Yesterday I found in my mailbox a plain white envelope with no
return address. Looked like junk mail, but what junk mail. I opened it,
started to throw it in the garbage can, then saw that it was a little
booklet. The author's name caught my eye -- J. Philippe Rushton. Oh my, I
thought, who is sending me this, on what ultra conservative mailing list
have I gotten? But there was nothing inside but the booklet, no explanation
of who sent it or why. I looked back at the envelope and thought the
address label looked very familiar. Thinking it might be my American
Psychological Association mailing label, I pulled a copy of the APA Monitor
out of my mailbox, and yes, that is what it was. The number on both labels
was my APA membership number. The APA has sold membership labels to some
organization which has mailed out Rushton's work. I thought the mailing
might have only gone to those with a divisional membership in
comparative/evolutionary (the title of the book is "Race, Evolution, &
Behavior"), but a nearby colleague who is a social psychologist got it too.
I am curious, did all APA members get this mailing?
In case you don't recall who Rushton is, let me give you a retrieval
cue: One of his arguments is that racial differences can be explained by
the "r-selection vs K-selection" hypothesis (proposed by R. H. MacArthur and
E. O. Wilson, and referring to the parameters r and K in the Lotka-Volterra
equations for competition between species), which I learned in population
ecology many years ago. R-selected organisms are those which rarely
approach asymptotic density, so for them, the rate of population increase is
the more important parameter. These species tend to live in unpredictable
environments, where mortality is often catastrophic and density-independent.
There is little the individual can do to delay death, so intelligent
individuals would be as likely to die young as not so intelligent
individuals. Evolution favors small body sizes, rapid reproduction, no
parental care. Think of mosquitos and flies -- lack of parental care and
brains hasn't led them to extinction. These critters don't need much
brains, just lot of gametes.. Other organisms exist in habitats which are
less variable, more predictable, and where populations are near asymptotic
density. Smarter individuals can postpone death here. Selection favors
delayed reproduction, larger body size, slower development (longer life),
and parental investment. These critters need more brains than gametes.
Well, Rushton applies this logic to the differences between human races. He
argues that as humans moved out of Africa, they evolved away from r-type
organisms to K-type organisms. Get the drift?
Have you all also received this junk mail? Any ideas who is sending it
out?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Karl L. Wuensch, Department of Psychology,
East Carolina University, Greenville NC 27858-4353
Voice: 252-328-4102 Fax: 252-328-6283
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm
