<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/16/revealed-international-race-science-network-secretly-funded-by-us-tech-boss>
"An international network of “race science” activists seeking to influence
public debate with discredited ideas on race and eugenics has been operating
with secret funding from a multimillionaire US tech entrepreneur.
Undercover filming has revealed the existence of the organisation, formed two
years ago as the Human Diversity Foundation. Its members have used podcasts,
videos, an online magazine and research papers to seed “dangerous ideology”
about the supposed genetic superiority of certain ethnic groups.
The anti-racism campaign Hope Not Hate began investigating after encountering
the group’s English organiser, a former religious studies teacher, at a
far-right conference. Undercover footage was shared with the
Guardian, which
conducted further research alongside Hope Not Hate and reporting partners in
Germany.
HDF received more than $1m from Andrew Conru, a Seattle businessman who made
his fortune from dating websites, the recordings reveal. After being approached
by the
Guardian, Conru pulled his support, saying the group appeared to have
deviated from its original mission of “non-partisan academic research”.
While it remains a fringe outfit, HDF is part of a movement to rehabilitate
so-called race science as a topic of open debate. Labelled scientific racism by
mainstream academics, it seeks to prove biological differences between races
such as higher average IQ or a tendency to commit crime. Its supporters claim
inequality between groups is largely explained by genetics rather than external
factors like discrimination.
Dr Rebecca Sear, the director of the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel
University, described it as a “dangerous ideology” with political aims and
real-world consequences.
“Scientific racism has been used to argue against any policies that attempt to
reduce inequalities between racial groups,” she said. It was also deployed to
“argue for more restrictive immigration policies, such as reducing immigration
from supposedly ‘low IQ’ populations”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
