This is essay is drawn from Edward Dutton’s book Making Sense of Race (2002).
People are different; so much is clear. Individuals can, of course, vary wildly. We know people who are short, tall, brilliant, depressive, athletic, clumsy, etc. And we are also aware of general differences between population groups or races. While few subjects are more controversial than “race,” there are aspects to it that are simply self-evident. Few would dispute that, on average, East Asians are significantly shorter than Europeans, have different facial characteristics, and that these components are heritable.
But the question remains: Are such things acts of chance? Are they the result solely of “genetic drift,” due to the fact that populations were geographically separated and were rarely inter-breeding? Or can such differences be better understood as consequences of evolutions in differing environments? In other words,
What is the best way to make sense of the evolution of different races?
Why do they differ in the ways that they do?
Can these differences be reduced to a clear model that makes correct predictions?
One such model is "Cold Winters Theory."1 It holds that races are adaptations to different average temperatures. Though this may be true to some extent—and though it may quite helpfully explain race differences in intelligence—there is much that it cannot explain. Why, for example, do the Bushmen sport extremely large buttocks, while the North East Asians do not? Why are there race differences in sexual behavior, social anxiety, and mood disorder—and what does that mean? Clearly, a more sophisticated analysis is required.
J.P. Rushton and Life History Theory
One of the best attempts to do this was presented by the British-Canadian psychologist J. Philippe Rushton (1943-2012) in his 1995 book Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective.2 Indeed, it may be testimony to just how frighteningly accurate his theory was that when he first presented it, at a conference in January 1989, the government of Ontario looked into prosecuting him for thought crime. The governor called for him to be fired from his university, and leftist campaigners invaded his department and picketed his lectures. Ultimately, the Attorney General of Ontario declared him "loony but not criminal."3
Rushton’s alleged "crime" was to have taken "Life History Theory"—a model commonly used to make sense of differences between species—and applied it to human races. Specifically, Rushton examined Caucasians (Europeans, North Africans, South Asians), East Asians, and Sub-Saharan Africans. In doing this, he presented a model that—while not perfect and while in need of refinement—certainly makes a great deal of sense.
Life History Strategy (LHS) refers to a spectrum with fast (so-called r-strategy) at one end and slow (K-strategy) at the other. In essence, fast Life History Strategists invest most of their energy in copulation and very little in their offspring. Slow Life History Strategists invest relatively little energy in sex and direct most of their energy into nurturing their young. Other important differences emerge as well, which we will discuss below. The "r" and "K" designators are borrowed from the logistic equation for population growth within a confined space: "r" stands for biotic potential or the maximum reproduction rate of an organism, and K, for the carrying capacity of the environment, that is, how many individuals an ecology can sustain.
In the animal world, oysters generate half a billion offspring in a typical year and take no notice of them at all; they are extreme r strategists. Mammals and birds have fewer offspring, but feed and care for them in early life. Rabbits are a popular byword for fertility, but the 12 offspring they average per year come nowhere near the fertility of fish or amphibians.
Humans are the most advanced K strategists in nature, but we, too, exist on a spectrum. The rake who seduces women left and right, and abandons them if they get pregnant, is the archetypal fast Life History Strategist. The gentleman who gets married for life and is a loving and doting father to his children is the archetypal slow Life History Strategist. Rushton’s basic argument was that the Caucasian, Black, and East Asian races, on average, sit at different points on this spectrum.
Before we look at Rushton’s evidence for this proposition, we need to answer two questions:
How do these two different strategies develop?
What are the key characteristics of the two strategies?
Imagine two different ecologies. The first is tropical and bounteous—a place of low-hanging fruit and abundance, but also dangers, as it undergoes random flooding and droughts. The other ecology is cruel and seasonal, with icy winters and short periods of fecundity. There, you must plan, sacrifice, and struggle just to survive. In the first ecology, food can be obtained all year round; yet the relative instability means that you could be wiped out at any moment. There, organisms tend to adopt a fast LHS. In essence, this means that they "live fast, die young." They invest most of their energy in sex; they have many sexual partners; and they tend to have a large number of children, which they show little care for, as some are bound to survive.
