Jonathan Anomaly

Jonathan Anomaly Jonathan S Anomaly. radaris.com.https://philpeople.org/profiles/jonathan-anomaly is an American far-right eugenicisthttps://msmagazine.com/2023/10/17/eugenics-austin-texas-natal-conference-women-misogyny/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/04/natal-conference-austin-texas-eugenicshttps://www.thedp.com/article/2019/10/penn-defending-eugenics-jonathan-anomaly-ppe-bioethics and pro-natalist,https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/04/natal-conference-austin-texas-eugenicshttps://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/28/natalism-conference-austin-00150338 who promotes embryo selectionhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/sex-and-civilization/202403/ivf-embryo-selection-and-the-case-for-caution and what he calls "genetic enhancement"https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/03/27/the-radical-conservative-case-for-genetic-enhancement/ or "liberal eugenics."http://heretica.com.hr/intervju-jonathan-anomaly-selekcijom-gena-moci-cemo-birati-cak-i-crte-licnosti/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.12756A reviewer of Anomaly's book points out: "This is eugenics but Anomaly is not frightened of embracing this title. His is a version of what Nicholas Agar calls liberal eugenics. This is to be contrasted with that form of eugenics which gets it its bad reputation: officially enforced discrimination against those deemed inferior (and at its most murderous extreme a genocidal cull) on the basis of a single prescriptive model of what makes for a better human. Anomaly, like Agar, thinks eugenics is best left in the hands of parents." Anomaly is associated with the "human-biodiversity" online network and blogsphere. He has published articles for far-right magazines including AporiaEmbryo Selection: Toward a healthier society, Quillettehttps://quillette.com/author/jonathan-anomaly/ and the antisemitic site The Unz ReviewWhat the Alt-Right and Regressive Left Have in Common. unz.com.The article was originally published at Quillette but republished with Anomaly's permission on The Unz Review ("Republished from Quillette.com by permission of author or representative"). Anomaly used to have an author page on the website. that are mostly nonsense, with the exception of a stopped clock article that opposes factory farming.https://quillette.com/2017/08/17/case-factory-farming/
Anomaly defends discredited theories on racialism and race and intelligence. Similar to Nathan Cofnas who he co-authored an article with,What the Alt-Right Gets Wrong About Jews by Jonathan Anomaly & Nathan Cofnas (March 15, 2018) Quillette (archived from March 27, 2019). Anomaly tries to present himself as a centrist and libertarian between both alt-right and hard left-wing extremes,Anomaly, Jonny. What the Alt-Right and Regressive Left Have in Common. Quillette. March 23, 2018. when his own views concerning issues such as race and eugenics have much in common with the alt-right. Anomaly's race and eugenics papers are often cited by holocaust deniers, alt-right and white nationalists. In 2022, Anomaly was a speaker on holocaust denier Lipton Matthews podcast.What's the future of Liberalism?. youtube.com. In 2023-2024, Anomaly was a speaker at conferences attended by white nationalists and neo-Nazis including the Natal Conference, Vitalia and Manifest.
In August 2024, Anomaly appeared on the far-right podcast Lotus Eaters with ex-UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin.https://audioboom.com/posts/8560381-the-podcast-of-the-lotus-eaters-985 As part of an undercover investigation by Hope not Hate, Anomaly in October 2024 was exposed as the co-founder of a biotech-eugenics company named PolygenX which claims to have "developed a way for parents pursuing IVF treatment to analyse the genetic data of their embryos and identify which of them will have the highest IQ."https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/superbaby-factory/ HnH has revealed PolygenX has ties to neo-Nazi Martin Sellner.
Around the time Anomaly was exposed by HnH he deceptively began deleting his articles and podcasts on far-right websites.
