00:01:03.300And then another one in the studio on the cancellation of the paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.
00:01:07.880Yes, so what happened, so you had a paper actually published, and it was one of those common sense things where you figure out something that everybody already knows, that basically woke people are mentally ill.
00:01:18.740But for some reason woke people didn't like that.
00:01:20.960They didn't like that, and so they used all kinds of spurious excuses, such as that the language wasn't academic, which is nonsense, the phrase mutational load is perfectly academic, or that it was biased, which is, I was asked by the peer reviewers to put in my interpretation of the data, and so I did.
00:01:38.840Although before that, the peer reviewers asked me to, I didn't even have any of this stuff in the paper.
00:01:46.360So, yeah, so they used basically a series of cabillings, which would normally be something that you wouldn't even bother with, to get rid of a paper, which obviously people were complaining about, so it was retracted on basically nakedly political grounds.
00:02:04.440Having passed peer review, but they forgot to subject it to queer review, which is the new higher standard.
00:02:11.980Yeah, it gets through peer review, but then if the queer reviewers retrospectively don't like it, then it has to be retracted.
00:02:18.380And the key finding of that is as simple as that, that if you're woke, you're more likely to be mental.
00:02:23.640Well, it was slightly more nuanced than that.
00:02:25.900It was that a woke scale that had been presented by somebody else using finished data, the question was, is it measurement invariant?
00:02:34.260So do woke people respond to the questions about mental illness in a different way because they're woke, rather than just because they're mentally ill?
00:03:19.620So obviously, therefore, it got a lot of attention and it got to the attention of particularly shrill work activists that then got in touch with the journal and, or the publisher, rather, Wiley and Sons.
00:03:30.560And then it was, without our chance to defend ourselves, it was simply retracted.
00:03:35.480But, of course, that means that for a lot of people it just gave it even more attention.
00:03:38.580And it was reported on The Daily Skeptic.
00:04:11.680And then more recently, I've got a number of projects on in terms of writing a book on ancient civilizations I've been working on for three years with a chap called Mike McCulloch, who you may know.
00:04:19.680That's the chap who tweeted out White Lives Matter during the insanity, and his university in Plymouth tried to sack him.
00:04:27.320And then I've got a book I'm working on, on my co-author, J. Ray Rayne Hills, on the evolution of Christianity, which I've been working on for about seven years.
00:04:37.420Yes, an evolutionary analysis of Christianity.
00:04:41.080And then there's this one, which moves on from the work Eugenics, which I looked at.
00:04:45.460And it looks at where I've started, I've got about 30,000 words, on the evolutionary importance of war and basically why we really always need to be at war.
00:04:55.580And it's tentatively called What We Need Is A Good War, which is apparently a quote from Churchill.
00:05:00.760So that's an interesting thread we should pick up on that.
00:05:02.860But I'm not quite satisfied with the mental ill stuff because I think there's one more question there.
00:05:13.440So I either want to ask why are mentally ill people left wing or I want to ask why are left wing people mentally ill?
00:05:20.500Well, that's interesting because it may well be that it's that it that it's that those are two related questions and it's symbiotic.
00:05:29.220It may well be in terms of the former question.
00:05:32.340Why are why are left wing people mentally ill in the direction of mental illness causes being left wing?
00:05:40.660The model that I think is the most parsimonious is simply that we are adapted.
00:05:46.540There's no need to go into the reasons why.
00:05:47.680We have been selected over a long period of time to be to be pro-social, that is to say high in agreeableness, low in mental instability and high in conscientiousness and rule following and to be group oriented, to be high in these five or five of the moral foundations.
00:06:04.780That's equality of harm avoidance, but also the group oriented foundations of obedience to authority, sanctity and in-group loyalty.
00:06:17.500And so what this would mean is that low mutational load would be associated with these things, with these conservative values.
00:06:27.180That's what we would expect to be the case.
00:06:29.080And that's what we find because there is evidence that high mutational load, evidence of developmental instability, things like having an asymmetrical face, are associated with being left wing.
00:06:41.780So obviously what happened was that we go from 50% child mortality in 1800 to 1% today.
00:06:48.560And so the deviation from what was adaptive in 1800 under harsh Darwinian conditions, i.e. conservatism, religiosity that upholds conservatism, this makes you more group oriented, you fight other groups, you're more likely to survive.
00:07:00.700So broadly speaking, the deviation from this will be in the direction of being left wing, though there will be some exceptions, of course.
00:07:08.580And so therefore you would expect left wing people to be associated with elevated mutational load.
00:07:13.440And this can be seen in numerous markers of genetic poor health, that they are shorter, that they are, or partly genetic poor health, that they are shorter, that they are mentally less healthy, that they are physically less healthy, that their faces are less symmetrical, that their hands are less symmetrical.
00:07:30.580All of these kinds of markers of genetic poor health.
00:07:35.260And so therefore those people would be behind being left wing.
00:07:37.720Secondly, if we look at the high neuroticism, the mental instability it's associated with, well, if you see the world, if you're full of negative feelings, well, one of those is resentment.
00:07:47.620You hate the fact that others have power over you, and if you're individually oriented, remember, that's what we're going to be pushing towards, you're going to be individually oriented, because we were evolved to be group oriented, so you're high mutational load, you deviate from that.
00:08:00.220So you want power just for you, you're selfish, but you're also mentally unstable in fear of fair fight.
00:08:05.160And you should do, because you're shorter and weaker than the average person.
00:08:09.240And so therefore you will covertly play for status, and you will be high in resentment, and so therefore you will attack that which is associated with the traditional group and its power in favour of things like equality and harm avoidance.
00:08:21.680And that's what left wing is really, it's covertly playing for status via virtue signalling about equality.
00:08:29.120Yeah, about equality, you are the weak, and you identify with the weak, and you resent the strong, so you want to bring about equality where everyone's the same, because then you get more of the pie.
00:08:41.400And it's a way of getting power for you by seeming nice, when of course you're not nice.
00:08:45.520So it's associated with Machiavellianism.
00:08:47.560And also, if you perceive the world as a frightening and unpleasant place, then you'd like to take control of it, to soothe your own concerns.
00:08:55.340And so this would militate in favour of Machiavellianism.
00:08:57.260And the other, an individually-oriented trait.
00:08:59.960The other one is, of course, narcissism, which is that if you feel low self-esteem and you feel that you're rubbish, then often, and I was criticised by the queer reviewers for saying this, but it's a perfectly academic idea, then you can create a sort of narcissistic false self, where you reassure yourself that you're perfect and you're wonderful, that you're morally perfect and you're morally wonderful.
00:09:21.100Well, in a right-wing society, such people might purity signal.
00:09:24.920But in a left-wing society, and that's what we're in, then, of course, you uber-virtue signal.
00:09:29.820And then this reassures you that you're important and it reassures you that you matter and you're better than other people.
00:09:34.760And so then that attracts you towards being left-wing, whereas, interestingly, to the extent that elevated mutational load is associated with being weirdly right-wing, deviating in the other direction, those people tend to be psychopaths, i.e. they like danger, and it is dangerous to be far right in the current system.
00:09:53.240Or they like pissing people off, or it does piss people off, right, exactly.
00:10:12.880Even if they do control the world, they won't feel that they do.
00:10:16.720They'll always feel that there's a danger that their power could be taken.
00:10:20.300I think that's why they're so successful, whereas right-wing people are mentally stable, they're happy, they have a sense that they do control the world, they are in control.
00:10:31.020And so, as you say, they just want to grill, right, or something, did you say that?
00:10:34.380So, that's the problem, and that's one of the reasons why things will move leftwards, until it gets to complete chaos.
00:10:40.680So, that's the alternative side of it, which is the, what I said about a symbiotic relationship.
00:10:45.860If you believe that you don't have control over the world, then this will make you, and you don't believe in an eternal being or something, this will make you even more unhappy.
00:11:10.380Well, Stephen Crowder has a show, Stephen Crowder is quite a big chap, and he had this producer working for him called Not Gay Gerald, and he was a skinny little chap.
00:11:20.460And I remember one episode he said, you know, words to the effect of, when they go out and about, they're always having people come up to them.