On the other hand, the harsh ecology, where food is hard to come by, will more quickly reach its maximum carrying capacity for any species. Thus, individuals of that species will compete with each other for survival. If you adopt a fast LHS and invest next to nothing in any of your offspring, then it’s likely your young will all die off, due to insufficient protection during the cold winters. But this harsh ecology is also more predictable, rewarding the individuals who direct resources away from copulation and towards "nurturing," that is, caring for a smaller number of offspring, and planning for their future. In essence, the successful strategists will "live slow, die old."
Species are more likely to be able to successfully nurture their offspring, to survive the predictable yet harsh ecology, if they are high in intelligence, impulse control, altruism and empathy, so these traits become part of a slower LHS. Testosterone predicts aggression and impulsiveness, meaning that it is negatively associated with a slow LHS. They are more likely to be able to learn the skills necessary to survive in this competitive yet also foreseeable environment if they have a longer childhood; so as the species becomes more K-selected, childhood becomes longer and life slows down. The more K-oriented the ecology is, the more specific is the niche to which the animal is adapted, meaning that there is more benefit to learning and less benefit to simply being instinctive. So, offspring are increasingly dependent on their parents, born at earlier stage of development, and less able to survive on their own. In that more energy is now being invested in sexual partners, animals become pickier about whom they are prepared to copulate with, wanting to ensure that they only invest energy in those who are healthy and robust. Males begin to guard their mates to ensure that their investment of energy is not wasted. The result of this is fewer sexual opportunities. This means that the ability to live longer, to optimize the extent to which you can pass on your genes, starts to be selected for. There is a less of a need—in a stable environment—to conspicuously advertise genetic quality, in order to stand out from the crowd. That same energy is better invested in being a good nurturer. As a consequence, sexual selection on secondary sexual characteristics becomes less intense and size differences between males and females become smaller. As the species becomes more K-selected, they start to develop cooperative groups, as these elevate the survival chances of the individual members. And if they are higher in these qualities than their rival group, with stronger internal bonds, they will be more positively ethnocentric, a trait that ensures dominance and expansion—and a trait that computer models have shown predicts group survival.4 This also means that there will be stronger bonds between sexual partners. In general, these K-traits will all inter-correlate, though some species may be less K-selected on some traits than others, especially as the niche to which they are evolved becomes increasingly specific. For example, a tortoise follows a faster Life History Strategy than a human on most traits, with the exception of aging. With aging, it pursues a slower strategy and lives considerably longer than the human. A summary of the differences between r- and K can be seen in Table 6.1.
Table 6.1. r-K Strategy Essentials
As already indicated, Rushton applied this model to differences between what he called the "three big races." The results were highly consistent. Sub-Saharan Africans are the most r-selected, relatively-speaking; East Asians are the most K-selected; and Caucasians are intermediate, though closer to East Asians. In my earlier book, J. Philippe Rushton: A Life History Perspective, I updated Rushton’s model and found that a number of traits that he had not explored were also in the predicted direction. These results can be seen in Table 6.2.
Table 6.2. Ranking of Races on Diverse Variables
It can be seen from Table 6.2 that there is an astonishing consistency to the racial pattern of what Rushton termed Differential K. In almost all instances, East Asians are the most K-selected, Sub-Saharan Africans are the least, and Caucasians, in between. It’s noteworthy that African-Americans have a longer puberty than White Americans, puberty being a process in which different markers, such as genital hair, manifest at different times. It has been argued that this is congruous with Rushton’s model because the process of puberty is stressful and can be associated with anti-social behavior, meaning that, in a harsh ecology, it would be preferable for it to be over as quickly as possible.5
That said, I have found many instances where race differences do not manifest as Rushton’s model would predict. They can be found in Table 6.3.6
Table 6.3. Counter Examples to Rushton’s Model
These counter-examples imply that, though Rushton has explained a great deal, his theory requires further nuance. This has been attempted by British psychologist Michael Woodley of Menie with his Cognitive Integration Effort Hypothesis.7 Woodley of Menie argues that, as a group becomes more K, it becomes more adapted to an ever-more specific niche. The result is that the positive manifold between the different components of K becomes weaker, such that the highly K-selected group can adopt the very specific survival strategy that it requires. In other words, there are numerous traits that make-up a slow Life History Strategy, such as a long childhood, a cooperative personality, and high mental stability. But a very slow LHS involves adapting to a very specific and very predictable niche. This means that as that niche narrows, it may be that a generalized slow Life History Strategy is less adaptive than one that is slow in most respects but fast in others. Consequently, among very slow Life History Strategists, the correlation between the different components of a slow Life History Strategy becomes weaker. In much the same way, as people become more intelligent, the correlation between the different kinds of intelligence—such as verbal, spatial and mathematical—becomes weaker. This means that, at the extreme, you find highly intelligent people who cannot perform tasks that are weakly associated with intelligence and which are no problem for not-so intelligent people. Think of the stereotype of the "absent-minded professor," who writes treatises on poetry but is always losing his keys or the fictional genius Sheldon Cooper, from the TV show The Big Bang Theory, who’s unable to drive a car.
The Cognitive Integration Effort Hypothesis would explain why the most K-selected group—the East Asians—display the most exceptions to Rushton’s model, and now we can start to make sense of these exceptions. East Asians score higher in mental instability than Europeans, which is odd because the more cooperative the society needs to be, the stronger would be the selection pressure for mental stability. But this finding of high Neuroticism scores among East Asians is driven by their being extremely high in the Neuroticism trait of "social anxiety"—a trait that, in fact, makes them highly cooperative and pro-social. East Asians are so high in this, that it overwhelms the fact that they are lowest in the other components of Neuroticism.8 So, this anomaly reflects, in reality, their pronounced level of K-selection.
In terms of cultural achievement, it has been argued that the strong K-selection of East Asians means that they have a very "small gene pool," that is, a low level of genetic diversity not, of course, a small number of people. This is because their ancestral environment was so harsh that there was relatively little room for any deviation from the optimum. They are also extremely high in altruism (Agreeableness) and rule following (Conscientiousness). Cultural achievement is predicted, substantially, by national average IQ. Indeed, this strongly predicts many measures of civilization, such as literacy, education level, health, wealth, sanitation, low child mortality, low religiousness, and so on.9 Equally important to a nation’s cultural flourishing is its "smart fraction"—its innovators, the geniuses who come up with highly original ideas. These people are the motors of civilization, driving the crucial breakthroughs that allow all of us to progress.10 As mentioned earlier, scientific geniuses typically combine outlier high IQ with moderately low Conscientiousness and moderately low Agreeableness.11 Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)—an obsessive eccentric, unworldly, and cold-hearted—is the prototypical example. He would become lost in thought on the stairs for hours at a time, even while entertaining guests. Newton had very few friends and, in an argument with his mother, once threatened to burn her house down.12 As already noted, the scientific genius’s outlier high IQ means, of course, that he can generate highly original and important ideas. His moderately low Conscientiousness makes him creative; able to "think outside the box." Breakthroughs almost always offend vested interests. But, low in Agreeableness, the genius simply doesn’t care—he might not even be able to anticipate that he would cause offense, due to his lack of empathy. He may even enjoy triggering the powers that be; his contrarian nature being part of the reason why he questions everything he is told and thus makes new discoveries.