==Background==
Anomaly's birth name was Jonathan Beres. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1975.https://www.peliplat.com/en/library/celeb/pc30827736/Jonathan-Anomaly He has a PhD in philosophy from Tulane University.https://murphy.tulane.edu/people/jonny-anomalyhttps://wikitia.com/wiki/Jonathan_Anomaly From 2010-2017 he was a senior lecturer at Duke University.https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5485-0121 Since 2018 He was an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego.Jonathan Anomaly, Hayek Lecture, Monday, April 15, 130 Social Psychology, 4:30 p.m.. hope.econ.duke.edu. Anomaly is currently the director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics in Quito, Ecuador.Jonathan Anomaly. jonathan-anomaly.com. He lost in the Round of 64 in the 2019 Name of the Year competition.https://deadspin.com/pope-thrower-is-the-2019-name-of-the-year-1834945703
==Pseudoscience and controversial writings==
===Eugenics===
Anomaly published a provocative article "Defending eugenics" in a peer-reviewed bioethics journal.Anomaly, Jonathan. 2018. “Defending Eugenics: From Cryptic Choice to Conscious Selection”. Monash Bioethics Review 35(1-4): 24-35. It has been harshly criticised,http://allegralaboratory.net/petition-against-race-realism/Reiheld, Alison. A Gimlet Eye: The Journal of Controversial Ideas and Jonathan Anomaly’s “Defending Eugenics”. November 16, 2018. with nearly 200 academics signing a letter of complaint to Monash Bioethics Review for publishing the article.Ryan, Tess. Open Letter to the editors of the Monash Bioethics Review. ACRAWSA. December 4, 2018. Anomaly has most controversially argued that 20th century court decisions upholding the right of the state to forcefully sterilize undesirable people are morally defensible but as a self-described libertarian says he does not favour state intervention but eugenics voluntarily practiced by individuals such as prenatal screening tests and . Anomaly and Academia: is the Left Really Afraid of Honest Inquiry? Anomaly is an outspoken supporter of polygenic embryo selection and has rebranded his pro-eugenics views "genetic enhancement." He has been widely criticised for espousing eugenics but claims he only supports "liberal eugenics" opposed to coercive eugenics or state-enforced eugenics policies. Critics, however, such as Dr. David Gibbs, a Professor of History have argued this contentious distinction is ambiguous and consider his views to be akin to Nazis:
His eugenics views and far-right connections have been criticised in a blog post on altrightorigins.com.https://altrightorigins.com/2021/04/27/eugenics-not-well-born/2/ Anomaly was a speaker at the International Society for Intelligence Research 2019 annual conference promoting what he called "cognitive enhancement" (a euphemism for eugenics).International Society for Intelligence Research 2019. isironline.org. White supremacist Emil Kirkegaard was also a speaker at the same event. In 2022, Anomaly promoted eugenics on the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology podcast in a discussion with Richard Hanania titled "Building Better People."Link (archived webpage).
====Creating Future People====
In 2020, Anomaly authored Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement with a second edition published in 2024.Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement. routledge.com. Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement 2nd Edition. routledge.com. In the book, Anomaly defends eugenics and argues for "enhancing traits that might benefit future people" (p. viii) including "cognitive enhancement" by gene editing and embryo selection. The book has been promoted by white nationalists and far-right eugenicists including Emil Kirkegaard,Jonathan Anomaly’s biotech eugenics advocacy book. Naturally, I agree with this stuff!". Anatoly Karlin, Jordan Lasker and Ives Parr for Aporia Magazine.The Biosingularity is Near. nooceleration.com.Creating Future People. aporiamagazine.com.
