The Guardian and anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate have revealed the existence of a new network of far-right intellectuals and activists in an undercover investigation. Called the Human Diversity Foundation (HDF), this group advocates scientific racism and eugenics. Although it presents itself as having a scientific purpose, some of its figureheads have political ambitions in Germany and elsewhere.

Research shows these kinds of groups are nothing new and are linked to eugenics groups that have been active since the second world war. Defending the scientific legitimacy of eugenics, these organisations worked to keep a discredited intellectual tradition alive.

Although it has been debunked by decades of research evidence, eugenics once enjoyed a reputation as a credible science since it emerged in the late 19th century.

First coined by Francis Galton, a prominent Victorian statistician and evolutionary theorist, the term eugenics refers to the study of what Galton considered favourable and unfavourable genetic patterns within the population. Galton believed that the principles of evolutionary theory could be applied to the human species and used to intervene in its genetic fitness.

Galton and other early eugenicists advocated policies that would ensure that groups they believed held “desirable” traits, such as high intelligence, creative ability, or productivity, could reproduce in greater numbers than groups with less favourable genetics. Some even believed that “undesirable” groups should be prevented from reproducing, through forced sterilisation or abortion.

Ruling elites used eugenics to justify brutal treatment of disabled people, ethnic minorities, colonial populations, and LGBTQ+ people.

In the 1930s these ideas came to form the bedrock of Nazi race doctrine. Eugenics was a key component of Nazism and shaped both formal fascist ideology and how the Nazi regime treated its victims.

Before the second world war, many researchers regarded eugenics as a legitimate science. But in the aftermath of the war came a shift in attitudes, and scientists and society came to view eugenics as scientifically false and morally objectionable.

Instead of disappearing from academia, however, eugenics merely retreated into the margins. Racial research became the focus of a handful of groups intent on keeping the eugenics tradition alive.

Though they operated on the fringes of academia, these groups received financial support from private donors. The most prominent of these donors was the Pioneer Fund, a charity established in 1937 to support race science and white supremacy in the US and elsewhere.

These groups were close-knit. United by a shared sense of exclusion from the academic mainstream, the people involved were prolific writers and together generated a large body of work. They inflated their own citation counts by frequently referencing each other’s work and, in this way, established the impression of scientific rigour.

Pseudoscientific journals

Seeking to salvage the reputation of eugenics as a legitimate science, these groups tended to cluster around journals and periodicals.

Chief among these was Mankind Quarterly, established in 1961 by a group called the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE). Some decades later ownership of the journal was transferred to the Ulster Institute for Social Research, a eugenicist think tank founded and directed by Richard Lynn. Lynn is widely considered the intellectual figurehead of 21st-century eugenics.

The Mankind Quarterly quickly became known as a bastion of scientific racism. It published work by notorious pseudoscientists, neo-fascists, and such controversial political figures as former British MP Enoch Powell, remembered for appealing to racial hatred in his speeches.

Other similar journals emerged in the following decades. In France, Nouvelle École (“New School”) was established in 1967 by a white nationalist group. In Germany, Neue Anthropologie (“New Anthropology”) was first published in 1973.

These publications were part of the same networks. Their editors received funding from the same sources, including the Pioneer Fund, they published translations of each other’s articles, and their editorial boards overlapped.

Eugenics today

Reported to have developed out of the Pioneer Fund and to have taken ownership of Mankind Quarterly, the HDF is the successor to earlier groups like the IAAEE and the Ulster Institute.

Today, the eugenics movement is experiencing a period of uncertainty following the death of Richard Lynn in July 2023. When he died, Lynn was the director of the Pioneer Fund and the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly. Organisations like HDF, led by people who have worked closely with Lynn, are trying to fill that void.

Whether the HDF will survive public scrutiny remains to be seen. But the broader networks from which it emerged are arguably stronger than at any previous moment in post-war history, facilitated by the rise of the far right and online extremism. All of which means it has never been more important to remember the tradition’s history.