Yes. When a book argues that “race and class differences are largely determined by genetic factors” one has a right to become suspicious if the supporting research is funded by an organization whose patron recruited “academic irredentists still dedicated to white supremacy and
eugenics” because “[he] believed geneticists could scientifically prove the
inferiority of Negros.”
And suspicion naturally grows when one finds that
Pioneer Fund recipients have only one thing in common: they attack blacks. Thus, for example, consider the following three people in the list of names above: William Shockley, Michael Levin, and Linda Gottfredson. The first of these, Shockley, was neither a psychologist nor a biologist but a physicist:
“William Shockley. 1910-89, American physicist, b. London. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology (B.S., 1932) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1936). After directing antisubmarine research for the U.S. Navy during World War II, he returned to work at Bell Laboratories. There he and two colleagues, John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain, produced the first transistor in 1947; for this work they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. Shockley taught electrical engineering at Stanford Univ. from 1958 to 1975.”
[7]
So Shockley had zero training in psychology or biology. But that didn’t stop him from making certain claims:
“During the late 1960s Shockley became a figure of some controversy… He held that standardized intelligence tests reflect a genetic factor in intellectual capacity and that tests for IQ (intelligence quotient) reveal that blacks are inferior to whites. He further concluded that the higher rate of reproduction among blacks had a retrogressive effect on evolution.”
[8]
Shockley was obviously a eugenicist, and he went out of his way to become a public racist. In fact, “He came to describe this work [i.e. his ‘work’ attacking blacks] as the most important of his career, although it severely tarnished his reputation.”
[8a] The Pioneer Fund saw fit to give this man money, but obviously not because he was a good physicist—this was a prize for using his Nobel prestige to attack blacks.
Then there is Michael Levin.
“…the [Pioneer Fund] awarded $124,500 from 1991-1992 to Michael Levin, a philosophy professor at the City College of New York who has argued that black population growth must be slowed by ending public assistance.”
[9]
What does a philosopher need $124,500 for? The answer is that he doesn’t need it. Philosophers do not conduct expensive research. Once again, this is just prize money for being a public racist, and for making arguments in favor of restricting the population growth of blacks, which is one of the things the original eugenics movement also called for.
And finally, let’s take a look at Linda Gottfredson.
“[Linda] Gottfredson [is] a University of Delaware researcher who said that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites and have diminished capabilities in work and educational settings. The university rejected a $174,000 Pioneer grant toward her work, citing the fund’s racist history. Gottfredson sued, claiming she was a victim of political correctness, and the school eventually backed down to avoid a protracted legal battle.”
[10]
Gottfredson is militant. In 1990 she got together with Phillipe Rushton and with
Harry Weyher, the president of the Pioneer Fund, and wrote a letter to the British daily The Independent saying that
“governments that want ‘effective’ public policies must listen to scientists who say blacks are genetically less intelligent than other races.”
[10a]
The outspoken Linda Gottfredson once again is neither a psychologist nor a biologist, but a
sociologist who teaches in the Department of Education at the University of Delaware.
So we have a physicist, a philosopher, and a sociologist. What do they have in common with the IQ-testers? Other than that they attack blacks from their academic perches and collect their rewards from the Pioneer Fund, nothing.