A new kind of purity troll

Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson discusses the results of study conducted in Finland and Sweden showing married individuals are less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimers...which prompts her sidekick Brian Kilmeade to launch into a stream of science-babble that would make a eugenicist blush:

KILMEADE: We keep marrying other species and other ethnics.

CARLSON: Are you sure you're not suffering from some of the causes of dementia now?

KILMEADE: You see, the problem with, uh. The Swedes have pure genes because they marry other Swedes because that's the rule. Finland, Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society.

In America, we marry everybody, Italians, Irish.

MORRIS: So the study does not apply to us?

KILMEADE: The study does not apply to us.

The most charitable explanation for Kilmeade's comments is that he was saying that he doesn't think the study applies to the 'mutts' in America (who marry "other species" and "other ethnics") because it was conducted in Finland and Sweden (who have "pure genes" and "pure society").

When that's the most charitable explanation, you know you've said something really loony -- a special kind of ignorance right up there with "the Earth is 6,000 years old."

Apparently, Kilmeade is so hung up on his belief that people of different colors belong to different "species" that he failed to grasp that even if his views were right, this study measured the influence of a lifestyle choice (i.e., the environment) on Alzheimer's and dementia. In other words, even if you accept Kilmeade's demented predicate, the conclusion he's drawing is moronic.

The larger point is that even though there are some diseases that plague certain ethnic groups more than others, it does not necessarily follow that the reason for the difference is genetic in nature. In fact, it usually doesn't. Take, for example, Alzheimer's: research shows that the genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease is the same among African-Americans and whites.

You wouldn't expect Kilmeade to know that, however. He's too busy fantasizing about the "pure society" of Finland.

Also see Stroszek's recommended diary, "Fox and Friends" Host Argues for Racially "Pure Society".