14 THE SJiTVRDJiY EVENING POST Summer 1972

Most recently in a very important social docu- Comments on Individual however, which are not sensitive to absolute ment on equality of educational opportunity. and Group Differences in I.Q. changes in value, only to rank orders. This is an im- Coleman (1966) again showed that the quality of SANDRA SCARR-SALAPATEK portant point to be discussed later. education (here in secondary school) seemed to Thanks to Jensen's provocative article, many After reviewing the evidence for average LQ. have very little effect on the academic achieve- academic psychologists who thought I.Q. tests be- differences by social class and race, Herrnstein ment test scores of children. In other words the longed in the closet with the Rorschach inkblots poses the nature-nurture problem of "which is pri- children who went to poor schools with poorly have now explored the psychometric literature mary?" in determining phenotypic differences in trained teachers, dilapidated buildings, and and found it to be a trove of scientific treasure. I.Q. For racial groups, he explains, the origins of crowded classrooms did no worse on the tests than One of these is Richard Herrnstein, who from a mean I.Q. differences are indeterminate at the children who went to excellent, well-equipped Skinnerian background [B.F. Skinner. Professor present time because we have no information from schools with low teacher-pupil tatios, once one of Psychology, Harvard University] has become an heritabiiity studies in the black population or from had corrected for the initial differences in intelli- admirer of intelligence tests-a considerable leap other, unspecified, lines of research which could gence and social background ofthe pupils attend- from shaping the behavior of pigeons and rats. favor primarily genetic or primarily environmental ing the two types of schools. In other words what Herrnstein's popular account in the Atlantic of hypotheses. He is thoroughly convinced, however, the test results seem to have shown over and over I.Q. testing and its values is generally responsible, that individual differences and social-class differ- again is that quality of education makes no differ- if overly enthusiastic in parts. ences in I.Q. are highly heritable at the present ence in improving competence. Herrnstein unabashedly espouses I.Q. testing as time and are destined, by environmental improve- What does make a difference are the attributes "psychology's most telling accomplishment to ments, to become even more so. of the people getting the education-their intelli- date," despite the current controversy over the For Herrnstein, society is, and will be even gence, their social characteristics and so forth. fairness of testing poor and minority-group chil- more strongly, a meritocracy based largely on Why then should citizens spend so much money dren with I.Q. items devised by middle-class inherited differences in I.Q, trying to improve education? Why should educa- whites. His historical review of I.Q. test develop- Five "corollaries" for the future predict that tional psychologists be trying to find hetter ways ment, including tests of general intelligence and the heritabiiity of I.Q. will rise; that social mobil- of educating pupils? Why is money wasted on con- multiple abilities, is interesting and accurate. His ity will become more strongly related to inherited ferences to try to find ways of improving educa- tion-if in fact the data clearly show that educa- tional variations have very iittie effect on academic achievement, which in turn is considered the main measure of competence for life's tasks? One reason is that we keep suspecting that the educators may be right in continuing to think that the quality ofeducationdoesmakeadirference.lt Sandra Scarr-Salapatek is an Associate Pro- fessor in the Institute of Child Development, may be the psychological testers who are wrong: University of Minnesota. Her research on their tests may simply not be adequate measures of genetic and environmental factors in per- the competence which better education produces. sonality and intellectual development has In fact there may even be a built-in theoretical been published in many scientific journals. reason why most existing tests are inadequate mea- She is a Harvard Ph. D. in child development and behavioral genetics. Dr. Scarr-Salapatek sures of variations in the quality of education. has an unusual name because she is married Most testers have worked hard to create tests to Dr. Philip Salapatek, also at the Institute which are reliable-that is, which will give the same of Child Development. Thanks to an excellent score when the same individual is tested again. An housekeeper, the household, which includes instrument which is designed to be very reliable three children and numerous pets, runs pretty smoothly. The children all ahow in- may not be very sensitive to changes that have dividual differences. actually taken place in the person through educa- tion. But this theoretical problem has never shaken the self-confidence of the testing movement. It has continued to roll on like a juggernaut overwhelm- ing all such doubts. When many psychologists