# data[].attributes.body
Caroline Criado Perez: why cars are unsafe for women | The Sunday Times Magazine | The Sunday Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Recently I found myself in a storeroom, surrounded by body parts. We were looking for a female pelvis. The computer said it was in the lab; the lab said it was in here. Head-scratching ensued. Then we spotted an unlabelled cardboard box high up on a shelf. Derek Winter, my guide for the day, opened it up for me. And there she was: the Hybrid III 5th percentile female pelvis.

I was at the Huntingdon factory of Cellbond, the UK's only manufacturer of car-crash test dummies, to answer a question that has bothered me for years: why are women so much more at risk in car crashes than men?

In my book Invisible Women I cited dozens of examples of the "gender data gap" -

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Caroline Criado Perez: why cars are unsafe for women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Recently I found myself in a storeroom, surrounded by body parts. We were looking for a female pelvis. The computer said it was in the lab; the lab said it was in here. Head-scratching ensued. Then we spotted an unlabelled cardboard box high up on a shelf.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What makes us? Nature or nurture? The DNA debate comes back to life

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An extraordinary new film about identical triplets throws doubt on the dominance of DNA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the oldest questions in psychology, and in other fields such as philosophy, is whether humans have free will. That is, are we able to choose what we will do with our lives?

Our choices feel free, don't they? I decided to be a psychologist because I felt called or inspired to understand what makes people tick. That was my choice, wasn't it?

The free will issue is especially thorny because it represents a collision between two opposing, yet equally valid, perspectives. From a purely metaphysical perspective, if we don't have free will, why are we here? What is the point of life if we cannot choose our own paths? Yet from a purely scientific perspective, how is it possible that anything can occur without having been caused by something else? If we really can choose, then these choices must be uncaused - something that cannot be explained within the model of science that many of us rely on.

There is no consensus within psychology as to whether we really do have free will - although much of our field seems to assume that we don't. Freud and Skinner didn't agree on very much, but one thing they did agree on was that human behavior was determined by influences within or outside the person. Freud talked about unconscious conflicts as causes of behavior, and Skinner talked about environmental contingencies, but either way we were not free to decide.

New "threats" to the possibility of free will have come from fields such as neuroscience and genetics. Many neuroscientists, armed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other brain scanning tools, argue that, now that we can peer into the brain, we can see that there is no "agent" there making choices. John Searle (1997) approaches consciousness from a biological perspective and argues that the brain is no more free than is the liver or the stomach. Geneticists are discovering that many psychological experiences are linked with gene-environment interactions, such that people with a specific gene are more likely to react in a certain way. For example, van Roekel et al. (2013) found that girls with a specific oxytocin receptor gene felt more lonely in the presence of judgmental friends than did girls without this gene. These results suggest that at least some of what we perceive as "free" responses are really determined by our biology, our environment, or both.

In a controversial set of experiments, neuroscientist Ben Libet (1985) scanned participants' brains as he instructed them to move their arm. Libet found that brain activity increased even before participants were aware of their decision to move their arm. Libet interpreted this finding as meaning that the brain had somehow "decided" to make the movement, and that the person became consciously aware of this decision only after it had already been made. Many other neuroscientists have used Libet's findings as evidence that human behavior is controlled by neurobiology, and that free will does not exist.

Further still, Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner and his colleagues (e.g., Pronin et al., 2006) have conducted studies suggesting that people claim control over events that are initiated by others. Fans try to "give good vibes" to a basketball player shooting critical free throws, or to a football quarterback trying to complete a pass. Yet common sense tells us that our "vibes" have nothing to with whether the player makes that free throw or completes that pass. Wegner argues that what we call "free will" is really just events whose causes we don't understand.

So is there any hope for free will? Are we really controlled by our biology and our environments?

Some psychological theories are actually based on an assumption of free will-or at least they are at first glance. Self-determination theory, for example, holds that volitional functioning-intentional, freely chosen behavior-is a basic human need (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Theories of personal identity, especially those rooted in Erikson's (1950) ego psychology, state that adolescents and young adults must deliberately make sense of the world around them and of their place within that world (Côté & Levine, 2002; McAdams, 2013). Maslow's (1968) humanistic theory regards self-actualization-identifying and living according to one's highest potentials-as the ultimate goal of human existence.

This brings us to an inherent incompatibility. How can a person make self-determined choices, make sense of the world, and even self-actualize when neuroscientific evidence seems to indicate that our brains are making decisions before we even realize it? Are we claiming responsibility for events that have little or nothing to do with conscious intention? Are we really just automatons-creatures without the ability to choose? And if we are, what is the need for volitional functioning, making sense of the world, or self-actualization? An automaton would have no need for any of these things.

The free will issue has huge issues for many areas of our society, including our legal system. If a criminal defendant has no free will, then he cannot be held responsible for his crime, because he could not have chosen otherwise. A child who fails an exam cannot be punished, because that test score could not have been different. A parent who spoils her children is not doing anything "wrong", because she did not make the choice to raise her children in any specific way.

Psychologists such as Roy Baumeister (2008) have attempted to develop a science of free will, but much of Baumeister's argument focuses on the consequences of believing (or not believing) in free will-rather than on whether or not we actually have free will. Put differently, what matters is whether we think we are making choices, regardless of whether our behavior is really "uncaused". For Baumeister, believing that we are free leads us to act as though we are, and he and his colleagues (Baumeister, Masicampo, & DeWall, 2009) have conducted experiments indicating that telling people that they have no free will leads them to behave in socially irresponsible ways such as cheating and refusing to help others.

