MEASURING BODIES
and young children exhibit more rapid sensorimotor development
than whites—that is, they are less neotenic because they depart
more quickly from the fetal state; 2) average white IQ surpasses
average black IQ by age three; 3) there is a slight negative correla-
tion between sensorimotor development in the first year of life and
later IQ—that is, children who develop more rapidly tend to end
up with lower IQ's. Eysenck concludes (1971, p. 79): "These find-
ings are important because of a very general view in biology [the
theory of neoteny] according to which the more prolonged the
infancy the greater in general are the cognitive or intellectual abil-
ities of the species. This law appears to work even within a given
species."
Eysenck fails to realize that he has based his argument on what
is almost surely a noncausal correlation. (Noncausal correlations
are the bane of statistical inference—see Chapter 6. They are per-
fectly "true" in a mathematical sense, but they demonstrate no
causal connection. For example, we may calculate a spectacular
correlation—very near the maximum value of 1.0—between the
rise in world population during the past five years and the increas-
ing separation of Europe and North America by continental drift.)
Suppose that lower black IQ is purely a result of generally poorer
environment. Rapid sensorimotor development is one way of iden-
tifying a person as black—but a less accurate way than skin color.
The correlation of poor environment with lower IQ may be causal,
but the correlation of rapid sensorimotor development with lower
IQ is probably noncausal because rapid sensorimotor develop-
ment, in this context, merely identifies a person as black. Eysenck's
argument ignores the fact that black children, in a racist society,
generally live in poorer environments, which may lead to lower IQ
scores. Yet Eysenck invoked neoteny to give theoretical meaning,
and thereby causal status, to a noncausal correlation reflecting his
hereditarian bias.
The ape in some of us: criminal anthropology
Atavism and criminality
In Resurrection, Tolstoy's last great novel (1899), the assistant
Prosecutor, an unfeeling modernist, rises to condemn a prostitute
talsely accused of murder: