\doc\web\98\06\brandiq.txt Date sent: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 01:11:26 +0100 To: fredadin@eden.adam.com.au, newscan@vcn.bc.ca, ostarici@ostara.org, blacklotus@datacomm.ch, Arthur Hu From: Chris Brand Subject: The story of The 'g' Factor Published in the UK by Wiley (Chichester) in February 1996, The g Factor, a product of Chris Brand's thirty years in the psychology of intelligence and personality, met with expert approval. Hans Eysenck recorded (in Personality & Individual Differences 26, 1996): "Apart from being accurate, Brand is also courageous; he deals with "sensitive" problems in a straightforward, accurate fashion, without treading unnecessarily on vulnerable toes." But the 'politically correct' exponents of 'multiculturalism' thought otherwise and urged Wiley to withdraw the book. Interviewed by the press in April 1996, Brand agreed there would tend to be racial differences in children's speeds of school progress. Brand cheerfully accepted he would be what critics of IQ (e.g. Steven Fraser et al., 1995, The Bell Curve Wars, New York : Basic) standardly called a 'scientific racist' -- though Brand preferred the term 'race realist.' He believed his book would vindicate his position and expose 'ignoracist' critics as hysterical. De-published by Wiley (on orders from their New York head office), attacked by his University Principal, and replying in kind, Brand found himself, through 1996/7, witch-hunted, censored by his University, thrown to the tabloid press for writing his censorship-lambasting NewsLetter, 'investigated' by his University and fired. Precisely why he was fired still remains a mystery. The facts are as follows. I. Brand had refused to grovel when his Principal told the press that his apparent views on IQ were "false and personally obnoxious." The Principal's comments were given wide publicity (e.g. in the London broadsheet press). After the Principal refused to withdraw his condemnation, Brand began criticizing the University on the Internet -- in The 'g' Factor NewsLetter. II. On October 16 1996, Brand e-mailed colleagues and supporters one page of comment which ridiculed the prosecution of a 73-year-old Nobel Laureate, Carleton Gajdusek, who faced a 30-year jail term for offences of non-violent child molestation in Maryland c. 1985. III. After the publication of a letter from the University Principal in The Scotsman (4 November 1996) denying that he condemned The g Factor [which he said he had not read], a recipient of Brand's e-mail took the 'paedophilia' comment to the Scottish press. IV. Scandalised front-page comment immediately appeared in tabloid newspapers (8 November). One front-page banner headline was: FIRE BRAND (Daily Record, 9 November). Suspension from teaching and nine months of investigation by an E.U. Tribunal culminated, on 8 August 1997, in Brand being dismissed, after 27 years of service, for his "gross misconduct." Just what Edinburgh University found "disgraceful" in Brand's conduct remains to be clarified. From the University's case to its own Tribunal, the main alleged problem was that Brand had upset his Psychology colleagues by his realistic and humorous observations on a range of psychological topics -- and especially on 'feminist issues.' Nor had his colleagues liked Brand achieving publicity for his views. Thus for him to have claimed some forms of paedophilia to be empirically harmless [when involving intelligent and uncoerced adolescents] was 'the last straw.' But what exactly was "disgraceful" in Brand's pointing to the empirical evidence about paedophilia -- or to the empirical evidence about race -- and indicating his own conclusion that mercy should be shown to the accused scientist who had pioneered the way to public understanding of 'bovine spongiform encephalopathy' (BSE)? On 24 March 1998, Brand's Appeal against his dismissal was rejected by a Scottish High Court judge (selected by the University). Mr T. Gordon Coutts, QC, ruled that, under the UK's 1988 Education Act, British academics -- whatever the disciplinary codes of their own universities might actually say -- do not need to be guilty of anything as serious as "gross misconduct" for their universities to be entitled to sack them without warning. Since 1988, academics can be dismissed for "good cause" -- a term deriving from general UK employment protection legislation, but certainly permitting dismissal for expressing views that are merely embarrassing to an employer. Brand's battle with Edinburgh University has thus revealed, so far, that 'academic freedom', as usually understood, was ended in Britain in 1988. R.I.P. Yet the Coutts verdict is far from being the end of the matter. For example, it remains unclear how Brand's conduct was even non-grossly "disgraceful." It certainly lacked modern piety, political correctness and deference to the Edinburgh University Principal. Yet what action of Brand's was "disgraceful" or "scandalous" or "immoral" (the legal ways of sacking ordinary British workers -- operatives at biscuit factories etc. -- without warning)? In contrast, it is perfectly clear what is today's punishment for a British academic who says genes are substantially involved in causing the empirical link between race and IQ: he is de-published, hounded by irate 'anti-racists', condemned by his university, thrown to the tabloid press to have his sex life investigated, and fired for the slightest hint of departure from media morality. Though denying that the typical intelligent paedophile did demonstrable harm, Brand had not even called for change in the law; but he had given grave offence by pointing out that scientists know much that contradicts the press and popular opinion -- whether about race or paedophilia. Britons have liked to sing in the twentieth century that they "never, never, never shall be slaves"; but their universities will now remain enslaved to American campus speech codes until Brand and The g Factor are vindicated. For more, including a weekly newsletter, go to http://www.crispian.demon.co.uk _______________________________________\__________________________ Chris Brand Edinburgh, UK. My details and weekly (Tuesday) updates appear at . -- "All tyrannies are initially supported by academia, including fascism and Nazism. Political correctness, the tyranny of our day, has been the recipient of similar approval." Leading article, Spectator, 25 x 1997. "'Tis a dangerous thing to engage the authority of Scripture in disputes about the Natural World . . . lest Time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made Scripture to assert." Thomas Burnet (17th-century clergyman and scientist). _________________________________________________________________ ================================================================= thanks for including me on your mailing list, I'll add a note about this in my iq page, sounds like you know what you're talking about, and are willing to take some heat for it. BTW, what is your position on schools such as Thaddeus Lott's Wesley elementary that produce 85th percentile test score results on basic skills tests with poor black children who normallly score below the 20th percentile. Do you suspect that their IQ scores would also be high, or that these are 15th percentile 85 IQ kids that just get high test scores?? I am inclinced to believe that basic skills scores are more indicative of how well you will do in school or work than your IQ scores.