C-FAR #314. August, 1997
The Genetic Decline of the West The genetic decline of the populations
of western nations was first recognised in the 1850s and 1860s by Benedict
Morel in France and Francis Galton in England. Neither seems to have known
of the work of the other, but they arrived independently at the same conclusion
that contemporary populations were undergoing "retrogressive evolution"
in respect of health, intelligence and moral character. Both Morel and
Galton identified the cause of this deterioration as lying in the relaxation
of natural selection. Normally in human and animal populations, natural
selection eliminates the unfit, allowing the more fit to survive. The survival
of the fittest keeps the population genetically sound by weeding out genetically
unfit individuals, rather in the same way as a gardener keeps a garden
in good order by constantly removing the weeds. When it is working properly,
natural selection in human populations has two strings to its bow. With
the first it inflicts high mortality and with the second it imposes low
fertility on those with genetic disorders, poor intelligence and weak moral
character. Morel and Galton perceived that both these strings were failing
in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It was as if the gardener
had quit and the garden was going to seed. Up to this time, natural selection
had worked well in western nations. The populations had the high mortality
and the differential fertility that are needed for natural selection to
operate. Couples typically had six or seven children, but among the population
as a whole an average of only a little over two survived to adulthood.
High death rates tended to eliminate the unfit, the unintelligent and those
with weak moral character because they were more vulnerable to death from
disease and from their own inability to survive. Natural selection also
operated by the more healthy, the more intelligent and those with strong
moral character having higher fertility. The principal reason for this
was that people with these qualities are more efficient at earning a living
and this meant that they were better fed and more fertile. Another factor
was that there were strong social controls preventing those lacking these
qualities from having children. If they did have children there was no
welfare state to provide for them. They were generally put into foundling
homes, where most of them died. It was a harsh world, but it served the
purpose of keeping the population genetically sound. It was in the middle
decades of the nineteenth century that the force of natural selection against
the unfit began to weaken. It weakened first against those with poor health
largely as a result of improvements in sewage disposal and the provision
of pure drinking water, which reduced deaths among the unhealthy from infectious
diseases. In the present century natural selection against those with poor
health has been further weakened by medical progress in the treatment of
genetic disorders and diseases. Advances in surgery have enabled those
to live who would formerely have died. The first important advance was
made in 1912 with the development of surgical treatment for pyloric stenosis,
a genetic defect of the narrowing of the stomach which prevents food being
ingested. Later in the century, surgical organ transplants have made it
possible to preserve the lives of those with a variety of genetic defects.
In addition, successful treatments have been found for a large number of
genetic disorders such as hemophilia, diabetes, phenylketonuria, cystic
fibrosis and many others. The development of these treatments has enabled
many with these disorders to live to adulthood and have children, to some
of whom they pass their defective genes. The result of the medical progress
is that the prevalence of many of these disorders is doubling or tripling
in every generation. We are also experiencing genetic deterioration in
respect of intelligence. In previous centuries, when there was high child
mortality, the children who died would have tended to be less intelligent.
This was partly because the unintelligent are not so good at looking after
themselves, and even today the unintelligent have higher mortality from
disease and accidents than the intelligent. Another reason was that the
unintelligent children have unintelligent parents, who are less competent
at looking after them. Even today, in the modern welfare state, infant
and child mortality is substantially higher among children of unintelligent
parents than among those of the more intelligent. However, the major factor
responsible for an increase in the numbers of the unintelligent has been
the development of modern forms of contraception. This began in the 1870s
with the invention and mass marketing of the latex condom and has been
followed by the development of further contraceptives such as the intro-uterine
device and the pill. Once these modern contraceptives became available,
it was inevitable that they would be used more efficiently by the intelligent
than by the unintelligent. The result of this has been that the intelligent
began to have fewer children. This trend started in the second half of
the last century and has persisted up to the present day. We know from
twin and adoption studies that intelligence is partly under genetic control.
This means that there are genes for high intelligence and for low intelligence.
Once those with low intelligence started to have more children, and those
children no longer died in significant numbers in childhood, the genes
for low intelligence increased in the population and the number of genes
for high intelligence fell.The result of this has been a genetic deterioration
of intelligence among western populations.The conclusion reached by Morel
and Galton that the intelligence of western populations is deteriorating
was examined by a number of biological and social scientists early in the
twentieth century. Several attempts were made to determine the extent of
this deterioration. This was done by measuring the intelligence of representative
samples of the population at two points in time. Studies of this kind produced
the surprising result that the expected decline had not taken place. On
the contrary, it was found that intelligence as measured by intelligence
tests has actually been increasing in western populations throughout most
of the twentieth century. There is not as yet any agreed explanation for
this increase. Some believe that there has only been an improvement of
test taking skills. Others maintain that the increase is genuine and has
been brought about by improvements in nutrition, education or various kinds
of cognitive stimulation from TV, books and the like. Whatever the explanation,
it seems that the deterioration of the genetic quality of western populations
in respect of intelligence has been compensated for several decades by
environmental improvements. This compensation cannot be expected to continue
indefinitely. At some point, the impact of the environmental improvements
will peter out and intelligence will begin to decline. The best available
estimate of the rate of this decline is that it will be about one IQ point
per generation. The third respect in which modern populations are deteriorating
is moral character. This broad trait comprises self discipline, the motivation
to work for long term goals, law abidingness and a sense of civic responsibility.
It is conspicuously lacking in criminals and in the underclass with its
sociopathic value system. Moral character has a genetic basis. This has
been established by twin studies, which have shown that identical twins
separated shortly after birth and reared in different families are quite
similar in respect of their moral character, showing that a genetic determination
is involved. In addition, it has been found that adopted children resemble
their biological parents more closely than their adoptive parents, showing
that moral character is transmitted genetically from parents to children.
From the last decades of the nineteenth century those with weak moral character
have had more children than those in whom moral character is strong. There
are various ways in which this has been shown. For instance, male criminals
have about 70 per cent more children than the law abiding population, while
among females in the United States in the first half of the 1990s high
school dropouts had an average of 2.6 children as compared with only 1.8
for American women as a whole. The principal explanation for the high fertility
of those with weak moral character is the same as the reason for the high
fertility of the unintelligent, namely their inefficient use of contraception.
Once modern methods of contraception became available, it was inevitable
that they would be used more effectively by those with strong moral character
because they are more conscientious and responsible, just as it was inevitable
that contraception would be used more effectively by the intelligent because
they are more efficient. Thus, the development of modern contraception
produced the inevitability of genetic deterioration in respect of both
intelligence and moral character. Because weak moral character is transmitted
through families, the high fertility of those with weak moral character
should have led to an increase in their numbers in the population. This
has certainly occurred. One expression of this is the increase in crime
which has taken place in the last half century throughout the economically
developed world. Another is the increase of the underclass which, defined
as able bodied long term unemployed men, has approximately doubled in the
United States from the early 1960s up to the present. Similar rises have
taken place in Europe. Yet another is the increase of single mothers living
on welfare, up in the United States from 2.5 per cent of all the female
population in 1960 to 10 per cent in 1990. All these rises are due partly
to an increase in th numbers of those with a genetically based impoverished
moral character, although this is not to say that other factors, such as
the increasingly generous welfare support, have not also played a part.
The genetic deterioration of western nations poses serious problems. The
increase in the numbers of those with genetic disorders who can be successfully
treated raises the cost of medical provision. The decline of intelligence
will produce a deterioration in the quality of our civilisation. Intelligence
is a major determinant of the effectiveness with which jobs are performed.
As intelligence declines there will be fewer people with high IQs to maintain
standards in the arts and sciences, the professions and business, and fewer
with good average IQs to carry out routine skilled jobs such as those of
the plumber and the electrician. At the same time, there will be increasing
numbers of those whose intelligence is too low for useful employment. No
less serious is the problem of deteriorating moral character. It will bring
about an increasingly immoral society. Crime will continue to grow. Standards
of honesty and integrity in national life will decline. The smooth functioning
of the economy and of social relationships depends on trust and will be
impaired as the moral foundations of public and private relationships are
eroded. All this was foreseen by Francis Galton, who wrote in 1869 in his
Hereditary Genius that in a mature civilisation, like our own, "there
is a steady check upon the fertility of the abler classes; the improvident
and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up the breed. So the race gradually
deteriorates, becoming in each successive generation less fit for a high
civilisation." In the first half of the twentieth century Galton's
view was endorsed by a large number of biological and social scientists.
As recently as the 1960s the problem was restated by William Shockley,
the Nobel prizewinner in physics. Shockley coined the word "dysgenics"
for this retrogressive evolution and urged that it needed wider recognition
and discussion of how it could be overcome. However, Shockley's warnings
went unheeded and in the last quarter century understanding of the problem
has been lost. It is time to revive public recognition of this serious
threat to the future of our civilisation. -- Richard Lynn, Ph.D ( Dr. Lynn
was professor of psychology at the University of Ulster from 1972 to 1995.
This article is based on his book Dysgenics, published by Praeger.)