The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea

by Robert Wald Sussman

Lynn (2011) argued that the eugenicists of the early twentieth century correctly predicted the deterioration of Western civilization as a result of medical technology and charitable assistance to the poor. This allowed an underclass of genetically less intelligent and less moral people to persist. Thus Lynn (1972) has concluded: “What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the ‘phasing out’ of such peoples.… Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality.” He has repeated this sentiment many times since (Lynn 2011). For example, adding to this quote, Lynn stated in 2004, “Survival of the fittest, extinction of the unfit. This is the way to a better world.”