H

uman potential— genes, biology, brains, intelligence and educa-

tion, and so on— forms a big subject in a big area, and we have now

covered a lot of ground. So a summary of some sort might be help-

ful. My Preface off ered a brief outline of intent across the chapters. Here

I summarize— albeit almost as briefl y— how it has been achieved.

Opening comments in chapter 1 described the importance of the sub-

ject of human potential in human aff airs, but how understanding of it

remains backward. For de cades, discourse has mixed ideology and sci-

ence and successfully contributed to a culture of in equality that retards

rather than promotes the sum total of human potential.

Th e chapter attributed much of the prob lem to the vagueness of fun-

damental concepts. Th is was illustrated by the current concepts of intel-

ligence, the gene, and the brain. In spite of the enthusiastic application of

the new technologies— chiefl y gene sequencing and brain scanning— I

showed how the same vagueness has muddied the results and also pro-

duced the nonreplications that plague the area. More recent responses

illustrate how the hype crumbles under critical analy sis because of such

lack of substance. Some foretaste of the more substantive criticism to

follow was off ered, and the chapter ends with some foreshadowing of new

perspectives now emerging.

Th e next two chapters critically analyzed the two mainstays of the

current— and, indeed, older— claims about genes, environments, and in-

telligence. First is the remarkable, almost theological, concept of the gene

on which current claims about “genes for intelligence” are based: remark-

able because, even at fi rst glance, it has little correspondence with real

12. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

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