Saturday, November 30, 2013

Does Nyborg's study make sense?


 
Immigrants to Denmark come largely from the Muslim world, where fertility rates are converging to the European norm. In the future, most immigrants will come from sub-Saharan Africa, where the fertility decline has stalled and has actually reversed in some countries. (source)
 

My last post dealt with Helmuth Nyborg’s study and the decision by the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty to have it deleted from the scientific literature. Please note: this is not about barring a study from publication. That happens all the time. This is about removing a study that has already been published.

Let me now turn to the study itself. What do I think? Does it make sense?

First, I seldom see a paper I fully agree with. Something usually seems wrong. Often, the authors overstate their case, out of enthusiasm or fear of being ignored. This is normal, and the only way to learn the whole truth is to encourage others to speak up and provide their views.

But, yes, Nyborg’s study does make sense, if only because his population projection holds true regardless of how imperfect his data may be. The result is overdetermined. If a population opens up its territory to immigration while having below-replacement fertility, it will eventually become a minority within its own borders. The actual timeline may be unsure. Things may happen slower or faster than predicted. But the end result is a sure thing.

Of course, immigration might stop. And Danish fertility might return to replacement level. But such an eventuality will not happen unassisted. It will come about through deliberate changes to public policy. And that will happen only through free debate—the very thing that Nyborg’s critics apparently wish to prevent.

So please let me state what I think, at the risk of being likewise erased from the scientific literature. 

Nyborg’s model: fertility rates and birth rates

Clearly, Danes are below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman (the figure was 1.73 in 2012). And since their mean age is rising, their birth rate is falling despite a constant fertility rate. Fewer and fewer Danish women are of childbearing age.

Meanwhile, immigrants to Denmark have a rising birth rate because they increasingly come from high-fertility societies in the Muslim world and sub-Saharan Africa. Nyborg thus argues that their natural increase will eventually overtake immigration as the main impetus for Denmark’s population growth: “Whereas 72% of growth in 2010 was due to new immigration, by 2072 more than three quarters of further growth will be driven by the higher fertility of non-Western immigrants” (Nyborg, 2011).

Nyborg’s model assumes that the immigrant birth rate will remain high. Yet this is already less and less true, as shown by a Statistics Denmark study in 2010:

The fertility rate has fallen among immigrants of non-Western background and is now flush with the fertility rate among women of Danish background. [...] For many years, immigrants born in non-Western countries had far more children than women of Danish origin. In 1993 immigrants born in non-Western countries had 3.4 children on average, while Danish women gave birth to 1.7 children on average. The fertility rates have since converged, and in 2009 both immigrants from non-Western countries and Danish women gave birth on average to 1.9 children, according to figures from Statistics Denmark. (Nielsen, 2010)

While this convergence may reflect assimilation to Danish cultural norms, we should remember that fertility has sharply declined throughout most of the Muslim world, which is Denmark’s leading source of non-Western immigrants.

Of course, despite this convergence of fertility rates, the birth rate will still be higher among women of non-Western origin because they are younger on average. And, unless the immigration tap is turned off, they will be continually joined by immigrant women who are drawn disproportionately from the childbearing age bracket. Nonetheless, even if immigration continues unabated, this factor will lose importance as the community of non-Western origin grows larger and larger. Over time, the birth rates of both communities should converge, just as their fertility rates have already converged. This point was actually made by Nyborg’s critics. So his model may be too pessimistic.

Or maybe not. Although Nyborg’s model took into account the current shift toward non-Western sources of immigration, it did not allow for the likelihood that non-Western immigrants will increasingly come from sub-Saharan Africa. While fertility rates have fallen sharply throughout most of the Muslim world, there has been little or no decline in most of sub-Saharan Africa (see previous post). In some countries, like Somalia, fertility rates are actually rising. This trend has been noted in the latest UN population projections:

In the new revision, the estimated total fertility rate (TFR) for 2005-2010 has increased in several countries, including by more than 5 per cent in 15 high-fertility countries from sub-Saharan Africa. In some cases, the actual level of fertility appears to have risen in recent years; in other cases, the previous estimate was too low. (United Stations, 2013, p. 2) 

[…] Between 2013 and 2100, the populations of 35 countries, most of them LDCs, could triple or more. Among them, the populations of Burundi, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia are projected to increase at least five-fold by 2100. (United Nations, 2013, p. 5)

In any case, Nyborg’s predictions will come true even if the immigrant birth rate converges to the Danish norm. The immigrant community will expand through immigration alone. And the ethnic Danish community will shrink once its deaths begin to outnumber its births. One group will replace the other.

Nyborg’s model and IQ

Human populations differ statistically in mean IQ. We can argue why this is so. Genetics? Poor upbringing? Racism? Whatever the reason, these differences exist. The only real debate is whether they will persist over time or gradually disappear as the immigrant community assimilates and becomes increasingly Danish-born. Some observers see this problem as a generational one. The older immigrants may be too set in their ways, but their children should turn out all right.

