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The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
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BlogviewFred Reed Archive
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Science

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Fun with IQ
Deep Thought
• November 23, 2017
• 1,400 Words • 234 Comments • Reply [1500=0/0]
Once upon a time in America the ruling dwarves, mostly psychologists, sociologists, academics, and suchlike riffraff, held that all people were equal in everything, that men and women were identical, as were all races, ethnic groups, and cultures. Criticizing any of this could, and did, lead to firing, ostracism, and having to suffer crowds of... Read More
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GIGO and the Intelligence of Countries: Disordered Thoughts
• June 22, 2017
• 1,300 Words • 162 Comments • Reply [1341=0/0]
Apologies to the reader. Perhaps I wax tedious. But the question of intelligence is both interesting to me and great fun as talking about it puts commenters in an uproar. It is like poking a wasp’s nest when you are eleven. I am a bad person. Clearing the underbrush: Obviously intelligence is largely genetic–if it... Read More
IQ: A Skeptic’s View
• January 12, 2017
• 1,500 Words • 506 Comments • Reply
Intelligence is worth talking about because both the reality of intelligence and perceptions regarding intelligence set limits on the possible and influence policy. For example, if the population of India on average really is below borderline retardation, the country can never amount to anything. If Latino immigrants really are as stupid as white nationalists hope,... Read More
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Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution
• September 8, 2016
• 10,800 Words • 173 Comments • Reply
This is atrociously long, criminally even, by internet standards but I post it anyway because I get occasional requests. Few will read it, which is understandable. Apologies. The Devil made me do it. Regular readers, if there is one, will have seen most of it before since in large part it is a gluing together... Read More
Appalachian white trash, presenting obvious neurological deficits consequent to inbreeding. A clear argument for eugenics.
More on Eugenics: What Fun
• September 1, 2016
• 1,200 Words • 108 Comments • Reply
Most considerations of eugenics, before wobbling off into discussions of Hitler, deal with intelligence and physical characteristics, notably health and strength. By those who constitute the best argument for eugenics, eugenics is usually interpreted as a means of oppressing the poor, maltreating the more bedraggled minorities, and euthanizing the retarded. Most commentators on the matter... Read More
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Evolution and Refrigerators: New Insights
• April 7, 2016
• 1,400 Words • 73 Comments • Reply
“Behavioral genetics” is a science that seeks to demonstrate a physiological and genetic basis for human behavior—for liberalism versus conservatism and for religion versus irreligion, among countless other traits. Some of it is well established, though not known to the general public, and other parts more-or-less established. Inevitably all of it is attributed to evolution... Read More
Whips, Chains, and Virology
An Essay on Evolutionary Psychology
• February 18, 2016
• 1,500 Words • 29 Comments • Reply
Years back, as I was writing my military column Soldiering for Universal Press Syndicate, I needed expert opinion on the M16A2 rifle. A friend put me in touch with Jack McGeorge, of whom I had never heard. He turned out to be an ex-Marine of exceedingly high intelligence, ran something called the Public Safety Group... Read More
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Willie Nelson Comes to Jocotepec
The Internet and Social Fragmentaion
• February 11, 2016
• 1,300 Words • 27 Comments • Reply
The existence of the internet may not be news in most places, nor that it does things astonishing to those alive before the net and boring to those who came after. But I wonder whether the net might have underlying consequences perhaps not well understood. In particular, I wonder how to measure the influence of... Read More
Impossibility Theory, An Advance Over Mere Indeterminacy: By Werner Fredsenberg
• February 4, 2016
• 1,500 Words • 106 Comments • Reply
Previously I have proved that life cannot have evolved. Today I will prove that life cannot exist. Let us begin with Samuel Johnson’s response when asked whether we have free will. He replied that all theory holds that we do not, all experience that we do. A similar paradox occurs in the realm of Impossibility... Read More
The Inevitability of Eugenics
A Race of Self-Designing Tinker Toys
• January 14, 2016
• 1,100 Words • 127 Comments • Reply
Mention of eugenics inevitably results in whoops of horror, gnashing of hair, rending of teeth, and discussion of Hitler. Occasionally, however, matters of importance merit discussion even if they lead to Hitler. If by “eugenics” is meant both the selective breeding of humans and genetic manipulation of ourselves, we will shortly have to discuss it,... Read More
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The Evolutionary Biology of Political Parties
Some Buffalo Don’t Rot
• August 6, 2015
• 1,200 Words • 79 Comments • Reply
Websites pour forth heated arguments between liberals and conservative about almost everything—or, as is becoming clear due to brain research, what seem to be arguments but in fact are genetically determined reflexes. Even before the latest results from PET scans and functional MRI, simple observation convinced the sentient that rationality was not involved in political... Read More
Charlie Dog, Golondrinas, and the Impossibility of Ants
A Deep Study
• June 19, 2015
• 1,100 Words • 24 Comments • Reply
This morning when I emerged groggily into something resembling consciousness, I didn’t know that I was going to establish the impossibility of ants. Here was a deep philosophical matter, creeping up on me surreptitiously. The dogs as usual came thundering in to see whether we still existed and, having ascertained that we did, offered to... Read More
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Can Scientists Think?
