Debate With Kevin Macdonald

My peer-reviewed exchange with Kevin MacDonald consists in the following four papers:

“Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy: A Critical Analysis of Kevin MacDonald’s Theory” (published in the evolutionary psychology journal Human Nature)

“The Anti-Jewish Narrative” (a shorter paper, which includes an analysis of the Jewish role in immigration, published in the philosophy journal Philosophia)

MacDonald’s reply to me in Philosophia, “The ‘Default Hypothesis’ Fails to Explain Jewish Influence” (this paper was retracted from the journal after a political backlash, but you can still access it if you follow this link)

“Still No Evidence for a Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy” (published in Evolutionary Psychological Science)

Below is my entire exchange with MacDonald and some of his defenders, which includes a handful of popular articles and non-peer-reviewed preprints. The magazine articles may be useful for people looking to get a brief overview of the debate. The preprints don’t add much to what’s in the published papers, and are of mainly historical interest. For people who are seriously interested in this topic I recommend just reading the four papers above. If you read only one of my papers, I suggest the last one (“Still No Evidence for a Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy”).

My original paper in Human Nature.

My article with Jonathan Anomaly on MacDonald and the alt-right in Quillette.

MacDonald’s reply.

My comments on MacDonald’s response.

MacDonald’s second reply.

My article in the Genetic Literacy Project on how censorship of controversial ideas makes MacDonald’s theory appealing.

MacDonald’s response in GLP.

My rejoinder in GLP.

Edward Dutton’s defense of MacDonald in Evolutionary Psychological Science.

My response to Dutton in EPS.

MacDonald’s response to my paper on Dutton.

PowerPoint slides for my talk on MacDonald at the University of Buckingham.