===Racialism and hereditarianism===
Anomaly co-authored an article "We shouldn't obsess about race and IQ, but we should openly discuss it" that defends racialism and hereditarianism. In regard to the latter, he cites with approval the dubious research of HBD pseudoscientist Gregory Cochran.Anomaly, Jonathan and Brian Boutwell. A Reply to John McWhorter. National Review. July 12, 2017. He's also published a peer-reviewed article defending this sort of race-based junk science.Anomaly, Jonathan. Race Research and the Ethics of Belief. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. March 15, 2017. In 2019, he co-authored a paper with Bo Winegard arguing that diversity between groups is compatible with political liberalism.Jonathan Anomaly, Bo Winegard: The Egalitarian Fallacy: Are Group Differences Compatible with Political Liberalism? He also co-authored a paper defending the hereditarian hypothesis with Bo Winegard and Ben Winegard.Dodging Darwin: Race, evolution, and the hereditarian hypothesis
===Aporia Magazine===
In 2022, Anomaly co-authored an article with Diana Fleischman for the far-right Aporia Magazine and also appeared on their podcast multiple times.https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/eric-kaufmanns-best-critics-favourite However, in around August 2024, he tried to whitewash his association with extremists by removing his name from the article and podcasts. Despite this, archived webpage captures still show his name on the article in May 2024.https://archive.is/F7WyG (the current version of the article no longer mentions his name). Anomaly had in fact appeared on Aporia's podcast alongside Bo Winegard 10 times including discussing HBD, politics, and eugenics.https://archive.is/Op90N Hope not Hate has reported Anomaly is still associated with Aporia such as hosting its live events:
===Quillette===
Anomaly was a signatory to a petition organised by Quillette supporting the disgraced academic Noah Carl who was sacked from University of Cambridge for his links to white nationalists like Emil Kirkegaard and publishing Islamophobic papers in the OpenPsych pseudojournals.https://twitter.com/Tilley101/status/1125013523015307265 Between 2017 and 2018 he published several articles in Quillette including an article defending Jordan Peterson.https://quillette.com/author/jonathan-anomaly/https://quillette.com/2018/05/13/libel-jordan-peterson-forward-story-journalistic-failure/
===Pro-natalism===
In 2017, Anomaly published an article titled: "Selfless Reasons to Have More Kids".https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2017/02/selfless-reasons-kids/
Aside from speaking at the Natal Conference, Anomaly co-authored an article in 2018 titled "If you’re reading this essay, you should probably have (more) children".https://medium.com/dukeuniversity/if-youre-reading-this-essay-you-should-probably-have-more-children-b9a8f7ab7e1c
Similar to far-right activists such as Steve Sailer and white nationalists in general, there is an underlying racial basis to Anomaly's pro-natalism viewpoint:
Anomaly therefore is only encouraging people from so-called to reproduce.
===Techno traditionalism===
Anomaly has described his own ideology as "techno traditionalism".https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-and-civilization/202305/techno-traditionalism?amp The ideology basically mixes eugenics and transhumanism with traditional social conservatism.
In March 2024, he published an article titled: "The radical conservative case for genetic enhancement."https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/03/27/the-radical-conservative-case-for-genetic-enhancement/
==Speaking at right-wing to far-right conferences==
===Natal conference===
Anomaly was a speaker at the far-right Natal Conference in 2023 with far-right extremists including Kevin Dolan and Raw Egg Nationalist.Natal Conference. natalism.org.Revealed: US pro-birth conference’s links to far-right eugenicists. theguardian.com.
===Vitalia===
Anomaly spoke at a Vitalia conference in Jan-Feb. 2024, alongside the white nationalist Anatoly Karlin to promote eugenics and .
===Manifest 2024===
Anomaly attended the right-wing Manifest conference in June 2024 alongside the white supremacist Richard Hanania:
==PolygenX and Heliospect Genomics==
In October 2024, an undercover investigation by Hope not Hate revealed Jonathan Anomaly co-founded a biotech-eugenics company for polygenic embryo screening named PolygenX (renamed Genotribe) and works for a similar company named Heliospect Genomics. Both companies have strong links to far-right activists.https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/superbaby-factory/ According to another source, "A US-based startup called Heliospect Genomics is charging parents tens of thousands of dollars to 'screen' embryos they conceive for their IQs."https://futurism.com/neoscope/startup-screening-embryos-iq
==Views on factory farming==
