Update on Fisher Research
I was contacted about a year and a half ago by a journalist at the Economist that was reporting on a story. She told me that in 2020, a decorative window at Cambridge University celebrating R A Fisher and his most influential contribution to science the latin square had been removed from his former College’s dining hall. It had been taken down in response to calls from activists to reckon with Fisher’s historical involvement in eugenics research and justifying British colonialism. In modern terms, he was accused of being racist and therefore was cancelled.
Since my blog was mentioned in the demands that were sent to Cambridge, the journalist from the Economist wanted to see if I had any direct source quotes that would back up the claims of his racism. Implied in her question was that she and her editors thought the activists and University were overreacting and that the claims that “[Fisher] was a prominent proponent of eugenics, both in his scientific work and his public pronouncements throughout his career”, was overblown. Over a few days and a few phone calls, I tried to demonstrate how R A Fisher, instead of being exonerated from his racism, upon closer reading of his book, “The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection”, actually exhibits what I call a “hyper-racist” view of the world that definitely deserves to be called-out as racist. That said, I think there can be other ways to contextualize and engage with history than simply taking down all references to Fisher at Cambridge.
In any case, this blog post is a collection of the quotes and interpretation that I sent to the journalist at the Economist last year, now re-worked to make it slightly more readable.
I ended my email to her:
I hope these quotes are enlightening to you. It was totally repugnant for me to revisit this book after several years of not thinking about it, but it is good to remind oneself of the ideas that shaped politics, science and philosophy in the last centuries.
From Geneticist to Eugenicist
The first chapters of The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection discuss inheritance, genetic variation and population genetics on a theoretical and experimental level. Fisher writes that the fundamental law of evolution is that the existence of genetic variation gives rise to differing fitness and thus differing survival rates (natural selection) amongst individuals in a population and that this difference in reproduction further drives genetic differentiation. This is uncomplicated when he is talking about peacocks and the concept of Fisherian Runaway (a fundamental explanation in evolutionary biology of how sexual selection can create unintuitive evolutionary results such as male peacocks’ ostentatious and expensive feathers). However, the explanations become more far-fetched and dehumanizing when he theorizes about human evolution and genetic fitness, which he dedicates the second half of the book to discussing.
From Chapter 8 onwards, Fisher’s argument is that human populations around the world are divided into four major genetic stages of evolution: savages, barbarians, the poor and aristocrats. This to him, didn’t merely define differences in culture or circumstance, but rather scientific differences in “genetic competence”. Essentially, he argues that the same principles of inheritance and natural selection based on genetic variation that he talks about in the animal kingdom, also drive the “evolution” of humans and human civilization. To understand the depth of this dehumanizing theory and the hyper-racialized worldview it constructs, we need to dive deeper into the basic structure of his argument.
First of all, Fisher equates industrialisation and complex civic organisation (what he calls civilization) to higher genetic competence since “civilized” societies can support more people in a given territory than indigenous societal structures. (He didn’t know then about climate change and our unsustainable relationship to the land that supports us.) From there, he theorizes about how the introduction of capitalist concepts like land ownership could combine with natural selection and genetic inheritance to help “savages” evolve into “barbarians”, and finally into civilized societies. Finally, he looks to history and warns how civilizations decline as their aristocracy with higher genetic value gets overwhelmed by the proletariat with lower genetic value, until ultimately the civilization collapses, a fear that Fisher especially had for the British Empire.
Genetic Competence
Now that we know his argument, let’s get to the primary sources. First, Fisher defines why higher “civilization” is equivalent to higher genetic competence. (Note also how the following passage clearly shows his endorsement of British colonial supremacy as an unquestionable good for the world and for all peoples who become “civilized” by it.)
The specialization of occupations, involving the customary acceptance of a conventional standard of exchange, the maintenance of public order, and the national organization of military preparations, are thus the universal characteristics of the civilized in contradistinction to the uncivilized societies of mankind. It is a matter of experience, which no one thinks of denying, that such an organization does in fact enable a given area to support a much larger population, and that at a higher level of material and intellectual well-being, than the uncivilized peoples who could alternatively occupy the same territory. –P.174
Fisher then goes on to discuss the notion of average genetic competence and how war, competition and genocide are the main mechanisms through which average genetic competence increases in a given area.
Among a group of small independent competing tribes the elimination of tribes containing an undue proportion of the socially incompetent, and their replacement by branches of the more successful tribes, may serve materially to maintain the average standard of competence appropriate to that state of society. –P.182
It is worthwhile to remind ourselves at this point how quickly his claims become very unscientific. He clearly believes wholeheartedly that western civilizations are superior genetically to other people on earth and that this genetic superiority, rather than culture, was the cause of the industrialization of Europe and its domination of the rest of the world. For this to be true, this would mean that “superior” genetic material had been selected for in western peoples during their history which created their genetic superiority which in turn allowed them to create industrialization and colonialism.
However, humans have a relatively long reproductive cycle compared to many other animals (insects for example). Yet, this proposed “evolution” would have had to happen extremely fast in comparison to biological evidence from other species’ timelines for genetic differentiation. To deal with this, Fisher develops a concept he calls selective intensity, which explains how genetic inheritance via reproduction could creates distinct genetic groups of humans very rapidly. This is a very unscientific claim viewed through today’s eyes, partially since he is disregarding actual scientific evidence in favor of human exceptionalism (scientific rules that applied to other animals obviously don’t apply to humans), but also since we know that there is very little genetic distinction between human groups around the world and have untold evidence of how adaptable humans are to changes in society (e.g. adoption).
To a remote spectator the evolution which the human instincts of reproduction have undergone during civilized periods would seem scarcely more remarkable in kind than the analogous modifications which the reproductive instincts of other animals have undoubtedly experienced in their evolutionary development. The principal contrast would probably seem to lie in the great intensity of the selective process in Man, and the correspondingly rapid evolutionary progress, in spite of the great length of the human generation. –P.205
Savages vs Barbarians
With this idea of humans being able to rapidly genetically differentiate themselves in hand, Fisher turns to explaining how a group of low genetic competency “savages” start to undergo evolution.
His explanation (unsurprisingly): private property and capitalism drive evolution.
Amongst wholly savage peoples, although infanticide is not usually regarded as wrong, it is probably not practised more frequently than is on the whole racially advantageous. If however, in the course of time, a people, with feelings in this matter appropriate to the condition of extreme savagery, came to be placed in conditions in which the accumulation of property is not only possible, but is the natural aim of the more ambitious, the temptation to infanticide will be more uniformly insistent, and the corresponding selection of the moral instincts which resist this temptation, will be correspondingly severe. If we accept the view that all long civilized peoples have been purged of their more callous or murderous elements by passing through this period of severe selection, we shall be in a position to realize why it is that the consciences of civilized peoples, as expressed in their religious teaching, should so unhesitatingly condemn infanticide. –P.201
Fisher says that after a certain amount of time with private property, “savages” evolve. What do they evolve into, according to him? “Barbarians” from whom civilized societies eventually can develop. Notice that the civilizations Fisher classes into the “barbarian” categories all play into classic narratives of racial value from the British colonial period (Nordic, Germanic, Arabic, Central Asian, etc.) and are credited with directly taking over from the Romans to be the forefathers of British civilization:
The state of society with which we are here concerned, which may be exemplified by the primitive peoples of Northern Europe, as represented in the Icelandic Sagas, in Tacitus’ description of the Germans, and probably in the Homeric poems, by the pre-Islamic Bedouin of the Arabian desert, by many, if not all, of the Turkish and Tartar peoples of the Central Asiatic steppes, and by the Polynesians of New Zealand and Samoa, is characterized by a tribal organization, influenced, or indeed dominated, by the blood feud. All these show a strong feeling for aristocratic or class distinction, and this character, as well as the blood feud, seems to be rather rare among uncivilized peoples generally. For this reason it is convenient to designate this particular type of society by a special term, which shall contrast them with civilized, and distinguish them from the other uncivilized peoples. We may conveniently call them barbarians. This term is the more appropriate in that the examples given, few as they are, include the most important groups of peoples, who have, in the course of history, overrun the great centres of relatively permanent civilization, and to whom the existing organization of society can be traced back in historical continuity. –P.243
So how is it that Fisher says that they evolve? By introducing the urge for acquisition of private property and a class structure where families compete for status.