So do we really have free will? Is this question even answerable? If we did not have free will, then a scientist who was able to measure all of the determinants of our behavior should be able to explain 100% of our behavior. If we did have free will, then even measuring all of the determinants would leave some of our behavior unexplained. Unfortunately, we don't know all of the determinants of human behavior, and we may never understand all of these determinants-so the question of whether or not we have free will is likely to remain a philosophical quagmire.

But if Baumeister is correct, then does it really matter whether we actually have free will? Or does it matter only whether we believe that we do? And if the latter is true, and if Baumeister's findings regarding how people behave when they think they don't have free will are accurate, then should scientists be careful about making statements against free will? Are such statements encouraging people to behave as though they are not responsible for their behavior?

And perhaps psychology cannot speak to whether criminal defendants should be held accountable for their crimes. Libet's experiments may have simply demonstrated that the brain is "gearing up" to initiate an action, which does not contraindicate free will. Gene-environment interactions generally explain very small percentages of variability in behavior, suggesting that there is a lot left over to be explained by other factors. The fact that we might overestimate the extent of our influence, as Wegner has found, does not necessarily mean that we have no influence at all.

So we are left pretty much where we started. Whether or not humans have free will is a question that philosophers have debated for centuries, and they will likely continue to do so. Psychology can provide some insights into how free will-or at least a belief in its existence-might work, but beyond that, we likely cannot verify or invalidate its existence. What is important, however, is that we treat each other (and ourselves) as self-determined beings whose thoughts and feelings are important. In that regard, Baumeister's research has much to teach us. Maybe we should just follow the Golden Rule after all.

REFERENCES

Baumeister, R. F. (2008). Free will in scientific psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 14-19.

Baumeister, R. F., Masicampo, E. J., & DeWall, C. N. (2009). Prosocial benefits of feeling free: Disbelief in free will increases aggression and reduces helpfulness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 260-268.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.

Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.

Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 529-566.

Maslow, A. H. (1968). The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Van Nostrand.

McAdams, D. P. (2013). Life authorship: A psychological challenge for emerging adulthood, as illustrated in two notable case studies. Emerging Adulthood, 1, 151-158.

Pronin, E., Wegner, D. M., McCarthy, K., & Rodriguez, S. (2006). Everyday magical powers: The role of apparent mental causation in the overestimation of personal influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 218-231.

Searle, J. R. (1997). The mystery of consciousness. New York: New York Review of Books.

van Roekel, E., Verhagen, M., Scholte, R. H. J., Kleinjan, M., Goossens, L., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2013). The oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) in relation to state levels of loneliness in adolescence: Evidence for micro-level gene-environment interactions. PLoS One, 8(11), Article e77689.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of the oldest questions in psychology, and in other fields such as philosophy, is whether humans have free will. That is, are we able to choose what we will do with our lives? Our choices feel free, don't they? I decided to be a psychologist because I felt called or inspired to understand what makes people tick.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy #24

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nature Versus Nurture: Where We Are in 2017

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Note: This post has been adapted from a version published in Pediatric News. Part 1: Nature Versus Nurture The question of whether human behavior is driven by innate biological forces or the product of our learning and environment has been a popular discussion at cocktail parties and scientific conferences for many years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women outnumber men in psychology, but not in the field's top echelons

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An APA report recommends ways to boost women's status and pay.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
3. Rethinking Research Priorities and Outcomes

# data[].attributes.body
Sex vs gender

# data[].attributes.body
Feminist psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A multimedia internet archive devoted to the women of psychology's past and the diverse voices of contemporary feminist psychologists.

# data[].attributes.body
evolutionary approach

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Compared to women, men are more aggressive and enjoy being promiscuous.

These are just two examples of the sorts of statements that are linked to research findings from evolutionary psychologists.

If such conclusions are accurate, it raises concerns that our biology might prevent us from progressing towards gender equality. But I argue this is not the case, and that we need to understand our evolutionary history in order to overcome gender inequality.

Read more: Can a four-year-old be sexist?

What is evolutionary psychology?

Research shows that females and males - including girls and boys, as well as women and men - have many psychological differences. The field of evolutionary psychology attempts to explain these differences in terms of biological adaptations. In essence, this means examining the differing reproductive challenges faced by the sexes throughout our species' history, and linking these with psychological and behavioural characteristics.

For instance, evolutionary psychologists claim that males are more aggressive than females because they can gain greater access to females by competing violently with other males. Males are thought to be more willing to engage in casual sex because they can greatly increase their reproductive output by doing so, whereas females benefit more from being choosy due to the demands of pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Females are more likely to prefer a partner who is taller and of higher status, because such males are better protectors and providers. Males are more likely to prefer a physically attractive partner, where the features considered most attractive in females are signals of higher fertility, such as youth and physical health.

It is quite possible that psychological, behavioural, and physical sex differences make men more likely to dominate women, and women less likely to resist domination from men.

Sex differences are, of course, a matter of degree rather than kind. For example: yes, more men than women are tall, but that's not to say that women can't be tall, and men can't be short. It's just that when calculated as an average, men are taller and women are shorter. The same principle applies to the differences described above.

from www.shutterstock.com

Nature or nurture?

Many people reject explanations for sex differences based on evolutionary biology, preferring to attribute such differences to culture and social context.

However, we find evidence of such sex differences all over the world. Furthermore, explaining something as "just culture" doesn't explain why a given cultural norm exists in the first place. It also fails to explain why we find sex differences in behaviour in many non-human animals.

Read more: It's not just women at the top who are paid less than men

There is no reason to think that the ape Homo sapiens is a special case, where everything can be explained by culture and nothing by biology. Finally, twin studies suggest that a large degree of individual differences can be explained by genetics - and not solely by the circumstances in which you are raised, and live.

