‘mixed ethic’ of adaptive utilitarianism plus individual rights designed to protect vulnerable minorities.

There will, of course, remain conflicts of interest between ethnies in a world of limited resources, and fitness differences between groups are inevitable. Social controls might prevent conflict, but in Salter’s view, total suppression by a world government would be such an infringement of freedom that it would make us less than human. Indeed, there is a presumption of a “right to strive for the advancement, not just the defense of one’s family and ethny” (p. 306), resulting in asymmetries of outcome. But Salter also agrees with Richard Alexander that ethical rules “consist of restraints on particular methods of seeking self-interests, specifically on efforts of others to seek their own self-interests” (quoted on p. 306; italics in text). Just as we accept competition for resources by individuals with restraints on how far they can go in compromising the interests of others, we may also adopt an ethic of ethnic conflict in which relative losers are not destroyed and are motivated to remain part of the social system. Because of its provisions for vulnerable minorities, adopting a mixed ethic would be in the interests of everyone.

Whether or not one decides that humans ought to take fitness seriously, it is clear that some ethnic and racially identified groups continue to be elaborately organized to advance their interests, including the promotion and expansion of territorial ethnostates. The result is that groups not playing the game by, say, adopting a meme which proscribes ethnic identity or the defense of ethnic interests, will likely lose out — altruism writ large. It’s no different really from the fate of any genetic mutation that causes an animal to choose a less fit mate or to fail to be nepotistic. Ethnic groups can certainly decide not to play the game, but in the game of evolution, not playing simply results in extinction.

It is therefore reasonable to sketch out the parameters of effective ethnic strategizing, and indeed much of Salter’s book consists of a sort of “handbook” on adaptive strategy which adopts a bottom-up, individual perspective favored by W. D. Hamilton. The adaptive individual balances life effort — his or her “fitness portfolio” — across the domains of self-maintenance, family, ethny, and humanity as a whole (hence the book’s title). In the modern world, ethnic continuity is a critical component of an adaptive portfolio. Ethnic groups have a vital interest in defending territory against immigration from other ethnic groups: “For all of past human experience and still today, control of a territory is a precious resource for maintaining ethnic genetic interests in the long run” (p. 61). Loss of numbers within a territory dominated by one’s ethnic group as a result, say, of disease or natural disaster, results in a loss of ethnic fitness, but this loss is not critical because the numbers can eventually be made up. However, in a world of limited resources and carrying capacity — indeed, a world that, in the view of many experts has already reached unsustainable human populations — immigration of ethnic outsiders constitutes a permanent loss of fitness. The extent of that loss depends, of course, not only on the numbers of immigrants, but also on their genetic distance from the native population. At the extremes, the results are far greater than might be assumed: Salter shows that it would be more genetically advantageous for, say, a Bantu to give his life resisting immigration of two members of a genetically distant group like the Northeast Asians than it would be to rescue one of his own children.

The following are some of the main points of a very rich and provocative discussion.

1. Successful strategies require internal social controls, especially on free-riding, individualistic elites. As Salter notes, the free rider problem was successfully solved long ago via punishment and monitoring in the small groups that humans evolved in, and, in principle at least, there is no problem in doing so in the modern world, especially if social controls are maintained by governments. Hence the importance of a territorial ethnostate: Defending ethnic interests in multi-ethnic states is a great deal more difficult because the power of the state itself becomes a potential weapon against the interests of particular ethnic groups. For example, coalitions of minority groups may attempt to influence immigration policy against the interests of the majority ethnic group.

2. Adaptive ethnic culture tends to contain “oppositional symbols” of past victories and especially of past defeats. These symbols promote ethnic identification and facilitate ethnic altruism in defense of ethnic interests. In the crowded modern world, adaptive ethnic culture is defensive rather than expansionist because of the high risks of an expansionist strategy yielding outcomes where both sides lose.

3. Pro-minority regimes are usually maladaptive for the majority due to demographic policies aimed at reducing their influence. Such regimes are also unstable, due to majority competition for resources, including social status. The challenge, Salter argues, is to construct a state that defends individual rights, while defending the majority against displacement by highly mobilized, rapidly reproducing ethnic minorities. Globalism and multiculturalism legitimate minority interests and de-legitimize majority interests, but in the long run this is a threat to most individuals’ ethnic interests because the world’s population consists mainly of ethnic majorities and because minority dominance usually results in ethnic conflict.