Intelligence does seem to be more malleable in children than in adults. If one intervenes early enough, differences in cognitive ability should therefore be erased, and these equal outcomes should persist into adulthood. This was the thinking behind the Head Start Program, which provides American 3 and 4 year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds with early educational training. Unfortunately, even its proponents have concluded that the IQ benefits fade away and are usually gone by Grade 2. Longer-term benefits tend to be non-IQ-related, such as a greater willingness to stay in school and comply with the school regimen. Moreover, all of these improvements tend to be larger and longer-lasting in white children than in black children, even when the white children are initially more disadvantaged (Wikipedia 2013).

Do these different outcomes reflect the different family and community environments of white and black children? This is the currently favored explanation: no matter how poor a white child may be, he or she benefits from a society that allocates fewer resources to black families and black communities. The IQ gap will thus disappear only when white and black children share the same resources.

The most radical solution would be to raise black and white children together in the same households. Yet even that kind of environment fails to eliminate the IQ gap. This was the finding of the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study —a longitudinal study of black, biracial, and white children adopted into white middle-class Minnesotan families, as well as the biological children of the same families (Levin, 1994; Lynn, 1994; Scarr and Weinberg, 1976; Weinberg,Scarr, and Waldman, 1992). IQ was measured when the adopted children were on average 7 years old and the biological children on average 10 years old. They were tested again ten years later:

Test ------------------ 1st --- 2nd 

Black children ----- 97 ---  89
Biracial children - 109 ---  99
White children --- 112 --- 106 (adopted)
White children --- 117 --- 109 (biological)

Between the two tests, all four groups showed a decline in mean IQ that may or may not have been due to changes in testing and norms. On both tests, however, the differences among the four groups remained unchanged, particularly the 15-point IQ gap between blacks and whites that comes up in one study after another. Whatever it is that causes this gap, it must happen very early in life. In the womb? But how do we explain the poorer showing of the biracial children? They were born overwhelmingly to white mothers.

In sum, early intervention does help, but it helps all children equally. And this benefit seems to fade away in all children as time goes by.

Perhaps there is another explanation. Perhaps, in early humans, learning was just a means of encoding information while a young child is becoming familiar with the world. Once this critical period was over, the brain no longer had to be so malleable and lost its plasticity.  This developmental trajectory then began to take place more slowly in some human populations than in others. Why not? Different populations have to cope with different physical and cultural environments, and some of those environments require more lifelong learning than others. This adult retention of mental plasticity may be analogous to adult retention of lactase (the enzyme that infants use to digest milk) in those populations that have domesticated cattle.

Yes, this is just theorizing. Nothing has been proven. But isn’t the burden of proof on those who seek irrevocable change? In any case, whatever the cause, this IQ gap seems almost intractable. If it cannot even be narrowed in the shared environment of a nice Minnesotan household, how are you going to eliminate it in a country where a native European population has so little in common—culturally, linguistically, and ideologically—with an increasingly African immigrant community?

Closing thoughts

One other thing bothers me. So please let me say it.

Why must the Danes prove that they deserve to keep their country to themselves? Isn’t that a basic right? They have only one land to call home … unlike the many “refugees” who regularly visit their own homelands. Once the Danes lose majority status in their country, they’ll be like the Copts of Egypt and other minorities in this world. They’ll have to live by their wits, trying to balance off one potential enemy against another. 

I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, let alone on the Danes.


References 

Levin, M. (1994). Comment on the Minnesota transracial adoption study, Intelligence, 19, 13-20.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0160289694900493 

Lynn, R. (1994). Some reinterpretations of the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, Intelligence, 19, 21-27.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0160289694900507 

Nielsen, J.B. (2010). Indvandrerkvinder og danske kvinder føder lige mange børn, July 27, Kristeligt Dagblad.
http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/artikel/374994:Danmark--Indvandrerkvinder-og-danske-kvinder-foeder-lige-mange-boern 

Nyborg, H. (2011). The decay of Western civilization: Double relaxed Darwinian Selection. Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 118-125.
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/da/wp-content/uploads/Helmuth-nyborg-2011-the-decay-of-western-civilization-double-relaxed-darwinian-selection1.pdf 

Scarr, S., and Weinberg, R.A. (1976). IQ test performance of Black children adopted by White families, American Psychologist, 31, 726-739.
http://www.kjplanet.com/amp-31-10-726.pdf 

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2013). World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision, Key Findings and Advance Tables. Working Paper No. ESA/P/WP.227.
http://esa.un.org/wpp/Documentation/pdf/WPP2012_%20KEY%20FINDINGS.pdf 

Weinberg, R.A., Scarr, S., and Waldman, I.D. (1992). The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: A follow-up of IQ test performance at adolescence. Intelligence, 16, 117-135.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016028969290028P 

Wikipedia. (2013). Head Start Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start_Program 

39 comments:

  1. "Why must the Danes prove that they deserve to keep their country to themselves? Isn’t that a basic right?"

