Racist Pseudoscience in Academia and Beyond

<p>Caitlin and Trent talk to anthropologist Rebecca Sear about the troubling trend in academia of allowing scientific racism, or the pseudoscientific belief that humans can be divided into genetically distinct racial groups with discrete measurements for things like IQ, personality traits, and behavior, to persist and present itself as a legitimate academic pursuit. They discuss how political activists have helped fund projects that propel scientific racism into the academic literature, popular media, and public policy.</p><p><br /></p><p>Resources:</p><p>Musk on birth rates https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EPrNsxf-AUY</p><p><br /></p><p>JD Vance: “I want more babies in the United States” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23XJ2SqI8FA</p><p><br /></p><p>RFK, Jr. on “healthy kids” and COVID https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/well/rfk-jr-cdc-children-covid-vaccines-data.html</p><p><br /></p><p>Origin of Eugenics https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/origins-eugenics</p><p><br /></p><p>History of Eugenics https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/timelines/eugenics </p><p><br /></p><p>Galton on “selection” 1883 https://archive.org/details/cu31924028925332/page/n325/mode/2up</p><p><br /></p><p>Eugenics in the 1920s https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20speople-improving-the-nations-stock-for-great-and-greater-britain-eugenics-in-the-1920s/ </p><p><br /></p><p>Eugenics Record Office https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/368657 </p><p><br /></p><p>‘National IQ’ datasets: https://osf.io/26vfb_v1</p><p><br /></p><p>Dark Money https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/215462/dark-money-by-jane-mayer/ </p><p><br /></p><p>Merchants of Doubt https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/ </p><p><br /></p><p>Collins Family profile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnd1Taw4CEE&amp;t=174s </p><p><br /></p><p>Polygenic embryo selection https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/science-fictions-are-outpacing-science </p><p><br /></p><p>Bo Winegard defending race science https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/sasha-gusev-is-wrong?utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web</p><p><br /></p><p>Winegard accused of eugenics https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/12/assistant-professor-says-hes-been-fired-because-he-dared-talk-about-human-population</p><p><br /></p><p>William Shockley on Firing Line https://youtu.be/7JOIqkh2ms8?si=rxH8Ym7_4SU0PYPR </p><p><br /></p><p>Richard Haier on Lex Fridman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9RxrsvcS-k </p><p><br /></p><p>Peter Singer on disabled newborns https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2017/04/now-peter-singer-argues-that-it-might-be-okay-to-rape-disabled-people</p>