The Pioneer Fund and the scientific study of human differences
2002; Albany Law School; Volume: 66; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0002-4678
Autores Tópico(s)Race, Genetics, and Society
ResumoINTRODUCTION A. For the Record B. A Roster of Distinguished Americans C. Pioneer's Contributions to the Science of Human Diversity I. ARE LOMBARDO'S CHARGES CREDIBLE? A. Is the Bell Curve really Link(ed) to the Holocaust? B. Was Laughlin Really Preoccupied With German Eugenics? C. Did Pioneer Grants Really Support White Supremacy? D. Did Laughlin Really Define Breed to Exclude Jews? E. Is Truth About Race No Defense? A Personal Note II. PROVIDING THE NECESSARY CONTEXT A. The Scientific Context B. The Eugenics Context C. The Historical Context III. UNDERSTANDING THE ANIMUS AGAINST THE PIONEER FUND A. The Nature-Nurture Wars B. Race-Realist v. Hermeneuticists CONCLUSION: THE PIONEER FUND IN THE NEW MILENNIUM APPENDIX: THE PIONEER FUND'S CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION INTRODUCTION A. For the Record When I succeeded the late Harry F. Weyher (1) as President of the Pioneer Fund, a New York Not-for-Profit Corporation, I intended my first priority to be studying new grant proposals and seeking support for Pioneer Fund research from other foundations, individuals, and government agencies to further our mandate, which is the scientific study of human differences. Instead, I find that my first duty must be to refute a series of false charges an article entitled Breed: Nazi Eugenics and the Origins of the Pioneer Fund by Paul Lombardo, a lawyer and bio-ethicist at the University of Virginia, that appeared the Albany Law Review May 2002. (2) Lombardo's article consists of an Introduction, three Parts, and a Conclusion. It opens and closes with a polemic against Herrnstein and Murray's 1994 bestseller The Bell Curve, (3) which was not supported by the Pioneer Fund. Representative of Lombardo's inflammatory style is his statement that The Bell Curve's conclusions drawn from ... a political movement that provides America's most enduring link to the Holocaust. (4) The remainder of his article continues similar style, filled with rancor and epithets. In Part I, Lombardo presents a highly selective and misleading survey of the contents of the Eugenical News from 1932 to 1937, edited by Harry Laughlin, an attempt to prove Laughlin's captivation (5) and preoccupation with the Nazi eugenics program. (6) In Part II, Lombardo selects instances and quotations to lead his readers to believe that Wickliffe Draper (one of Pioneer's founders, a director from 1937 to 1972 and its main benefactor) was guilty of rabid racism, (7) and white supremacy. (8) In Part III, Lombardo alleges that Harry Laughlin (another of Pioneer's founders and its first president serving from 1937 to 1941) sought to define a new American Breed that would emphatically exclude the nonwhite, particularly the Jew. (9) Lombardo's Conclusion provides a selected list of thirteen Pioneer Grants (including one to the present writer), which he offers as proof of the Pioneer Fund's support for white genetic and intellectual superiority. (10) Of the many allegations that article, the most outrageous are that 1937, pro-Nazi Americans established the Pioneer Fund in hopes of duplicating Nazi legal and social policy (11) and that since its founding, Pioneer has promoted a white supremacist, pro-Nazi, racist, and anti-democratic political agenda. (12) Lombardo's accusations are contradicted by the facts. The sheer implausibility that an organization founded by crypto-Nazis 1937 could have survived World War II (1941-1945) without being challenged should have called into question the veracity of the entire article. Indeed, all of Pioneer's founders who could do so participated the war against the Nazis. Two other remarkably similar critiques of the Pioneer Fund and its origins the eugenics movement appeared while this response was being prepared. …
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