    By the logic that is used by multiculturalists - that is, people who happen often to also be globalists - the Indians should be forced to hand over the reservations to the white man. After all, white people got there later, and America and Canada are only nations of immigrants.

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  2. Blogger J said...
    Denmark exists at least a thousand years (between 1015-1034 it even ruled England). What kind of science is to make long term projections based strictly on the last twenty years or so immigration and fertility data?

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  3. 1) The northern latitudes are harsh -- and are tough on the natives; it's the winters, of course. It's un-admitted, but evolution has shifted the DNA of the Nordic peoples. (Danes/Norsemen/Vikings)

    2) The African immigrants are SEVERELY stressed by such long winter nights; which are utterly alien to their culture and to their DNA.

    3) One aspect: depression due to lack of sunlight. What's tough on Nordics is brutal on Africans. Africans -- particularly the young men -- have an "out and about" culture. This is obvious for anyone that has visited the area.

    4) Such cultural norms cannot be observed in a land of ice and snow. One must simply stay inside. For Nordics, this is the season to hit the books -- and practice introversion.

    5) Africans find such confinement intolerable. This is the PRIMARY reason that African Americans reject 'book-learning' so intensely. To stay inside is to act feminine. It's ruinous to a young man's street cred... an interesting term of art that indicates that status comes from 'being on the street.'

    6) THE primary driver of African American violence are just such street clashes. These (status critical) events occur at a tempo completely unknown in Nordic society.

    7) Jante Law dictates the norms for Danes. It runs ENTIRELY contrary to the spirit of African social logic -- where one-up-manship is the norm.

    8) In sum, it's a social disaster to mix these two cultures. When the explosion comes do reflect on the martial abilities of the Danes. When the worm turns the immigrants will find themselves totally over matched.

    9) The ancients write that even 60 Viking mercenaries were deemed more than a match for 2,000 regular troops! That's not a typo. One can figure that all of the Vikings carried a knights' rating. (Constantinople, eleventh century)

    10) The Danish cabinet minister in charge of immigrant affairs pulled the numbers on IQs for second generation immigrants. She was appalled. They were actually worse than their parents! This reality had been officially suppressed by the opposition parties for years; for it goes ENTIRELY against multi-cultural optimism.

    11) The IQ shift may be traced to Neanderthal genes. Everyone outside of Africa has them. It's interesting to note that African Americans are shifted at least 7 to 10 IQ points above their forebears in Africa. They also tend to have far more White DNA than they suspect. When tested, many are shocked to find that they've got the old slave master's DNA -- often in shockingly high concentrations. Such Americans are typically in strata of great influence such as the media and the civil rights movement.

    12) K vs r selection may be very relevant. Africa is loaded with critters that eat humans -- and whom evolved right along with us. Leaving these threats behind must have surely shifted the bias from r to K. This may be the real driver of extended education and higher IQs. Many of the African Americans I've known just can't see the purpose of even staying in school -- at all. By 15 they figure they're ready for manhood. I would not be surprised to find that such a cultural norm dovetails with the DNA.

    In effect, they grow big and fast -- and die young. This is what I've seen in all of my classmates. It's one of the reasons that African Americans are so over-represented in professional and collegiate sports. Only the big, fast growing kids get noticed an recruited.

    My brother is on the other extreme. A very able athlete, he became an adult 30 months too late. He was utterly ignored. By missing the boat in high school, no college was willing to even look at him, even though he was quite adept.

    Well, life is unfair all around.

    DNA is stubborn stuff. Unless you're willing to commit genocide, you just have to live with Darwinian outcomes.

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  4. @ Peter: Nice. Well put together, flows effectively, and incidentally is just about what I would have wanted to say on the matter as well.

    My only quibble is a philosophical one, which would probably only weaken your case - I don't agree that Danes have the basic right to keep their territory. There is no such thing as a basic right; to even invoke such concepts is, I believe, an anthropocentric error. For who are men to tell Nature what is right? She is a fickle mistress, bestowing her love only upon those who endure.

    Nature is watching the Danes as she once watched the Neanderthals, before her final winter fell upon them, and she forgot their names. Did they have a basic right to exist, which she violated? Or did they lose their right to exist when they perished, ceding their lands to an alien people? Will the Danes keep their right to exist as they stumble into the dust, and aliens take their own lands in turn? If they wish to remain, they will have to resolve the quandary they created using the tools at their disposal. That is their only right.

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  5. By the logic that is used by multiculturalists - that is, people who happen often to also be globalists - the Indians should be forced to hand over the reservations to the white man.

    Multiculturalists are pretty happy with the reservation. What they want is a reservation of every nation in every country. They're not cultural assimilationists.

    So no contradiction with multiculturalism, globalism and the reservation. Admittedly multiculturalism + globalisation is a recipe for horrible social economic Balkanisation and disintegration, but hey, at least they're morally consistent and they don't have any sort of "evil nationalism" going on!

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  6. Really, 'Anonymous'? Because multiculturaslists appear quite active at encouraging encouraging matings that many if us would consider to be miscegenation if you ask me, and white communities are frowned upon unless they are something such as Polish people living in the UK or Turkish people living in Germany. That is, both the immigration and the assimilation of other groups, even of white ones, are a way to undermine existing identities and their collectivist attitudes.

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  7. Just to clarify this a little more.
    To the people who promote globalism, a strong Turkish or Polish identity is as troublesome as an English or a German one. If the globalists were fine in the long term with those ethnicities that are being imported, then they would not be so aggressively undermining the values that are so integral to those identities.

    Although the language of 'tolerance' is abused as a moral justification of open borders, the globalists are fully aware that the values that are being imported are a threat to their own, and the deliberate blurring of ethnic borders is in the long term as integral to domestic multiculturalism as it is to wider globalism.

    In this sense 'multiculturalism' is actually a misnomer, for authentic cultural differences must cease to exist once immigrant populations have become established and outlived their use as a tool of subversion. At present it is actually 'politically correct' to criticise Islamic culture so long as race is not mentioned, because most immigrants are from non-Moslem societies like the 'Romanians'.

    I don't see any evidence for an agenda to place stable reservations in every country, as 'Anonymous' has stated.

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  8. "What kind of science is to make long term projections based strictly on the last twenty years or so immigration and fertility data?"

    The same as climate change science. Doggerland disappeared. Nothing is forever

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  9. Bones and Behavior,

    In Canada, multiculturalism is advocated as a transitional policy. Minority groups are encouraged to preserve their own cultural identities so that they may eventually assimilate into the majority culture on an equal basis. That's the theory. The practice may be something else.

    J,

    The science of policy making. Forecasts are made to understand the long-term consequences of a particular mix of policies. Yes, policies can change, and forecasts can be used to justify such change.

    Anon,

    I agree. "Rights" are social constructs. They have no reality beyond that of the people who construct them. Inevitably, however, human societies construct the right to survive. If they don't, or if they abandon this right, they will cease to exist.

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  10. "My only quibble is a philosophical one, which would probably only weaken your case - I don't agree that Danes have the basic right to keep their territory. There is no such thing as a basic right; to even invoke such concepts is, I believe, an anthropocentric error. For who are men to tell Nature what is right? She is a fickle mistress, bestowing her love only upon those who endure.

    Nature is watching the Danes as she once watched the Neanderthals, before her final winter fell upon them, and she forgot their names. Did they have a basic right to exist, which she violated? Or did they lose their right to exist when they perished, ceding their lands to an alien people? Will the Danes keep their right to exist as they stumble into the dust, and aliens take their own lands in turn? If they wish to remain, they will have to resolve the quandary they created using the tools at their disposal. That is their only right. "

    What the heck is your problem!!! Don't you have a moral sense. Was it okay for Spanish to conquer and massacre Native Americans?. Of course the Danes have a basic right to their land!!! Screw nature if its as evil as you say. You sound like Adolf Hitler when you say athropocentric error. I just watched a super long movie from 2004 about the Nazi’s downfall. Hitler was an idiot to think a real man has no compassion. It is the reason he was defeated. A real man fights for what is morally right not just his own survival. I think it is very wrong for the Danes to lose their land to a bunch of foreigners. You need to get the evil Euogensis and natural selection type of thinking out of your head.

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  11. I think the whole thing with Danish population in Denmark getting smaller and older every year. Is happening in most westerners. It is happening with white Americans who have decreased nearly 20% in the last 25 years. It is a mind set that really has its main origin in the huge change's that happened in the 1960's. The modern extreme left liberalism which now is the western world's establishment.

    As sad as I am to say this they will take over the western world in probably the next 40-50 years at least. Kids are now literally raised to think in the far left way. Everything on the media is from a liberal point of view.

    I have even showed this to far left liberals. That they rule our media and establishment that people with other opinions are miss represented. They agree but don't care about the injustice. If you are against gay marriage you are called a biget. It happens so many times were people with more conservative opinions are seriously oppressed. If you say your against gay marriage and are some type of announcer or whatever. They will take you off the air like they did with Brashard on ESPN.

    Look how they reacted to the Chick Filla guy. It is now basically against the law not be liberal. The morality in the western world has gone done like nuts since the 1960's. It Is all connected. Far left liberal's don't know it but eventfully they will bring an end to western world.

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  12. "Bones and Behaviours", the only multiculturalists I have an interest in discussing are people who are actually committed to a real doctrine of multiculturalism (multiple separate ethnic communities living in different cultures within the same culture), which is clearly not itself in contradiction with globalism (even if the synthesis of these ideas has terrible consequences.

    Not whatever poorly evidenced strawman you've dreamed up to justify some lunatic ravings you feel like spouting today.

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  13. While moral rights are social constructs, thinking that way about your own society is not adaptive.

    It might be adaptive at a group level of selection for the Danes to stop worrying about how they can help the immigrants, but it is not adaptive (from any particular Dane's point of view) to agitate for that.

    Merciless Nature approves of those who want to save the immigrants (from having to stay in their own countries). Because being pro-immigrant is a way for the individual to get ahead in the social environment of a liberal society.

    Liberalism is a tradition with it's own standards of rationalisation, and a particular hierarchy. But despite what they may think, liberals are just playing the same game as Darwinists. From a Darwinian standpoint, moral certainties are just the result of evolved capacities that are there to aid reproductive success, not determine 'the truth', and morality is no different to science in that respect.

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  14. Sean,

    So are you saying that being morally good or pro immigrant. Is supported by Darwinist who see that as helping survival. That in a liberal society(what type?) being pro immigrant will give someone respect and possibly a better chance of surviving and succeeding.

    I don't think there needs to be any worries for the native Danes in Denmark. Its their country they outnumber all non Danes by I would guess over 85% or 90%. Unless there is conquest it is close to impossible for a native people to be outnumbered by new comers. I am sure if immigration gets out of hand the Danish government or the EU will make restrictions.

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  15. ""What kind of science is to make long term projections based strictly on the last twenty years or so immigration and fertility data?"

    The same as climate change science"
    --end of quote.

    That's absurd. Climate change is based on physics and our current understanding of atmosphere, gas behavior etc, not on past trends. In other hand, if there would be no global warming observed, we would have to find explanations WHY there is no GW.

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  16. Denmark is the most liberal country in the world. What it is to be 'good', in Denmark as elswhere, is contingent on the social environment (professional criminals might speak of someone who goes to prison rather than inform on his pals as 'good').

    From a Darwinian perspective, humans are selected to perceive only what it is in the interests of their individual social success, because until now social success has equalled reproductive fitness. Just as we are not aware our liver is constantly removing toxins from our blood, we aren't aware that our brain is giving us the impressions that will be most useful for reproductive fitness.

    To answer your first question: I do actually think that the best specimens of humanity in Denmark from a Darwiniam perspective will be liberals. Nyborg and those who think like him have brains that are not working properly; they are perceiving things that are toxic to their social success.

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  17. Barak, Danish women don't necessarily have children with Danish men. And there is going to be an ever increasing population pressure from sub-Saharan Africa, largely young and male. Denmark has already introduced what is widely thought to be harsh restrictions on immigration. yet there there is more immigration to Denmark now that ever before.

    szopeno, science is the systematic study of our own impressions, it's every bit as vulnerable to being systematicaly misled as moral philosophy. There are climate change denier scientists are there not?

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  18. ***A real man fights for what is morally right not just his own survival.***

    As Jonathan Haidt observes*, you need to follow the sacredness. People develop their views around sacred beliefs. In this case, some minorities are essentially sacralized and it is taboo to suggest they shouldn't be entering these countries.

    You can see it in the UK, where it is now ok for Labour politicians to admit they were wrong about their immigration policies - but they use the example of immigrants from other european countries like Poland - not from the less assimilable groups.

    I think what these people need to do is reframe it to a small country protecting its culture - just as the Dalai Lama does. Note the sympathetic coverage in The Guardian of the Dalai Lama being concerned about Tibet being swamped.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/24/tibet.china

    Similarly, Netanyahu can quite openly state that Israel is building a fence to keep out African immigrants. Why? Because they are "a concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country."

    European countries need to realise they also have legitimate interests in protecting the character of their countries.

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/netanyahu-illegal-african-immigrants-a-threat-to-israel-s-jewish-character-1.302653

    *http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html

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  19. Peter, Nyborg makes sense, but talking about 'genetic decay', as if the IQ of people from other countries is an exhaustive summary of their worth as human beings, is a mistake. Those who think the reality about immigrants is in a diverse multitude of social perspectives will only be entrenched.

    NYT opinion by Paul Collier: "Many on the left, for their part, don’t like to recognize that we’re taking away fairy godmothers. They prefer to believe that they’re helping poor people flee difficult situations at home. But we might be feeding a vicious circle, in which home gets worse precisely because the fairy godmothers leave. Humanitarians become caught up trying to help individuals, and therefore miss the larger implications: There are poor people, and there are poor societies. An open door for the talented would help Facebook’s bottom line, but not the bottom billion."

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  20. To populate is to govern. There is no point being sentimental about it. If one group of people inhabitating a specific territory decide to invite in an endless stream of more higly fertile people, the new people will replace the existing stock, who will eventually become a small minority. That is simple math.

    This is no different than an invasion, and it can be seen around the world in history - i.e. in America with the replacement of the Indians, with white and blacks, in Turkey after Mazinkert, in Egypt after the Arab conquest, in Siberia after the Russian conquest.

    If a specific people does not believe in their own special existence in their own land, there is little that can be done for them by outsiders.

    Danes need to want to remain Danish and have a Denmark. If they want neither, they can certainly content themselves with a future existence similar to that of the Crimean Goths during the Middle Ages or the Latin-Dalmatians among the Croats..

    If Danes want to remain Danish in their own country, they can cut off the flow of foreigners and expell the unassimilable. The land belongs to those who inhabit it and hold it. Its the unquestionable right of a people to maintain their own abode and culture and not have to change themselves to accomodate an influx of foreigners.

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  21. Immigration restriction is a human right. I read that sentence somewhere recently and it sticks in my mind.

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  22. @ Anon. & Luke Lea:

    Though I can understand your feelings on the subject, these notions about "unquestionable rights" or "human rights" are arbitrary. I could say that eating watermelons is a human right just as easily as I could say that eating watermelons is unquestionably immoral. These are empty, unsupported claims.

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  23. @ Anon I:

    No, it is an unquestionable truth that a people have a right to exist if that is their will. Overturning the demographics of a country via mass immigration as noted in Nyborg's study is the equivalent of genocide.

    That the Dane's are doing it to themselves does not change the moral character of the action in question, because if the Dane's were to choose to stop harming themselves, that is also their right, and the ever nebulous "Internationl Community", whatever the heck that is, would have no right to force them to continue a policy of cultural and genetic suicide.

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  24. Apparently there is a EU directive that passed at the Council of Nov. 19, 2004. The European countries agreed on 11 points that are discussed by Michelle Tribalat in an interview.
    Tribalat declares: "[these directives] about the integration [of the new immigrants in their host country] doesn't recognize any asymmetry between the host society and the incomers. No privileges are granted to the Europeans and their cultural inheritance. All the different cultures in presence have the same legitimacy. We do not recognize any substantial European culture worthy to be preserved"

    Translation of the article in French site fdesouche at
    http://www.fdesouche.com/440955-immigration-michele-tribalat-aucun-privilege-nest-accorde-aux-europeens-ou-a-leur-heritage#more-440955

    No matter, I will add only on this topic that for me, all these stories of birth rates, IQ and integration are irrelevant. Even if all the immigrants were peacefull and all Nobel priced with an IQ of 250, they still would have no right to flood and control their host countries.

    As for Tribalat: tch tch tch tchoo! tchoo! pffffffffffff....

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  25. Peter, can you comment on any research you know that supports the conclusion Lundman makes in this paper from the 70s?

    http://www.unz.org/Pub/MankindQuarterly-1972jan-00157?View=PDFPages

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  26. "Was it okay for Spanish to conquer and massacre Native Americans?"

    Barak,

    At the time, the Spaniards thought they were doing God's work. They were rescuing the Amerindians from eternal damnation and providing them with an opportunity for eternal salvation.

    The past is another country. And so is the future. It's right for us to judge and condemn people in the here and now. That's why we have rights. But rights are not indefinitely extendable across time and space. Was it right for modern humans to replace the Neanderthals? The question is absurd. A "right" is a construct that we create to manage social relations within a particular society at a particular point in time. Why do you think we have statutes of limitations?

    Sean,

    This is something we'll all have to grapple with. Our desire to help is being exploited by people who themselves have much less empathy. The end result will be the destruction of societies, like the Danes', that have a high degree of concern for the well being of others.

    Luke,

    Again, "rights" are human creations. You think you have rights, only to discover they've been taken away.

    Ben,

    As I understand the article, Michelle Tribalat was condemning that EU directive.

    Bones,

    I remember reading an Israeli study that found that Jews of mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardic origin had a higher incidence of dental problems (because of incompatibilities between different patterns of jaw growth).

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  27. Sadly unlike the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean, the Ashkenazim can't really be identified with just one single racial type. Lundman's suggestion was that crossing a Nordic or Mediterranean stock with an Alpine or East Baltic one will lengthen the face, and sometimes even to a pathological degree. Thanks for replying.

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  28. It might be adaptive at a group level of selection for the Danes to stop worrying about how they can help the immigrants, but it is not adaptive (from any particular Dane's point of view) to agitate for that.

