ANTWERP, Belgium – William Jeynes, a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton and a Harvard graduate, presented data from his major studies that provide guidance and solutions to reducing the achievement gap and violence, as well as stimulating the economy. However, he argued that political correctness and “defactualization” are preventing the implementation of these solutions to global problems. Dr. Jeynes delivered these results in a speech at the University of Antwerp in Belgium before leading academics and government policy leaders.
Dr. Jeynes shared results of various meta-analyses that he has conducted which indicate that family- and personal- factors are much more important than the intervention of government-sponsored solutions in addressing many of the world’s educational, sociological, and economic problems. Jeynes, who has served as a government consultant on three continents declared that “Political correctness and ‘defactualization’ are undermining the logical- and moral- compass that helped build leading civilizations.” Dr. Jeynes created the term, “defactualization,” in about 2002, to describe societies in which facts are either habitually denied or relegated to irrelevant facts due to an emphasis on subjectivity. “’Defactualization’ causes nations to emphasize the subjective over the objective and opinion over fact. It is a major reason why faith and family values are under such attack, even though these mean-spirited attacks go against common sense and quantitative data.”
Dr. Jeynes’ meta-analyses indicate that family and faith factors have a major influence on the achievement gap, economic growth, academic achievement, and student behavior. For example, he notes, “If one compares Latino and black children who are highly religious and come from intact two parent families with white students, the achievement gap totally disappears.” He adds other examples of political incorrect facts that the government often chooses to ignore. For example, “The marriage rate is one of the most reliable predictors of economic growth over the next ten to fifteen years. When the U.S. had the world’s highest marriage rate in the 1950s, its economy was a powerhouse. In the1960s Japan surpassed the United States as the nation who generally had the highest marriage rate and for the next two decades enjoyed the position of having the fastest growing economy in the world.” Dr. Jeynes is nevertheless encouraged that, “Most solutions require more individual will rather than money.”
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