Death of the myth

Rhodes Boyson

The Inequality of Man. H. J. Eysenck (Maurice Temple Smith £3).

Into the raging battle between the millenarian egalitarian environmentalists and the rationalists comes Professor Eysenck's new book like a breath of fresh air. Written with a calm detachment and humanity which will annoy the political and educational left he goes even further than Christopher Jencks in pointing out the limitations of headstart programmes, reverse discrimination, housing, food and education to make men more equal in their intellectual capacity. '

Professor Eysenck documents very carefully the case that some 80 per cent of intelligence is hereditary and apart from the use of methods like injecting glutamic acid, which will apparently improve the IQ of dull children, there is nothing that we can do about it. Certainly any change will have to be biological and not environmental. He also points out the high rate of recession to the mean whereby many bright parents have dull children and almost all bright parents have children on the average duller than themselves. Similarly dull parents generally have children brighter than themselves. Thus there is no repressive hereditary intellectual caste system and an open society with considerable social mobility is necessary if people are to move to the jobs and professions in which they can serve themselves and society to the greatest extent.

The myth that social class determines IQ (intelligence) is quickly demolished by research tables. It is IQ which determines social class in a system of open education. Thus there is no point in a quota system, of race or social class or other minority group, in recruitment to academic schools or universities — such a quota system will only lead to both misery and inefficiency because people will be recruited who just can't cope. Far better to have IQ tests and academic tests which will select those able to profit by higher education and those who have the persistence and motivation to make it possible.

Professor Eysenck considers that the opposite to the concept of meritocracy is that of mediocracy or 'Buggin's turn' in each job, which was hinted at in Jencks's recent work. Eysenck asks if you prefer your plane being piloted by a first-class pilot or would anyone do in turn, and whether you would prefer a highly specialist meritocratic surgeon or would you take pot luck with any third-rate medical student? So much for open university entry!

He believes that the attempt in schools to give all children the same education is both cruel and inefficient. Children are different — "Biology sets an absolute barrier to egalitarianism in life as in sport." Thus to teach a class of varied abilities as if they were all academically gifted will insult the dull and to teach them all as if they were dull will bore the bright.

Professor Eysenck even goes further and suggests not only that children should be taught in ability groups but also in personality groups — "Wisdom would lie in grouping children according to their personality, at least as much as streaming them according to their abilities!" Teaching machines could be most efficient for introverted children while bright extroverts could best be taught by the discovery method. One is reminded of schools in America where under the voucher system they have a variety of courses in each school

and it is recognised that children differ in a variety of ways.

Professor Eysenck follows A. R. Jensen in suggesting that there are two separate learn ing processes: simple associative learning and cognitive learning. Associative learning is basically rote learning — names, lists, dates and so on — while cognitive learning is evaluating concepts and conclusions. The former is possible to pupils with a low IQ but the second is really a test of high intelligence.

A realisation of this difference would stop dull and average pupils in Britain being taught by the discovery methods which may be responsible for increased illiteracy and decreased learning.

Professor Eysenck also crushes several myths. He destroys the myth of Pygmalion effect —that teachers' attitudes to pupils as dull or bright will make them dull or bright. This myth apparently arose from one ill judged and badly-researched American experiment which shows that the real selffulfilment is that of social engineers and educationalists not reading or accepting anything with which they disagree.

The idea of equality between the sexes — that they are alike — and the excesses of the trendy women's liberation movement are also attacked: "by seeking equality in precisely those fields where nature has seen fit to en dow men with greater capacities than women they make certain that women will quite definitely be inferior to men. It is by capi talising on these areas where nature has seen fit to endow women with greater capacities than men that women can establish their position as equal but different complements to men. They might find that if they cannot beat nature, they might bend it by joining it." This is the whole theme of the book — one must work with the grain and a political social and educational policy will not succeed unless it accepts the variety of all men and women and encourages all of them to develop their own way. To treat all men as equal is to treat them unequally and the result will be misery and disaster and can only be main tained in the ultimate by repression. Professor Eysenck does not argue for or against comprehensive schools but he does defend the efficiency of IQ tests in selecting pupils for suitable courses. He certainly argues for a mobile society where people can come through to their own level and surely this is a Conservative ideal.

Yet the clear scientific view of hereditary intelligence — even given its movement up

and down over a few generations is anathema to the millenarian Left. Professor Eysenck compares this ignorance with the "sad series of events in Soviet Russia when political preconceptions elevated the anti-scientific ideas of Lysenko to a position of social dog ma, and not only practically ruined Soviet biology, but also had a deleterious effect on agriculture generally." Our society now abounds with educational and social Lysenkos

who like Aristotelians refuse to look through Galileo's telescope for feat. of what they might

see. The National Child Development Study's neglect of heredity in its research is one current example which can influence social policy in unfortunate ways. It is as well if the Conservatives realise the limitations of social policies — good housing and food may make people happier, they

won't make them more-equal. Nor is there a vast pool of untapped talent in the working class — it moves up every generation. Reor

ganisation of schools into neighbourhood units and teaching all children alike may ac

tually hinder social mobility and make social class hereditary. Is this what the Left really want — if they can't have equality do they clamour for a return to feudalism? It is a strange thought.

Rhodes Boyson is headmaster of Highbury Grove School.