    Merciless Nature approves of those who want to save the immigrants (from having to stay in their own countries). Because being pro-immigrant is a way for the individual to get ahead in the social environment of a liberal society.


    Except "merciless Nature" is quite merciless about what qualifies as an individual "getting ahead": reproductive success. There's no evidence that suggests that individuals behaving in ways "to get ahead in the social environment of a liberal society" reproduce more. In fact, all the evidence is to the contrary. Such individuals have lower reproductive rates. Individuals who behave in the exact opposite way, such as those in conservative religious groups, have higher reproductive rates. Individuals striving "to get ahead in the social environment of a liberal society" end up suppressing their own fertility while promoting that of others. "Merciless Nature" certainly approves of those whose reproduction is promoted by such individuals, but not such individuals themselves. It's not a case of them getting ahead. It's a case of parasitic castration.

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  29. I think what these people need to do is reframe it to a small country protecting its culture - just as the Dalai Lama does. Note the sympathetic coverage in The Guardian of the Dalai Lama being concerned about Tibet being swamped.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/24/tibet.china

    Similarly, Netanyahu can quite openly state that Israel is building a fence to keep out African immigrants. Why? Because they are "a concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country."

    European countries need to realise they also have legitimate interests in protecting the character of their countries.


    You're assuming that some general principle regarding national preservation is involved here. It's not. Europeans that assert national preservation are attacked as "racist", "anti-Semitic", etc. by the same media that supports Tibet or thinks that the "Jewish character" of Israel should be preserved.

    Support for Tibet has its origins more in anti-communism and anti-China politics than in a genuine concern for Tibetan preservation. Tibet is very socially conservative and traditional, which is why the Tibet and Dalai Lama cult in the media portrays the Dalai Lama as some sort of liberal hippy. Otherwise there'd be some serious cognitive dissonance generated among the liberals that support Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Burma is another socially conservative and traditional Buddhist nation, but there's no anti-China angle there, so the Burmese Buddhists are attacked by the media as being "ultra-nationalist", "racist", reactionary, etc. for wanting to preserve themselves from the Muslim Rohingya.

    Jews and Israel are privileged relative to Europeans and enjoy greater immunity than Europeans do from media attacks against national preservation.

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  30. Peter,

    Well Spanish were wrong to think what they were doing was justified. What is right never changes with time.

    " A "right" is a construct that we create to manage social relations within a particular society at a particular point in time. Why do you think we have statutes of limitations?"

    This is totally wrong. We don't create morals to fit our situation we are born with them. We all have different cultures or personalities which express the same morals in a different way's. You can study people around the world and see that we all go completely by the same instinct.


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  31. Why are people talking about nature as if it is a living thing. When really the idea is that no one is helping you are completely alone. There is no such thing as merciless nature.

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  32. "Barak, Danish women don't necessarily have children with Danish men. And there is going to be an ever increasing population pressure from sub-Saharan Africa, largely young and male. Denmark has already introduced what is widely thought to be harsh restrictions on immigration. yet there there is more immigration to Denmark now that ever before.

    szopeno, science is the systematic study of our own impressions, it's every bit as vulnerable to being systematicaly misled as moral philosophy. There are climate change denier scientists are there not?"

    Sean,

    Unlike in America in Denmark people are united by common ancestry and race not just nationality. The vast majority of people in Denmark are actually Danish. The vast majority of Danish people have children with other Danes and have for thousands of years. I doubt inter marriage with immigrants is a problem. I also doubt immigrants and Danes will inter marry with each other as much or more than with themselves. I am sure more conservative and patriotic Danes are very against inter marriage with immigrants. In America which is a country of immigrants that mind set is looked down on and seen as raciest. I think it can be good because it is about ethnic identity, pride, and preservation.

    As someone who studies human genetics' as a hobby. I want ethnic groups to be as unmixed as possible. Even though I have heard in TV shows and records that people immigrate from country to country in Europe and are very mixed. DNA studies have pretty much proven that is not true. For people today in the old world(not America's because of European invasions). Welsh and Irish have pretty much completely pure Insular Celtic ancestry not English at all.

    The only time there is major ethnic inter marriage. Is because of invasion(like Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain), major immigration by force(like Irish and British slave trade during Viking age), and neighboring people just mixing(put that is still pretty rare Germans and Poles not very common. Y DNA haplogroups I have noticed represent ancient people's and pre historic cultures not modern countries. In the Old world till recently people mix with their own people almost always. I looked at my own Cornish(Briton Celts) ancestry and it goes from 1840's-1500's they stayed in the exact same two neighboring towns of Cornwall for that whole time and only mixing with people born in one of two neighboring towns. I am sure almost all their ancestry had lived in that area since before Romans conquered the Britons over 2,000 years ago.

    Do you want to live in a depressing survival of the fittest world and die alone and sad Sean? There is nothing wrong with morals it is apart of human nature like music, falling in love, and being social. I don't understand why "intellectual people"(I am not saying any of you are). First put down religion but they also put down human morals. And are very liberal In the way that they don't like tradition. Are they just against humanity overall or something?

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  33. @ Anon: "No, it is an unquestionable truth that a people have a right to exist if that is their will."

    Do a people have a right to exist if that is their will? Well, gosh... I guess your assertion that this question cannot be asked is wrong, seeing as how I just asked it.

    But to clarify, the idea of rights is an extension of legalism; the right to a fair trial, or the right to bear arms. Such rights are enumerated in legal documents but have no meaning beyond the society that invokes or revokes them. Nature operates under different criteria.

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  34. A right is like a dollar; it exists if it is believed to exist.

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  35. Mike Steinberg wrote:

    "As Jonathan Haidt observes*, you need to follow the sacredness. People develop their views around sacred beliefs. In this case, some minorities are essentially sacralized and it is taboo to suggest they shouldn't be entering these countries.

    You can see it in the UK, where it is now ok for Labour politicians to admit they were wrong about their immigration policies - but they use the example of immigrants from other european countries like Poland - not from the less assimilable groups."

    Not sure that there is a process of sacralisation so much as a pervasive fear of being accused of racism. Such accusations are more likely to stick if you show particular dislike for large-scale immigration by non-Europeans.

    Not only Labour, but politicians of all main parties, as well as newspapers tending towards the Right, such as the Daily Mail, have been much happier citing immigration from East European countries than from West Africa or the Indian sub-continent.

    Responsible commentators have had to develop feelgood catchphrases when addressing immigration problems, such as advocating 'balanced' or 'sustainable' immigration, or the need to admit only 'highly skilled migrants' - nudge nudge, wink wink.

    In practice, any form of effective immigration control is likely to involve some measure of hypocritical fudge. No one who wants to get ahead in politics will risk saying 'We don't want our country to continue being a population overspill area for Third World countries with high birth rates'. Immigration controls will have to be ostensibly deracialised by arguing for tests which assess the merits of each individual would-be immigrant, while knowing full well that these will have a disparate impact.

    What follows then is a war of nerves. Will the enthusiasts for mass immigration want to risk a public debate on why people from different countries score differently on aptitude tests, for example?

    And will those in favour of tough immigration controls be willing to defend individual tests of entry in the light of those results?

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  36. While hbd community continue to deviate from the true worthiness of points regarding this debate, also will not be able to keep any honest discussion and will continue to have many more questions than answers.
    Besides the biological tendency of pathological altruism developed by European Caucasian populations (more compelling evidence for the superiority of the Caucasian mind compared to the others), which has been widely discussed, another very important factor should not be overlooked or treated in a prejudicial manner, as a conspiracy theory.
    This factor is precisely the visible and active participation of the Ashkenazi population to promote all essentially anti-Western intellectual movements.
    It is not necessary that a large Jewish population living in Denmark, so this proves that this country has been encapsulated by the same draconian measures that moment then make most Western countries, far worse places to live. It is only necessary to understand that the two largest systemic-imperial institutions (USA and Union European), not only there is an overrepresentation of an Ashkenazi elite along with their allies European strain, but also a surgical presence these main elements in key positions of prominence. It is not necessary to numerically dominate a country, through colonization and demographic expansion, just dominate your brain, ie, its universities, its from the media, their centers of culture and its political institutions. These metaphorically speaking, as are the first dominoes that when pushed in causing the overthrow of all other parts chain.
    The majority of the population is composed of passive consumer of culture.
    Western elites are phenotypically more similar to the Ashkenazi elites than in relation to their own populations.
    The Danes are together with all European white people, at the bottom of a pyramidal society, are semi-slaves, and as every subordinate, they have no rights ..
    Europeans however, are the ones who will be able to leave their own prisons

    Gottlieb

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  37. Common Danes did not have choices as to keep your country for yourself or give it to foreigners, because all moral science of multiculturalism is based on lies. They are being misled to believe that multiculturalism is a good thing.
    People with average intelligence or slightly above average are not able, on their own, to understand the long-term potential threats that may arise. Soldiers are created to act and not to think.
    So ask for a school teacher to understand the tangle of multiple systems sciences, from philosophy, sociobiology, sociology, psychology, history, statistics, is asking too much.
    We are taking our responsibility to guide the masses and throwing the blame of our inaction and cowardice on the back of these people that have been carved by nature for simple cognitive specialization and socialization, with reduced costs for abstract intelligence.

    Gottlieb

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  38. In Argentina the trade of women (includig white women, for France for example) was legal until 1913. It means that there was laws that regulate this activity, like for example if a woman was viewed outside his "House" without permission the autorities had to bring her back.

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