Edit: On further research, it appears you're pretty much precisely right. This is part of a White Nationalist group with strong ties to eugenics, fascist, neo-Nazi, and other racist organizations.
________________________________
(Earlier)
The notion of a weakening of intelligence or other traits is one that's been kicked around a lot over the years. You'll find it in movies like Idiocracy as well. It's definitely present in a lot of racist / white superiority writings over the years, and some comments below link the Ulster Institute for Social Research with racist fringe elements. I didn't know that when I posted this item.
Turns out that the Ulster Institute for Social Research is the creation of white nationalist Richard Lynn, and has some decidedly racist associations:
Given that, I'd really be interested in seeing what those with actual backgrounds in genetics and intelligence have to say about the research and methods here.
This is a pretty risky thing for a mainstream scientist to say. Most of the people in the field would be terrified of publishing such a paper even if they believed in it.
But I'd be glad if someone knowledgeable could comment on the validity of the claims in the paper.
The idea that Eugenics might actually work is too disturbing to even consider.
The unspoken assumption here is that poor people , immigrants and other such economically backward groups are backward because of their low IQ and the reason for their low IQ is primarily genetic.
IQ is predominantly genetic but it's well known how poor nutrition and upbringing can stunt it. There's lots of potential problems with this argument.
There is some evidence that the higher than average IQ of Asheknazi Jews is because of inbreeding. I posted about it on HN but people are wary of discussing such a sensitive subject.
Even discounting the genetics argument , it can also be considered as some kind of an accidental breeding for IQ as wealthier jewish families tended to have more children.
You would think that eugenics was thoroughly discredited during the twentieth century, but apparently we need a phrase that means the opposite of “throwing the baby out with the bath water”—unleashing a terrible negative upon the world in order to attain something desirable, but relatively minor and probably attainable by other means.
Are you really arguing that the theory of evolution (which is all you need for eugenics to be scientifically valid) has been "thoroughly discredited"?
Note: Nazi science teaches us how to send a rocket to the moon, and also how to drop bombs on people. You don't need to declare rocketry as "discredited" to argue against dropping bombs on people.