In general, there is little discussion of the consequences of the fact that ethnic groups differ on traits that are conducive to fitness success in the modern world. The reality is that ethnic groups differ in intelligence and the ability to develop and control economic resources; they differ in their degree of ethnocentrism, in the extent to which they are mobilized to achieve group interests, and how aggressively they behave toward other groups; they differ in their numbers, fertility, and the extent to which they encourage parenting practices conducive to resource acquisition; they differ in the amount of land and other resources held at any point in time and in their political power. Equality, proportional equity, or even maintaining a status quo in territory and resource control would be difficult to attain or to maintain after it has been achieved without extremely intense social controls. Accepting a status quo would not be in the interests of groups that have recently lost land or numbers; nor is a status quo likely to be acceptable to groups with relatively low numbers and control of resources; nor would a status quo be likely to be acceptable to groups prone to high fertility. And yet, the alternative of all humans renouncing ethnic group loyalties seems utopian to say the least, for all the reasons that Salter adumbrates. And given that some ethnic groups, especially ones with high levels of ethnocentrism and mobilization, undoubtedly will continue to function as groups far into the foreseeable future, unilateral renunciation of ethnic loyalties by some groups means only their surrender and defeat — the ultimate act of altruism with the entirely predictable outcome of extinction for those practicing it. The future, then, like the past, will inevitably be a Darwinian competition in which ethnicity plays a very large role, either in the humane, universalized manner urged by Salter, or by nature red in tooth and claw.

Kevin MacDonald is Professor of Psychology at California State University—Long Beach. He completed his Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of Connecticut in 1981 and writes in the areas of evolutionary personality psychology, evolutionary developmental psychology, and strategizing human groups.
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Review #2: By Peter Gray Department of Psychology, Boston College. [E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)]

Misuse of Evolutionary Theory to Advocate for Racial Discrimination and Segregation: A critique of Salter’s On Genetic Interests

We who take an evolutionary approach to human behavior suffer from the fact that our technical terms “adaptation,” “fit,” and “genetic interest” sound like synonyms for “good.” When we say that a tendency for rape—or murder, or male domination of women, or ethnic chauvinism, or xenophobia—may have evolved because the behavior is “adaptive” we do not mean that the behavior is “good.” We are simply saying that, in the course of evolution, such behavior, under certain conditions, may have promoted the spread of the genes that support physiological mechanisms that help to produce that behavior. Patiently we explain this to our non-evolutionary-minded colleagues who accuse us of using evolutionary theory to justify one or another form of human atrocity. We explain carefully that the terms apply to the gene, not to the person. A gene that can produce or preserve many copies of itself is an “adaptive” or “fit” gene. It is in the gene’s “interest”—a metaphoric use of the word “interest” —to reproduce itself. The question of whether the behavior promoted by the gene is good or bad in human terms has to do with values that are not derivable from evolutionary theory. We use evolutionary theory to help us explain why people do what they do, not to decide what they should do. We even use evolutionary theory to help us understand better how to reduce those behaviors that we deem to be morally objectionable. Over and over again we explain all this to our colleagues. We even sometimes chastise them when they seem too obtuse or obstinate to understand this.

Now, along comes political scientist Frank Salter, who turns all this upside down with his book On Genetic Interests. Salter uses evolutionary theory not to explain behavior but to prescribe it. He clearly equates genetic interest with human good. In summing up his argument, in the “Afterword,” Salter writes, “My primary aim has not been to explain human behavior, but rather to offer social and political theory about what individuals should do if they want to behave adaptively” (p. 325, Salter’s italics). What we should do, according to Salter, is discriminate by race. We should do this because it is in our genetic interest to do so. Races differ genetically, and we share more genes with people of our own race than with those of different races, so it is in our genetic interest to favor our own race. To Salter, unlike to the rest of us who use evolutionary theory, genetic interest is not just the metaphorical “interest” of the gene, it is the real interest of the person. Salter writes, “Genetic interest residing in a population is a public good that belongs, as it were, to its individual members” (p. 43).

How does Salter rationalize his equation of genetic interests with human interests or values? Salter is certainly aware of the fact that most of us who talk about genetic interest or fitness don’t equate these with human good. In Chapter 4 Salter addresses this “objection” to his thesis as if he is taking it into account and refuting it. However, after reading and rereading those passages, I fail to find any logic to the refutations. At various places he acknowledges that genetic interest is not necessarily human interest, but then he goes on writing as if it is. Over and over again he uses the terms “adaptive,” “genetic interest,” and “reproductive interest” as if they refer to human values. In one place (p. 83) he makes this remarkable claim: “I conclude that it is certainly not a theoretical truth that one ought to defend one’s genetic interests. However, it is immoral to prevent those who do value their reproductive interest from nurturing it.” His argument is that those who choose not to discriminate racially as a means to support their genetic interests have no moral right to pass laws that would prevent others from doing so!

Notice that Salter’s ‘logic’ here would apply to any behavior that promotes the reproduction of one’s genes. I’m sure that Salter is not in favor of rape. But his logic states clearly that it would be immoral to pass laws against rape if that behavior is in someone’s genetic interest. When you think of it, most of our laws—laws against rape, murder, stealing, exploitation, slavery, and the like—are interfering with someone’s ability to pursue their genetic interest. This book, when read carefully, proves to be packed with contradictions and pseudo-logic.