00:11:26.320And he can tell straight away whether they're going to be, love your work or say something abusive, depending on what they look like.
00:11:34.900And if they look like Stephen, i.e. a big guy, they're almost certainly coming over to say, love your work.
00:11:40.020If they're a skinny guy like him, they're almost certainly coming over to say something abusive.
00:11:44.340Right. So, you've got two dimensions of this.
00:11:46.160On the one hand, a person that is genetically healthy will have greater genetic resources left over to build up muscle and so on.
00:11:55.160So, they'll be physically strong, physically good looking.
00:11:57.280And there is actually studies on that, that right-wing men are more muscular than left-wing men, that testosterone makes you more right-wing, essentially.
00:12:08.260But equally, there's two dimensions to that.
00:12:11.220On the one hand, that will just be genetically associated with being conservative, because being conservative is a sign of low mutational load and having high T, or reasonably high T, and being muscular and so forth is a sign of low mutational load.
00:12:24.800But on the other hand, then, obviously, you can argue that it gives you a certain confidence to be good looking and to be muscular, a certain feeling of empowerment.
00:12:36.080And this will make you more inclined to like the world the way it is, whereas if you're weak and feeble, you'll feel bad about it, and so you'll resent the world and you'll want to throw it all away.
00:12:45.080So, how does this work with women, then? Because I have noticed that-
00:12:49.180Women are judged not so much on their height or their muscularity, but on their prettiness.
00:12:54.800And what's shown, again, I don't know what makes sense to me, and the data is, women, better-looking women, controlling for age and whatever factors, tend to be right-wing.
00:13:07.040And that would make sense genetically, because they're going to have good genes, and that's going to make them have a symmetrical face, but they're also not going to deviate from the pre-industrial norm so much.
00:13:17.000And so they're going to be more likely to be just genetically conservative.
00:13:20.940Remember, the heritability of conservatism is about sort of 0.6.
00:13:24.160But I suppose equally, if then you are an unattractive woman, it could make you very, very resentful and unhappy, and therefore you want to tear it all down, and therefore that pushes you at an environmental level to be more-
00:13:36.000Yes, I mean, all left-wing women, with the exception of AOC, are quite ugly.
00:13:40.800But I wondered if there was a factor in there with the physicality and the testosterone, because as well as the good-looking thing, if a woman has a strong husband or strong father figure, that makes her much more likely to be right-wing.
00:13:56.760Well, presumably, again, it's difficult to tease out the genetics from, if she is genetically healthy, she will attract genetically healthy men, because it will be passing on more of her own genes to-
00:14:12.140So AOC's boyfriend, for example, is a complete nerd.
00:14:15.360Well, I can't comment on that individual case, I don't know enough about it, but what you would expect is for them, is for healthy people, you'd definitely select for other healthy people, for good-looking women to be attractive to and able to bag high-status, healthy men, and for those people to, in general, be conservative rather than left-wing.
00:14:39.020But I think there was another part of your question that I've now forgotten.
00:14:41.260Oh, no, about the aspect of you talking about if people are physically secure in themselves and they have high testosterone.
00:15:02.720So if they have a strong husband and have a strong father, then that's a person that will look after them, let's say, and that will make them feel secure.
00:15:11.000And make them feel that life is good and everything's okay.
00:15:13.840And they'll therefore like things as they are, and it will push them towards conservatism.
00:15:17.320If they lack that, they might feel reliant on the state or whatever to look after them, and therefore that might push them towards a leftist kind of worldview.
00:15:25.140Yes, perhaps why the state likes single mothers so much.
00:15:27.840Yeah, because they are reliant on the state.
00:15:31.200So the other thing that came up in your interesting stuff before we get on to the main topic is mutational load.
00:15:38.280So from our point of view, mutational load is bad.
00:15:40.960But from an evolutionary point of view, is it bad?
00:15:43.660Because maybe if factors that give a rise to high mutational load, maybe it's because you need to go sideways and you want to find out what works.
00:15:54.980So often what you would expect is that a new adaptive innovation in evolutionary terms, let's say ginger hair.
00:16:03.160Ginger hair is the most recent of our colorings.
