Race RealismRace Realism gets a boost

Dr. Shi Huang is a Professor of Epigenetics and Evolution, Central South University, (Burnham Institute, UCSD). He did a post-doc at the University of California-San Diego in from 1989-1992.   He has been working on cancer genetics and epigenetics. His lab cloned the RIZ1/PRDM2/KMT8 histone methyltransferase  and proposed an epigenetic pathway of sporadic cancers to account for the risk effects of the Western style diet.

We have covered Dr. Shi Huang extensively at this site.  He certainly does not conform to the norms of political correctness.

See our latest piece from Jan. 24,

Dr. Shi Huang: Africans closer genetically to Chimpanzees than Eurasians

Now Dr. Huang is stoking further controversy.   He is claiming the mantle of the great Race Realist, 40+ year University of Pennsylvania Anthropology Dept. Head Carleton Coon.

His Tweet, Feb. 24:

CarletonCoon1 » Race Realism founder Carleton Coon wins praise from China's # 1 Epigeneticist, provocative Dr. Shi Huang » Human Evolution News » 1That modern humans first appeared in East Asia was first found by Carleton Coon in the 50s based on anatomy, then independently by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza in 1983 based on mtDNA tree, and then in 2017 independently by us based on MGD theory that supersedes the flawed NT.

For reference Modern Genetic Diversity as Dr. Huang describes it:

In biology, this simply means that an organism has a specific level of MGD and that genetic variations within MGD may confer zero, negative, or positive values to the functioning/survival of the organism under certain environmental circumstances.

“[Coons believed] Human species divided into five races before it had evolved into Homo sapiens and [those] races evolved into sapiens at different times.”  — Prof. John Jackson, Univ. of Colorado

CarletonCoonSpecies » Race Realism founder Carleton Coon wins praise from China's # 1 Epigeneticist, provocative Dr. Shi Huang » Human Evolution News » 2Carleton Coon is largely regarded as the Father of Race Realism, sometimes referred too as Human BioDiversity.  He followed in the footsteps of Franz Weidenreich and the early polygenists, nowadays more often referred to as multiregional theory.  His magnum opus was of course, The Origin of Races, published in 1962.

Writes John Jackson, Univ. of Colorado, Journal of History of Biology, 2020:

Coon maintained that the human species was divided into five races before it had evolved into Homo sapiens and that the races evolved into sapiens at different times.

But as Prof. Jackson further points out, Coon is regarded as a “racist” in most academic circles today:

Coon’s thesis was used by segregationists in the United States as proof that African Americans were “junior” to white Americans and hence unfit for full participation in American society.

Coons “became indignant at any suggestion that his interest in race derived from racist motives”

Others have defended Coon.  From W.W. Howells, National Academy of Sciences, 1989, via Racial Reality blog:

Though some of Coon’s hypotheses seem dubious today, they allowed him to structure a mass of material in a way that remains impressive…

Coon’s desire was to use Darwinian adaptation to explain the physical characteristics of race. He defined these as the physical features that distinguish modern populations… He was exasperated by what he called the “hide-race” attitude of people who, from social or philosophical motives, seemed to deny the existence of obvious biological differences. He became indignant at any suggestion that his interest in race derived from racist motives.

Colby Cash provided further insight, at his blog 2009:

[A] racial-type theorist. He is sort of considered a Satan of his profession nowadays, or at least an enduring symbol of its bad conscience, but one cannot fail to be impressed by his knowledge.

As Steve Sailer of Unz Review and a friend of this site points out, Coon was a swashbuckling adventurer, an almost Indiana Jones in his earlier days.  Contrary to being a racist, Coon a fierce enemy of the Nazis:

Coon was the kind of two-fisted anthropologist (he got in a lot more fistfights than is the Ivy League norm) who is very popular with his more savage subjects. As a cultural anthropologist, his specialty was “the wilder whites,” mountain tribesmen in places like Albania and Morocco. In the OSS in WWII, his main assignment was to be ready, in case Franco let the German Army cross Spain and attack the Americans fighting Rommel in North Africa from behind, to become “Lawrence of Morocco:” to disappear into the Atlas Mountains and rally the Berber tribes to fight an irregular war against the German Army.

Note – Cover photo h/t todocollecicon.

Eric

Author Eric

FSU grad, US Navy Veteran. Houston, Texas

More posts by Eric

Leave a Reply