The rejection of evolutionary explanations for sex differences may often be an emotional response: people feel hostile toward these ideas because the picture they paint of human nature isn't a pretty one. But the fact that something is unappealing doesn't make it false. Some feminists might worry that such explanations imply that if gender inequality is natural then it is inevitable, and perhaps even justifiable.

Natural = necessary?

Regardless of whether you find evolutionary explanations of sex differences convincing, is there reason to be concerned that they might be true? Does a biological basis for sex differences imply that gender inequality is "determined" by our biology?

If you accept the evolutionary explanation for these sex differences, then you might be inclined to conclude that gender inequality has a biological basis. If this is your view, then perhaps you could accept that male domination of females is in some sense "natural" for humans, as it is for many other species, including our closest living relatives.

But just because male domination may be in some sense natural for our species does not make it necessary. This is a classic case of the "is-ought" fallacy - the false conclusion that what is obligatory and even "right" is determined by what is natural.

Evolution is a mindless process that does not obey principles of morality. The "survival of the fittest" simply describes the process of getting genes successfully into the gene pool. It operates regardless of what is right or wrong, or what makes us happy. The fact that something might be human nature doesn't mean it is good, and in many cases, it is clearly the contrary.

from www.shutterstock.com

Understanding human nature

It is a mistake to assume that an evolutionary explanation of gender inequality is bad news for feminism. Explaining human behaviour does not equate to justifying it or defending it. But if we want to change our society for the better, we probably need an accurate understanding of human nature.

Read more: Medicine's gender revolution: how women stopped being treated as 'small men'

Importantly, evolutionary explanations do not imply that human behaviour is "determined" by our genes, and therefore inflexible. Evolution has given us a preference for foods that are high in sugar, which were rare in the environments in which our species evolved. But this doesn't mean we can't exercise self-control and avoid those foods in the modern environments where they are in ready supply. Our desires for such foods are also flexible; the extent to which we crave them depends on how much of them we are accustomed to consuming.

We could approach gender inequality in much the same frame of mind. Perhaps our evolutionary past inclines males to dominate females, and females to be deferential to males. But recognising our history as the source of these gender differences is not to accept them as our future. We are not mindless automata, doomed to slavishly oblige our instincts and impulses.

Many societies have made progress toward gender equality, despite having to work hard to achieve it. If we want to continue that progress, we must understand the origins of the inequality we wish to fight. It's much harder to change our behaviour if we are not aware of why we do it. This idea was perhaps expressed best by the evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright, in his book The Moral Animal:

Understanding the often unconscious nature of genetic control is the first step towards understanding that - in many realms, not just sex - we're all puppets, and our best hope for even partial liberation is to try to decipher the logic of the puppeteer...

I don't think I'm spoiling the end of the movie by noting here that the puppeteer seems to have exactly zero regard for the happiness of the puppets.

Our quest towards progress and justice in all areas, including gender equality, requires awareness and understanding of the forces that have made us who we are.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The evolutionary history of men and women should not prevent us from seeking gender equality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Compared to women, men are more aggressive and enjoy being promiscuous. These are just two examples of the sorts of statements that are linked to research findings from evolutionary psychologists. If such conclusions are accurate, it raises concerns that our biology might prevent us from progressing towards gender equality.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A study led by Daphna Joel at Tel Aviv university has shown that there's really not much in the way of difference between male brains and female brains. There are features that are more prevalent in the brains of women and features that are more prevalent in the brains of men. But human brains tend to have a highly individual mix of such characteristics.

Interestingly, while hardly anyone has anything like the full set of mostly male features or the full set of mostly female features, by no means everyone with a significant collection of "female end" features is female, and vice versa. What's more, many of these characteristics aren't fixed. Environment and experience also play their part in shaping the brain, increasing its individuality.

For me, the most astonishing thing about all this is the way that humans nevertheless generally resist the idea of such total individuality. People - girls and boys, women and men - are attracted to the idea that they are part of a group of like-minded others, and different to a group that are not like-minded.

Whether it's class, family, tribe, nation, religion, the football team you support, the political views you hold, the music you prefer dancing to, or the sort of clothes you wear, it's all about sharing your values with some, and feeling, at best, a bit sorry for those less discerning than you, at worst utterly murderous towards them.

Making a big deal out of biological gender is maybe just the most basic way we have of saying: "You're like me. And you're not." Maybe it's a bit scary for human beings, the idea (which is fast beginning to look like scientific fact) that there really is hardly another soul on Earth who is quite like them. It's one of these things that everyone knows, but largely resists thinking about. We may like the idea of individuality, but we are afraid of loneliness.

When two men met their doppelganger on an aeroplane recently, amazement was expressed. Parents often declare their astonishment that the various children they had together could be so different. We understand that humans are highly individual, but we generalise about people, and what they need and want, all the time.

The findings of this research will not surprise feminists, who have long argued that gender is a complex socially conditioned performance that seeks to create inherent-seeming differences in the characters of men and women, where none exist. Yet feminism itself, of course, seeks to assemble a group of like minds, sometimes even preferring to gather those like minds in safe spaces, free from the outbursts of wrong-minded heretics. It's all very difficult.

Nevertheless, this research confirms something else that feminists often argue, which is that gender discrimination suits men no more than it suits women. It's dreadful to think of all the girls and women who continue to be denied an education because of their gender, or because they believe it's not what girls should want. (It is rather heartening, though, that many hundreds of years of such discrimination do not seem to have diminished our brainpower one jot.) But it's dreadful, too, to think of all the boys and men who continue to be conscripted into war because of their gender, whether by a state or because they themselves believe that that's what men should do.

