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Comments

I find it rather hilarious that people have associated racism to that chart rather than, I don't know, pregnant mother's intake of fish; indexed by culture? Or good dietary standards indexed by class(I know that you idiots will contradict me, but that was the social ladder of the time)

There IS science there, you just have to have a brain to see it, he merely stated there was a correlation, not that there was causation.

Poverty and the "meat" one must eat when they are truly destitute?

Soul Food?

Does that make the graph shape up to you?

Really it makes me sick that you people are willing to call him a Nazi just because you happen to be so racially sensitive that you end up looking like self-hating rascists.

Oh, wait, American, I see. 75.173.64.10 (talk) 06:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been looking at the pages of eugenics-supportive people, and this is yet another that seems quite POV. He disagreed with the nazis? It's a bit peculiar to state that without further explanation, as what he is famous for is that he actually agrees with the nazis in a couple of ways most people don't!

Really? Please provide a verbatim quotation and reference. Paul Magnussen 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Next line should be sufficient. -v

For some reason, the intro does not mention that he was a life-long member of the British Eugenics Society

I went through his autobiography recently, and he certainly was against the Nazis. He had a Jewish step-father. His father tried to get him to join the SS, but he refused - it turned out that his father's mother was Jewish, and his father was trying to protect him. And so on. Charles Matthews 10:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, he abandoned his university education, family, homeland and language rather than acquiesce to Hitlerism by joining the SS. He was happily married to a Jewess to the end of his life. In fact, his biographer (Gibson) writes that he was so repelled by pre-war German culture that he even wrote to his father English, though the latter barely understood it. Seems like a strange Nazi to me... Paul Magnussen 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Examining the text from top to bottom: "Brilliant" teacher?

That seems to be the consensus of his students (see e.g. Nyborg, The Scientific Study of General Intelligence). Have you a dissenting opinion? Paul Magnussen 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

"He did not hesitate to publish material that many people have found ideologically, financially or politically inconvenient, or otherwise objectionable." Sounds like a line from a favourable eulogy to me.

It isn't: I wrote it. Paul Magnussen 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

It paints him as the brave independent scholar, is that really so obvious? Quite a lot of people see him as a despicable racist, after all, so I should think that description depends on you Point Of View.

Encyclopædias are concerned with facts, not popularity contests. If you know of a statement of Eysenck's that qualifies him as a despicable racist, please quote it, and the source. Meanwhile, here is a statement of his that seems to bear on what you're saying:

A ‘racist’, to me, is one who views other races with hatred, distrust and dislike; one who wishes to subordinate them and keep them in an inferior position. An ‘egalitarian’, to me, is one who feels friendly to other races, likes their members and feels favourably inclined towards them, one who has no wish to appear in a superior position towards them, or dominate them in any way. These attitudes are not logically related to a demonstration that different racial groups are, or are not, innately equal with respect to psychological abilities, personality traits, temperamental characteristics, motivational indices, or what not; I am not a racist for believing it possible that negroes may have special innate gifts for certain athletic events, such as sprints, or for certain musical forms of expression; I am not a racist for taking seriously the empirical demonstration that Maoris are superior on tests of verbal fluency to whites. Nor am I a racist for seriously considering the possibility that the demonstrated inferiority of American negroes on tests of intelligence may, in part, be due to genetic causes; I would be a racialist if I did not consider very seriously, and without bias, all alternative hypotheses suggested to account for the observed facts, or if I deduced from the facts such conclusions as that segregation was justified.

(from Race, Intelligence and Education, p.11) Paul Magnussen 19:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Eugenicist qualifies as despicable by me, and the British Eugenics Society was undoubtedly racist. -v

“undoubtedly”?

‘I agree that the only reasonable thing is to be noncommittal on the race question — that’s not the central issue, and it would be a great mistake to be sidetracked into all the emotional upsets that go on in discussions of racial differences. We should be quite careful to dissociate eugenics from it — eugenics’ real concern should be with individual differences.’ (Raymond Cattell, Interview in ‘The Eugenics Bulletin’).

If you so choose, you’re free to believe that Hitler endorsed eugenics, therefore endorsing eugenics automatically makes someone a Nazi; just as you’re free to believe that Mussolini ate spaghetti, therefore eating spaghetti automatically makes someone a Fascist. But none of this has anything to do with a Misplaced Pages article on H.J. Eysenck, beyond the fairly uninteresting historical datum of what names he was called by people whose preferred mode of debate is name-calling. Paul Magnussen 22:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

"Eysenck was not shy, in later work, of giving attention to parapsychology and astrology." Again, the brave frontiersman. Since when was "not shy" appropriate for an encyclopedia? Vintermann 10:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a big difference between being a racist and being open to differences between races based on scientific evidence. Which was what Eysenck basically was criticised for. However, his views on this were notably changed by the end of his life, but his view that one should support anything that was found in a scientific matter never changed. Even if it was against the public opinion. This is the main theme of his autobiography. --218.215.9.135 02:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that the piece about the sensation-seeking scale really belongs here. This was, surely, the work of Zuckerman rather than Eysenck. Indeed, along with Costa and McCrae, Zuckerman may be seen as a major rival to Eysenck. His "Alternative Five" model of personality is a different model to Eysenck's P-E-N model. Cardamom 195.93.21.1 17:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I am relative newcomer to Wikipaedia, so was not quite sure how to put in sub-headings. I now see that this can be done putting in the appropriate number of equals signs, as explained elsewhere in Wikipaedia. I also see that placing tildes is an easy way to sign your contributions.195.93.21.1 17:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Eugenics Society

The British Eugenics Society awarded me with a grant for research I did on the Inheritance of Neuroticism. Neither Eysenck nor I were "racist" individuals. We were both in search of "truth". By the way, Hans Eysenck was by far the brightest individual I have ever know during the 84 years of my lifetime. Sirswindon (talk) 20:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)SirSwindon

Eysenck assaulted?

From Race and intelligence, note #48, referencing Gottfredson, L. S. (2005). “Suppressing intelligence research: Hurting those we intend to help”, N. A. Cummings Destructive trends in mental health: The well-intentioned path to harm. New York: Taylor and Francis. ISBN.

"Gottfredson 2005a summarizes the history of harassment and violence in this area: ... 'Eysenck, for example, physically assaulted by protesters during a public lecture at the London School of Economics.' " -- This sort of experience is hardly usual for scientists and is therefore worthy of note. Can anyone who knows something about this incident please add a line or two about it to the article? Thanks. -- 201.78.233.162 16:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There's an eye-witness account in Race, Intelligence and Bias in Academe by Roger Pearson (2nd edition, Scott-Townsend (1997), ISBN 1-878465-23-6), pp.34–38. It's too long to summarise easily. Paul Magnussen (talk) 22:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Conversion therapy

I have undone the insertion of the section on conversion therapy, pending further discussion, as unsubstantiated.

This section was based on the allegations one one gay gentleman; the fact that the allegations were made is substantiated by the references given, but their content is not. However, the allegations are (in that revision) presented as fact, despite the hostility manifested by the term "psycho-Nazi".

By contrast, I refer to pp.194–195 of Eysenck's Fact and Fiction in Psychology (Penguin, 1965)):

'I cannot pretend to be devoid of feelings of revulsion for homosexual practices, but equally I cannot feel that these feelings of mine should necessaraily form the basis for other people's conduct. As long as no public harm is done, it does not indeed seem right to punish people for deviations from the normal sexual patteern, which are either inherited and, therefore, outside their control, or initiated in public schools, in the army, or in prison, under conditions for which the homosexual himself can hardly be held responsible. Indeed, it would seem wrong for society to condemn the homosexual but to do nothing about the breeding grounds of homosexual practices.

Neither am I very much impressed by the argument about national decadence. From the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the reign of Queen Victoria, the English were a byword on the Continent for their strong homosexual tendencies. At the same time, however, England was becoming the most powerful country in the world.'

Paul Magnussen (talk) 16:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Mainstream Science on Intelligence

I have reverted an edit to this section by WeijiBaikeBianji which contained the rationale: the article "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" makes no specific mention of the book The Bell Curve.

The Bell Curve is mentioned in the first sentence! (see reproduction given in its Misplaced Pages entry.)

Furthermore, in his book Intelligence: A New Look (ISBN 1-56000-360-X), P.213, Eysenck explicitly states: "The document was drafted to set the record straight after the media's onslaught on the Herrnstein and Murray Book "The Bell Curve" ". Paul Magnussen (talk) 21:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I added references for Eysenck's views of the book The Bell Curve.

Since 2006, this article included boilerplate text referring to all 52 of the signatories of the statement "Mainstream Science on Intelligence. Several of the signers are living persons, and the boilerplate paragraph was not accurate in regard to all of them. I looked up Eysenck's personal views, adding references, and updated the paragraph. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit war over Eysenck's nationality

In view of the recent flurry of edits over Eysenck's nationality, I have asked his son Darren to clarify the matter. His reply (11 April 2011) in full:

"My dad was definitely British of German origin. He became naturalised in the thirties."

Since there were only a few months left in the thirties when war broke out, and since a German would presumably not be allowed to take British nationality during the war, this indicates that Hans Eysenck took British nationality before WWII. I hope this settles it. Paul Magnussen (talk) 18:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that this (obviously good faith) recollection does settle it. My own father fought in the British forces in WWII, but I would not necessarily assume that I knew details of his life in the 1930s, or of his army career during the war, though he often told us stories of Normandy. Contrary to the view that Eysenck was already naturalised, in his autobiography, he (Eysenck) writes:

Eysenck makes it clear that he was an "enemy alien" and a German in the early part of the war, at least. He explicitly states that he had not been in Britain long enough to qualify for naturalisation. (I think that at least five years of residence would have been required.) I'm not sure why you think this is a major issue, though, or even an issue at all. He was clearly an anti-Nazi (which is perhaps important in the light of later attacks on his character) and was apparently allowed to go free in London at an extremely sensitive time.

Eysenck also states that he was not British in 1940:

I can find no evidence for your suggestion that naturalisation was suspended during the war. My best guess is that Eysenck became a British subject during the 1940s or early 50s. In the end, though, what does it matter? His views on the subject of national identity are ones with which I can completely relate:

Time to tune into Wallander on BBC 4 (Swedish with English subtitles) by VPN from UTC-07 to Bournemouth. Boppet (talk) 04:51, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Good points. Possibly the naturalisation paperwork still exists somewhere — if anyone cares enough to find it. Paul Magnussen (talk) 16:06, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Later work: paranormal abilities

In the paragraph "Eysenck's later work" the sentences

"Despite this strongly scientific interest, Eysenck did not shy, in later work, from giving attention to parapsychology and astrology. Indeed, he believed that empirical evidence supported the existence of paranormal abilities."

have the reference which leads to: "Eysenck, H.J. (1957), Sense and Nonsense in Psychology. London: Pelican Books. p. 131."

So the only source for beliefs he supposedly expressed in his "later work" is one of his first books, published in 1957.

In my opinion, the corresponding part needs a new source or is to be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.193.156.81 (talk) 12:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Material on Pioneer Fund added by Maunus

This material seems to me to be a) POV, containing phrases such as 'recipients of Pioneer Fund grants reads partly like a "Who's Who" of scientific and political racism', and b) irrelevant, since such comments belong (if anywhere) in the article on the Pioneer Fund and not Eysenck's biography.

• I have attempted to revert this edit, but my revert has been overridden.

• To avoid an edit war, I have therefore requested adjudication by an independent referee. Paul Magnussen (talk) 20:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

You don't need to request adjudication when your change is reverted, you just need to start discussing on the talkpage - you can see how it works in WP:BRD. Also I didn't add the material I readded it after you removed it without giving an explanation here first. It is a fair discussion whether his relation to the pioneer fund is relevant - perhaps it isn't that relevant in the big picture, that will have to be decided based on what reliable sources about him say. I reacted mostly to the way you rephrased and moved the issue so that it no longer made sense. In your phrasing there was no way to know why his relation to the pioneer fund was seen as controversial, because you just called it a fund that does hereditarian research. That is of course not the reason it is controversial - it is controversial because it does hereditarian research of a particular kind and has frequently been described as promoting scientific racism. It makes no sense to mention his controversial relation with the fund and then shy out of saying why it is considered conrtoversial. You also moved the mention of the fund from the section of race and intelligence to the section on tobacco research which makes sense since the fund didn't fund his research on tobacco but on race.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Eugenics

In Intelligence: A New Look, pp 189-194, Eysenck says that he was a member of the council of the Eugenics Society. He strongly defends eugenics and categorically asserts that it has nothing to do with Nazism. Can this be added to the article using that source? There are more references to Eysenck and eugenics, they seem to mainly be from his critics. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Eysenck and the extreme right

The following statements in this section were all unreferenced. Please provide references for all of these before restoring the section:

1) After his Publications about Psychoanalysis and Intelligence, Eysenck became a supporter of the extreme right.

2) Eysenck supported the Far-right Thule Society and published articles in the german newspaper National Zeitung and Nation und Europa.

3) In the National Zeitung he reproached Sigmund Freud for alleged trickiness and lack of frankness by reference to Freud's jewish background.

4) Additionally, he wrote the preface to the book "Das unvergängliche Erbe" by Pierre Krebs, a French author of the extreme right, which was also published by the Thule Society.

5a) Eysenck called the equality of humans an 'untenable ideological doctrine'.

Please provide references for all of these.

5b) Therefore he was criticised as 'racist'.

certainly few would deny that Eysenck was criticised thus, so that may pass.

As to

6) In his Book "Die Ungleichheit der Menschen" pulished in 1989, he argued that "amerikanische Neger" (american negros) are genetically less gifted than whites:

"Die Ungleichheit der Menschen" is merely a German translation of "The Inequality of Man" (Maurice Temple Smith, ISBN 0-8511-7050-1 (UK) or EdITS, ISBN 0-912736-16-X (US)), so a page reference to either of these will suffice.

Furthermore, the terms "extreme right" and "extreme left" have become so confused and emotionally loaded and to become effectively meaningless.

Paul Magnussen (talk) 23:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

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