Nathan Cofnas on Race, IQ, and the Jason Arday Scandal That Made Him Famous

Nathan Cofnas is the academic researcher who broke the story alleging Jason Arday had fabricated his biography and plagiarized his PhD thesis, a scandal that led to Arday’s resignation from Cambridge University and, weeks later, his death.

But Cofnas has his own history of controversy. He’s a self-described race realist who says that genetic differences between population groups explain average IQ gaps. His argument has gotten him attacks from both the right and left, the termination of his research post at Cambridge’s Emmanuel College, and a since-lifted suspension from Ghent University. He joins Coleman Hughes to walk through the Arday scandal in detail, then defends his research directly. They get into whether ideas about race and IQ should be discussed openly among elites, whether cultural explanations for racial disparities hold up, and whether mainstreaming these claims about IQ would tear society apart rather than heal it. Hughes argues that most people are incapable of separating a claim about group averages from how they judge individuals, and that this is exactly why the conversation is so dangerous to bring into the mainstream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices