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J. Philippe Rushton: A Life History Perspective
In 1989, J. Philippe Rushton threw a grenade into the world of human biology. Rushton argued that the ‘three big races’ – Black, Caucasian, and East Asian – consistently differed in ‘Life History Strategy.’ Blacks had the fastest strategy. Adapted to unstable environments, they live fast and die young. East Asians had the slowest, investing in nurture; living for the future. Caucasians were intermediate. This grenade exploded into everything from a criminal investigation to a campaign to get Rushton fired. What kind of person could conceive of and publicize such an original yet incendiary theory? Analyzing Rushton’s research and, for the first time, his life and ancestry, Dutton argues that Rushton himself – like many scientific geniuses - was a highly intelligent fast Life History Strategist. But Rushton’s Life History strategy was simply too fast for him to be the Galileo-figure that some scientists have portrayed him as. An archetypal Narcissist, Rushton attempted to manipulate people into supporting his model and cherry picked and dishonestly presented his findings. And among many other fast Life History strategy traits, Dutton explores Rushton’s dropping out of high school, his multiple divorces, his compulsive lying, his affairs, his two illegitimate children including one by a married black woman, and even his use of physical violence. Praise for J. Philippe Rushton: A Life History Perspective Dr Edward Dutton has written a brilliant ‘warts and all’ biography of John Philippe Rushton and a critical appraisal of his theory that the ‘three big races’ differ in Life History Strategy. Dr Dutton finds that there is some support for Rushton’s theory but also that it has too many flaws to be considered anything like a work of genius. A fascinating book. Prof Richard Lynn Formerly University of Ulster, UK. Aristotle, in his Poetics, identified the salient characteristic of the tragic hero. He is an ‘intermediate kind of personage,’ ‘a man who is not eminently good or just - yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty.’ J. Philippe Rushton was just such a person. Intimidatingly intelligent and intellectually daring, this self-styled, latter day Galileo was also prone to hubris and evidently lacked a moral compass. Various unflattering alternative titles for Dr. Dutton’s compelling book, accordingly, spring to mind: ‘Keep it in the Family: The Curious Case of J. Philippe Rushton’; or, ‘Giving Charles Darwin a Bad Name: Nepotism in Theory and Practice’; or, more simply, ‘Revolution Betrayed.’ As Prof Rushton himself prophetically observed on page one of his magnum opus, Race, Evolution, and Behavior, ‘. . . people give preferential treatment to those who resemble themselves.’ Dr. Leslie Jones Editor, The Quarterly Review
- GenresBiography
182 pages, Paperback
First published June 25, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2025
Well researched, well sourced and unbiased
This is the third book by Dutton that I've read and I think it may be his best. He looks at the life and work of infamous evolutionary psychologist J Philippe Rushton, separating the truth from the fiction.
He covers a lot of familiar ground here that can be found in his other books, and so it is the biography and critical analysis of Rushton's life and Life History model that are fresh territory.
Though Dutton is a divisive, highly controversial person (putting it lightly), his ability to look at the LHM from a neutral perspective is impressive. He demonstrates that, whilst the model is not without some merit, it is deeply flawed and (in certain instances) relies on false and/or highly selective data.
It seems unlikely that the model will be further examined and refined so as to reflect a more reliable iteration due to reluctance amongst all mainstream social scientists to engage with this highly controversial area of research, and I think this is a shame. Whilst the model is not accurate in it's current format, it may be the first step towards a more reliable understanding of humans. I think it would also be interesting to see a breakdown of the differences in r-K selection within groups as well as between them, as it remains the case that the variation within groups is wider than the variation between them.
As always, I did not read anything that suggests to me there is any merit whatsoever to make a judgement about someone's personality based on their race, nor is there reason to treat someone differently based on their race or ethnicity. Nathan Cofnas has pointed out that this area of research does attract genuine racists, and that the researchers interested in this topic who know and accept the data as reliable and do not harbour racist beliefs are likely in the minority. I hope that my assumption that Dutton is one of these researchers, based on the lack of any clear evidence to the contrary, is correct.
This is the third book by Dutton that I've read and I think it may be his best. He looks at the life and work of infamous evolutionary psychologist J Philippe Rushton, separating the truth from the fiction.
