The London Conference on Intelligence is an invitation-only conference for research on controversial aspects of human intelligence, including race and intelligence and eugenics. Founded in 2014, it was secretly held in the Pearson Building at University College London in London, England, on four separate occasions. It was hosted by James Thompson, an honorary UCL senior lecturer in psychology. The existence of the conference, as well as the names of some of the attendees, was revealed by the London Student on January 10, 2018. In a statement released in response to news of the conference, UCL said that it had been unaware that the conference had occurred on its campus, and that the speakers there "were not approved or endorsed by UCL". Their statement also said that "We are an institution that is committed to free speech but also to combatting racism and sexism in all forms." The UCL also announced that it would investigate whether the organizers breached the University's as well as the circumstances that led to awarding of an honorary senior lectureship to Thompson. LCI was moved from London to Skanderborg, Denmark, in May 2018. Helmuth Nyborg has said "we don't trust the media" to explain why conference organizers avoid public attention.
UCL investigation
The LCI was investigated in January 2018 following the 2017 attendance of Toby Young at these conferences, as well as their alleged eugenicist content, neo-Nazi links and clandestine nature. The Guardian reported that "Speakers included white supremacists and a researcher who has previously advocated child rape." Young later resigned over the controversy. Thompson hosted the event without informing senior university officials. In response to an investigation by London Student revealing that the conference had taken place on UCL's campus, UCL announced it would be investigating how a conference on eugenics was able to occur on their campus without the university's knowledge. A UCL spokesperson told the Guardian that "UCL is investigating a potential breach of its room bookings process for events"; UCL also revoked Thompson's approval to organize future conferences. The UCL issued a press release saying that it would investigate the circumstances that led to awarding of an honorary senior lectureship to Thompson, and reaffirmed that it is committed to combating racism. UCL has now cut all ties with Thompson and taken steps to avoid the possibility of such events taking place without the University's knowledge. In response to the controversy, the journal Intelligence published a correspondence defending the conference authored by 15 of its attendees. The correspondence disputed that the LCI was a eugenics conference, saying that, among the 75 presentations given there over four years, only two had been on the topic of eugenics. One of the authors of the correspondence, psychologist Aurelio José Figueredo, was subsequently reported to be the only academic receiving funding from the Pioneer Fund, which is associated with scientific racism and eugenics. Figueredo told the Associated Press that the conference was not about eugenics, and that its overall theme could not be represented "by a few presentations".
Attendees
Notable attendees of at least one of the conferences include:
