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

308 PROMOTING POTENTIAL

CONCEPTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN THESE STUDIES

AND INTERVENTIONS

Th e above is not intended to be an exhaustive review of a huge, and oft en
highly commendable and well- meaning, lit er a ture. My point is to try to
identify the more cryptic conceptions of the environment, of the model
of human beings and society, and their deeper ideological roots.
I would describe the dominant concept as “elemental”: basically, the
environment is viewed as a collection of nominal factors, each having
some in de pen dent size of eff ect on development. As such, they are con-
ceived as causing individual diff erences as simple, linear, input → output,
relationships (with output indexed by IQ or school per for mance).
In other words, it is the horticultural view of the child again. In
relation to specifi c aspects of physical growth and specifi c material
factors, the view may have some merit. But, as regards human cognitive
potential, I believe it is sadly awry. It invites a “blame the victim” vision
of lower class and ethnic minority students laboring under intellectual
handicaps because of their genes, parents, family background, language,
and culture.
I suggest that there may be a diff er ent reason that vision has failed. Our
way out of in equality, and “being fair” to individuals and their potential,
may not be as easy as a modicum of “horticultural” compensation. A
deeper and wider perspective is needed in which individuals are viewed
as conscious, reacting systems in a wider dynamic system.

THE REALLY IM POR TANT ENVIRONMENT

In what follows, I suggest that we need a quite diff er ent view of the envi-
ronment and of what actually develops in children. To some extent, it re-
iterates what has been said in previous chapters about structures rather
than ele ments, so I will be brief.
What have evolved are intelligent, dynamical, self- organ izing systems.
To properly develop, intelligent systems need many of the ingredients il-
lustrated above, but they need much more than that. Th ey evolved to deal
with rapidly changing environments by being sensitive to the statistical

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