Gerhard Meisenberg

Gerhard Meisenberg is a German biochemist. As of 2018, he was a professor of physiology and biochemistry at Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica.[2][1] He is a director, with Richard Lynn, of the Pioneer Fund, which has been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[3] He was, until 2018 or 2019, the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, which the SPLC has described as a "racist journal".[4][5][6]

Gerhard Meisenberg
Gerhard Meisenberg (2018)
NationalityGerman
CitizenshipGerman
Alma materUniversity of Bochum (M.Sc), University of Munich (Ph.D)[1]
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry
InstitutionsRoss University School of Medicine (c. 1984 – c. 2018)[2][1]
Thesis (1981)

Meisenberg was on the editorial board for the journal Intelligence until late 2018.[3][7]:79 Geneticist Daniel MacArthur, writing for Wired, described a letter Meisenberg sent to Nature as advocating for the future use of selective breeding or genetic engineering if group genetic differences in intelligence are found.[8] Meisenberg attended and helped organize the London Conference on Intelligence.[7]:81[9] He was one of fifteen attendees who contributed to a defense of the conference published in Intelligence.[10]

Research

Meisenberg has proposed a model of economic development in nations that attempts to predict future development based on historical trends in intelligence, education and economic growth.[11] Meisenberg has also studied the possible dysgenic effect in intelligence, due to a claimed negative relationship between fertility and intelligence,[12] Meisenberg argues that in Western society, this trend was delayed by religious prohibitions against contraception, allowing positive selection for intelligence to continue up until the industrial revolution.[13]

Science journalist Angela Saini, in an opinion for The Guardian, has said that Meisenberg's views on race and intelligence are "unsupported by evidence" and "generally receive little to no attention from within the everyday scientific community".[4]

Meisenberg wrote and paid to publish the 2007 book In God's Image: The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics, explaining Meisenberg's claims regarding how genotype determines both physiology and behavior. Evolutionary biologist and historian R. Paul Thompson, for The Quarterly Review of Biology, described the book as well written, but based on unsupported generalizations, saying "the overall program of the book [is] too extreme, too ideologically driven, and too biologically and anthropologically unsophisticated."[14] Anthropologist Jonathan M. Marks, for the International Journal of Primatology, criticized both the underlying premise of the work, and Meisenberg's "uncritical and cavalier approach" to the topic. Marks compared the book with those by J. Philippe Rushton and Immanuel Velikovsky.[15]

Books

  • Meisenberg, Gerhard; Simmons, William H. (2016). Principles of Medical Biochemistry (4 ed.). Elsevier. ISBN 9780323296168.
  • Meisenberg, Gerhard (2007). In God's Image: The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics. Sussex: Book Guild Publishing. ISBN 9781846240553.

References

  1. As of July 2018, Meisenberg was listed as faculty one Ross University's website:
    "Gerhard Meisenberg". medical.rossu.edu. Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
    As of May 2019, he was no longer listed.
  2. Schoenberger, Chana R. (14 May 2001). "Palm Tree M.D.s". Forbes. Retrieved 8 May 2019. Biochemist Gerhard Meisenberg, a 17-year veteran...
  3. Van der Merwe, Ben (19 February 2018). "It might be a pseudo science, but students take the threat of eugenics seriously". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 5 May 2019. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  4. Saini, Angela (22 January 2018). "Racism is creeping back into mainstream science – we have to stop it". the Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  5. Ward, Justin (12 March 2018). "Wikipedia wars: inside the fight against far-right editors, vandals and sock puppets". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  6. As of October 2018, Meisenberg was listed as editor on the journal's website: Archived 22 October 2018
    As of March 2019, he had been replaced by Edward Dutton: Archived 28 March 2019
  7. Saini, Angela (2019). Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press. ISBN 9780807076910. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  8. Macarthur, Daniel (2009-03-12). "Race and intelligence: the debate continues". WIRED. Retrieved 2017-09-06.
  9. Busby, Eleanor (2 May 2019). "Cambridge college sacks academic over links to far-right extremists". The Independent. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  10. Woodley of Menie, Michael A.; Dutton, Edward; Figueredo, Aurelio-José; Carl, Noah; Debes, Fróði; Hertler, Steven; Irwing, Paul; Kura, Kenya; Lynn, Richard; Madison, Guy; Meisenberg, Gerhard; Miller, Edward M.; te Nijenhuis, Jan; Nyborg, Helmuth; Rindermann, Heiner (September 2018). "Communicating intelligence research: Media misrepresentation, the Gould Effect, and unexpected forces". Intelligence. 70: 84–87. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2018.04.002.
  11. Rindermann, H. (2018). Cognitive Capitalism: Human Capital and the Wellbeing of Nations. Cambridge University Press. pp. 410–412.
  12. Dutton, Edward; Woodley, Michael A. (2018). At Our Wits' End: Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What It Means for the Future. Societas. pp. 90–91, 96–97.
  13. Dutton and Woodley 2018, pp. 179-180.
  14. Thompson, Paul (June 2008). "Reviewed Work: In God's Image: The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics by Gerhard Meisenberg". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 83 (2): 195–196. doi:10.1086/590587.
  15. Marks, Jonathan (2 October 2007). "Gerhard Meisenberg: In God's Image. The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics". International Journal of Primatology. 28 (5): 1189–1190. doi:10.1007/s10764-007-9194-9. S2CID 37983316.
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