Budapest hosted the London Conference on Intelligence (LCI) for the second consecutive year in August 2024. The conference’s respectable-sounding name conceals the fact that it is a gathering of radical race scientists and eugenicists.
Among the select group of speakers was Bouke de Vries, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University. Apache obtained access to the program brochure, which is not publicly available.
When it emerged in 2018 that white supremacists dominated the LCI conference—then held at University College London (UCL)—UCL launched an internal investigation.
Vanwege het internationale karakter van dit verhaal publiceren we dit artikel ook in het Engels. De Nederlandse versie kan je hier vinden.
Sociologist Noah Carl, who spoke twice at the “conference on race, intelligence, and eugenics,” was dismissed by St Edmund's College at Cambridge University after the inquiry concluded that he engaged in “poor science” that violated academic integrity, and that he collaborated with far-right groups.
Since those explosive revelations, LCI has operated even more covertly, no longer meeting in London. Conferences are held at secret locations shared only via Telegram chat. Attendance is by invitation only, and participants are considered trusted members of the network. Spectators and journalists are barred.
The 2024 program was again filled with names of pseudoscientists engaged in race science.
What is race science?
Proponents of race science claim that there are significant differences in (personality) traits between different ‘human races’. In doing so, they usually focus on IQ. However, there is a scientific consensus that human races, as understood by race scientists, do not exist. Furthermore, the research into IQ that these race scientists conduct is consistently dismissed as pseudoscience by the scientific community.
Eugenics refers to the idea (and sometimes the practice) of improving the ‘genetic quality’ of a population or of humanity as a whole. Contemporary forms of eugenics are primarily concerned with embryo selection. Geneticists (as well as ethicists) criticise these practices, through which existing companies make promises they cannot keep (based on the current state of the art). Very often, there are clear links between contemporary eugenicists and race science.
Since 2023, LCI has taken place in Hungary’s capital, which the brochure describes as having “a relaxed political climate.” The three-day 2024 conference began on August 16 at the “stylish and cozy” Muzikum Klub & Bisztró, next to the Hungarian National Museum, with opening remarks by organisers Emil Kirkegaard and James Thompson. The brochure shows that UGent philosophy professor Bouke de Vries was on the programme.
On day two (17/8/24), De Vries delivered a lecture on sex differences and moral status. According to the brief description, De Vries examined a core assumption of feminism and liberalism: that men and women have equal status. He argued it is high time to question this assumption, citing other “factors” that may influence status, including IQ.
A Questionable Article
In March 2024, Apache reported that De Vries ventured onto thin scientific ice with his article The dysgenics objection to longtermism. In it, De Vries claimed that global intelligence is declining due to a process called “dysgenics”. The dysgenics theory posits that humanity’s “genetic quality” is deteriorating because too many people with “bad” genes (and too few with “good” genes) are having children.
The article drew harsh criticism in academic circles. Colleagues in De Vries’ department called the rise of race science in academia “problematic” in an Apache article. On social media platform Bluesky, evolutionary behavioural scientist Rebecca Sear criticised De Vries’ publication for using “uncritical (and selective) quotes from a range of scientific racists and eugenicists”. Sear had previously demonstrated in an academic paper that the concept of “dysgenic fertility” is not scientifically valid.
In a controversial article, De Vries argues that the intelligence of the world population is declining due to a so-called process of “dysgenics”
Although De Vries did not make explicit statements about race in his controversial text, he consistently cited authors known for defending pseudoscientific racist ideas. Months after the publication of his contested article, De Vries appeared alongside these same scientists at the LCI conference.
His participation in the LCI conference is therefore not particularly surprising. The preprint of his article (January 2024) was picked up and shared by Aporia, the online magazine of the far-right Human Diversity Foundation (HDF). An undercover operation by the British anti-racism group Hope not Hate —and a Guardian investigation—revealed that HDF is the secret successor to the American Pioneer Fund, which spread Nazi propaganda before WWII and later promoted research on the supposed inferiority of non-white races.
LCI’s Danish organiser, white supremacist and self-styled eugenicist Emil Kirkegaard, heads HDF. In a post on X, Kirkegaard praised De Vries’ article. Kirkegaard is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary race science and was omnipresent in Budapest. As co-organiser, he spoke in four of the ten sessions. He co-delivered one of his presentations with fellow race scientist Davide Piffer, who described African immigrants to Italy as “gorillas” on X—later “correcting” himself by saying gorillas are “nobler” than immigrants.
