Talk:Hans Eysenck

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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 who were raised with the idea of America being a Quaker colony

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

Soul Food?

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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 [1]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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 Wikipedia 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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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, [was] 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)[reply]