He covers a lot of familiar ground here that can be found in his other books, and so it is the biography and critical analysis of Rushton's life and Life History model that are fresh territory.
Though Dutton is a divisive, highly controversial person (putting it lightly), his ability to look at the LHM from a neutral perspective is impressive. He demonstrates that, whilst the model is not without some merit, it is deeply flawed and (in certain instances) relies on false and/or highly selective data.
It seems unlikely that the model will be further examined and refined so as to reflect a more reliable iteration due to reluctance amongst all mainstream social scientists to engage with this highly controversial area of research, and I think this is a shame. Whilst the model is not accurate in it's current format, it may be the first step towards a more reliable understanding of humans. I think it would also be interesting to see a breakdown of the differences in r-K selection within groups as well as between them, as it remains the case that the variation within groups is wider than the variation between them.
As always, I did not read anything that suggests to me there is any merit whatsoever to make a judgement about someone's personality based on their race, nor is there reason to treat someone differently based on their race or ethnicity. Nathan Cofnas has pointed out that this area of research does attract genuine racists, and that the researchers interested in this topic who know and accept the data as reliable and do not harbour racist beliefs are likely in the minority. I hope that my assumption that Dutton is one of these researchers, based on the lack of any clear evidence to the contrary, is correct.
April 3, 2019
Most criticisms of Rushton are just intellectually bankrupt emotional outbursts. Dutton actually cares what's the case, and it shows in this short book.
February 17, 2026
The infamous life history of the infamous author of the life history theory of racial differences.
J. Philippe Rushton lies at the intersection of two of Edward Dutton's greatest interests - evolutionary psychology and genius.
This book is in two parts. The first part is a exploration of Rushton's most famous theory, the r-K selection applied to the human species and its biggest three races (Black, White and East Asian), and an evaluation of the case Rushton makes for it. In essence, species differ on a continuum from r or fast (easy, unpredictable ecology, invest energy in copulation in the hope that some offspring survive) to K or slow (harsh but predictable ecology, strong intra-species competition, invest energy in nurture of small number of offspring so that they win in this competition to survive in a very predictable place). Rushton argued that human races could be placed on different points of this continuum.
The second part is a biography of Rushton, and a psychological analysis of what drove the man: the anomaly that a man characterized by an r-strategy life history should have developed it.
Firstly, Dutton examines how well Rushton’s data fitted in model, a process which reveals less than flattering information about Rushton himself. Dutton assesses how well Rushton's data fits his model. There are problems, Dutton reveals. Rushton fell short as a human being. He fudged his findings in order to make the three major races - Blacks and whites and Orientals - more neatly fit the model. He did so by selectively omitting observations that didn't fit the pattern and by searching for statistical significance where it really couldn't be found. Dutton describes this process of "p-hacking" in some detail. The bottom line is that Rushton was not above fiddling with the data to make an analysis appear to meet the standard for statistical significance when it really didn't.
Then Dutton looks at the possibility that Rushton, the highly original and courageous scientist, might have been a ‘genius,’ as Dutton shows that some of Rushton’s supporters have implied he might have been. ‘Genius’ is a concept that Dutton and his co-author Bruce Charlton developed in their book The Genius Famine. What is a genius? What are the hallmarks of genius?
Trait number one is outlier high intelligence. There is no question on that matter. Dutton doesn't offer numbers, but an IQ of 160 is one in 30,000; 175 is one in 3.5 million. A practical definition would be "Somebody that the smartest guy you know would call considerably smarter." On this measure, Rushton may well qualify.
High IQ isn't enough, though. Dutton notes that while Northeast Asians have measurably higher average IQs than Caucasians, it is the Caucasians who are responsible for most scientific progress and walk away with most per capita Nobel prizes. Dutton finds part of the explanation in the variety within the gene pool – Caucasian intelligence has a higher standard deviation, hence more outliers. Beyond this, Dutton repeats the explanation that he gave in his book co-authored with Bruce Charlton, The Genius Famine. It is a matter of personality.
A genius is always fighting the tide – putting forth uncomfortable new ideas. This takes special personality traits. Dutton and Rushton both use the Big Five personality assessment with the acronym OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
A genius is typically very open – willing to explore new ideas no matter how bizarre they might seem to most people. He may be low in conscientiousness – he doesn't dot all the I's and cross the T's. He is low in agreeableness – he will cling to those ideas despite what others may think. He may be high on the autism spectrum, with a strong systematizing ability and a lack of empathy. Geniuses can be childlike in the high degree to which they are imaginative, meaning that they ask superficially "dumb" questions that few others would. In doing so they make connections that few others would make. They have little concern for the opprobrium of their peers and the scoffing they will receive. On the other hand, most modern geniuses are agreeable to the extent that they are collaborative. While they may be picky in choosing their peers, they do participate actively in the marketplace of ideas.
The genius may be quite one-dimensional. He (and the impolite Dutton says again that geniuses are almost exclusively men) may be removed and otherworldly, unable to function in normal society. Einstein didn't drive and didn't know his way around his own town.
A third characteristic of genius is great drive and energy. Men like Newton and Einstein had a great ability to shut out the world as they devoted days on end to pursuing their ideas.
Dutton observes that many geniuses apply themselves to several academic fields, daring to dabble. Richard Feynman is a classic example. William Shockley, co-inventor of the semi conductor, was led by his curiosity into intelligence research. For Rushton to have segued from psychology into evolutionary psychology and human biology is unusual only in its direction: from a softer to a harder science. Dutton himself, with a background in Theology, has moved into evolutionary psychology. It did not bother Rushton to be at a second tier institution such as Western Ontario, just as it does not bother Victor Davis Hanson to be at Fresno State, Kevin MacDonald to be at Long Beach State or Dutton himself in a backwater like Oulu, Finland. Dutton is affiliated to the city’s backwater university, via an honorary position (‘docent’) given to him before he became interested in forbidden knowledge. This backwater of a university has publically distanced itself from Dutton’s controversial research. It is the price one pays for being out of intellectual fashion.
A related characteristic is a willingness to take chances, to express bold theories that might not be totally valid, but which might contain enough truth to be worth considering. Theories that will inevitably invite a backlash. Rushton's signature thesis can be rebutted – as Dutton does here – but as Dutton reconfirms it contains enough validity to remain extremely useful. The same might be said of Dutton's critique presented here.
Dutton would conclude that although Rushton's theory is correct and very useful, he was not a genius. I the reviewer agree, but for somewhat different reasons.
Rushton had one vast, profound idea. In fact, it was Edward O Wilson's r-K idea, simply applied to the races of the human species. What most characterizes Rushton is his dogged support of the thesis in the face of constant hostility.
Other geniuses had larger bodies of lifetime work. Einstein both equated mass and energy and devised the theory of relativity. Newton co-invented calculus, devised a theory of gravity, and authored Newtonian mechanics. Faraday and Maxwell had a number of theories regarding electricity. Darwin wrote books on both evolution and sexual selection. One could say that their genius was both broader and deeper than that of Rushton.
Dutton devotes a chapter to the ways in which the data doesn’t fit Rushton's thesis of a spectrum of r-K distribution, with Blacks at one end, East Asians at the other and whites intermediate but closer to East Asians.
One concern is the size of the brain – the cranium. In general, brain size fits the model. Oriental brains are bigger than Caucasian brains which are bigger than black brains. However, Arctic peoples have the biggest brains of anybody, even though their IQ averages only about 91. Dutton contends that Rushton found it convenient to leave them out of the study. They didn't fit.
One could say – though neither of these authors did – that other factors have to be taken into consideration. The American Indians and Arctic peoples evolved from common Asian stock only 15,000 years or so ago. Perhaps their large brains are a legacy of their Northeast Asian heritage.
While present Native Americans live in temperate climes where there is not as much selection pressure for high intelligence, they moved there so recently that the legacy of their crossing from the Bering Strait, a time in which high intelligence would certainly have been in demand, may still remain in force. Evolution is fast, but not that fast. The fact that not all the data fits the model is more troubling to Dutton than it is to this reviewer.
Rushton seemed fascinated with the size of genitalia – "pornographer" was one of the labels often thrown at him. Penis size does fall in the proper order: Asian, Caucasian, Negro. Rushton did some unusual things to collect his data and was critiqued on the basis of both sample size and representativeness. However, the condom manufacturers of the world know their markets and would concur with Rushton.
On the other hand, the size of Negro testicles is smaller than white men. They should be bigger. Rushton wrote "So far, we have no information on the relative size of Blacks’ testicles." No – Dutton contends that there is such data and, moreover, a study which Rushton drew upon to make his assertions about race differences in penis size specifically stated that blacks had smaller testicles, something Rushton ignored.
Dutton seems to follow Rushton down the rabbit hole of prurient interest. It is an indication that both men are willing to think outside the box and offer theories that would be hard to confirm and might be offensive.
A case in point is Dutton's observation that modern white people's willingness to engage in oral sex, which doesn't lead to procreation, is not in keeping with the r-K model. Dutton contends that the K selected Orientals should have a greater preference for oral sex.
First of all, the Orientals' lower interest in sex means exactly that, whatever its shape or form. Secondly, there are personality and cultural considerations at play. Oral sex requires a degree of openness of which the Orientals have less than Caucasians. The idea seems to have been rather foreign to Vietnam until the arrival of the French.
What neither Rushton nor Dutton takes into consideration is how incredibly fluid the sexual practices of a society are, and how recently these things have changed. On this, as a man born before Rushton, I am in a position to offer a long-term observation.
Oral sex was rarely discussed when I was an adolescent. I became aware of the idea when Playboy started mentioning it in their party jokes section.
Dutton and Rushton were both inclined to assess personality characteristics based on sexual histories. A lot more goes into it. I would observe that of servicemen born in the 1940s, those who went to Southeast Asia probably have twice as many women in their sexual histories as those who went to Germany. It had nothing to do with our innate proclivities. It was simply opportunity.
Likewise, there is a difference between us in the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers. The sexual revolution affected whole cohorts, whatever their proclivities. Had a certain Bonnie said yes to me in 1964 I would be regarded as the model of a K type citizen. She didn't, I went to Vietnam, lived through the sexual revolution, and my history is quite different.
On a continent-wide scale, the Iberians who colonized Latin America and parts of India such as Goa found themselves in the lands of their erotic dreams. Whatever their proclivities back home, r or K, they became flamboyantly r once they got the opportunity. This tendency persists. Modern Brazil, a mélange of Portuguese adventurers, Indians and Africans is far more sexually unconstrained than North America.
As a bottom line, sexual practices are more fluid than either Rushton or Dutton would credit. It is not a surprise that the practices we observe in 2020 may have evolved significantly from the conditions of evolutionary adaptiveness under which the r-K spectrum came about. Both researchers seem to examine only one variable in a multivariate equation.
Dutton is right to fault Rushton for ignoring inconvenient data and hacking his p-values to make correlations appear more significant than they are. He can't be faulted for the fact that Rushton's predictions do not apply uniformly across the three races under question, or are not uniformly extensible to other races.
Dutton also argues that although Rushton's high intelligence would ordinarily have predicted that he would follow a K strategy lifestyle, the opposite is the case. He cites a number of particulars.
Rushton was sexually adventuresome, not a faithful partner. He was married three times and had a number of affairs in and out of marriage. His paramours were rather unlike him: a barely pubescent first wife, a Turk, a Jew, and lovers of other stripes.
His investment in his children was uneven. Although he raised the son by his first marriage, he had little contact with the daughter born to him via common law marriage.
Rushton was not afraid to mix it up physically. He fought back against campus protesters who tried to rough up his mentor Hans Eysenk. Fisticuffs are definitely r-strategy behavior.
Rushton was narcissistic, another r-strategy trait. He saw himself as a larger-than-life figure. I would observe, true but justified. Rushton took on an entire scientific establishment in the attempt to convince them that they were wrong. The establishment's insistence that there were no significant differences among the races was leading to disastrous social policies.
If Rushton saw himself as a messianic figure trying to save humanity from itself, one could say he was right. Multiculturalism has indeed devastated Western Europe. If only he had been more successful. Dutton writes that Rushton's in-your-face approach was highly off-putting. Mailing 40,000 copies of the abridged version of Race, Evolution, and Behavior to the social science community was certainly a calculated affront. On the other hand, the people he was confronting were equally harsh, shouting down calmer, more temperate men such as Arthur Jensen and Charles Murray.
