Volkmar Weiss

Weiss argues that human intelligence differences are attributable mainly to the variation of a gene and the Mendelian inheritance rules. Social and polygenic factors have only a secondary influence. Social classes and ethnic groups differ according to Weiss' opinion through different high IQ mean values ​​, for which he takes to be the cause, inter alia, the distribution of gene variants within these groups. White ' theses have only a marginal position in science.

From the results of his intelligence research, he draws specific educational, non-controlling, migration and ethno-political conclusions. His remarks on the relationship of genetics and biology to society call to the public mainly rejection forth, to the accusation that it was to " genetics in Nazi tradition." Political moves Weiss in right-wing extremist contexts.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1962 in Annaberg -Buchholz Weiss studied from 1963 German, geography and biology in Leipzig. In 1968, he received special training in anthropology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1969 he began the study of the social background of the math gifted of the German Democratic Republic, and he was transferred to the Department of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences. In 1970 he was awarded the Humboldt University Diploma of Biology, he became the Dr. rer 1972. nat. doctorate. In 1974 he moved to Leipzig in the German College for Physical Culture. From 1977 he worked in the Department of Sociology of Education of the Central Institute for Youth Research. In 1984 he joined the staff of the Research Center of Regional History of the Central Institute for the History of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin. Here he wrote a habilitation thesis on the social history of Saxony, which he defended in 1993. In 1990 he became head of the German Central Office for Genealogy in Leipzig, in 1995 the Saxon State Archive in Leipzig assumed as a department. Since 2008 White has retired.

Professional positions - Criticism

In his work psychogenetics: human genetics in psychology and psychiatry ( 1982, 1990 defended as habilitation thesis of Genetics ) described Weiss deviations in the normal distribution in raw scores of intelligence tests. The three " levels " noticed by him in his sample could be generalized to the entire population, in a distribution of IQ expected values ​​by 94 % at 68 to 112 at 27 % and by 130 at 5 %. Next, he presented data in which the IQ of the children of parents from the low and high group again has a similar value, " while a quarter each of the children of all parents whose IQ is 112, or about the underlying in the intelligence group arrives. "Both he explained by inheritance of a single, as yet unknown gene with two alleles according to Mendel's laws, which have the most important influence.

Although in today's intelligence research, the importance of genetic factors is recognized with this escalation, however, represents a white outsider. He interprets Charles Spearman's hypothesis of a general factor of intelligence g He also starts from the information processing model of Erlanger School of Information Psychology, after which the short memory capacity is crucial for more complex thought processes, which in turn is composed is of information processing speed and memory span.

1993 came the publication of White in the Journal of educational psychology to criticism by the psychologist Helmut Lukesch and human geneticist Gisela Grupe.

According Lukesch White ignores the difference between intelligence and performance concepts, such as school grades they represent. It is a mistake to take the average Abitur than IQ indicator as it represented white, because already hardly correlated results of participants in tests for medical degree programs as a kind of intelligence test with their high school averages. Lukesch led to some studies, according to which the professions and the social class indicators correlated only weakly with the IQ. Weiss' model of intelligence detected the complex relationships between work and social class, and intelligence is not sufficient. Not a genetic predisposition, but primarily exogamous factors such as the organization of teaching caused power effects.

According to Grupe treated white "social distributions as a biological constant". So " earning Possible " he general intelligence. But for lack of an empirical basis. The profession could only be taken as an indicator of intelligence, when " there has been no guidance career choice, neither by the state nor because of supply and demand of the labor market, yet due to the current family situation ." In addition, Weiss lacked a " empirical access" to lower intelligence because creativity indeed an indication of a high IQ, but does not refer the lack of creativity on low intelligence.

In a review for The IQ Trap (2000), the psychologist Jürgen vom Scheidt divides Although this information psychological approach and the strong emphasis on inheritance of giftedness, which is contrary to the doctrine in intelligence research, which usually of a ratio " heredity to environment = 50: 50 " runs out. However, he comes to the criticism that the concept of intelligence very white einenge on " academic intelligence". He ignores the underachievers and the " deferred ".

Larger cause a stir White ' publications occasionally in and through journalism. So criticized Andreas Speit to the position taken by White heredity approach and its methodology - based on Stephen Jay Gould's critique of sociobiology - he exclude from statistical correlations to causes.

White claims to have transferred methods of quantum mechanics to the human brain. Nor is there a quantization of memory span and the speed of thought, that is, it could only a handful of different sized memory glitches or velocities occur and there is no continuous distribution. These speeds he calls " natural frequencies of the brain ", which could only ever be integer multiples of ( with the circle number ) or in more recent publications of ( the golden section ). He defended the thesis that differences in intelligence are determined solely by the differences of these values ​​from person to person. Weiss refers to this theory as his " most original scientific achievement ." Was supported his theory of the psychologists Hans Jürgen Eysenck, who is known for his theories on intelligence differences between "races". As part of this work, he also set up the physical thesis that the Planck length amounts to exactly.

In an essay in 2012 by Michael Haller published anthology The myth of decline of intelligence. From Galton to Sarrazin: The thought patterns and fallacies of eugenics Andreas Kemper tried to prove that Thilo Sarrazin some key propositions and formulations of his 2010 published book Germany abolishes itself taken from directly from Volkmar Weiss did.

Policy

Population and Social Policy

Weiss expects collectively different biologically fixed degrees of intelligence ethnic and social groups in different societies. Such a distributed intelligence will not stay without serious social and economic consequences for the state and society as a whole, which is why white is concrete demands for the practice population-, migration and education policy. He calls that "only well-trained people " should be naturalized, since they are also intelligent. Because of propagated the intelligence of the parents as the crucial social, professional and economic successes of the children fell off the problems of previous immigration: do not be so caused primarily by socio-economic and socio- cultural influences, but by dumb immigrant groups. As thus not desirable migrants, he identifies "Gypsy " and Turks, which he - in contrast to the inhabitants of the Far East - in the sum attributed to low intelligence.

An example is White ' Dealing with " gypsies ". He ignores the extensive recent literature on Roma. It refers instead to Hermann Arnold, doctor, Erbhygieniker and known "gypsy researchers " in an explicit successor of Nazi racial research, such as the race researcher Robert Knight stands for with its Racial Research Department. Knight imputed " gypsies " a " congenital feeble-mindedness ". Weiss tells Arnold's and the knight base position to shift Historical- Social Biological and to be declared invariant. From an inferior education and training level of the Czechoslovak Roma he runs a mean IQ of 85 and expands its conclusion on the assumption that it seemed " social box, as for the Negro in the United States, the Gypsies in Europe and for the Burakumin in Japan, an average IQ of about 85 to be typical. " This he sees next to illiteracy and high crime as the cause of social exclusion and the emergence of social conflict substance. This concept of social marginalization is consistent with older, now obsolete scientific constructions as well as with still vital popular images of " asocial " and subproletarischer " Verlumpung ".

In his book The IQ case, he focuses on the impact of his opinion, inadequate intelligence - equipment of " Gypsies " by the example of the Roma in Zendersch (Romania ) dar. His perspective is determined by the traditional images of popular antiziganism:

" The gypsies make so even today the relaxed life before the economic and other success. They still resemble members of primitive societies that without squinting on value, just so much work that it's enough to live. Even today, live the gypsy in Zendersch in miserable mud huts with tousled straw or reed roofs. Through the open door you can see in a single dark room where all activities take place domestic life and getting through a single tiny window light. A whole lot of black-brown, glutäugigen children hanging around the fire on the ground. About the open stove flame of the boiler, in which the mother's Paulukes, a corn porridge cooked in water, the national dish prepared depends. "

Education policy

White regrets with the note of the limits of " educability " the greater permeability of the education system since the 1970s. He argues this population biological, relying on eugenicist Hans Harmsen and extreme right-wing texts such as the Heidelberg Manifesto. The sinking of the " population quality", " the outnumbered the German elite " could not be compensated "with more lessons for the broad middle ". In a German population policy education policy is to be financed, "but for German children - not for language courses and all-day schools ."

