24 THE MISMEASURE OF MAN
hence the necessity for this book and its focus upon the enduring
sources of continual recurrence.
As I wrote in the Introduction to the first edition:
I have said little about the current resurgence of biological determinism
because its individual claims are usually so ephemeral that their refutation
belongs in a magazine article or newspaper story. Who even remembers
the hot topics often years ago [from 1981]: Shockley's proposal; for reim-
bursing voluntarily sterilized individuals according to their number of
IQ points below too, the great XYY debate, or the attempt to explain
urban riots by diseased neurology of rioters. I thought that it would be
more valuable and interesting to examine the original sources of the argu-
ments that still surround us. These, at least, display great and enlightening
errors.
- The third major aspect of framing arises from my own profes-
sional competences. I am a working scientist by trade, not a histo-
rian. I have immense fascination for history; I read and study the
subject intensely, and I have written much, including three books
and scores of essays, on predominantly historical subjects. I feel
that I have a decent and proper grasp of the logic and empirics of
arguments about biological determinism. What I lack, for want of
professional training, is the tradesman's "feel"—the sine qua non of
first-class scholarship—for broader political contexts (antecedents
and backgrounds), the stage on which biological arguments impact
society. In the profession's jargon, I am fully up to snuff (I would
even be arrogant and say "better than most") on the "internalist"
themes of intricacies in arguments and meanings, and in fallacies of
supporting data, but woefully underprepared on the "externalist"
side of broader historical context, the "fitting" of scientific claims
into social settings.
Consequently, and following the old tactic of extracting virtue
from necessity, I explored a different path in treating the history of
biological determinism, one that would use my special skills and
competences, but not suffer unduly from my inadequacies. I would
not have written the book at all—I would not have even contem-
plated such a project in the first place—if I had not been able to
devise a previously uncharted way to treat this important and by no
means neglected subject. (I have a personal horror of derivative