Kevin B. MacDonald

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Kevin B. MacDonald (born January 24, 1944 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin ) is an American psychologist . He is a professor emeritus at California State University, Long Beach . He was best known for the thesis that Judaism was shaped by a “group evolutionary strategy”.

MacDonald argues that Ashkenazi Jews have a number of innate personality traits. The evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Steven Pinker criticize MacDonald's work as unscientific and accuse him of anti-Semitism .

biography

MacDonald is the son of a police officer and a secretary. In 1966 he earned a BA in Wisconsin and a Masters in Biology from the University of Connecticut in 1976 . In 1981 he obtained a Ph. D. in behavioral biology , his doctoral supervisor was Benson E. Ginsburg. His work dealt with behavior development in wolves.

As a post-graduate student , he worked with Ross Parke in 1983 in the Psychology Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . His research focused on parent-child interactions while playing. Since 1983 he has been a member of the Department of Psychology at California State University - Long Beach and has been a professor there since 1995. MacDonald was a member of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society from 1995 to 2001 .

MacDonald appeared as a witness for Holocaust denier David Irving in an ultimately dismissed libel suit against historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books . As a witness, MacDonald took the view that Irving's book had been rejected by the publisher not because of its scientific shortcomings, but rather under pressure from “various Jewish ethno-activist organizations”, “newspaper columnists” and “people like Deborah Lipstadt”.

MacDonald is editor of the "anti-Semitic" criticized US online publication Occidental Observer .

Judaism as a collective evolutionary strategy

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In the USA, MacDonald is known for a trilogy that tries to interpret Judaism and Jewish culture in terms of evolutionary psychology: A People That Shall Dwell Alone (1994, “A people who should stay among themselves”), Separation and Its Discontents (1998, “Demarcation and dissatisfaction ”) and The Culture of Critique (1998,“ The Culture of Criticism ”). MacDonald argues that Judaism is the evolutionary strategy of a group that enables Jews to outperform non-Jews as competitors for resources in certain areas. By the term Jewish ethnocentrism he means that the “Jewish race” in Jews promotes a number of special genetic abilities, such as above-average verbal intelligence and a strong tendency towards collective behavior.

criticism

The biochemist Jeff Schatz has accused him of politically abusing his work. John Tooby , president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society and professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, accuses MacDonald of anti-Semitism, claiming that MacDonald's ideas are "in radical contradiction to almost every core claim of evolutionary psychology ." The psychologist Steven Pinker explains that MacDonald's theses are absurd ad hominem attacks that clearly contradict the state of scientific research.

Books and monographs

  • MacDonald, KB: Understanding Jewish Influence: A Study in Ethnic Activism , with an Introduction by Samuel Francis , ( Occidental Quarterly November, 2004) ISBN 1-59368-017-1
  • Burgess, RL & MacDonald, KB (Eds.): Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development, 2nd ed., (Sage 2004) ISBN 0-7619-2790-5
  • MacDonald, KB: The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements , (Praeger 1998) ISBN 0-275-96113-3 ( Preface online )
  • MacDonald, KB: Separation and Its Discontents Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism , (Praeger 1998) ISBN 0-275-94870-6
  • MacDonald, KB: A People That Shall Dwell Alone: ​​Judaism As a Group Evolutionary Strategy, With Diaspora Peoples , (Praeger 1994) ISBN 0-595-22838-0
  • MacDonald, KB (ed.): Parent-child play: Descriptions and Implications . (State University of New York Press 1993)
  • MacDonald, KB (Ed.): Sociobiological Perspectives on Human Development , (Springer-Verlag 1988)
  • MacDonald, KB: Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis (Plenum 1988)

Web links

MacDonald's website

critic

Libel process

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. the statements of John Tooby and Steven Pinker
  2. ↑ MacDonald, KB, and Ginsburg, BE (1981). Induction of normal behavior in wolves with restricted rearing. Behavioral and Neural Biology, 33, 133-162
  3. ↑ MacDonald, KB (1983). Development and stability of personality characteristics in prepubertal wolves. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 97, 99-106
  4. ↑ MacDonald, KB, & Parke, RD (1984). Bridging the gap: Parent-child play interactions and peer interactive competence. Child Development, 55, 1265-1277;
  5. ↑ MacDonald, KB, & Parke, RD (1986). Parent-child physical play: The effects of sex and age of children and parents. Sex Roles, 15, 367-378, 1986;
  6. ↑ MacDonald, KB (1987). Parent-child physical play with rejected, neglected and popular boys. Developmental Psychology, 23, 705-711.
  7. ↑ According to Richard Lynn , "IQ and the Wealth of Nations", and Phil Rushton, a friend of MacDonald.
  8. ↑ http://www.hnet.org/~antis/papers/dl/macdonald_schatz_02.html
  9. ↑ John Tooby's statement
  10. ↑ Pinker's statement
personal data
SURNAME MacDonald, Kevin B.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American evolutionary psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Oshkosh (Wisconsin)