Cleansing the scientific literature ... again

Scientific evidence that blacks are more aggressive must be obliterated

Seven years ago I wrote about Danish psychologist Helmuth Nyborg and the attempts to "unpublish" a study he had already published. At first thought, the idea seemed strange to me:

I was initially stumped by the ruling that Dr. Nyborg must withdraw his study from the scientific literature. How can one withdraw an already published study? Then the penny dropped. Most journals are now published online, and cash-strapped university libraries have been phasing out their paper subscriptions. (Frost 2013)

I and many others complained to the Danish minister responsible for that decision, and it was reversed.

Now, the same thing is happening again, in the heart of the Free World:

An article claiming that skin pigmentation is related to aggression and sexuality in humans will be retracted, Elsevier announced today. The study, "Do pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and sexuality in humans as they do in other animals?" was published online in Personality and Individual Differences, an Elsevier journal, on March 15, 2012.

The study's authors, John Rushton and Donald Templer, both deceased, hypothesized that skin color was related to aggression and sexuality in humans. It has been cited just nine times in eight years, according to Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science. (Retraction Watch 2020)

According to Google Scholar it has been cited fifteen times. Anyway, a study’s worthiness isn't decided by a show of hands, either now or in the future. Opinions change, and fringe science may eventually become mainstream. Or vice versa.

That brings me to another point. For eight years that study was legitimate. Now, it no longer is. Thanks to George Floyd.

Actually, his death was only a pretext. The mob feels no differently today than it did before May 25. What has changed is its ability to get what it wants ... with no pushback. Let’s not kid ourselves. This is a power grab by people who already have much power over the most important aspect of human culture—the flow of information. If you control a few chokepoints, you can get most people to believe almost anything.

“Power” may not be the right word. The aim is not simply to control institutions but rather to control how we perceive and understand reality. These are people who believe that ideas matter, and they want control over ideas, even in the scientific literature (!).

I don't wish to judge whether Rushton and Templer were "right." Once a study has passed peer review and been published, that judgement belongs solely to the reader. Personally, I feel they were right in some respects and wrong in others. They were right to argue that darker-colored animals tend to be larger and more aggressive, this being true not only between species but also within species:

Ducrest et al. (2008) reviewed data on over 40 wild vertebrate species showing that within each species, darker pigmented individuals averaged higher levels of aggression and sexual activity than lighter pigmented individuals, with a larger body mass, more resistance to stress, and greater physical activity when grooming. The relationship between coloring and behavioral dominance was robust across three species of mammal (African lion, soay sheep, and white-tailed deer), four species of fish (mosquito fish, guppy, green swordtail, and Arctic charr), four species of reptile (asp viper, adder, fence lizard, and spiny lizard), one amphibian species (spadefoot toad) and 36 species of bird.

In captive Hermann's tortoises (Eurotestudo boettgeri), another reptile species, Mafli, Wakamatsu, and Roulin (2011) found darker shell coloration predicted greater aggressiveness and boldness. Darker individuals were more aggressive in male-male confrontations and bolder towards humans, independent of body size and ambient temperature. (Melanin based color traits are a criterion in mate choice.)

Validation of the pigmentation system as causal to the naturalistic observations was demonstrated by experimentally manipulating pharmacological dosages and by studies of cross-fostering (Ducrest et al., 2008). Thus, melanocortin hormone levels predicted the amount of testosterone and other sexual steroids along with concomitant increases (or decreases) in aggression and sexual behavior. Placing darker versus lighter pigmented individuals with adoptive parents of the opposite pigmentation did not modify offspring behavior. (Rushton and Templer 2012)

Yes, melanin does correlate with aggressiveness, especially male aggressiveness. Unlike Rushton and Templer, however, I don't believe the correlation is causal, at least not wholly. It probably began as an accidental association: newborns are generally less pigmented, and this has resulted in a mental association of lightness with weakness and immaturity. Conversely, darkness is associated with strength and maturity. The age difference in pigmentation has been amplified by sexual selection in many species, particularly polygynous species where males have to compete against each other for access to females

We humans make the same mental association, particularly darker-skinned humans. Among them, the contrast between infant and adult pigmentation is striking:

There is a rather widespread concept in Black Africa, according to which human beings, before "coming" into this world, dwell in heaven, where they are white. For, heaven itself is white and all the beings dwelling there are also white. Therefore the whiter a child is at birth, the more splendid it is. In other words, at that particular moment in a person's life, special importance is attached to the whiteness of his colour, which is endowed with exceptional qualities.

According to the same concept, it is also claimed that a newborn baby is not only white but also a soft being during the time between his birth and his acceptance into the society. Furthermore, during this entire period, he is not considered a real person, and this may go so far that parents and society may do away with him at will for reasons that are peculiar to each social group. Having been done away with, these beings are considered to return automatically to the place where they came from, that is, to heaven. (Zahan 1974, pp. 385-387)

This mental association may have become a factor in the struggle by men for mates. In highly polygynous societies, such as those of sub-Saharan Africa, darker-skinned men would be seen as more masculine, and threatening, by other men ... and by women.  Among human populations, darkness of skin correlates significantly with the polygyny rate, even after adjusting for latitudinal variation in skin color (Manning et al. 2004). It looks like selection has favored a darker color in adult males, particularly in a context of intra-male rivalry for mates, and this selection has probably occurred in many species.

I may be wrong. Perhaps Rushton and Templer were wrong. Perhaps nobody knows the truth on this point. That's why we don't unpublish scientific studies. No one has the last word in intellectual debate, and that's how things should be.

Elsevier is aware of the taboo it's treading on:

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision the editor is guided by policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.  An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. (Elsevier 2020)

Until now, unpublishing wasn’t even “very occasional.” I know of a few cases where a paper was retracted shortly after publication. But eight years after? That just wasn’t done. Now it’s been done. The taboo has been broken, and we're going to see more and more "removals."

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