For the past several years we have been trying to come to grips with some of the underlying problems raised by theories that human nature is biologically determined. Our concern for these issues derives from the IQ debate. Despite tremendous progress in refuting the particulars of the arguments for hereditary...
Tag - richard herrnstein
The struggle between those who possess social power and those who do not, between "freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed" is a war fought with many and varied weapons. Of highest importance are ideas, weapons in an ideological warfare by...
You've just returned home from the Lying-In Hospital in Boston bearing a beautiful normal baby boy. You and the father let out a quiet sigh of relief — everything went alright, the future looks bright, true happiness is yours. In a few days, however, a message arrives from Dr. Stanley Walzer, a child psychiatrist...
Jensen, Herrnstein and others have claimed that people's IQ is highly inherited and plays a large part in determining their "success" in later life. In this section of the magazine we show the fallacies of all these arguments. "IQ and Class Structure" demonstrates that IQ is not a cause of success and that it is...
The N.E. Regional National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) convention in Boston, last December, was different from past national NSTA conventions the Science Teaching Group has attended. We were asked to present our own sessions, given space for our literature table, and the NSTA sessions were run in a more open...
In spite of the depravity of the ideas they spread (or because of it) the followers of Jansenism have had full access to the public media. Both Shockley and Herrenstein have appeared on nationwide T.V. and their theories have been given repeated exposure in the press. Originally published in magazines for the...
In the past five years, there has been a wave of ideological attacks by intellectuals on those who are without power and wealth—specifically blacks, the unemployed, the working class in general. This new wave has emanated from the elite universities and has been designed to prove that the "lower" classes are...
It would seem that confrontation, restructuring, or issues by themselves are not enough to change peoples' attitudes. One key factor is to what degree the people are involved in any of these tactics. We should be particularly aware of the concrete conditions within which we act and of the mood, attitudes, and...
From an historical point of view, the capitalist mode of production and distribution has led to the emergence of two characteristic types of political system: the liberal democracy exemplified by England and the United States of America on the one hand, and the repressive police state exemplified by Nazi Germany on...
Each year, sandwiched between Christmas and New Year's days, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) holds its annual meeting in a major American city, with its headquarters in a towering hotel of a major American hotel chain. Invariably, not very far away is a major American ghetto, and of...