00:16:08.820It's associated with very high estrogen.
00:16:12.820And there is evidence, it has been argued by a guy called Peter Frost, that the reason why it happened was because there was a period of time in Northern Europe where we were reliant on big game.
00:16:40.460You produce new, novel, bright colors.
00:16:43.420And there's a certain degree to which men of perhaps a slightly more fast life history strategy bent will be attracted to that which is new and unusual, simply because it's new and unusual.
00:16:53.740And if life is a kind of zero-sum game where you could be wiped out at any minute, then you might as well take the chance.
00:16:59.780This person might have some interesting, useful, adaptive trait if they otherwise seem quite healthy, which could be useful to your offspring to help them to survive.
00:17:07.600So it's been argued that that's where ginger hair came from.
00:17:11.080So you get blonde hair, and then eventually you get, there are other benefits to these things as well, but you get blonde hair and very pale skin and green eyes.
00:17:17.600So in times of high stress, mutational load can be an advantage.
00:17:24.420A particular mutation, the ginger hair, green eyes, pale skin, nexus, is an advantage in a, it's novel, so people are attracted to it, but there are also certain advantages that happen to be concomitant with it, such as that you are particularly able to absorb vitamin, sunlight and synthesize it into vitamin D via the skin.
00:17:47.280And it's a grey climate, so you're not likely to get sunburned.
00:17:50.880Oh, that's why ginger people are Scottish.
00:17:53.540That's why there's a higher percentage of ginger people in Scotland than Ireland, right?
00:18:08.780But in terms of women, then of course it's a marker of estrogen, it's a marker of fertility.
00:18:14.260And so, but it will manifest as a rule, a new mutation will manifest among people that have slightly elevated mutational load.
00:18:21.920And this is what we find with ginger hair. Ginger hair is associated with all kinds of problems.
00:18:28.340That probably would have been the case with blonde hair when it first manifested, but that was so long ago that it has managed to become uncoupled from those related mutations.
00:18:38.440Whereas ginger hair is sufficiently new that that hasn't happened yet.
00:18:47.240Oh, so only a few tens of thousands of years.
00:18:49.160Nevertheless, it's sufficiently new that that's the case.
00:18:53.240So ginger hair, for example, is associated with certain illnesses, it's associated with cancer of the rectum, it's associated with high pain sensitivity, it's associated with various other problems, it's associated with endometriosis.
00:19:06.700So this leads to what we call frequency dependent, you know, heavy periods resulting in infertility.
00:19:13.740So what you have is then frequency dependent selection.
00:19:36.880I mean, equally, for example, I know an extraordinarily intelligent, perceptive young girl whose parents are very working class and not that bright.
00:19:44.600And she's very, very clever and she has all kinds of mutations, which has all kinds of things wrong with her.
00:19:49.960So I can only assume lovely girl, but this is true.
00:19:53.080And so I can only assume that this is because she has high mutational load.
00:19:56.840But concomitant with that is a positive mutation.
00:19:59.640But aren't we in a period of high mutational load now?
00:20:29.000They have elevated health problems, but maybe by genetic chance or they have unusual gene combinations or they have just new variants on genes.
00:20:40.560And so even under normal circumstances, there is some variation within the population which permits for mutational load to manifest or whatever.
00:20:48.900What we have now is that's distinct from having absolutely massive mutational load under no real selection.
00:22:37.860So the child's level of understanding of evolution is that lions want to eat antelopes.
00:22:43.320If the antelope, the fastest antelopes don't get eaten and the slowest lions don't eat and therefore both the lions and the antelope get faster.
00:22:53.060So they are acting as their own, almost as their own selective breeding farmers.
00:22:58.680They are in a symbiotic relationship where they are evolved to be in that situation of, let's call it war, all the time with a different species.
00:23:09.580There is then, and that different species is purging the worst of them, both directly, i.e. killing them, and indirectly, i.e. the antelope escaping the lion.
00:23:22.120And then this continues within the species whereby there will be fights, often to the death, for females or whatever.
00:23:33.600And so this is a kind of a war in which you are purging the worst of your species by preventing them from breeding.
00:23:41.220And so this process is simply ongoing all the time.
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