The East Asians’ smaller gene pool means they are less likely to produce people with outlier high IQ, let alone produce people who combine this with a moderately anti-social personality. Moreover, the flip-side of geniuses would be high IQ dreamers, who are parasitic on the society, as well as low IQ, anti-social people—in other words, criminals or malcontents. And you can’t have the good without the bad. For East Asians, the selection pressure for cooperativeness in such a harsh ecology would be so strong that it would be dangerous to risk producing geniuses. We’re reminded of the Japanese proverb, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." For these reasons, it is the Caucasians—not the extreme K East Asians—who have the greatest cultural achievements.
The lower rates of pet ownership and adoption and the higher rates of ethnocentrism among East Asians can also be explained by Woodley of Menie’s development of Rushton’s model. In a highly K-ecology, group selection would be extremely strong, and this would select for groups with pronounced ethnocentrism. An alternative strategy would be low negative ethnocentrism but high levels of genius, permitting expansion and the development of a large gene pool and thus ever more genius. But, as we have discussed, this option would be problematic for the East Asians.13 Low levels of adoption and pet ownership would be consistent with high levels of generalized K: In an extremely harsh ecology, strong bonds are only made with genetic kin; kindness shouldn’t be squandered on those who don’t share your immediate interests.
Why East Asians are less inclined than Europeans to have oral sex is unclear. This is a K trait, because it involves bonding, and it actually helps to ensure that the woman becomes pregnant by that specific partner. It has been argued that by swallowing the man’s semen, the female’s immune system is less likely to treat it as an enemy agent, elevating the probability that she will be impregnated by that specific male. In addition, once she does become pregnant by that male, the fetus will release proteins relating to him. But she will be accustomed to these, meaning she will be less likely to treat them as enemy agents, reducing the probability of her suffering from pre-eclampsia and losing the fetus. The anomaly may be because we mainly have student samples, and East Asians tend to reach sexual maturity later.
Most of the Black-White anomalies—such as baldness or hairiness—can be explained by these being problematic measures of K. For example, hairiness is a marker of testosterone but also simply of Neanderthal ancestry. Otherwise, anomalies are likely the result of small sample sizes. Thus, overall, Rushton’s model has considerable predictive validity, especially when combined with Woodley of Menie’s subsequent developments of it.
See Richard Lynn, "The Evolution of Race Differences in Intelligence," Mankind Quarterly, 32 (1991): 99-173.
J. Philippe Rushton, Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishing, 1995).
Edward Dutton, J. Philippe Rushton: A Life History Perspective (Oulu: Thomas Edward Press, 2018).
Edward Dutton, Dimitri Van der Linden, and Richard Lynn, "Population Differences in Androgen Levels: A Test of the Differential K Theory," Personality and Individual Differences, 90 (2016): 289-295.
Edward Dutton and Guy Madison, "Life History and Race Differences in Puberty Length: A Test of Differential-K Theory," Mankind Quarterly, 56 (2016): 546-561.
For references, see Dutton, J. Philippe Rushton, op cit.
Michael A. Woodley, "The Cognitive Differentiation-Integration Effort Hypothesis: A Synthesis Between the Fitness Indicator and Life History Models of Human Intelligence," Review of General Psychology, 15 (2011): 228-245.
Heitor B. F. Fernandes, Richard Lynn, and Steven Hertler, "Race Differences in Anxiety Disorders, Worry, and Social Anxiety: An Examination of the Differential-K Theory in Clinical Psychology," Mankind Quarterly, 58 (2018): 466-500.
Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for the Social Sciences (London: Ulster Institute for Social Research, 2012).
Heiner Rindermann, Cognitive Capitalism: Human Capital and the Well-Being of Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Dean K. Simonton, "Varieties of (Scientific) Creativity: A Hierarchical Model of Domain-Specific Disposition, Development, and Achievement," Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4 (2009): 5.
Edward Dutton and Bruce Charlton, The Genius Famine (Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press, 2015).
See Edward Dutton, Race Differences in Ethnocentrism (London: Arktos, 2019).