began to examine really seriously for the first time the assumptions account of the validity and usefulness of the tests I.Q. differences; that most bright people will be on which the intelligence testing movement had centers on the fairly accurate prediction that can gathered in the top of the social structure, with the been built, it took them no time at all to discover be made from I.Q. scores about academic and oc- LQ. dregs at the bottom; that many at the bottom that many intelligence tests had a built-in middle- cupational achievement and income level. He clari- will not have the intelligence needed for new jobs; class bias. The vocabulary used in the tests was so- fies the pattern of relationship between I.Q. and and that the meritocracy will be built not just on called "standard English," not the dialect spoken these criterion variables: High I.Q. is a necessary inherited intelligence but on all inherited traitsaf- in many ghetto communities. So the children from but not sufficient condition forhigh achievement, fecting success, which will presumably become these communities often did not even understand whiie low I.Q. virtually assures failure at high aca- correlated characters. Thus, from the successful the instructions for the tests, let alone the words demic and occupational levels. One must assume realization of our most precious egalitarian politi- they were supposed to identify which were not that Herrnstein's enthusiasm for intelligence tests cal and social goals, there will arise a much more part of the vocabulary in coninion use in their rests on population statistics, not on predictions rigidly stratified society, a "virtual caste system" community. Correct answers to questions also for a particular child, because many chiidren based on inborn ability. often assume a standard middle-class way of life. studied longitudinally have been shown to change To ameliorate this effect, society may have to For example a child is asked on an intelligence test, I.Q. scores by twenty points or more from child- move toward the socialist dictum, "From each ac- "What would you do if you were sent to the store hood to adulthood. It is likely that extremes of cording to his abilities, to each according to his by your mother to buy something and you found giftedness and retardation can be sorted out rela- needs," but Herrnstein sees complete equality of the store didn't have it?" The "intelligent" or cor- tively early by I.Q. tests, but what about the 95 earnings and prestige as impossible because high- rect answer is supposed to be that you would go to percent of the population in between? Their I.Q. grade intelligence is scarce and must be recruited another store to see if they had it. However this is scores may vary from dull to bright normal for into those critical jobs that require it, by the certainly not an intelligent answer for a ghetto many years. Important variations in i,Q. can occur promise of high earnings and high prestige. Al- child who is under strict orders from his mother to up to late adolescence. On a population basis though garbage collecting is critical to the health come straight home from the store because she is Herrnstein is correct; the best early predictors of of the society, almost anyone can do it; to waste afraid he might be robbed or beaten if he strayed later achievement are ability measures taken from high-I.Q. persons on such jobs is to misallocate age five on. Predictions are based on correlations, Continued on page 152 scarce resources at society's peril. 16 THE SJtTVRDMY EVENING POST Summer 1972

Herrnstein points to an ironic contrast between acteristic, various recombinations of parental cept in our society, where equal opportunity and the effects of caste and class systems. Castes, genotypes will always produce more variable geno- equality under the law are highly valued. There is which established artificial hereditary limits on types in the offspring than in the parents of all no contradiction, however, between the scientific social mobility, guarantee the inequality of oppor- social-class groups, especially the extremes. Even if fact of individual and group differences and the tunity that preserves I.Q. heterogeneity at all levels both parents, instead of primarily the male, moral principle of equal ri^ts. Our civil liberties of the system. Many bright people are arbitrarily achieved social-class status based on their l.Q.'s, do not depend upon our being identical twins, a kept down and many unintelligent people are arti- recombinations of their genes would always pro- state that is both impossible and undesirable. ficially maintained at the top. When arbitrary duce a range of offspring who would be upwardly The bothersome aspects of group differences in bounds on mobility are removed, as in our class or downwardly mobile relative to their families of average I.Q. scores is that social power and prestige system, most of the bright rise to the top and most origin. are accorded on thebasis of high achievement. The of the dull fall to the bottom ofthe social system, Second, since, as Herrnstein acknowledges, most available route to high social status is through and I.Q. differences between top and bottom factors other than I.Q.