Dutton's own willingness to take risks is evidenced by the titles of his books. One of them "How to Judge People by What They Look Like" seems calculated to provoke the response "You can't do that!" Of course you can't do it all the time. Dutton's point is that you can do it enough of the time to make it worthwhile trying. Although he could not possibly be right all the time, he is right enough of the time. This is true of the observations in other books I have reviewed, [[ASIN:B07TWZGZDJ The Genius Famine ]] and [[ASIN:B07M8NG2CN At Our Wits End - Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What it Means for the Future]]. He pursues these threads on his The Jolly Heretic YouTube channel. While Rushton's Life History theory can't explain everything, it is right enough of the time to be very useful.
With regard to Rushton, Dutton has put together a comprehensive unauthorized biography. This makes him not beholden to Rushton's heirs or anybody else. He is free to speculate with regard to Rushton's psychological makeup, motivations, and inner demons. In addition to being a useful reference, it is a fascinating read. Five stars.
J. Philippe Rushton lies at the intersection of two of Edward Dutton's greatest interests - evolutionary psychology and genius.
This book is in two parts. The first part is a exploration of Rushton's most famous theory, the r-K selection applied to the human species and its biggest three races (Black, White and East Asian), and an evaluation of the case Rushton makes for it. In essence, species differ on a continuum from r or fast (easy, unpredictable ecology, invest energy in copulation in the hope that some offspring survive) to K or slow (harsh but predictable ecology, strong intra-species competition, invest energy in nurture of small number of offspring so that they win in this competition to survive in a very predictable place). Rushton argued that human races could be placed on different points of this continuum.
The second part is a biography of Rushton, and a psychological analysis of what drove the man: the anomaly that a man characterized by an r-strategy life history should have developed it.
Firstly, Dutton examines how well Rushton’s data fitted in model, a process which reveals less than flattering information about Rushton himself. Dutton assesses how well Rushton's data fits his model. There are problems, Dutton reveals. Rushton fell short as a human being. He fudged his findings in order to make the three major races - Blacks and whites and Orientals - more neatly fit the model. He did so by selectively omitting observations that didn't fit the pattern and by searching for statistical significance where it really couldn't be found. Dutton describes this process of "p-hacking" in some detail. The bottom line is that Rushton was not above fiddling with the data to make an analysis appear to meet the standard for statistical significance when it really didn't.
Then Dutton looks at the possibility that Rushton, the highly original and courageous scientist, might have been a ‘genius,’ as Dutton shows that some of Rushton’s supporters have implied he might have been. ‘Genius’ is a concept that Dutton and his co-author Bruce Charlton developed in their book The Genius Famine. What is a genius? What are the hallmarks of genius?
Trait number one is outlier high intelligence. There is no question on that matter. Dutton doesn't offer numbers, but an IQ of 160 is one in 30,000; 175 is one in 3.5 million. A practical definition would be "Somebody that the smartest guy you know would call considerably smarter." On this measure, Rushton may well qualify.
High IQ isn't enough, though. Dutton notes that while Northeast Asians have measurably higher average IQs than Caucasians, it is the Caucasians who are responsible for most scientific progress and walk away with most per capita Nobel prizes. Dutton finds part of the explanation in the variety within the gene pool – Caucasian intelligence has a higher standard deviation, hence more outliers. Beyond this, Dutton repeats the explanation that he gave in his book co-authored with Bruce Charlton, The Genius Famine. It is a matter of personality.
A genius is always fighting the tide – putting forth uncomfortable new ideas. This takes special personality traits. Dutton and Rushton both use the Big Five personality assessment with the acronym OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
A genius is typically very open – willing to explore new ideas no matter how bizarre they might seem to most people. He may be low in conscientiousness – he doesn't dot all the I's and cross the T's. He is low in agreeableness – he will cling to those ideas despite what others may think. He may be high on the autism spectrum, with a strong systematizing ability and a lack of empathy. Geniuses can be childlike in the high degree to which they are imaginative, meaning that they ask superficially "dumb" questions that few others would. In doing so they make connections that few others would make. They have little concern for the opprobrium of their peers and the scoffing they will receive. On the other hand, most modern geniuses are agreeable to the extent that they are collaborative. While they may be picky in choosing their peers, they do participate actively in the marketplace of ideas.
The genius may be quite one-dimensional. He (and the impolite Dutton says again that geniuses are almost exclusively men) may be removed and otherworldly, unable to function in normal society. Einstein didn't drive and didn't know his way around his own town.
A third characteristic of genius is great drive and energy. Men like Newton and Einstein had a great ability to shut out the world as they devoted days on end to pursuing their ideas.
Dutton observes that many geniuses apply themselves to several academic fields, daring to dabble. Richard Feynman is a classic example. William Shockley, co-inventor of the semi conductor, was led by his curiosity into intelligence research. For Rushton to have segued from psychology into evolutionary psychology and human biology is unusual only in its direction: from a softer to a harder science. Dutton himself, with a background in Theology, has moved into evolutionary psychology. It did not bother Rushton to be at a second tier institution such as Western Ontario, just as it does not bother Victor Davis Hanson to be at Fresno State, Kevin MacDonald to be at Long Beach State or Dutton himself in a backwater like Oulu, Finland. Dutton is affiliated to the city’s backwater university, via an honorary position (‘docent’) given to him before he became interested in forbidden knowledge. This backwater of a university has publically distanced itself from Dutton’s controversial research. It is the price one pays for being out of intellectual fashion.
A related characteristic is a willingness to take chances, to express bold theories that might not be totally valid, but which might contain enough truth to be worth considering. Theories that will inevitably invite a backlash. Rushton's signature thesis can be rebutted – as Dutton does here – but as Dutton reconfirms it contains enough validity to remain extremely useful. The same might be said of Dutton's critique presented here.
Dutton would conclude that although Rushton's theory is correct and very useful, he was not a genius. I the reviewer agree, but for somewhat different reasons.
Rushton had one vast, profound idea. In fact, it was Edward O Wilson's r-K idea, simply applied to the races of the human species. What most characterizes Rushton is his dogged support of the thesis in the face of constant hostility.
Other geniuses had larger bodies of lifetime work. Einstein both equated mass and energy and devised the theory of relativity. Newton co-invented calculus, devised a theory of gravity, and authored Newtonian mechanics. Faraday and Maxwell had a number of theories regarding electricity. Darwin wrote books on both evolution and sexual selection. One could say that their genius was both broader and deeper than that of Rushton.
Dutton devotes a chapter to the ways in which the data doesn’t fit Rushton's thesis of a spectrum of r-K distribution, with Blacks at one end, East Asians at the other and whites intermediate but closer to East Asians.
One concern is the size of the brain – the cranium. In general, brain size fits the model. Oriental brains are bigger than Caucasian brains which are bigger than black brains. However, Arctic peoples have the biggest brains of anybody, even though their IQ averages only about 91. Dutton contends that Rushton found it convenient to leave them out of the study. They didn't fit.
One could say – though neither of these authors did – that other factors have to be taken into consideration. The American Indians and Arctic peoples evolved from common Asian stock only 15,000 years or so ago. Perhaps their large brains are a legacy of their Northeast Asian heritage.
While present Native Americans live in temperate climes where there is not as much selection pressure for high intelligence, they moved there so recently that the legacy of their crossing from the Bering Strait, a time in which high intelligence would certainly have been in demand, may still remain in force. Evolution is fast, but not that fast. The fact that not all the data fits the model is more troubling to Dutton than it is to this reviewer.
Rushton seemed fascinated with the size of genitalia – "pornographer" was one of the labels often thrown at him. Penis size does fall in the proper order: Asian, Caucasian, Negro. Rushton did some unusual things to collect his data and was critiqued on the basis of both sample size and representativeness. However, the condom manufacturers of the world know their markets and would concur with Rushton.
On the other hand, the size of Negro testicles is smaller than white men. They should be bigger. Rushton wrote "So far, we have no information on the relative size of Blacks’ testicles." No – Dutton contends that there is such data and, moreover, a study which Rushton drew upon to make his assertions about race differences in penis size specifically stated that blacks had smaller testicles, something Rushton ignored.
Dutton seems to follow Rushton down the rabbit hole of prurient interest. It is an indication that both men are willing to think outside the box and offer theories that would be hard to confirm and might be offensive.
A case in point is Dutton's observation that modern white people's willingness to engage in oral sex, which doesn't lead to procreation, is not in keeping with the r-K model. Dutton contends that the K selected Orientals should have a greater preference for oral sex.
First of all, the Orientals' lower interest in sex means exactly that, whatever its shape or form. Secondly, there are personality and cultural considerations at play. Oral sex requires a degree of openness of which the Orientals have less than Caucasians. The idea seems to have been rather foreign to Vietnam until the arrival of the French.
What neither Rushton nor Dutton takes into consideration is how incredibly fluid the sexual practices of a society are, and how recently these things have changed. On this, as a man born before Rushton, I am in a position to offer a long-term observation.
Oral sex was rarely discussed when I was an adolescent. I became aware of the idea when Playboy started mentioning it in their party jokes section.
Dutton and Rushton were both inclined to assess personality characteristics based on sexual histories. A lot more goes into it. I would observe that of servicemen born in the 1940s, those who went to Southeast Asia probably have twice as many women in their sexual histories as those who went to Germany. It had nothing to do with our innate proclivities. It was simply opportunity.
Likewise, there is a difference between us in the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers. The sexual revolution affected whole cohorts, whatever their proclivities. Had a certain Bonnie said yes to me in 1964 I would be regarded as the model of a K type citizen. She didn't, I went to Vietnam, lived through the sexual revolution, and my history is quite different.
On a continent-wide scale, the Iberians who colonized Latin America and parts of India such as Goa found themselves in the lands of their erotic dreams. Whatever their proclivities back home, r or K, they became flamboyantly r once they got the opportunity. This tendency persists. Modern Brazil, a mélange of Portuguese adventurers, Indians and Africans is far more sexually unconstrained than North America.
As a bottom line, sexual practices are more fluid than either Rushton or Dutton would credit. It is not a surprise that the practices we observe in 2020 may have evolved significantly from the conditions of evolutionary adaptiveness under which the r-K spectrum came about. Both researchers seem to examine only one variable in a multivariate equation.
Dutton is right to fault Rushton for ignoring inconvenient data and hacking his p-values to make correlations appear more significant than they are. He can't be faulted for the fact that Rushton's predictions do not apply uniformly across the three races under question, or are not uniformly extensible to other races.
Dutton also argues that although Rushton's high intelligence would ordinarily have predicted that he would follow a K strategy lifestyle, the opposite is the case. He cites a number of particulars.
Rushton was sexually adventuresome, not a faithful partner. He was married three times and had a number of affairs in and out of marriage. His paramours were rather unlike him: a barely pubescent first wife, a Turk, a Jew, and lovers of other stripes.
His investment in his children was uneven. Although he raised the son by his first marriage, he had little contact with the daughter born to him via common law marriage.
Rushton was not afraid to mix it up physically. He fought back against campus protesters who tried to rough up his mentor Hans Eysenk. Fisticuffs are definitely r-strategy behavior.
Rushton was narcissistic, another r-strategy trait. He saw himself as a larger-than-life figure. I would observe, true but justified. Rushton took on an entire scientific establishment in the attempt to convince them that they were wrong. The establishment's insistence that there were no significant differences among the races was leading to disastrous social policies.
If Rushton saw himself as a messianic figure trying to save humanity from itself, one could say he was right. Multiculturalism has indeed devastated Western Europe. If only he had been more successful. Dutton writes that Rushton's in-your-face approach was highly off-putting. Mailing 40,000 copies of the abridged version of Race, Evolution, and Behavior to the social science community was certainly a calculated affront. On the other hand, the people he was confronting were equally harsh, shouting down calmer, more temperate men such as Arthur Jensen and Charles Murray.
Dutton's own willingness to take risks is evidenced by the titles of his books. One of them "How to Judge People by What They Look Like" seems calculated to provoke the response "You can't do that!" Of course you can't do it all the time. Dutton's point is that you can do it enough of the time to make it worthwhile trying. Although he could not possibly be right all the time, he is right enough of the time. This is true of the observations in other books I have reviewed, [[ASIN:B07TWZGZDJ The Genius Famine ]] and [[ASIN:B07M8NG2CN At Our Wits End - Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What it Means for the Future]]. He pursues these threads on his The Jolly Heretic YouTube channel. While Rushton's Life History theory can't explain everything, it is right enough of the time to be very useful.
With regard to Rushton, Dutton has put together a comprehensive unauthorized biography. This makes him not beholden to Rushton's heirs or anybody else. He is free to speculate with regard to Rushton's psychological makeup, motivations, and inner demons. In addition to being a useful reference, it is a fascinating read. Five stars.
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