Weiss' model of a threefold division of the endowment corresponds with the typical for Germany in deviation from the standard European tripartite school system. It follows this older educational theory and political constructs that legitimize this system. It corresponds to the "natural" distribution of the " talents " and the labor market needs best. Weiss refers explicitly to these ideas when he approvingly quotes Henry Weinstock: " Three things people need the machine, the one who keeps them and uses in the corridor; the one who repaired and improved; Finally, the one who invented and constructed. "

Right-wing extremist contexts

In the taz White has been criticized for years to fish " in murky brown waters " and scientific " more than controversial" and " Nazi tradition " standing views on the right side to get approval. In a lecture in 2004 on the upcoming " pension catastrophe" as he had praised the concern of the National Socialists for a " conservation of the Germans" than for the present model, on the other hand called for birth control. " Because, White, senseless, unlimited proliferation admit it only in the animal kingdom -. , And with the family of Osama bin Laden and Jewish fundamentalists "

Weiss' recent publication and articulation places such as the German community study, the Leopold Stocker Verlag, the Society for Free Journalism or the German voice of NPD. He is co-editor of the political- scientific journal Mankind Quarterly U.S., which is evaluated in the human biological discussion as " racist manifesto ". Their goal is " a political stake in the debate about racial segregation under scientific character". The Scientific Advisory Board " includes, inter alia, a number of old and neo-Nazis ," such as Alain de Benoist.

Co-editor is also white Nouvelle Ecole, a company founded by Alain de Benoist Journal of the Nouvelle Droite. He experiences a certain reception also in the national-conservative transition field by right-winger.

He tried to spread his ideas in novels. The text of Berlin after the Turks uprising handles conflicts in a multicultural society. The [ Millennial ] kingdom Artam. The alternative history [ 1941-2099 ] describes the basis of the main character in a Obersturmbannführer how Turks in Berlin will eventually defeated by German Freikorps rage ( Old pogroms ) and. In addition, White talks about his scientific theories and research in presentations for clubs and groups that elite -oriented, bourgeois- conservative, are classified but most of all the political right.

White was in January 1990 of the founding members of the German Social Union (DSU ) and the authors of the party program. He was chairman of the DSU Leipzig. In June 1990, he stepped over to the CDU, which he left again in 1993. Meanwhile, he articulated politically days especially in extreme right-wing contexts. At the proposal of the parliamentary group of the NPD, the President of the Landtag of Saxony appointed him in March 2005 as an external expert in the Enquete Commission Demographic trends and their implications for the areas of life of the people in the Free State of Saxony and its consequences for political action, from which he in January 2006 was eliminated. In addition, he was interviewed and guest author Junge Freiheit and the German voice of NPD.

Writings

• Psychogenetics: human genetics in psychology and psychiatry. VEB Gustav Fischer, Jena 1982, ISSN 0435 - 284x (Reprinted in: Volkmar Weiss, Siegfried Lehrl, Helmar Frank. Psychogenetics of Intelligence Publisher Modern Learning, Dortmund 1986, ISBN 3-8080-0106-2 ).
• Population and social mobility: Saxony from 1550 to 1880. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-05-001973-5.
• (:) with Katja Münchow local heritage books with Leipzig. 2nd edition. Degener, Neustadt / Aisch 1998, ISBN 3-7686-2099-9.
• The IQ - Trap: intelligence, social structure and politics. Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz 2000, ISBN 3-7020-0882-9.
• The intelligence and its enemies: the rise and decline of industrial society. Ares Verlag, Graz 2012, ISBN 978-3-902732-01-9.