Academics have clashed over a journal paper that explores the idea that intelligence might be linked to race.
Mark Alfano, who holds academic posts at Sydney’s Macquarie University and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, launched a petition last month that calls for the leadership of the journal Philosophical Psychology to resign, apologise or retract an article written by Nathan Cofnas, a doctoral student at the University of Oxford.
The paper, published in December, considers how society might need to respond differently if, “in a very short time”, science concludes that some races are more intelligent than others.
The default position of social sciences and philosophy, which “ignores or rejects” evidence of racial differences, could lead to “unintended consequences” that might harm minority groups, Mr Cofnas contends.
An editors’ note attached to the paper acknowledges that the article “certainly adopts provocative positions on a host of issues related to race, genetics, and IQ”, but says its inclusion was based on “philosophical and scientific merit, rather than ideological conformity”.
Professor Alfano got into a Twitter spat with Mr Cofnas, in which he said he wanted to ruin his “reputation permanently and deservedly” after the PhD student called him a “sad, pathetic man”. “You’re about to learn why people generally avoid fucking with me,” added Professor Alfano.
Speaking to Times Higher Education, Professor Alfano said his actions were justified in light of Mr Cofnas’ “repugnant” policy suggestions.
The conclusion that the government should “devote money to programmes that are tailored to the strengths of different groups…is obviously just code for racially segregated education”, Professor Alfano said, claiming that the “reasoning backing Cofnas’ suggestions [was] argumentatively very weak” and adding that the article contained “obvious and egregious errors”.
“This is not simply a matter of dislike or disagreement,” he continued, saying that “that framing is a bit like saying that epidemiologists dislike or disagree with the conclusions drawn by anti-vaxxers”. It was “quite a stretch to say that I’m part of some sort of ill-defined ‘cancel culture’”, Professor Alfano said.
However, Mr Cofnas told THE that his paper did not mention segregation, which was a “totally unrelated idea” to his argument.
“I am aware that this is an emotional issue and some people are not happy with addressing it,” he said.
But the failure to tackle it meant that “when evidence does come”, society would not be prepared to rebut the positions developed by white supremacist theorists, Mr Cofnas said.
