Search Results - Lynn, Richard

Richard Lynn

Richard Lynn (20 February 1930 – July 2023) was a controversial English psychologist and self-described "scientific racist" who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was the editor-in-chief of ''Mankind Quarterly'', a white supremacist journal.}} He was lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. Lynn was a professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, but had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018.

Many scientists criticised Lynn's work for lacking scientific rigour, misrepresenting data, and for promoting a racialist political agenda. }} Lynn was associated with a network of academics and organisations that promote scientific racism.}} He had also advocated fringe positions regarding sexual differences in intelligence. In two books co-written with Tatu Vanhanen, Lynn and Vanhanen argued that differences in developmental indexes among various nations are partially caused by the average IQ of their citizens. Earl Hunt and Werner Wittmann (2008) questioned the validity of their research methods and the highly inconsistent quality of the available data points that Lynn and Vanhanen used in their analysis. Lynn also argued that a high fertility rate among individuals of low IQ constitutes a major threat to Western civilisation, as he believed people with low IQ scores will eventually outnumber high-IQ individuals. He argued in favour of anti-immigration and eugenics policies, provoking heavy criticism internationally. Lynn's work was among the main sources cited in the book ''The Bell Curve'', and he was one of 52 scientists who signed an opinion piece in the ''Wall Street Journal'' entitled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which endorsed a number of the views presented in the book.

He was also on the board of the Pioneer Fund, which funds ''Mankind Quarterly'' and has also been described as racist. He was on the editorial board of the journal ''Personality and Individual Differences'' until 2019. Provided by Wikipedia