PINNING DOWN POTENTIAL 5institutions of their time. Th ey build models that, like the pre- Copernican
model of the sun and planets circling the earth, fi t everyday social expe-
rience and what seems obvious. So the ideology gets wrapped up in the
paraphernalia of science and all its trimmings.
Th at, at least, is the gist of an article in the science journal Nature
(September 9, 2015).^3 It fi rst reminds us of the “fuzzy bound aries between
science and ideology.” Regarding recent trends, it warns us that “a cul-
ture of science focused on rewarding eye- catching and positive fi ndings
may have resulted in major bodies of knowledge that cannot be repro-
duced.” Expressing concern that more and more research is tackling
questions that are relevant to society and politics, it urges scientists “to
recognize and openly acknowledge the relationship.”
So that is one of the things I invite you to do in this book. But there
is another reason this is a good time for a fresh look. Th e fault lines now
being exposed also suggest something wrong with fundamental precon-
ceptions in the science. Th e perpetuation of the nature- nurture debate
is continuing evidence of that. Th e history of science suggests that, when
scientists are locked in such disputes, it usually takes a radically new con-
ceptual framework to break out of the deadlock. “Th e impor tant thing in
science,” said William Bragg, Nobel laureate in physics, “is not so much
to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.”
It so happens that just such a new way of thinking about human po-
tential is now emerging from work in many allied sciences: in ge ne tics
and molecular biology, in evolutionary theory, in brain sciences, in a
deeper understanding of the environment, in new revelations about
development, and (at last) in a genuine theory of intelligence. Nature and
nurture in the nature- nurture debate have simply been opposite sides of
the same coin, when what is really needed is a change of currency. More-
over, it is a new way of thinking that is also being galvanized by masses of
new facts and fi ndings. What I off er in this book is such an alternative.
It seems appropriate to start showing how the fuzziness of the bound-
aries between science and ideology, in the area of human potential, really
lies in the haziness of its key under lying concepts. So I illustrate that in
what immediately follows. Th en in the rest of the chapter, I show how that
haziness is being fatally glossed over in the con temporary exhuberance,
pointing the way as I do so to aspects to be picked up in later chapters.
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