Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

2 PINNING DOWN POTENTIAL

frivolous; and slaves subhuman. Th e medieval period in Eu rope in ven ted
the Divine Right of Kings. Th e poor in Victorian Britain sung in chapel
of how God made them “high and lowly” and “ordered their estate.” In
the Imperial colonies, subjugation of natives was excused through allu-
sions to innate inferiority and the “white man’s burden.”
Charles Darwin changed all that, as every one knows. He introduced a
new “power”; an objective, impartial one that takes authority from mate-
rial real ity and transparent reason rather than from the super natu ral.
Darwin proved, indeed, that biological diff erences are an impor tant part
of the evolution of species. But Social Darwinists and psychologists ran
away with aspects of a far more circumspect Darwin and used them to
legitimize the wealth and power of the strong, and the poverty of the
weak in the human species. Wrapped in the convincing language, con-
cepts, and gravitas of objective science, the old message was given an even
greater— and at times more deadly— eff ectiveness.
Over the past century or so, essentially the same message has been
honed, impressed on us, and turned into an ever- stronger scientifi c or-
thodoxy. Instead of Plato’s myth of the metals, this science tells us about
lucky or unlucky permutations of genes that determine levels of poten-
tial in our brains and are more or less fulfi lled through child rearing and
education (other wise called the “environment”). Such science, it has been
claimed, supplants the old, now redundant, ideologies. It lays the foun-
dations for a more just, meritocratic society in which equal opportunity
replaces equality of outcome.
Th at science of human potential has played a power ful role in human
aff airs over the past century or so. It has infl uenced policy makers and so-
cial institutions, and has reinforced class structure in so many ways. Edu-
cation, employment, immigration, and related policies have been forged
around it. In families, it warns that expectations for our children need to
be cautious, because outcomes will be uncertain but inevitable. In indi-
viduals, it has instilled self- images of potential, thereby inducing willing-
ness to accept inequalities in society, the limited extent to which we share
the fruits of our labors, and, with that, unequal power and privilege.
Of course, this science of human potential has not developed entirely
without challenge. All the while, critics have balked at its brashness, its
fatalism, and the implied limits to individual possibilities. Th ere have

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