It's notable, of course, that the fundamentalist group that worries the world most at the moment, Islamic State, seeks both to deny education to women and glorify war for men. It seeks also to eradicate individuality, by lionising those who are prepared to eradicate themselves as long as they can kill others in the process. I suppose Isis's obsession with "othering" can be seen as a consequence of its members feeling that, as Muslims, they are "othered" themselves. It's how they justify their cruelty to themselves anyway, and how they recruit.

It's easy to feel despondent about the state of the world. But there are times when I feel very hopeful, and choose to see human anger and violence as a rearguard action against a growing understanding that our strength lies in our diversity, and that our diversity can only be accommodated if everyone gets to have their say and be heard, and everybody gets to use their own unique brain as well as they can use it.

That's why, in feminism, the idea of intersectionality is so important. It helps people to focus on difference rather than similarity, to understand that a marginal issue for one person is an important issue for another, to understand that something one person takes for granted is something another person can't allow themselves even to dream of. A feminism that claims to speak for all women speaks only for the voices who dominate. Women, their brains, their environments, their experiences, are as broad as humanity. A powerful woman can damage a vulnerable woman as casually as a chauvinistic man can.

It's true that intersectional feminism can be as self-righteous as any other intellectual framework, and as gleeful about hunting out and berating "the other". But that's just how people are. Perhaps fully acknowledging and understanding how people are is the first giant step towards changing it. What all humans have in common is that we know only what it's like to be ourselves.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Male and female brains are the same, but people are all different - and that gives me hope | Deborah Orr

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A new study has given credence to the idea that gender is more cultural than biological. It won't stop the human urge to seek out like minds and avoid unlike ones - but it can remind us that our strength is in our infinite diversity

# data[].attributes.body
No difference between men and women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Studies show that one's sex has little or no bearing on personality, cognition and leadership.

Mars-Venus sex differences appear to be as mythical as the Man in the Moon. A 2005 analysis of 46 meta-analyses that were conducted during the last two decades of the 20th century underscores that men and women are basically alike in terms of personality, cognitive ability and leadership. Psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, discovered that males and females from childhood to adulthood are more alike than different on most psychological variables, resulting in what she calls a gender similarities hypothesis. Using meta-analytical techniques that revolutionized the study of gender differences starting in the 1980s, she analyzed how prior research assessed the impact of gender on many psychological traits and abilities, including cognitive abilities, verbal and nonverbal communication, aggression, leadership, self-esteem, moral reasoning and motor behaviors.

Hyde observed that across the dozens of studies, consistent with the gender similarities hypothesis, gender differences had either no or a very small effect on most of the psychological variables examined. Only a few main differences appeared: Compared with women, men could throw farther, were more physically aggressive, masturbated more, and held more positive attitudes about sex in uncommitted relationships.

Furthermore, Hyde found that gender differences seem to depend on the context in which they were measured. In studies designed to eliminate gender norms, researchers demonstrated that gender roles and social context strongly determined a person's actions. For example, after participants in one experiment were told that they would not be identified as male or female, nor did they wear any identification, none conformed to stereotypes about their sex when given the chance to be aggressive. In fact, they did the opposite of what would be expected - women were more aggressive and men were more passive.

Finally, Hyde's 2005 report looked into the developmental course of possible gender differences - how any apparent gap may open or close over time. The analysis presented evidence that gender differences fluctuate with age, growing smaller or larger at different times in the life span. This fluctuation indicates again that any differences are not stable.

Media depictions of men and women as fundamentally "different" appear to perpetuate misconceptions - despite the lack of evidence. The resulting "urban legends" of gender difference can affect men and women at work and at home, as parents and as partners. As an example, workplace studies show that women who go against the caring, nurturing feminine stereotype may pay dearly for it when being hired or evaluated. And when it comes to personal relationships, best-selling books and popular magazines often claim that women and men don't get along because they communicate too differently. Hyde suggests instead that men and women stop talking prematurely because they have been led to believe that they can't change supposedly "innate" sex-based traits.

Hyde has observed that children also suffer the consequences of exaggerated claims of gender difference -- for example, the widespread belief that boys are better than girls in math. However, according to her meta-analysis, boys and girls perform equally well in math until high school, at which point boys do gain a small advantage. That may not reflect biology as much as social expectations, many psychologists believe. For example, the original Teen Talk Barbie ™, before she was pulled from the market after consumer protest, said, "Math class is tough."

As a result of stereotyped thinking, mathematically talented elementary-school girls may be overlooked by parents who have lower expectations for a daughter's success in math. Hyde cites prior research showing that parents' expectations of their children's success in math relate strongly to the children's self-confidence and performance.

Hyde and her colleagues hope that people use the consistent evidence that males and females are basically alike to alleviate misunderstanding and correct unequal treatment. Hyde is far from alone in her observation that the clear misrepresentation of sex differences, given the lack of evidence, harms men and women of all ages. In a September 2005 press release on her research issued by the American Psychological Association (APA), she said, "The claims [of gender difference] can hurt women's opportunities in the workplace, dissuade couples from trying to resolve conflict and communication problems and cause unnecessary obstacles that hurt children and adolescents' self-esteem."

Psychologist Diane Halpern, PhD, a professor at Claremont College and past-president (2005) of the American Psychological Association, points out that even where there are patterns of cognitive differences between males and females, "differences are not deficiencies." She continues, "Even when differences are found, we cannot conclude that they are immutable because the continuous interplay of biological and environmental influences can change the size and direction of the effects some time in the future."

The differences that are supported by the evidence cause concern, she believes, because they are sometimes used to support prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory actions against girls and women. She suggests that anyone reading about gender differences consider whether the size of the differences are large enough to be meaningful, recognize that biological and environmental variables interact and influence one other, and remember that the conclusions that we accept today could change in the future.