-motivational, personality, educational achievements, and I.Q. tests are the become increasingly hereditary. The greater the and undetermined—also contribute to success or best predictors of school success. Thus, the results environmental equality, the greater the hereditary the lack of it, high l.Q.'s will always be found of I.Q. tests are often used to guide children into differences between levels b the socia! structure. among lower-class adults, in combination with school curricula that will prepare them for profes- The thesis of egalitarianism surely leads to its an- schizophrenia, alcoholism, drug addiction, sions on the one hand or for unskilled jobs on the tithesis in a way that Karl Marx never anticipated. psychopathy, and other limiting factors. When other. Herrnstein proposes that our best strategy, in recombined in offspring, high I.Q. can readily seg- Many minority-group leaders and social scien- the face of increasing biological stratification, is to regate with facilitating motivational and person- tists are now campaigning for the abolition of I.Q. publicly recognize genetic human differences but ality characteristics, thereby leading to upward tests because children from poor families do not to reallocate wealth to a considerable extent. The mobility for many offspring. Similarly, middle- do as well on them as children from middle-class I.Q. have-nots need not be poor. Herrnstein does class parents will always produce some offspring homes. Unfortunately, I.Q. scores predict school not delve into the psychological consequences of with debilitating personal characteristics which success, or failure, for children at all social-class being publicly marked as genetically inferior. lead to downward mobility. levels. The fault lies not in the tests but in the re- Does the evidence support Herrnstein's view of hereditary social classes, now or in some future Utopia? Given his assumptions about the high heritabihty of I.Q., the importance of I.Q. to social mobility, and the increasing environmental equal- ity of rearing and opportunity, hereditary social classes are to some extent inevitable. But one can Robert J. Herrnstein, of the Department of question the limits of genetic homogeneity in so- Psycholo^ at Harvard University since 1967, cial-class groups and the evidence for his syllogism is now the eye of a hurricane of debate raging at present. about the merits of heredity vs. environment as the prime determinant of human intelli- Is I.Q. as highly heritable throughout the social gence. Pictured here in his Cambridge office, structure as Herrnstein assumes? Probably not. In he views the dispute with detached equa- a recent study of I.Q. heritabiiity in various racial nimity, since as a scientist he is concerned and social-class groups, I found much lower pro- primarily with facts. He will take a leave of absence from teaching next year to write a portions of genetic variance that would account hook. Dr. Herrnstein is a member of the for aptitude differences among lower-class than American Psychological Association, the East- among middle-class children, in both black and ern Psychological Association, the American white groups. Social disadvantage in prenatal and Association for the Advancement of Science, postnatal development can substantially lower the American Association of University Pro- phenotypic I.Q. and reduce the genotype-pheno- fessors, and Phi Beta Kappa. type correlation. Thus, average phenotypic I.Q. differences between the social classes may be con- siderably larger than the genotypic differences. Are social classes largely based on hereditary I.Q. differences now? Probably not as much as Herrnstein believes. Since opportunities for social mobility act at the phenotypic level, there still Third, for all children to develop phenotypes stricted kinds of school experiences we provide for may be considerable genetic diversity for I.Q. at that represent their best genotypic outcome (in children. It is the educational system that is irrele- the bottom of the social structure. In earlier days current environments) would require enormous vant for many children, not the tests. arbitrary social barriers maintained genetic vari- changes in the present social system. To improve We must ask why children at different social ability throughout the social structure. At present, and equalize all rearing environments would in- class levels have different average I.Q. scores. Some individuals with high phenotypic l.Q.'s are often volve such massive intervention as to make Herrn- scientists prefer a primarily environmental ex- upwardly mobile; but inherited wealth acts to stein's view of the future more problematic than planation while others prefer a primarily genetic maintain genetic diversity at the top, and non- he seems to believe. Copyright © Science magazine one. I feel that neither side has any conclusive genetic biological and social barriers to phenotypic proof and that most investigators have failed to use development act to maintain a considerable proper behavior-genetic methods to answer the genetic diversity of intelligence in the lower Every