Which Way Western Man? by William G. Simpson

Author:William G. Simpson [Simpson, William G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Which; Way; Western; Man; ?; William; Simpson; Race; West; Culture; Jews; Aristocracy; Government; War; Psychology
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The authors make a few comments that I think it important to bring to my readers’ attention, but I will do so in my own words.

1. The first concerns the significance of even small differences between the average IQs of various populations, whether these concern race, nation, class, or education. Even small differences in average intelligence are associated with very great differences in the very high IQ ranges. Specifically, “A decline in average psychometric intelligence of only a few points will mean a much smaller population of gifted individuals,” and it is this small elite of highly gifted and supremely gifted individuals that does most of the world’s creative work, which shapes entire civilizations, and determines whether nations endure and rise or fall (p. 154).

2. Admittedly, the Stanford-Binet sort of intelligence tests puts emphasis on reasoning capacity, and it is therefore not “culture free.” They have come out of the thought processes and conditions peculiar to Western civilization, and necessary to its maintenance and advancement (p. 155). But I find nothing in this for which we need apologize. In giving the tests we are not concerned with ascertaining whether an individual or group is capable of taking part satisfactorily in one of the “emergent nations” of Africa, but with ascertaining fittedness for life in our own civilization. This is a White man’s world. We created it; it is an expression of our values, our instincts, our needs, and our aims. Upon us primarily rests the responsibility for keeping it alive, and for bringing it to meaningful and satisfying fruition. And therefore we have not only the right but the duty to neutralize, to remove or to destroy any element in our midst that threatens us with destruction.

3. Finally, let it be said, in support of the validity and significance of mental testing, that new techniques have been devised that not only diminish the effects of environment on IQ scores but are remarkably “culture free,” and thus make it possible to come ever closer to the determination of inate mental ability (p. 157).

Altogether, it was with justice that Professor S. J. Holmes, in appraising the situation even before the latest improvements were devised, declared mental tests to have “proved very useful in grading human beings according to their different levels of intelligence. There are several ways of testing the tests, and the results show that many tests have a high degree of validity. As an index of a student’s future scholastic performance, or an applicant’s probable success in a given occupation, a mental test is often as safe a test as any other kind of examination. What is particularly significant is that the different tests of ability show a considerable degree of agreement.” 79

We are now ready to look into this problem of heredity. The question of whether mental ability is or is not transmitted from parents to offspring is crucial for eugenics. I should like first to discuss genetics in general, then to show what geneticists seem to be agreed

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