Bernard Koch, UCLA Sociology

In this paper, we quantify the enduring legacy of scientific racism both within academia and online. Hereditarian arguments correlating race and IQ have been used to justify regressive social policies since the 1950s, and this literature remains active within academia today. We characterize a tight collaboration community of authors promoting these arguments within academia over decades, and show that they are diverse with respect to gender, age, race, and geography. Moreover, while their papers are cited at lower rates than similar psychology papers, we find that they have much broader public engagement, as measured through Google searches, Reddit, and other social media platforms. Possible interventions for academics to better contain influential pseudoscience are discussed.