parent of more than one child knows question. The question is how much of the differ- classes. how different children can be, even though they ences between people comes from their genetic As P. E. Vernon has pointed out, we are in- are raised in the same family and share much of difference and how much from their environment. clined to forget that the majority of gifted children their genetic background in common. In fact, dif- The relationship between genetic and environ- in recent generations have come from working- ferences between brothers and sisters, and be- mental variances is called the heritabiiity estimate. class, not middle-class, families. A larger percent- tween unrelated children, arise from both genetic Heritabiiity is a shorthand expression for the age of middle-class children are gifted, but the and environmental differences between them. proportion of total differences among people in a working and lower classes produce gifted children Every child has a unique genetic makeup and, to population that occur because of their genetic dif- in larger numbers. How many more disadvantaged some extent, a unique environment. The combina- ferences. children would have been bright if they had had tion makes him what he is. Many studies have shown that individual differ- middle-class gestation and rearing conditions? Most people know, and accept, that all children ences in I.Q. within the middle-class white popula- 1 am inclined to think that intergenerational do not have the same I.Q. scores. But the fact that tion are more related to genetic differences than to class mobility will always be with us, for three rea- children from different social-class levels have dif- environmental differences. Before my study, no sons. First, since normal I.Q. is a polygenic char- ferent average I.Q. scores is more difficult to ac- one had examined the heritabiiity of I.Q. differ- 18 THE SJiTURDAY EVENING POST Summer 1972

ences in the disadvantaged segments of the popula- They may learn other important skills, but sym- years. tion, whose environments are substantially differ- bolic reasoning and school-type vocabulary are Suppose that we do not want every child to ent from the advantaged groups. The heritabiiity often poorly developed. If they were raised in have the same skills—that we value diversity. Sup- of I.Q. scores in lower social-class groups can be homes where these skills were taught, they would pose that there were a wider range of good educa- lower if their rearing conditions do not foster the do much better on I.Q. tests and in school. And if tional situations for children. And further suppose development of skills tested by I.Q. scales. environmental impediments to high scores were that society gave equally high rewards to a variety In a large study of identical and fraternal twins removed, their I.Q. differences wouid be based far of talents. The traditional I.Q. test would no long- in Philadelphia, I found that genetic differences more on genetic differences than they are now. er be sufficient to tap all those skills. The farther accounted for about half of the I.Q. differences To the extent that poor children are truly dis- we move the social reward system and the educa- among middle-class children, but practically none advantaged by their family's life style, we must tional system away from their reliance on same- ofthe I.Q. differences among lower-class children. provide better nutrition, preschool education, and ness (high I.Q.), the more diverse talents can be Identical twins, who have the same genetic back- the like. But, to the extent that children from rewarded, and the more just will be the develop- ground, were not more similar than fraternal twins ethnically and socially different backgrounds rep- ment ofthe genetic diversity among us. We cannot, in lower class groups. resent cultural diversity, we should recognize the and should not try to, get rid of our differences. Many disadvantaged children do not have the richness in our midsts. Cultural and genetic di- We can only make sure that every child has the best kind of home and neighborhood environments versity are extremely useful to a society that does possible opportunity to develop what he can, and that give them the skills required for I.Q. tests. not know where it will be in 1000, or even 100 reward him for what he becomes. S

Some Viewpoints on Intelligence and Heredity Dr. Stevens shed further light on the present discussion concerning I.Q. during an informal interview in his office at Harvard University. He has been on the Harvard faculty since 1936^ a Professor of Psychology since 1946, and is pres- Professor Stevens is a native of Ogden, Utah. ently Professor of Psychophysics and Director of He received his A.B. degree from Stanford the Laboratory of Psychophysics at Harvard. He is University in 1931, and his Ph.D. from Har- the holder of the Warren Medal awarded by the vard in 1933. During 1946-1953 he was a con- sultant to the Research Development Board. Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Presi- Dr. Stevens was a member of the Space Science dential Certificate of Merit for research in the Board of the National Academy, 1958-1960; psychoacoustical field during World War II, and and served from 1949-1952 as Chairman of the many other outstanding honors. His remarks con- Division of Anthropology and Psychology of cerning Dr. Herrnstein's work add insights to the the National Research Council. He is photo- graphed in his office on the Harvard campus, controversial subject. with a pet cat which patrols the premises. "I was at Stanford University at the time Ter- man was there, the man who developed the Stan- ford Binet tests, which are a cornerstone of all this. What Dr. Herrnstein has actually done is to draw together all of the material on what was then called the nature/nurture controversy. He has gone back and reviewed its history accurately. He has thought through some of the implications of the that you occasionally run into more violent sup- you don't have an I.Q. test, then you contrive all Stanford Binet test and actually made suggestions pression attempts such as Dr. Herrnstein suffered sorts of other ways of sampling. So, in Russia, no on how to increase opportunities for the dis- by having people following him around to annoy I.Q., but just the same they have some kind of tests advantaged. He makes the very interesting observa- him, putting up posters attacking him, and trying in order to get into a university. That amounts to tion that if one succeeds in getting rid of the en- to get him fired. the same thing. They have other samples of per- vironmental factors in determining I.Q., then there "This suppression of nature correlates has gone formance . will be only inherited factors remaining. This may along with the present ascendancy of the social "What these people are complaining about is have been said before, but it hasn't been said as sciences. The typical social scientist believes that the fact that, thanks to I.Q. tests, we have a good well or as forcibly. his discipline can do everything. That is not too sample of what a man's intellectual capacity is. "In the nature/nurture controversy, it was surprising because after all that is what he is selling; And that in itself really constitutes the most im- mainly during World War II that the environ- that is his bag. So that as a result we have some portant practical contribution that psychology has mentalists got into the saddle. It was sort of a sociologists telling us that I.Q. testing is useless and made to society so far. The reason it is important is worldwide phenomenon and that was the curious a menace. Will it change? Probably. The pendulum that you can predict things from it. And of course thing about it. In Russia, it was Lysenko who suc- can never stay at its furthest excursion very long. I there has been criticism-I don't know of anything ceeded in suppressing all biological work on I.Q. don't know what else you can do but just wait for much including Einstein's theory of relativity that We didn't have anything quite as dramatic as that. it to come back. hasn't been criticized by many people. As the egalitarian view became more popular and "You might start jailing the mental testers, 1 "Certainly no good idea has failed to be criti- reached its climax in the sixties, it became less and suppose. I think I read of someone starting a class- cized by many people, and I suppose this is just less possible for us to work on what I like to call action suit to prevent the giving of intelligence another example of it. Geneticists know that it is 'constitutional problems.' tests, back in November. Now if this suit succeeds safer to work on fruit flies than people. We are all "TV and the Eastern press have swung over to (which is very much like what happened in Russia) cowards at some point." TS that side and you can get anything published that then there will be no more tests. They don't have tells what wonderful things you can do by way of them any more in Russia. Editor's note: We regret that space does not permit environmental fixing. This is true almost every- "Of course they have to judge performance by us to print each author's work in its entirety as well where except in a medical concept. They haven't some standards regardless of whether you use an as the work of other researchers in ihis field. Any quite suppressed the doctor. But with that excep- I.Q. test or not. The Russians are no dummies, and readers wishing to obtain additional material by tion, it has become very difficult. they have found their own methods of judging per- these authors and others on this subject, are in- "The Lysenko type of politica! suppression formance. When I was in junior high school, the vited to write to the Editorial Department of The hasn't taken place here but the result has almost coach of our football team just lined up the boys Saturday Evening Post for sources. The SEP is been the same as if it had—the suppression here is and made us run. He even bothered to time us. If interested in having your views and comments. of the type that you get when you can't be heard we could run fast, he was interested. The I.Q. test Please write to us if you have opinions you wish to on the biological side of the subject. And beyond is the same thing. It is a sample of performance. If express.