Euclid Cannot Explain a Hamburger
• June 5, 2015
• 1,700 Words • 74 Comments • Reply
On the Unz Review I find a piece by Razib Khan, Can a Religious Person be a Good Scientist? His answer, yes, is inarguable since, as he points out, many good scientists are religious (Newton, a Christian, by most accounts did pretty fair work.) But why should it be necessary to ask such a luminously... Read More
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Me, Derbyshire, and Darwin
An Excavation
• July 28, 2014
• 2,000 Words • 131 Comments • Reply
Over the years I have occasionally expressed doubts over the tenets of evolutionism which, perhaps wrongly, has seemed to me a sort of political correctness of science, or maybe a metaphysics somewhat related to science. As a consequence I have been severely reprimanded. The editor of a site devoted to genetic expression furiously began deleting... Read More
Into Darwin's Dark Night
We Had a Good Run
• June 23, 2014
• 1,500 Words • 66 Comments • Reply
In this column I will explain why the Caucasian race will shortly be extinct, and why it is a good idea. This conclusion flows ineluctably from evolutionary considerations and studies of racial IQ. It is simple biology.   The Evolutionary-IQ Perspective As Race Realists have argued at length, IQ is a reliable measure of intelligence,... Read More
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A Troublesome Inheritance
Wading in the Zeitgeist
• May 17, 2014
• 1,100 Words • 20 Comments • Reply
Apparently like everybody who can read, still a probable majority in the US, I have just finished Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance, which deals with the genetics of human behavior, race, intelligence, how they came about, and related things about which one must never, ever state the obvious. It is a fine book: cogent, well... Read More
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Race, Realism, and Race Realists
Grant Me the Wisdom to Know the Difference
• March 6, 2014
• 1,200 Words • 19 Comments • Reply
"Race realists," as they call themselves, very much want to think that Latin Americans are inherently stupid. The idea appeals to me. As a curmudgeon, I like to believe in the corruption, venality, concupiscence, and stupidity of our sorry race. Certainly it is the way to bet. Further, I admit, indeed espouse, the biological possibility... Read More
The Unfortunately Innate Nature of Intelligence
An Invitation to a Lynching
• February 18, 2014
• 1,100 Words • 3 Comments • Reply
Human races are subspecies of Homo sapiens (sic), just as basset hounds and Chihuahuas are subspecies of dog. The breeds of neither are precise genetic categories: In the words of the heroic John Derbyshire, genetically “what you see is a continuum with some pretty sharp clines.” Yet the genetic commonalities are sufficient to be obvious:... Read More
The End of Evolution
Fred Promises to Shut Up About It in the Future
• December 4, 2013
• 1,700 Words • 4 Comments • Reply
Having gotten a lot of intelligent and thoughtful mail following a recent column on Darwin, a bit of it telling tme to read Richard Dawkins, the Amway Salesman of Evolutionism (I have read him, actually), I determined to respond here rather than individually. I rpomise to shut up on the subject for a long time... Read More
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The Bugs in Darwin
And Other Raptures
• November 18, 2013
• 5,100 Words • 3 Comments • Reply
This is atrociously long by internet standards but I post it anyway. My childhood made me do it. Apologies.   A Preamble The intent of this essay is not to debate with the ardent of evolutionism, which is the Political Correctness of science. To do so would be pointless. The greatest intellectual divide is not... Read More
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The Neo-Fredwinian Synthesis
Trouble at the Mind-Matter Interface
• June 12, 2011
• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment
The theory of evolution does not stand alone. It is part of a vast synthesis which fits all of existence into a coherent whole:The Big Bang, the formation of stars and planets, the chance appearance of life in primeval seas, the evolution of that life, the Pyramids, Space Shuttle, and Renoir. It is an imposing... Read More
