Kevin MacDonald
Kevin MacDonald is Professor of Psychology at California State University–Long Beach. He testified for David Irving in his libel trial against Deborah Lipstadt.[1] Lipstadt is an American historian and the author of the book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (Plume, 1994), in which she called Irving a Holocaust denier.
Contents
Activities
MacDonald testified for Irving in the 2000 High Court libel trial that Irving brought against historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. Lipstadt won the case.
According to a report in The Guardian:
- He [Irving] had sued Penguin books and the author Deborah Lipstadt over her book which said Irving had persistently and deliberately misinterpreted and twisted historical evidence to minimise Hitler's culpability for the Holocaust. Penguin incurred costs of £2m to defend the claim. In May 2000 Irving was ordered to pay an interim amount of £150,000, but has failed to pay a penny.[2]
On his website MacDonald writes about his decision to testify for Irving:
- The decision to testify for David Irving was an agonizing one for me and I want to make clear exactly why I did so. Irving approached me to testify in the trial because I had included the suppression of his book on Goebbels as an example of Jewish tactics for combating anti-Semitism in Separation and Its Discontents. Actually the suppression of Irving goes far beyond what I included in my book. Irving has been prevented from publishing his original archival research, from traveling to several countries, and even from giving lectures. The second defendant in the case, Deborah Lipstadt, has contributed to this effort at censorship. My statement to the court and my entire testimony in court involved this issue, not the Holocaust or the culpability of Hitler.[3]
Mr Justice Gray notes MacDonald's testimony in his summing up of the case:
- He [MacDonald] gave evidence on what he termed “Jewish-gentile interactions” from the perspective of evolutionary biology.[4]
In his verdict in the libel trial, Mr Justice Gray states:
- I have found that, in numerous respects, Irving has misstated historical evidence; adopted positions which run counter to the weight of the evidence; given credence to unreliable evidence and disregarded or dismissed credible evidence.[5]
Mr Justice Gray further stated:
- The charges which I have found to be substantially true include the charges that Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.[6]
Biographical information
The following is a biography from his website:
- After receiving a Masters degree in evolutionary biology, he received a Ph. D. in Biobehavioral Sciences, both at the University of Connecticut. Since assuming his position at California State University–Long Beach, his research has focused on developing evolutionary perspectives on culture, developmental psychology and personality theory, the origins and maintenance of monogamous marriage in Western Europe, and ethnic relations (group evolutionary strategies). He is the author of more than 100 scholarly papers and reviews, and he is the author of Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis (1988), A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (1994), Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (1998), and The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (1998). He has also edited three books, Sociobiological Perspectives on Human Development (1988), Parent-Child Play: Descriptions and Implications (1994), and Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development (2004). Cultural Insurrections, a collection of essays, appeared in 2008.[7]
Affiliations
Member of the following organizations (as at December 2009):[8]
- Society for Research in Child Development
- Human Behavior and Evolution Society
- International Society for Human Ethology
- Politics and the Life Sciences
Resources
Kevin MacDonald, My Decision to Testify for Irving, Kevin MacDonald website, accessed 4 Dec 2009
Contact
- Address: Department of Psychology, CSU-Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840-0901, USA
- Phone: (562) 985-8183
- Email: kmacd(AT)csulb.edu
- Website: http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/
Resources
High Court judgment in libel trial available here.
Notes
- ↑ Response to John Tooby and Steven Pinker, Kevin MacDonald website, accessed 2 Dec 2009
- ↑ Vikram Dodd, Failed libel action costs Irving his home, The Guardian, 22 May 2002, accessed 4 Dec 2009
- ↑ Kevin MacDonald, My Decision to Testify for Irving, Kevin MacDonald website, accessed 4 Dec 2009
- ↑ David John Cadwell Irving vs Penguin Books Ltd and Deborah E. Lipstadt, High Court of Justice, 11 April 2000, accessed 4 Dec 2009. Also available here.
- ↑ David John Cadwell Irving vs Penguin Books Ltd and Deborah E. Lipstadt, High Court of Justice, 11 April 2000, accessed 4 Dec 2009
- ↑ David John Cadwell Irving vs Penguin Books Ltd and Deborah E. Lipstadt, High Court of Justice, 11 April 2000, accessed 4 Dec 2009
- ↑ Home page, Kevin MacDonald website, accessed 2 Dec 2009
- ↑ Curriculum Vitae, available from Kevin MacDonald website, http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/