Archer, J. (2004). Sex differences in aggression in real-world settings: A meta-analytic review. Review of General Psychology, 8, 291-322.

Barnett, R. & Rivers, C. (2004). Same difference: How gender myths are hurting our relationships, our children, and our jobs. New York: Basic Books.

Eaton, W. O., & Enns, L. R. (1986). Sex differences in human motor activity level. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 19-28.

Feingold, A. (1994). Gender differences in personality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 429-456.

Halpern, D. F. (2000). Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities (3rd Edition). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, Associates, Inc. Publishers.

Halpern, D. F. (2004). A cognitive-process taxonomy for sex differences in cognitive abilities. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13 (4), 135-139.

Hyde, J. S., Fennema, E., & Lamon, S. (1990). Gender differences in mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 139-155.

Hyde, J. S. (2005). The Gender Similarities Hypothesis. American Psychologist, Vol. 60, No. 6.

Leaper, C. & Smith, T. E. (2004). A meta-analytic review of gender variations in children's language use: Talkativeness, affiliative speech, and assertive speech. Developmental Psychology, 40, 993-1027.

Oliver, M. B. & Hyde, J. S. (1993). Gender differences in sexuality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 29-51.

Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M. & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 4-28.

Voyer, D., Voyer, S., & Bryden, M. P., (1995). Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: A meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 250-270.

American Psychological Association, October 20, 2005

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Studies show that one's sex has little or no bearing on personality, cognition and leadership. Mars-Venus sex differences appear to be as mythical as the Man in the Moon. A 2005 analysis of 46 meta-analyses that were conducted during the last two decades of the 20th century underscores that men and women are basically alike in terms of personality, cognitive ability and leadership.

# data[].attributes.body
Sex vs Gender difference

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's time for a grown-up conversation about sex. No, not that one. The other one, about the minds of men and women. Converging lines of empirical evidence-from developmental neuroscience, medical genetics, evolutionary biology, cross-cultural psychology, and new studies of transsexuality-along with our evolutionary heritage, all point to the same conclusion: There are psychological differences between men and women. And they affect matters as trivial as sensitivity to smelly socks and as significant as susceptibility to disorders such as depression and autism.

The dramatic physical and behavioral differences between men and women, including strength and size, pubertal timing, consistent patterns around the world of hunting versus gathering and childrearing, as well as pervasive differences in risk-taking, mortality, and reproductive requirements, attest to the likelihood that evolution sculpted adaptations into men and women that make us somewhat different creatures. Psychologically, this sculpting by evolution has left men and women with particular approaches to life and love built upon a common core of human nature.

Ironically, just as the evidence is mounting that psychological sex differences are real, denial of differences has become rampant. Attempts at respectful and productive conversations about biological sex differences often end with name-calling (genetic determinist!) or outright cancellation of events-not to mention the very public firing of a Google software engineer for writing a memo on the topic.

One reason that conversations about sex differences run aground is the widespread lack of foundational knowledge about sex and gender. Then there's the huge array of influences, from both inside and out, that shape all our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Still, denying men's and women's different psychologies is not merely a denial of reality; it has serious health consequences for significant segments of the population.

Sex vs. Gender Differences

It's most logical to term the differences between men and women sex differences, not gender differences. After all, our species has biological sexes-typically defined by gamete size, genital morphology, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, and normative sex hormone levels. For sure, there are atypical (and uncommon) variations in sex chromosomes and in pivotal hormonal experiences during sexual development that can make defining one's sex unclear. The International Olympic Committee has struggled for decades to define biological sex-and it's still struggling.

Whether you identify as a man or a woman is your sexual identity. When they study differences in the way self-identified men and women think (such as how they read a map), feel (the degree to which they experience empathy), and behave (say, their likelihood of committing homicide), psychologists are said to be investigating psychological sex differences.

Gender, or gender psychology, according to the American Psychological Association, reflects the attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with biological sex. The term "gender identity" is often conflated with sexual identity, but "gender" refers to whether a person is typically masculine and/or feminine as defined by their local culture. (Sometimes this is called gender-role or sex-role orientation or gender expression. I know, it's confusing, which is why so many find it difficult to be clear when discussing sex differences.)

Some psychologists contend that we should call most differences between men and women gender differences, not sex differences-because they feel that such differences are culturally constructed and the term "sex" should be reserved for differences that are primarily biological in origin. But this is a dangerous game to play, as social psychologist Alice Eagly has pointed out: It presupposes the ultimate source of observable differences between men and women.

There are other variations in sex-related identities that complicate discussions. For instance, people's sexual orientation can come in many forms across varieties of sex and gender, including androphilia (finding male bodies erotic), gynephilia (finding female bodies erotic), bisexuality, asexuality, and more. Sex and gender and orientations come in many varieties. But to compare the psychologies of self-identified men and women is to discuss psychological sex differences-whatever their origins.

Size Matters

It is a common, but erroneous, notion that men and women differ because of the simple presence (or absence) of a Y chromosome and its accompanying effects on testosterone levels. The fact that there are many degrees of difference between men and women contradicts that belief. But what makes any sex difference worth talking about in the first place is the size of the difference.

When analyzing data from large numbers of previous studies-a procedure called meta-analysis-psychologists have found several sex differences in the realm of emotions. They have shown that women are somewhat more empathic than men, whereas men tend to more powerfully experience the emotion of sexual jealousy. In the cognitive realm, men tend to be better able to rotate a dimensional object in their mind and to recognize, say, an upside-down character, whereas women excel at locating an object in a visual field and remembering exactly where Big Ben is on a map of London. Behaviorally, men are more physically aggressive and homicidal with same-sex others than women are, and women tend to choose older and wealthier partners for marriage compared with men. What kind of difference, how big a difference, and how pervasive a difference must there be to support a claim that men are psychologically different from women?

Take one of the most obvious and noncontroversial differences between men and women. The typical man is much taller than the typical woman. But the sex difference in height (or any other sex difference) is not a statement about individual men and women; it pertains only to group averages.

Therein resides a key problem in discussing sex differences: Research almost always approaches sex differences as group averages, but most people think about individual men and women. When researchers talk about the average man being taller than the average woman, they are not implying that every member of the group "men" is taller than all members of the group "women." They are talking about height differences as distributed across many individuals from both groups.

If you were to line up 100 women and 100 men and peruse the heights of the two groups, you would easily notice differences in their group distributions of heights. In the United States, the average adult woman is only about as tall as the average 14-year-old boy. Too often, when scientists claim that there exists a sex difference in height, it gets translated by others as meaning that the feature of height is biologically essential to being a man (taller) or a woman (shorter). The tendency to misconstrue as a necessary difference what shows up only as a group difference is a huge barrier to respectful and productive conversations about sex differences.

One way to clarify discussions about differences in group averages is to put a specific number to them. Psychologists often use a precise number to express the size of sex differences, referred to as an "effect size," with the most common usage being the d statistic. A positive d value typically indicates that men are higher on a particular attribute; a negative value indicates that women are higher. The size of the d value establishes exactly how big the average sex difference is.

A d value near zero means that the sex difference is trivial. Once a d value reaches +/- 0.20, psychologists take notice. A d value of -0.20, for instance, indicates that 58 percent of women are higher than the average man on a psychological trait. These are considered "small" effect sizes. Sex differences in interpersonal trust, conformity, and general verbal ability reside in this range.

A d value of +0.50 is considered "moderate" and indicates that 69 percent of men are higher than the average woman on a particular attribute. Sex differences in spatial rotation skills, certain mathematics abilities (3-dimensional geometry and calculus), and task-oriented leadership (focusing on accomplishing a group goal rather than maintaining harmony within the group) reside within this size range.

A d value of -0.80 is considered "large" and indicates that 79 percent of women are higher than the average man. Sex differences in tender-mindedness, being interested more in people than in things, and lack of interest in casual sex reside in this size range.

Larger d values are less common in psychology, but a value of +1.00 indicates that 84 percent of men are higher than the average woman. Sex differences of this magnitude include differences in height, in expressing interest in engineering as an occupation, and in absence of sexual disgust (such as not feeling grossed out when hearing the neighbors having sex).

A d value of +2.00 indicates that 98 percent of men are higher than the average woman in a trait, about as close as researchers can get to finding a truly dimorphic difference. Sex differences in throwing ability, grip strength, and voice pitch are in this range.

No matter how big or small a sex difference, there is almost always significant overlap across distributions of men and women. Some women are able to throw farther than some men. Psychological sex differences are about group distributions, not dichotomous binaries of all men versus all women.

Biology Matters

Neurologically, all humans start as female. During prenatal development, the Y chromosome of human males initiates a series of masculinizing events of both body (during the first two months) and brain (after the first trimester). One of the most critical periods in the second trimester of gestation occurs when male brains, but typically not female brains, are permanently altered by exposure to androgens.

According to the organizational hypothesis of sexual differentiation, the prenatal exposure to androgens masculinizes the brain in ways that influence psychological sex differences. There is substantial evidence that these effects are real. For instance, prenatal androgen exposure within normal levels predicts sex differences in postnatal play preferences (rough-and-tumble play), personality traits ( thrill-seeking, aggression), and cognitive abilities (mental rotation ability).

Evidence supporting the organizational effects of androgen also arises from studies of male and female children who, for various reasons, have atypical hormonal profiles. Studies of girls prenatally exposed to male-typical levels of androgens during the second trimester of gestation display more male-typical psychology (in play preferences, personality traits, and cognitive abilities) compared with their unaffected sisters. Studies of infants as young as a few months consistently find that some psychological sex differences emerge before extensive gender socialization has taken place. Exhibit A is spatial rotation ability, as seen in preverbal, five-month-old infants rotating and recognizing mirror-image objects.

Studies of adults experiencing hormone treatments, gender dysphoria, and transsexualism similarly indicate that to some degree, biology contributes to psychological sex differences between men and women. For instance, several studies have found that male-to-female transsexuals show signs of feminine psychological and physical traits before they transition. After undergoing hormone treatments to reduce their testosterone, more pronounced feminine thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are evident.

Development Matters

Biological predisposition to develop a masculine or feminine psychology in no way implies that men's and women's psychologies form a simple binary; the overlap in distribution of men's and women's traits refutes such dichotomous thinking. Nor does the existence of biological predispositions mean that sex differences are fixed and unchangeable after birth-a kind of genetically deterministic thinking. Nearly all biological mechanisms that have arisen over the course of history have been designed to be responsive to key elements in the environment, developmentally sensitive to features of family, social structures, and local ecologies. And the input from the environment almost always affects the degree of sexual differentiation.

Many psychological sex differences emerge long after prenatal experiences. Sex differences appear during puberty or other critical periods when genes become sensitive to activation by major maturational events, such as sexual debut, parenting, and menopause. Sex differences in the personality trait of neuroticism, including sensitivity to negative emotions and vulnerability to stress, do not reach their full adult form until around age 14, for example, suggesting that pubertal factors influence their development. In other words, some psychological sex differences are specially designed by evolution to arise developmentally and only after particular milestones.

Besides the early organizational effects and the later activational ones, some psychological sex differences result from direct effects of genes-apart from the sex chromosomes and their related hormones-functioning differently in men's and women's brains. For example, psychologist Janet Hyde and her colleagues have found that a serotonin-transporter gene, 5-HTTLPR, which exists in short and long versions, the short version being associated with higher negative emotionality, is more closely linked to the emergence of neuroticism-related traits in women than in men. The researchers identify gene variants affecting other neurotransmitters that are similarly disproportionately expressed in women. And they cite several mechanisms-such as X-linkage, or the involvement of genes found on the X chromosome, and estrogen-induced gene expression-that may play key causal roles in the emergence of one of the most notable psychological sex differences: the higher prevalence of depression among women than men.

Even if they originate from direct genetic effects, psychological sex differences do not take precisely the same form or manifest to the same degree across all cultures. Human psychology is highly sensitive to developmental and socioecological contexts. Such environmental factors as the threat of malaria and other infections, the number of men relative to the number of women in a local population, the degree to which men and women must compete in order to find a mate and reproduce-all magnify or minimize sex differences.

For instance, across all cultures men more than women tend to favor physical attractiveness in potential marriage partners, especially such cues to youth and fertility as a small waist and curvy hips. However, when pathogens are prevalent and diseases such as malaria are a constant danger (say, in India and Brazil as opposed to New Zealand and Germany), both men and women tend to emphasize physical attractiveness in a potential mate-possibly because attractiveness is generally a reliable indicator of good health. In these environments, the amplification of desire for physical attractiveness is more pronounced among women, leading to smaller sex differences in mate preference for attractiveness in societies with higher pathogen burdens.

Culture Matters (But Not How You Think)

Fact: As a percentage of enrollment, there are more female science majors in Burma, Oman, and Morocco than in the countries of Scandinavia.

Fact: American women are 15 percent less likely to reach a managerial position in the workplace than are men-but in Sweden women are 48 percent less likely, in Norway 52 percent, in Finland 56 percent, and in Denmark 63 percent.

Whatever the differences in men's and women's psyches-empathy, jealousy, cognitive abilities, mate preferences-many theories in psychology assume that they result primarily from direct gender socialization by parents, media, and societal institutions. As a result, it is often expected that sex differences will be smaller in cultures with higher levels of gender-related egalitarianism, as in Scandinavia, where socialization and roles are more balanced between men and women and sociopolitical gender equity prevails.

Surprisingly, several large cross-cultural studies have found this is not at all the case. Whether scientists measure Big Five personality traits, such as neuroticism; Dark Triad traits, such as psychopathy; or self-esteem, subjective well-being, or depression, empirical evidence shows that most sex differences are conspicuously larger in cultures with more egalitarian gender roles-as in Scandinavia.

The same holds true for cognitive attributes, including mental rotation and location ability, objectively measured on tests, as well as for physical traits such as height and blood pressure (both greater in men). And among such differences as preferring physically attractive mates, some of the largest psychological variances of all occur among the most progressive people: Scandinavians. The phenomenon is called the gender equality paradox.

Culture matters in explaining psychological sex differences, but not in the way most people think. It's not harsher gender socialization by parents and media, stringent societal gender roles, or institutional sociopolitical forces that widen the differences between men and women in the most progressive nations in the world. When you treat everyone the same, as in the Nordic countries, it's only genetic predispositions that produce the most observable individual differences. Extremes of sexual freedom beget larger psychological sex differences. Or as explained by Israeli psychologists Shalom Schwartz and Tammy Rubel-Lifshitz, it may be that having fewer gendered restrictions in a culture allows "both sexes to pursue more freely the values they inherently care about more."

Dials, Not Switches

If your sexual identity is "I am a man," it is likely that you also have a deeper voice and a stronger sex drive than most women. But not all women. Evolution in sexually reproducing species allows for a lot of variation along sex and gender dimensions. Think about sex differences for myriad traits as dozens of interconnected sex/gender dials with endpoints ranging from extreme male-typicality/masculine to extreme female-typicality/feminine. Our psychological sex difference dials do not all need to be turned up to 11 for men and women to be significantly different from one another and for evolution to have played a role in producing human sexual diversity.

Viewing sex differences as dimensional sex/gender dials makes it clear that there is not one simple sex adaptation that gives rise to male and female psychologies. Rather, there are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of evolved functional mechanisms generating physical sex differences in height, strength, voice, and hirsuteness and psychological differences in personality, play preferences, mate selection, erotic desires, personal values, and cognitive abilities. Each adaptation turns the respective sex/gender dials of men and women in oblique, context-sensitive ways; each contributes a small part in generating the panoply of sex differences seen in our species all around the world.

It is ironic that just when science is rapidly improving its fundamental understanding of sex differences and documenting the sometimes subtle ways that biology and culture interact, the progress has come under assault. The uproar over the Google memo was just one example. Another manifestation is the recent decision by England's Royal Society to name as science book of the year Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds by Cordelia Fine. Healthy backlash points out the dangers of wholly biologizing our sexual selves, but Fine repudiates psychological sex differences altogether. Perhaps significantly, the judges were primarily media members, not scientists.

Despite Fine's increasingly vocal perspective, substantial evidence attests to the existence of many psychological sex differences. But even a difference clearly stemming from prenatal hormone exposure-say, preference for rough-and-tumble play-does not imply genetic determinism; the feature is still modifiable by future developmental experiences.

And sometimes we will want to do all that we can to modify sex differences. It is critical to acknowledge that biological sex differences are not necessarily morally good or justifiable. There are sex differences whose development society needs to actively redress, such as the greater risk of severe autism in males and depression in females. There is only one way to develop the tools necessary for subduing such undesirable developments-understanding their biological provenance. And that starts with recognizing their existence.

