Ghent University invited Nathan Cofnas, a controversial philosopher, to work on a scientific project, prompting 45 philosophers to demand, in an open letter, the withdrawal of the invitation on the grounds of racism.
I found out about this from a Facebook post1 You can read it here: facebook.com in which someone jumped to Cofnas’ defence, arguing that this is how science advances: by researching controversial matters, such as the possible influence of racial factors on the intelligence of some people.
So I went straight to the source, to Cofnas’ materials, and stumbled upon a piece called “A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution”2 “A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution”, ncofnas.com” in which he discusses “racial realism” as a way to essentially to whitewash as a scientific term the idea that “without hereditarianism, the fight against wokism is futile, and that a hereditarian revolution is both feasible and desirable.”
Now, if that doesn’t strike you as racism, the fact that at the beginning of the text in question he praises Chris Rufo, the father of the conservative struggle against anything they deem ‘woke’ – even when it affects situations where CRT means a cathode ray tube, not ‘Critical Race Theory’ – speaks volumes about this guy’s ideas.
The piece cost Cofnas a fellowship at Emmanuel College,3 Emmanuel College cuts ties with ‘race-realist’ fellow, varsity.co.uk yet there are always those who are keen to recover such ‘assets’.
If I combine the fact that hereditarianism has Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics and great proponent of the idea that humanity should be ‘improved’ through artificial selection and reproductive control, with Cofnas’ statement that “in a meritocracy, the number of black professors would approach 0%”, it is clear to me that this man is just one in a long line of individuals seeking to put a scientific hat on scientific racism.
And they will probably succeed, because it aligns perfectly with the ideas of transhumanism – a favourite among some chaps in Silicon Valley – to improve humanity through technology, meaning they will never be short of funding. For this reason, I would say they perhaps shouldn’t receive funding from European universities; we truly have other holes to fill than just ensuring we are not aligned with racism from across the Pond.