The Dogma and Biology of Human Inheritance

The Twenty-seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education attempts to summarize the crucial evidence regarding the relative potency of heredity and environment, respectively, in determining mental capacity and scholastic ability. Original studies are presented also. Many of the conclusions in the Year book are based upon two hypotheses of very questionable validity, namely, (I) that mental tests measure general intelligence, and (2) that mental traits are subject to the same laws of inheritance as physical ones. In the pioneer days of the testing movement general intelligence was thought to be made up of inborn, rather closely related abilities. Unless one holds that the abilities of man are closely related, there is no justification for theconcept of general intelligence. Nevertheless, experimentation is cited which shows rather conclusively that the integers measured by the various intelligence tests (social, abstract, etc.) do not show high positive correlation. indeed, several outstanding leaders in the field of test and measurements now admit that the "general-intelligence" test has been misnamed. In reality it is only a measure of educational opportunity and attainment. The very definition of general intelligence (which many mental testers accept) as a sum total of closely related abilities precludes the possibility of paralleling the inheritance of intelligence to the inheritance of physical traits until each of the mental abilities has been identified and its inheritance demonstrated empirically. Neither of these feats has thus far been accomplished. The assumption of a mental-physical parallelism in inheritance (unless one means structure by the term "mental," which the writers in the Yearbook decidedly do not mean) is an unwarranted and rather questionable postulate from which to proceed. Visher's data suggest that the Stanford emphasis upon the potency of hereditary factors is hardly warraned

Biology · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Heredity · Human intelligence · Inheritance (genetic algorithm) · Intelligence quotient · Subject (documents) · Test (biology) · Cognitive Abilities and Testing · Computer Science · Ecology · Genetics · Psychology · Social Psychology