The “Great Purge” of Woke
All speakers at LCI 2024 carry dubious reputations, including far-right British vlogger and YouTuber Edward Dutton, who opened the conference with British software developer J. O. A. Rayner-Hilles in a lecture on “Woke Eugenics.” Dutton’s book of the same name— published by the extremist Imperium Press—is one of De Vries’ frequently cited sources. Dutton’s works cited by De Vries often list Kirkegaard as co-author.
Dutton, a theologian by training, has long championed race science. He resigned from Finland’s University of Oulu after a plagiarism scandal and has no expertise in IQ or genetics.
Dutton and Rayner-Hilles’ “eugenic analysis” of the “woke phenomenon” set the tone for the three-day pseudoscientific conference. In their presentation they described how “woke” would seek to destroy modern society by deliberately lowering population intelligence. According to Dutton and Rayner-Hilles, “woke” promotes infertility among the middle class. After the “great purge” orchestrated by “woke,” those “genetically resistant” to it—namely “religious conservatives” (read: Muslims)—will take over.
Tribute to IQ Cartographer
It is no coincidence that the London Conference on Intelligence also paid tribute to psychologist Richard Lynn, a leading Pioneer Fund member who had died the previous year. Conference organiser Kirkegaard inherited Lynn’s assets for the American Pioneer Fund.
The programme quotes an excerpt from Lynn’s memoirs. With his three children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, Lynn claimed to have fulfilled “the biological task of passing on the genes we inherited over hundreds of millions of years.”
Lynn, a proponent of the “Great Replacement” theory, is considered the godfather of modern race science. His so-called IQ world map ranks countries by alleged average IQ. In the 1970s, he called for “phasing out populations of incompetent cultures”. He also proposed splitting the U.S. to “save white civilization”. Lynn was caught manipulating data, but that did not stop De Vries from using the data.
Eugenics in Downing Street
In 2020, it became clear that pseudo-scientists from the race science network also succeed in influencing politicians and governments. In that year Andrew Sabrisky, a businessman interested in eugenics, infiltrated Downing Street. He did this under the patronage of Dominic Cummings, then-adviser of Boris Johnson, but was dismissed a few days later.
Sabrisky claimed there are reasons “to assume there are significant racial differences in intelligence” and argued that “black Americans have lower IQs than white Americans.” He also advocated birth control for the “underclass” and said that women’s elite sports are more comparable to the Paralympics than to men’s elite sports. Sabrisky voiced these views at the London Conference on Intelligence in 2015, where he was one of the speakers.
Pseudoscience Under a Pseudonym
De Vries went further. Apache discovered he authored the article Refugees’ IQs are Normatively Consequential in the Journal of Controversial Ideas under the pseudonym Tavren Oshal. Published on 11 November 2025, the article argues that the assumption that refugees have lower IQ has moral implications, and suggests excluding low-IQ refugees. The piece aligns with a polemic sparked by controversial race scientist Heiner Rindermann’s article in that same journal, on the IQ of refugees in Germany.
Under his pseudonym, De Vries defends the pseudoscientific literature on race and IQ. In doing so, he explicitly aligns himself with so-called race science and claims in the article (as in the “dysgenics” article) that this type of research is being “suppressed”.
Apache established that De Vries is the author of the article Refugees’ IQs are Normatively Consequential, which was published under the pseudonym Tavren Oshal
De Vries had previously written two articles for the Journal of Controversial Ideas under his own name. An analysis of the sources (some of which are in Dutch), style, and structure of the 2025 article on the IQ of refugees strongly suggests that he is the author. The article contains more than thirteen constructions and filler words that also appear word for word in De Vries' dysgenics article. However, what irrefutably proves that De Vries is the author of the 2025 article is two idiosyncratic errors in the bibliography. Both the Dysgenics article and the Refugees’ IQ article refer to the publisher of a work in the same incorrect manner.
In three articles (two under De Vries' own name, the third under the pseudonym Oshal), a non-existent illustrated version of a book is listed as a source in the bibliography. Worldwide, only two authors consistently make this specific error—De Vries and Oshal. It is therefore clear that they are the same author.
Apache asked De Vries for his views on the theories propagated by Kirkegaard and his supporters at the conference and beyond. We also asked him if he would distance himself from the controversial theories. However, there was no response. When Apache asked him similar questions in March 2025, De Vries again chose not to respond.