In 2015, Anomaly published a peer-reviewed article in Public Health Ethics criticising factory farming. Anomaly does not suggest people should give up eating meat completely for plant-based diets but argues "governments should require factory farmers to change the way they raise animals" by improving animal welfare such as shifting to "free range" farming by "increase roaming space and access to fresh air".https://philpapers.org/archive/ANOWWW.pdff These arguments are rejected by vegans and animal rights activists such as PETA who point out animals on “free-range” farms still endure pain and suffering.https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/free-range-organic-meat-myths/ Anomaly has also published a paper discussing the issues "factory farming raises for human health".https://philarchive.org/archive/ANOIAA In 2018, Anomaly suggested in a Quillette article replacing factory farming with "lab-grown" meat (in vitro meat).https://quillette.com/2017/08/17/case-factory-farming/ By the 2020s, Anomaly and co-author Diana Fleischman were supporting in vitro meat.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37656382/https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol5/iss30/5/ Misleadingly, Anomaly and Fleishman in their article(s) do not mention the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in the production of in vitro meat.https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/03/lab-meat-fetal-bovine-serum-blood-slaughter-cultured/ The production of in vitro meat requires a growth agent to support cell growth which is usually foetal bovine serum obtained from the fetus of slaughtered pregnant cows.https://slate.com/technology/2017/07/the-gruesome-truth-about-lab-grown-meat.html
==Whitewashing his far-right associations==
Between August and October 2024, Anomaly went on a deletion-spree to remove articles he had written for far-right sites including Aporia Magazine. His name has also disappeared on Aporia in relation to his podcast appearances (they can still though be accessed on Podchaserhttps://archive.is/Op90N). Anomaly's podcast discussion on eugenics with white supremacist Richard Hanania was also taken down from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology website although it can still be listened to on Podchaser.https://archive.is/yqurJ Anomaly has further deleted his author page on the antisemitic The Unz Review (a webpage capture existshttps://web.archive.org/web/20180322130658/https://www.unz.com/author/jonathan-anomaly/). Anomaly was previously a mutual follower on X of Emil Kirkegaard and Aporia Magazine's account but unfollowed both around the time Hope not Hate wrote an article documenting his far-right connections. Despite this pretense, HnH have pointed out that Anomaly continues to have strong links to Aporia including hosting their live events and restacked an Aporia article on Substack as recent as July 2024.https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/superbaby-factory/https://substack.com/@jonathananomaly Although unfollowing Aporia —Anomaly continues on X to follow the editors of Aporia: Noah Carl, Bo Winegard, as well as its podcast host Diana Fleischman. He also follows ex-UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin. Bizarrely, in response to HnH mentioning that Anomaly had appeared on the far-right Lotus Eaters with Benjamin, a representative of Anomaly said his appearance was "the furtherance of debate with those who he knew held different views to him." In reality, Anomaly throughout the discussion agreed with practically everything Benjamin said and did not once question or dispute him.https://audioboom.com/posts/8560381-the-podcast-of-the-lotus-eaters-985
==RationalWiki==
In September 2021, Anomaly filed a misleading defamation complaint to Google in an attempt to deindex this article.https://lumendatabase.org/notices/25782072 The complaint was unsuccessful. Anomaly lied in his complaint to falsely claim the article said he advocates sterilizing undesirable people. The edit history of the page instead shows this statement was never there, rather, that he argued in the 20th-century "the right of the state to forcefully sterilize undesirable people" is "morally defensible". This is apparently sourced to his writings.Anomaly and Academia: is the Left Really Afraid of Honest Inquiry?
In October 2024, Anomaly was suspected of using accounts to remove factual information he published at The Unz Review.The accounts Pangloss and Pango were both blocked as suspected Jonathan Anomaly meatpuppets.
==Continued ties to the far-right==
In November 2024, Anomaly posted a photo of himself next to the founder of Passage Publishing which has been described as:
The third individual in the photo is far-right activist and anti-feminist author Charles Cornish-Dale (who uses the pseudonym "Raw Egg Nationalist").https://hopenothate.org.uk/2024/06/20/egg-sposed-we-reveal-the-identity-of-far-right-bodybuilder-the-raw-egg-nationalist/
==See also==
* Anatoly Karlin — white nationalist and eugenicist who supports PolygenX.
* Matthew Frost — neo-Nazi who is close friends with Jonathan Anomaly.
==Notes==
==External links==
* Jonathan Anomaly's published papers
* The Superbaby Factory – Hope not Hate's investigation into PolygenX
==References==
Category:Living people
Category:Alt-right
Category:Aporia Magazine
Category:Authors
Category:Economists
Category:Eugenics supporters
Category:Jews
Category:Philosophers
Category:Racialism pseudoscientists
Category:Racists
Category:Fascists