Richard Lynn

Richard Lynn
Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus, University of Ulster
Born	1930 (age 86–87) Bristol, England
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	Ulster University
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Known for	Race and intelligence

Richard Lynn (born 1930) is an English professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Ulster and assistant editor of the journal Mankind Quarterly. Lynn studies intelligence and is known for his belief in racial differences in intelligence. Lynn was educated at King's College, Cambridge in England. He has worked as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and as professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He has written or co-written 11 books and more than 200 journal articles spanning five decades. Two of his recent books are on dysgenics and eugenics.

Lynn's research on racial and national differences in intelligence is controversial. In the late 1970s, Lynn wrote that he found that Northeast Asians have a higher average intelligence quotient (IQ) than Europeans and Europeans have a higher average IQ than Sub-Saharan Africans. In 1990, he proposed that the Flynn effect – the gradual increase in IQ scores observed around the world since the 1930s – could possibly be explained by improved nutrition. In two books co-written with Tatu Vanhanen, Lynn and Vanhanen argued that differences in developmental indexes among various nations are partially caused by the average IQ of their citizens. However, Earl Hunt and Werner Wittmann (2006) questioned the validity of their research methods and the highly inconsistent quality of the available data points that Lynn and Vanhanen used in their analysis. Lynn has also argued that the high fertility rate among individuals of low IQ constitutes a major threat to Western civilization, as he believes people with low IQ scores will eventually outnumber high-IQ individuals. He has argued in favor of political measures to prevent this, including anti-immigration and eugenics policies, provoking heavy criticism internationally. Lynn's work was among the main sources cited in the book The Bell Curve and he was one of 52 scientists who signed an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which endorsed a number of the views presented in the book.