Brains, If Any
Probably More Trouble than They're Worth
• April 29, 2007
• 1,400 Words • Leave a Comment
To start with, some people insist that intelligence doesn’t exist; they are, I suspect, the best evidence for their case. Some people and some groups are obviously smarter than others. It’s daily experience.Then other people, also imbeciles, say that environment accounts for all difference in IQ: It’s all in how you are raised. The idea... Read More
Designing We Shall Go
"God is Dead": Nietsche ("Nietzsche is Dead": God)
• January 11, 2006
• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment
A few thoughts regarding the recent foolishness in the courts of Pennsylvania over Intelligent Design:A pertinent question is why the curricula of the schools should be the concern of judges, who are little more than the enforcement arm of the academic and journalistic elites, imposing on Kansas what could not be legislated in Washington. I... Read More
Fred Plans to Devolve
Bacteria More Respectable
• October 16, 2005
• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment
I read with what would be despair if I cared enough that the courts, this time in Pennsylvania, are again getting their knickers in a knot over Evolution. Oh help. There must be another planet somewhere upon which to hide. Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, singing commercials, delayed flights, and Evolution. Anyway:Why, oh why, are the curricula... Read More
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Fredwin On Evolution
Very Long, Will Bore Hell Out Of Most People, But I Felt Like Doing It
• March 7, 2005
• 5,800 Words • 6 Comments • Reply
I was about fifteen when I began to think about evolution. I was then just discovering the sciences systematically, and took them as what they offered themselves to be, a realm of reason and dispassionate regard for truth. There was a hard-edged clarity to them that I liked. You got real answers. Since evolution depended... Read More
The Coming Storm
Maybe, Anyway
• May 5, 2004
• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment
The Bell Curve, an excellent book more maligned than read, pointed out a trend seldom noticed. The authors called it “cognitive stratification,” not a phrase Byron would have chosen but serviceable enough. It means the concentration of the intelligent.In 1850 people of high intelligence were dispersed through the population. If the child of a cowboy... Read More
Lockstep Thinking
Spare Me
• March 3, 2004
• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment
One difference between faith and science is that science allows with reasonable grace the questioning of theory. A physicist who doubts, say, the theory of general relativity will be expected to show good cause for his doubt. He won’t be dismissed in chorus as delusional and an enemy of truth. By contrast, he who doubts... Read More
A Gas-Station View of Evolution
• May 29, 2000
• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment
I'm trying to believe in the theory of evolution. It's tough going. I have to squinch up my eyes and imagine real hard. But I'm determined to do it, because it's the Right Thing To Do, and keeps people from yelling at you. Trouble is, I keep running into bumps and potholes.For example, I worry... Read More
"Science" Items Across Entire Archive
Fred Reed
About Fred Reed

Fred, a keyboard mercenary with a disorganized past, has worked on staff for Army Times, The Washingtonian, Soldier of Fortune, Federal Computer Week, and The Washington Times.

He has been published in Playboy, Soldier of Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Harper's, National Review, Signal, Air&Space, and suchlike. He has worked as a police writer, technology editor, military specialist, and authority on mercenary soldiers.


Personal Classics
YouSSR, MeSSR
Not What Tom Jefferson Had in Mind
• 3 Comments • Reply
Up Periscope
Quick and Dirty
• Leave a Comment
Eighth Grade In Mexico
Sounds Like A Low-Ranked American University To Me
• 4 Comments • Reply
Fredwin On Evolution
Very Long, Will Bore Hell Out Of Most People, But I Felt Like Doing It
• 6 Comments • Reply
Ilsa Koch Gets Kotched
It's Not A Job. It's An Adventure.
• 1 Comment • Reply
Weather Report
Cloudy, With Possible Tidal Wave
• Leave a Comment