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IQ, Heritability, and Human Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Norman Daniels
Norman Daniels*
Affiliation:
Tufts University
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Extract

Scientific revolutions are no everyday affair. So it is of some importance that Fortune (Alexander, 1972) and several other major magazines have recently proclaimed that we are in the midst of a major Kuhnian revolution in the social sciences, one that has significant implications for social policy. According to these magazines, ‘environmentalist’ theories, which assume that equalization of human environments and opportunities will increase equality of achievement between individuals, groups, and races, are in ‘crisis'. The crisis exists because the egalitarian reform programs of the 1960's, which relied on such theories and thus constituted tests of them, failed to equalize achievement. In the face of this crisis, Fortune suggests, scientists are welcoming evidence from the study of ducks, baboons, and humans which points to “a basic intractability in human nature, a resistance to being guided and molded for improving society” (Alexander, 1972, p. 132).

Type
Symposium: Genetics, IQ and Education
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1974 , 1974 , pp. 143 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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Footnotes

*

Versions of this paper have been read at Indiana University, Ohio State University, and Tufts University, and I have benefited from discussion following these presentations. My greatest debt is to Professors R. C. Lewontin, Ned Block, and Ronald Webber for many hours of helpful discussion. Some material from Sections II and IV appears in Daniels (1975).

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