Certain uncivilized peoples characterized by a tribal organization, the blood feud, and the importance attached to kinship and pedigree, exhibit a state of society in which the more eminent are certainly the more fertile, and in which the effects of Natural Selection are greatly enhanced by social and sexual selection. The action of these factors is of particular importance in respect of the qualities recognized by man as socially valuable, which have, in this way, received a selective advantage very much greater than any which could be ascribed to the differential elimination of entire tribes. The group of qualities understood by these barbarian peoples as associated with heroism has thus been developed considerably beyond the optimum of individual advantage. The higher mental qualities of man, and especially his appreciation of them, seem to be ascribable to the social selection of this type of society. –P.255
To recap: Fisher says all British people are part of “civilized” society so thus have higher genetic value than “barbarians” from whom civilizations emerge through the introduction of class and private property. But according to Fisher, even barbarians have much higher genetic value than than uncivilized “savage” peoples who haven’t even begun their ascent into civilization, and so are lowest on the genetic value ladder. It would be absolutely ahistorical to not read this as including Sub Saharan Africa, the Americas and anywhere else that colonialism had a stake in dehumanizing and displacing people for economic power gain. Native populations weren’t just savages according to Fisher, they were nearly a different species, certainly not as human as the “evolved” populations of western Europe that had conquered them.
Aristocracy vs The Poorer Classes
After giving his genetic explanation of the rise of “civilization”, Fisher spends the next chapters arguing a genetic case for the fall of civilizations. His thesis is that civilization requires balance between between the genetically superior aristocracy and inferior “poorer classes”, and falls as the genetically superior aristocracy is overwhelmed by overpopulation from the poorer classes. He then uses this thesis to argue against social welfare programs and charity, because they disrupt the mechanism of “natural selection” which otherwise could keep the “poor breeding” of the lower classes from infecting the whole society.
He starts by arguing that social classes must become genetically stratified since high-status individuals don’t want to reproduce with low-status individuals. This means that (due his understanding of the high “intensity” of human genetic evolution), social classes become as genetically different as “local varieties of a species”.
The different occupations of man in society are distinguished economically by the differences in the rewards which they procure. Biologically they are of importance in insensibly controlling mate selection, through the influences of prevailing opinion, mutual interest, and the opportunities for social intercourse, which they afford. Social classes thus become genetically differentiated, like local varieties of a species, though the differentiation is determined, not primarily by differences from class to class in selection, but by the agencies controlling social promotion or demotion. –P.226
We already saw Fisher’s genetic argument that industrialized capitalist societies must have on average a higher “genetic competence” of their individuals since they can support more people per area than non-industrialized societies. Fisher continues this theoretical genetic argument within societies as well.
Since capitalism, according to Fisher, is the driving force for industrialization, success in capitalism must also be related to higher genetic competence. Thus the aristocracy are rich because, due to their higher genetic competence, they can perform more “socially advantageous actions” and thus reap the rewards of the efficient capitalist markets. Conversely, according to Fisher, people are poor because they are unable to generate societal value which Fisher implies must mean that they have lower genetic competence.
Fisher sees these two sides of the coin as reinforcing themselves over time, since as new individuals make it up the capitalist ladder, they can reproduce with the aristocracy and this raises the average genetic competence. On the flip side poor people, who don’t provide value to society, can only reproduce with others in the “poorer classes” which, in turn, endows their children with an even lower average genetic competence and perpetuates their genetic inability to provide value to society.
Those, on the contrary, who fail most completely to perform socially advantageous actions have the least claim upon the wealth and amenities of the community. In theory they may perish of starvation, or may become indebted up to the amount of the entire potential services of the remainder of their lives, or of the lives of their children. –P.183
Fisher continues by saying that charity or social welfare programs ruin this naturally selective process (starvation) as it helps people reproduce who would otherwise have died off, and thus is only beneficial because of the moral argument that maybe people with better genetic potential can be accidentally poor (due to genetic variation). This means for Fisher that an absolute imperative of education is to sort children into the good and bad genetic potential categories to determine whether they are worthy or unworthy of resources from society. (See especially his writing on Eugenics and Education which is some fascinatingly chilling reading combing eugenics views of class, disability and intellectual ability…)
Charity, in the sense of the uneconomic relief of poverty, would evidently be a vicious weakness, although there would be some virtue in shrewdly backing for mutual advantage the capable, but accidentally unfortunate. –P.184
Finally, he starts to write about the topic that obsessed him in most of his later eugenics works, differences in the fertility rate between social classes, religions and cultures.
Numerous of investigations, in which the matter is approached from different points of view, have shown, in all civilized countries for which the data are available, that the birth-rate is much higher in the poorer than in the more prosperous classes, and that this difference has been increasing in recent generations. –P.226
This is to Fisher, is the seed of the downfall of civilization, as the lower classes are by definition worse at making society more successful.
