Book Review: The Life History Approach to Human Differences: A Tribute to J. Philippe Rushton

Abstract

The Life History Approach to Human Differences: A Tribute to J. Philippe Rushton. Helmuth Nyborg (Ed.) Ulster Institute for Social Research 2015, 369 pagesJ. Philippe Rushton (1943-2012) was probably Canada's most controversial academic when he died at the end of 2012. Upon his death, Canadian headlines termed him 'controversial' and one even asserted 'Rushton's Ideas Died with Him.'This book is a testament to the inaccuracy of that assertion. Edited by Danish psychologist Helmuth Nyborg, himself no stranger to the trouble caused when academic research questions politically correct (or at least comforting) dogmas, this book brings together a series of essays by academic supporters of Rushton originally published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. These are preceded by an interview with Rushton, conducted by Nyborg and originally published in that journal, and Nyborg's obituary of Rushton.From these two sources, we learn that Rushton was born in Bournemouth, but his parents emigrated first to South Africa and then to Canada. Rushton returned to the UK to do a degree in psychology at Birkbeck and then a PhD on the subject of altruism in children at the London School of Economics. However, he first caught the limelight in 1989, by now working at Canada's University of Western Ontario. At a conference in that year, at which the media were present, he advanced his 'Life History Approach to Human Differences' which gives this book its title. The interview and obituary are very informative, though a little more information would have been useful. For example, what was the cause of Rushton's death? Nyborg states that Rushton died 'from Addison's disease' but it is rare to die from this and complications caused by it are a more likely reason. In addition, the interview reveals that Rushton did not receive his BSc until he was 27. This is most unusual in the UK and Canada. It would be fascinating to know what was behind this delay.Underpinning Rushton's argument, note Nyborg and other contributors to this volume, was the notion of r/K selection, a theoretical framework that had been developed in ecology before Rushton applied it to humans. It says that in an unpredictable though plentiful environment, animals will follow an r-strategy, a life history. In this context, it pays to have as many progeny as possible as fast as possible while the good times last, investing little in individual offspring and even one's own bodily maintenance. At the opposite end of the spectrum are K-strategists, slow life history strategists. If an environment is stable but harsh then the maximum carrying capacity for the species will be reached and members of the species will start competing against each other. The ones more likely to win this competition will be bigger, stronger, healthier, more cooperative, and more experienced. So K-strategists invest less energy in producing a large number of offspring and more in caring for the few they do produce, so that these are more likely to survive and are more successful in adapting to the environment. In this context, it pays to live life more slowly. It is a quality-versus-quantity tradeoff. Rushton's major innovation, so argue the scholars in this essay collection, was to extend this model to humans, something Rushton called 'Differential K.'In essence, he argued that what he called 'Negroids' were the most r-selected race, 'Mongoloids' were the least and 'Caucasians' were intermediate, though closer to 'Mongoloids.' This was entirely congruous with the differing nature of their ancestral environments and he marshaled a huge amount of evidence to prove this, in terms of race differences in personality, speed of development, twinning and many other variables.The result, in 1989, was outrage. The newspapers condemned him as racist as did many academics, outraged campaigners stormed his department and scrawled graffiti on his door, the governor of his province looked into prosecuting him but eventually declared him 'looney but not criminal,' and he had to appeal, successfully, against an unsatisfactory rating on his research. …