1. PINNING DOWN POTENTIAL

SCIENCE AND IDEOLOGY

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowl-

edge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the

universe.

— Wikipedia

Ideology: Th e body of ideas refl ecting the social needs and aspira-

tions of an individual, a group, a class, or a culture.

—Dictionary. com

F

or millennia— prob ably at least since the emergence of class- structured

socie ties— scholars, philosopher- psychologists, and state authori-

ties have told people that social inequalities are inevitable, the

consequence of immutable diff erences in mental potential in people

themselves. Th ose messages have always formed power ful ideologies,

making in equality seem just and natu ral, preempting protest and coaxing

compliance.

Until relatively recently, legitimation took the form of appeals to super-

natu ral powers as a kind of ultimate authority. In ancient Greece, in Plato’s

Republic, it was God that made men of Gold, Silver, or Bronze; women

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