PINNING DOWN POTENTIAL 25above, Eric Turkheimer pointed out that “attempts to [identify] systematic
environmental causes that produce systematic diff erences in outcome al-
most always end in disappointment.”^26
In other words, investigators do not seem to be coming to grips with
what the environment of human potential really is. Th e fi eld is dominated
by nominal, unanalyzed, and impressionistic accounts that do not specify
what it is about environments that is impor tant for individual diff erences.
Th is point has been put repeatedly. As Alan Love said, we have encouraged
“the simplifi cation of environmental causal factors in favor of isolating
causal import from [internal] components.”^27
In other words, compared to the billions spent on chasing improbable
genes, relatively little attention has been given to this key issue. In Th e
Cambridge Handbook of Environment in Human Development, Linda C.
Mayes and Michael Lewis state: “Indeed, the features of the environment
and their vari ous outcomes are poorly understood... it is surprising how
little systematic work has gone into their study.” Likewise, Dale Goldha-
ber argues that “in fact, it is this lack of a defi nable environmental
perspective... that has made it pos si ble for the nature side to become
increasingly vis i ble and infl uential both within the discipline of human
development and more broadly across the culture. Nativists take on the
empiricists all the time, but the reverse is rare.”^28
As with the genes and intelligence, investigators fall back onto simplis-
tic meta phors of the environment. One of the most popu lar meta phors
refl ects the way that farmers identify aspects of soil quality, feed, and
fertilizer for boosting the yield potential of crops and animals. In the
1960s, London sociologist Basil Bern stein referred to the meta phor as
the horticultural view of the child. It forms the basic conception of “the
environment” for many baby books. In their book G Is for Genes, Kathryn
Asbury and Robert Plomin tell us that knowledge of children’s genes will
suggest “ways of planting them in soil that will help them to grow as fully
as their natures allow,” and of using “the environment (of the school) to
maximize ge ne tic potential.”^29
Another meta phorical view of the environment is that of provision of
exercise, in the sense that physical exercise helps develop the body generally.
In an article titled “Brightening Up” (another meta phor), Guy Claxton and
Sara Meadows downplay notions of innate potential. Th ey nevertheless
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