To abet racial discrimination while minimizing interracial conflict, Salter proposes that the world should be parceled into racially defined nations, within which members of each racial group can work for the good of their own kind unhampered by the interests of other races. Salter does not argue—as some others have—that racial discrimination is a product of our instincts. Indeed, he suggests that the large-scale mixing of people of very different races is a rather new development and that therefore we did not evolve the instincts necessary to protect our genetic interests in today’s world. Our instincts are insufficient, and therefore we need to set our general, multi-purpose intelligence to the task of promoting racial segregation and discrimination. Salter proposes that we work to make people aware of their racial identities and genetic interests and thereby promote a world in which people will consciously behave in ways that protect those interests. He is particularly concerned with the migration of non-Caucasians into Western Europe and North America and their disproportionate use of welfare funds, which he feels we Caucasian would terminate if we were more aware of our genetic interests.

Throughout the book Salter draws an analogy between races (which he refers to as “ethnies”) and families. An ethny is like a family, so we have the same duty to care for our ethny as we have to care for our family. Of course, in Salter’s terms, our duty to family derives not from the fact that people, especially children, need care and the family is our primary social means of providing such care. Rather, it stems from the fact that our family members are more genetically related to us than are other people. Hence, he ignores key differences between familial and ethnic relationships.

Not surprisingly, Salter has something to tell us, from his genetic perspective, about family values. He points out (in Chapter 8, on “Fitness Portfolios”) that interracial marriage and adoption are maladaptive compared with marrying within one’s race and caring for one’s own biological children. He even gives us numbers, so we can weigh the fitness costs. A table on page 262 shows, for nine different races, the relative fitness gain for producing children with a partner of one’s own race compared to that of producing children with a partner of any of the other races. We learn here, for example, that European Caucasoids who marry within their own race produce children with 66 percent more kinship to themselves than do European Caucasoids who marry Africans. Clearly, my Caucasoid niece, who is raising two beautiful half-African daughters, is behaving maladaptively. Even more maladaptive is the behavior of my Caucasoid sister, who loves so dearly her adopted Vietnamese daughter. In the nightmare world of concern for genetic interests proposed by Salter we would take numbers like these into conscious account in our family decisions. I wonder, when it comes time to divide the world by race, where will my Afro-American grandnieces and my Vietnamese niece be sent?

Salter is a strong proponent of the nation state, racially defined, and of patriotic nationalism. He has some good things to say about Nationalist Socialist Germany (p. 231), which defined itself in racial terms from 1933 to 1945. According to Salter, Germany’s racial self-definition fostered national pride, patriotism, and economic vitality. Of course, Salter makes clear that he disapproves of the Nazi atrocities—the genocide and the invasions of other nations, which killed millions of people. Salter admits that racially-based nationalism is a “double-edged sword,” but he believes (p. 232) that “human ingenuity can devise social technologies for keeping the aggressive edge blunt.” Salter’s fantasy world is one of powerful racially (“ethnically”) defined nations, each of which confines itself to its own territory, each of which works with patriotic pride to promote the interests of its racially homogeneous inhabitants without interfering with the rights of other nations to promote the interests of their inhabitants. The interests to be promoted, of course, are genetic interests.

Most of us who take an evolutionary approach to understanding human behavior place great emphasis on the contingent nature of evolved human tendencies. Whether we are talking about altruism, rape, murder, or genocide we suggest that these tendencies are displayed more in some conditions than in others. Salter’s formula for the world seems to me to be precisely the recipe that would activate those tribal instincts that lead to territorial expansion, war, and genocide. If our own genetic interest is the prime motivator, then why not expand our genes into new territories and kill off the inhabitants or enslave them—when we think we can get away with it—to aid our genetic kin? We know, because we see it in our daily lives, that it is possible for human beings to think protectively about the entire human species and to view all of humanity as brothers and sisters. We also know, because we see it in so many places today and throughout history, that it is possible for human beings to place the interests of their own race above all other interests and to think of other races as vermin to be dominated, enslaved, or murdered. Which of these tendencies do we want to foster? If we take Salter’s route, which tendency are we more likely to foster?

In sum, in this book Salter uses pseudo-logic based on a deliberate confounding of genetic interest and human interest to advocate for (a) the conscious use of our intelligence to promote the maintenance and reproduction of those (paltry few) of our genes that distinguish us racially from other human beings; (b) the deliberate fostering of ethnic chauvinism; and (c) a division of the world into racially defined nations. More disturbing to me, however, than the foolishness found between the covers of this book are two quotes found on the outside of the back cover. Two giants in the development of evolutionary analyses of behavior—E. O. Wilson and Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt—are quoted there in praise of this book. How sad. How disillusioning. Naively, I had thought all this had ended with Konrad Lorenz’s apologies.

Peter Gray is Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College and the author of an introductory psychology textbook. He received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Rockefeller University. His current research is concerned with the educative functions of children’s play.

Posted by Matt Nuenke on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 at 10:08 PM in Race realism
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