Since the birth-rate is the predominant factor in human survival in society, success in the struggle for existence is, in societies with an inverted birth-rate, the inverse of success in human endeavour. The type of man selected, as the ancestor of future generations, is he whose probability is least of winning admiration, or rewards, for useful services to the society to which he belongs. –P.226
And finally, he concludes that the current problems with differential birth rates, could mark the downfall of the British Empire if not properly taken care of. He makes it clear that he thinks specific policies should be put in place (eugenics) to counteract this.
The composition of existing populations, graded both in social ability and in effective infertility, presents special, and much graver difficulties, which only a people capable of deliberate and intentional policy could hope to overcome.
Which is all to say…
All of these sources, viewed though a modern racial and class context shows clearly that R A Fisher was a hyper-racist in the dehumanizing, detached, pseudo-scientific sense that defined early eugenics. In his view, humanity wasn’t one species, but instead was made up of many sub-species on varying degrees of the scale of evolution. When he writes about industrialized societies having higher genetic competence, or about exterminating tribes with lower genetic value to raise the overall global genetic fitness, he was justifying colonialism, genocide and, ultimately, giving credence to the same type of argumentation that led to the eugenics which created the holocaust.
With all of that said, R A Fisher possibly wasn’t racist in the sense that he was always and inflexibly prejudiced towards people from other races. Fisher had a long, rich life and over and above his scientific accomplishments there are examples of his engagement in pro-social projects, from UN writing to expanding support for university education across the commonwealth. His support of the Indian Statistical Institute is well known, as is the fact that he supervised students and kept correspondence with academics from across the commonwealth in India, Ghana and more.
Ultimately, Fisher was a man of his time. He was of aristocratic stock and became an upper echelon academic in an excessively wealthy British Empire drunk on its own power. He saw the explanatory power of the natural sciences and the power of the academic-colonial-industrial complex to generate massive amounts of wealth for the Empire, and by extension all of Europe. The expansion of trade to all corners of the world was based on the mathematics of understanding tides, winds and navigation and based on the application of probability in insurance which enabled more and more ships to get funding to sail. The efficiency gains in industry were enabled by scientists studying chemistry, physics and engineering, and Fisher formalised the hypothesis experiment as the atomic unit of this type of scientific research.
Fisher, like so many of his academic colleagues in (both inside and outside eugenics) saw no limit to the scientific progress that could be made, enabled by the tools of peer-review, scientific experimentation, and funded by colonial wealth extraction. He saw all the land around the world, ready for farming, mining or industry and (in his eyes) not being efficiently utilised by the people that lived there. When one reads his writings, his utopian, optimistic, British Empire-centric vision for the world is striking, and as a member of the educated class of the British Empire, he clearly felt a responsibility to work hard to form the future as he thought best. This is the very definition of “The White Man’s Burden” as outdated, racist and naive a concept as it is…
But what about the window?
It has been 7 years since I published my original posts on this blog about decolonisation, positionality, power and identity. Since then, the consciousness-raising (awakening) protest movements of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) have had a huge impact on society and mainstream views of antiracism and the decolonial struggle have evolved enormously.
At the time (and still now), I supported every symbolic action made by universities and cities to change the names of buildings and streets and to take away statues of questionable historical figures to mark their commitment to inclusivity and to recognize injustices of the past. That said, the intervening years have also enabled me to see more complexity in the situation. The time of pure cancel-culture is past and symbolic actions are not as valuable as they once were. In fact, they often have proved themselves to have been only symbolic actions, not connected to a true transformative force.
So perhaps the decision to take out the Fisher window at Cambridge was made too quickly. Perhaps it was brought on by the kind of cancel-culture media shit-storm that socieity is more immune to now.
I think the journalist from the Economist and her editors hoped to not find any direct quotes that show Fisher’s outdated views of race, evolution and eugenics. I think they hoped to publish a scathing piece about hysterical cancel culture mobs that rewrite history to serve their preconceptions. However, just because R A Fisher wasn’t always hateful towards people of color, or actively involved in the worst kinds of colonial exploitation like some of his contemporaries, doesn’t make the world view he propagated or the implications of the research output he produced any less repugnant.
In the end, the Economist didn’t publish their story… My guess is they understood that just because we aren’t as deep in the throes of the cancel-culture moment, doesn’t mean that they want to throw their whole brand behind this representative of British eugenics its colonial legacy.
Wise choice, in my opinion.