Single mothers should not raise their own children

You know it makes sense.

I wrote recently about the resignation of Cambridge academic Jason Arday. Since then he has died, apparently by suicide.

The media and academia have now moved their focus to the researcher who reported on Arday’s alleged plagiarism, Nathan Cofnas, formerly a research fellow at Cambridge.

Cofnas is hated for speaking about things some would prefer remained undiscussed, especially data on persistent differences in IQ between groups. This is considered racist and therefore forbidden.

As Cofnas often points out the egalitarian beliefs of his critics are becoming untenable. They do not fit the data. So instead researchers in this field become persona non grata, the standard means by which individuals are silenced when arguments fail or are too dangerous to use.

Such actions are not a sign of confidence, quite the opposite.

Single mothers are a disaster

Any mention of Cofnas by academics or the media comes with an obligatory dismissal of his work as “controversial” or “far-right”. It is often labelled as “pseudo-science”.

Yet if critics were confident in their position, that the research is incorrect, they would not react as they do.

This is easy to illustrate with a fake example. Imagine research into another sensitive area, female behaviour.

We can draw conclusions based on the research that will anger feminists in much the same way research into the heritability of intelligence and behavioural patterns within distinct groups angers most of academia.

One stark observation dominates our view, in everything we can measure, from mental health to life success, single mother households produce the worst results for children.

The literature is crystal clear.

With a wide variety of measurable outcomes, including life quality, criminality and recidivism, adjustment to society, academic achievement, material success, and mental health issues, the best results are produced by two-parent households closely followed by single-father households.

Single-mother households trail far behind on virtually everything we value. Being raised by a single mother is detrimental to the wellbeing of children compared to other options.

This is reflected in the historical record too. Females gaining custody of children after divorce is a recent novelty. In the Victorian era the father usually retained custody. Women were seen as too emotionally unstable to raise children alone. They needed the strong presence of a father.

One really damning factoid to emerge from crime statistics is most infanticide is committed by women, not men. Of children killed by their parents it is almost unheard of for the father to murder his own children. In some 98 percent of cases it is the mother.

We can use these observations to reach a sensible conclusion.

Single mothers should not be allowed to raise their own children.

Trashing the research not the researchers

Our conclusion is not very good. Academics would find it easy to challenge. This process follows a predictable course.

The first stage is to examine the papers and point out their flaws. What studies show these outcomes? What variables were measured? How were they measured?

Then there are the definitions. What do we really mean by life outcomes? Success is a subjective concept at best. Even something nominally objective like incarceration rates are complex with many variables of which the childhood environment is only one.

What other factors were measured? Were there control groups? What about sample sizes? How many people did they track? Many papers reach bold conclusions with small sample sizes. Which leads to the next question, has anyone replicated this finding? The replication scandal is well documented in multiple academic disciplines; one-off studies no one can reproduce, even quite famous experiments that have entered popular culture.

The quality of the studies is often assessed first because if they are flawed this inevitably damages the credibility of any conclusions drawn.

As for our conclusion, that children should always be taken from single mothers, even widowed women, this is not supported even with the evidence outlined above. Studies would need to demonstrate fostered or adopted children did better than those raised by a widowed mother, an unlikely proposition and just one alternative view possible from the evidence.

Importantly, serious critics would generally avoid motive except as a last resort. Sexism, misogyny and hatred of women may be there in a hypothesis that paints women in a negative light, but compared to challenging the research and its foundations, speculating about motive is weak and too easy to dismiss.

Jumping straight to perceived hate or bigotry, particularly when it makes the accusers look morally superior, is a tell.

What actually happens

Researchers who focus on areas others want forbidden are removed from circulation where possible. They are defunded. They become persona non grata. They may get fired on a pretext. They are sent into the wilderness.

If they do manage to find a berth somewhere, their work is ignored. It goes unreferenced and unread. The area of study remains unexamined and avoided because the researcher has become a pariah.

Cofnas has received many emails from critics. Quite a few death threats too.

Labels are usually applied to signpost this for others lest they wander off the reservation. Racist, Nazi, fascist, sexist, climate denier, antiscience. Signposts cannot be subtle.

The term used to discredit Cofnas’s area of research is “scientific racism”. This provides a way out for academics. It tacitly acknowledges the methodology may be scientific, but the results are tainted because it is being used for questionable ends. This encourages others to circumvent scrutiny of the research itself by using the magic word “racism” to scare the inquisitive.

Everything focuses on the perceived intent of the research or the motives of the participants. Their racism, sexism or other hated motivation is continually repeated, a basic propaganda technique. As more people write about the individuals the accusations can be propagated by referencing other smears as if they are established facts. Racist researcher Cofnas; white supremacist Cofnas; pseudo-scientist Cofnas. It doesn’t matter if none of it is true, someone else said it so it can be repeated as if it were accepted as fact. This is especially effective with the headline skimmers who only seek reassurance they shouldn’t bother looking into some field.

The use of emotive language helps increase sensitivity around the topics being investigated, moving it ever further away from polite discussion. The work is hateful, divisive and troubling. Veracity is ignored. It doesn’t matter what the data tells us, any investigation into this subject is unwelcome. Why would anyone do this? What is wrong with them?

Needless to say, this runs counter to the spirit of skepticism, open mindedness and curiosity that once defined Western universities.

We can’t be trusted

The dismissal is the giveaway. The confident don’t ignore bad research, they expose it as weak or fraudulent.

Jumping straight to an appeal for dismissal on the grounds it is distasteful avoids any discussion of the work and its implications.

This is where we are with Cofnas and fellow travellers.

And another.

But, despite the best efforts of academia it hasn’t gone away. Worse, they are now drawing attention to the work. A slow-motion Streisand effect is in play.

Word is spreading. We hear rumours of academics growing curious as to what all the fuss is about. Some are no doubt quietly studying the literature. Forbidden fruit is always tempting.

The only rational response now is to mainstream the research and let people make up their own minds as to whether the judgments of academics are accurate or not.

But the elitist mind cannot do this. The entire West has been predicated on blank slate thinking since the end of the Second World War, perhaps before. Entire philosophies, reputations and industries now rely on it.

So we get ideological gatekeeping. Academics have a preexisting view they wish to protect.

Much of it is driven by contempt for normal people. They imagine publishing the wrong facts is like giving a loaded gun to a toddler. Acknowledging inherited traits would just provide more fuel for hateful racists. So we must deny it all and ideally prevent any research in this area because it is dangerous for the plebs to know these things.

I’m not sure they have retained enough real-world awareness to appreciate people are unimpressed with academics gatekeeping inconvenient observations to serve some imagined moral goal.

Perhaps this sensitive area of research and the scrutiny it is now enjoying will pave the way for the custodians of truth to be removed and for academic freedom to return.

This is not about research into race and IQ, or related fields. The scrutiny is now on academia itself and the way they operate. What else are they hiding? Who appointed them as our moral guardians? Why are there so few skeptics like Cofnas?

These are questions they wish to avoid. All the more reason to pursue them.

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