John Derbyshire: Hope for the Human Sciences, but None for Parenting

By Nicholas Stix

At the risk of sounding conservatively incorrect, I think my colleague John Derbyshire has it backwards. Then again, I’ve never identified as a “conservative,” just so that I’d have the freedom to think each such issue anew.

As for the formula for influences on a growing human being Derbyshire cites—50% heredity, 45% peer groups, 5% parenting—I suspect that it is based on a certain time breakdown, in which a child, once in school, doesn’t spend much time with his parents.

As for the human sciences, I have little to no hope for them. As organized fields, 99% of the man-hours and money invested in them are within the confines of the antiversity.

But John Derbyshire unwittingly makes my argument for me. The example he gives that is supposed to be grounds for hope involves an academic organization changing an “i.e.” to an “e.g.”

At VDARE.