Editorial: Individual Differences

PERSPECTIVES IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Volume V · Number 4 · Summer 1962 EDITORIAL: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Envy wears the mask oflove, and laughing soberfacts to scorn, Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, "Ye are equals, equal born." Equal bomï Oh yes, ifyonder hill be level with theflat. Charm us, Orator, till the Lion look no larger than the Cat. Alfred Tennyson Biologists and physicians appreciate the role of inheritance in determining individual differences. Every individual is biologically unique, a far more exciting concept than the idea ofbeing alike. The interplay between nature and nurture in determining individuality is obvious although too complex to be fully understood. Few biologists imagine that the human brain, the most advanced product of evolution, is unaffected by heredity. But among social scientists a vociferous minority holds firmly to the opinion that men really are born equal in respect to intelligence and that differences in test performance and achievement are due to environment alone. They claim support from two related lines of evidence. First, by comparing the test performance and achievement ofchildren who live in slums with those ofchildren from good environment, they conclude by post hoc reasoning that the sole cause ofthe sizeable average difference between the groups is environmental . They avoid acknowledgment ofthe evidence that genetic endowment is correlated to a significant extent with social-economic standing. Second, it has been shown that intensive training ofunderprivileged children can significantly increase their test and school performance, thereby narrowing the gap between childrenfrom poor and good environments . Missing from these studies are control groups of children from good environment who are also given extra training and motivation to work to the limit oftheir abilities. It is not clear whether intensive training along the entire range of intelligence will narrow or expand individual differences. There is abundant evidence that environment , even the earliest postnatal experience, is of biological and behavioral importance. There is good germ plasm to be found in slums; unfavorable environment can mask genetic potential. It may be difficult to overstate the case for environment except by linking it to an underestimate ofthe importance ofheredity. There is another group ofindividuals seeking to instruct the nation on social welfare who recognize individual difference in capacity for achievement but claim that it is right 397 to limit the progress ofthe bright child to the pace ofthe less gifted. This, they say, is the American way to social equality. Such has been the practice in many schools because we have lacked teachers and adequate facilities; but most leaders in education have aimed to include individuality as a parameter ofthe educational process. At a time when some progress is being made toward appreciation ofexcellence, these voices are added to those who seek equalism in schools and all social groups. It would be easy to imagine that professors ofequalism are communists ifsuch a philosophy were practiced in collective societies. It isn't. The beliefthat all men are biologically equal or should be made equal, Procrusteanlike , whenthey are not, doesappeal to the underprivileged and to the politicianwho seeks their votes. The humanitarian faith that all men should have equal civil rights and that society should aim to provide opportunity and motivation for each newborn to achieve according to his drives and abilities is something different; it does not ignore biological facts. We can work effectively toward these ideals only by positive guides to the evolution of society, including freedom to make the most ofgenetic potential at each level. Biological and socialevolution are possible because ofinborn and environmentally created differences among individuals, plus the opportunity for the emergence ofexcellence through useful forms ofcompetition. The challenge to society is to link selection and competition, the natural and needed outcome of biologically determined individual differences, with altruism , the most recent and highest product ofsocial evolution, rather than with toothand -claw. D. J. L 398 Editorial · Individual Differences Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Summer 1062 ...