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

VIII PREFACE

deeply fl awed. Th ere is not even an agreed-on theory of how to describe
potential or intelligence. And as for discovering “genes for” intelligence or
other potential, none have been found (in spite of the mind- boggling
costs and continuing promissory notes).
Nor will they, it is now clear, because the endeavor is based on several
misconceptions of the nature of genes, the nature of human potential, the
nature of development and of brain functions, and even the nature of the
environment. Th e prob lems behind the hype are conceptual, not the need
for more data to add to the (inconclusive) piles we already have. What-
ever power ful new technologies are applied, we will still only get slightly
more sophisticated expressions of essentially the same message. Th at is be-
cause the concepts themselves are really only veneered expressions of a
very old— albeit oft en unconscious— ideology, rooted in the class, gender,
and ethnic structure of society: a ladder view of a social order imposed
on our genes and brains.
Th is book seeks to reveal, describe, and explain all of that. But it is also
aims to do much more. Nearly all the debate and discussion about human
potential takes place in a fuzzy atmosphere of hunch and informal precon-
ception. Th e joke is well known: ask a dozen psychologists what intelligence
is, and you will get a dozen diff er ent answers. Behind the exaggerated
claims there remains little scientifi c theory and defi nition of potential, in
fact— little understanding of intelligence, how it evolved, how it develops,
how we can promote it. Th ese are prime conditions for ideological “infi ll”—
the real obstacle, I shall argue, to understanding human potential.
Th e book seeks to remedy that fog and defi cit. It requires a conceptual,
not an empirical, revolution, and it so happens that one is now looming
in biological systems research. It is beginning to permit, for the fi rst time,
an integration of fi ndings and theory, from the molecular ensembles of
the single cell to the amazing creativity of human social cognition. It is
already showing, for example, that the classic, but elusive, “gene” is a con-
ceptual phantom with deep ideological roots. Th e reappraisal puts us, as
Evelyn Fox Keller explained recently, at “a critical turning point in the
history of ge ne tics,” where “recent work... obliges us to critically reex-
amine many of our most basic concepts.”^1
Similar conceptual advances are revolutionizing our understanding of
brain, cognitive systems, the engagement of these in social systems from

This content downloaded from 139.184.14.159 on Tue, 17 Oct 2017 13:51:04 UTC

http://www.ebook3000.com