Canada's best-known racist died last month at age 68.
Philippe Rushton, the University of Western Ontario professor, was best known for his work about the numerous differences between racial groups.
In his 1995 book Race, Evolution and Behavior, Rushton put out a racial scale, with Asians at the top, whites in the middle, and blacks at the bottom, based on a variety of social and biological indicators.
The book was a summary of Rushton's academic work in the area, beginning in the 1980s, where he became interested in altruism and kin behaviour, arguing that biology determines our decision making when it came to human relationships. In other words, genetics, more than conscious free will, decides how we act towards each other.
Rushton became an instant pariah for his views and was rightly dismissed as a racist.
David Suzuki debated him in 1989 but Rushton refused to bend, insisting that his conclusions regarding racial superiority only applied to the group level, not to individuals, and that he defined superiority in the Darwinian context of the ability to adapt to environmental change, rather than as a value judgment.
Rushton isn't universally despised, however. As evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology and neuroscience have developed, research has shown that our conscious mind isn't in charge nearly as much as we think it is and that we actually make unconscious decisions on a wide array of issues and then we consciously apply logic and reason to decisions already made behind the scenes.
This doesn't mean Rushton was right about race, it just means the foundation he based those judgments on is relatively sound. Whether we like it or not, it appears we're hardwired to make snap decisions on complicated matters, sometimes even before we're fully conscious of the people and situations in front of us.
Rushton believed that humans were biologically like dogs - capable of great diversity in the blink of an eye from an evolutionary standpoint. Dogs are an offshoot of wolves and are 99.8 per cent genetically identical to their wild cousins but clearly so different in so many ways. Breeds of dogs have not just physical but also behavioral characteristics associated with their breed. For Rushton, the same concept applied to people and race is the human expression of breeds in dogs. Rusthon's implications are obvious - not only do blacks, Asians and whites look different, they behave differently and those differences are part of our genetic makeup.
It's pretty easy to see why Rushton was reviled by many but adored and respected by those with intolerant racial views. It didn't help matters that Rushton took the money offered by controversial groups to help fund more of his research.
Rushton was dismissive of his critics, arguing that they were letting social beliefs about equality interfere with what scientific data clearly illustrated. Don't blame me, I'm only the messenger, he insisted.
Whether more research will add weight to Rushton's claims or disrepute them doesn't matter, just like it makes no difference whether he was a brave intellectual maverick or a racist lunatic (or both).
Even if his findings are valid (and it's hard to believe they are), what does it change? People are people are people and the differences between us are miniscule compared to the biological and behavioral similarities. Rushton's findings also don't take into account important human ethical standards. There's no moral justification for treating anyone consciously different because of their race and even if our unconscious self tries to tell us otherwise, our conscious mind is still able to make the final call.
Rushton would likely dismiss such pleas to morality as human imposed constructs but social norms of appropriate behavior are seen in many species throughout nature. Rejection of those norms leads to being ostracized from the group.
There's simply no room for racism in the modern human code of conduct and those who say otherwise deserve the scorn they receive.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