Divergent Thinking

Some traits are more prevalent in women, some in men; listed by magnitude of sex difference.

WOMEN

SMALL:

Conformity

General verbal ability

Indirect aggression (gossip)

Interpersonal trust

Sensitivity to negative emotions

Spatial location ability

MEDIUM:

MEDIUM/LARGE:

Preference for status in mate

Tender-mindedness

LARGE:

Body fat

Cooking, among foragers

Early onset of puberty

Empathy

Interest in people over things

Preference for female-typical toys

Preference for taller mate

Primary caretaker of children, among foragers

Sexual disgust

Vulnerability to depression

MEN

SMALL/MEDIUM:

MEDIUM:

3-D geometry ability

High blood pressure

Risk-taking

Sex drive

Task-oriented leadership

MEDIUM/LARGE:

Mental rotation ability

Physical aggression

Preference for physically attractive mate

LARGE:

Deep voice pitch

Early mortality

Grip strength

Height

Likelihood of homicide

Preference for rough-and-tumble play

Throwing ability

Upper-body strength

Vulnerability to psychopathy

Facebook image: Voyagerix/Shutterstock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's time for a grown-up conversation about sex. No, not that one. The other one, about the minds of men and women. Converging lines of empirical evidence-from developmental neuroscience, medical genetics, evolutionary biology, cross-cultural psychology, and new studies of transsexuality-along with our evolutionary heritage, all point to the same conclusion: There are psychological differences between men and women.

# data[].attributes.body
Women who changed psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Psychology has long placed an emphasis on the contributions of male psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, John B. Watson, and other thinkers. Unfortunately, the important contributions of female psychologists are often overlooked in psychology textbooks. There were many women in psychology, however, who made critical contributions and helped shape the development of the field of psychology.

Where Are All the Women in Psychology History?

While studying the early history of psychology, you might find yourself wondering if all the early psychologists were men. The dominance of male thinkers on lists of important pioneers in early psychology certainly makes it seem that way, but the reality is that women have been contributing to psychology since its earliest days. Estimates suggest that in the early 1900s, 1 out of every 10 psychologists in the United States was a woman.

However, many of these pioneering women in psychology faced considerable discrimination, obstacles, and difficulties. Many were not allowed to study with men, were denied degrees they had rightfully earned, or found it difficult to secure academic positions that would allow them to research and publish.

Women have made many important and groundbreaking contributions to the field of psychology, often despite facing considerable discrimination due to their sex. These women deserve to be recognized for their pioneering work. The following are just a few of the women who helped shape psychology.

When most people hear the name Freud, Sigmund is probably the first name that comes to mind. However, the famous psychoanalyst's daughter Anna was a well-known and influential psychologist in her own right. Anna Freud not only expanded upon her father's ideas, she also developed the field of child psychoanalysis and influenced other thinkers including Erik Erikson.

Among her many accomplishments are introducing the mechanisms of defense and expanding interest in the field of child psychology.

Mary Whiton Calkins studied at Harvard, although she was never given approval for formal admission. She studied with some of the most eminent thinkers of the time including ​ William James and Hugo Munsterberg and completed all of the requirements for a doctorate. Despite this, Harvard refused to grant her a degree on the grounds that she was a woman.

Regardless, Calkins went on to become the first female president of the American Psychological Association. During her career, she wrote over a hundred professional papers on psychology topics, developed the paired-association technique, and became known for her work in the area of self-psychology.

While Harvard may have refused to grant her the degree she rightfully earned, that didn't stop Calkins from becoming an influential psychologist.

Mary Ainsworth was an important developmental psychologist. Her work demonstrated the importance of healthy childhood attachments and she pioneered the use of a technique known as the "Strange Situation" assessment.

In her research on mother-child attachments and interactions, Ainsworth would have a mother and a child sit in an unfamiliar room. Researchers would then observe the child's reactions to various situations including a stranger entering the room, being left alone with the stranger, and the mother's return to the room.

Ainsworth's groundbreaking work had a major influence on our understanding of attachment styles and how these styles contribute to behavior later in life.

Leta Stetter Hollingworth was an early pioneer of psychology in the United States. She studied with ​ Edward Thorndike and made a name for herself for her research on intelligence and gifted children.

Another of her important contributions was her research on the psychology of women. The prevailing opinion at the time was that women were both intellectually inferior to men and essentially semi-invalid when they were menstruating. Hollingworth challenged these assumptions and her research demonstrated that women were as intelligent and capable as men were, no matter what time of the month it was.

Her many accomplishments are perhaps even more remarkable considering the fact that she not only faced considerable obstacles due to gender discrimination, she also died at the age of 53. Despite a life cut short, her influence and contributions to the field of psychology were impressive.

Karen Horney was an influential ​ neo-Freudian psychologist known for her take on feminine psychology. When Sigmund Freud famously proposed that women experience "penis envy," Horney countered that men suffer from "womb envy" and that all of their actions are driven by a need to overcompensate for the fact that they cannot bear children.

Her outspoken refutation of Freud's ideas helped draw greater attention to the psychology of women. Her theory of neurotic needs and her belief that people were capable of taking a personal role in their own mental health were among her many other contributions to the field of psychology.

Play therapy is a commonly used technique to help children express their feelings and experiences in a natural and helpful way. Widely used today, a psychoanalyst named Melanie Klein played a pivotal role in developing this technique. Through her work with children, she observed that children often utilize play as one of their primary means of communication.

Since young children are not capable of some of the more commonly used Freudian techniques such as free association, Klein began to utilize play therapy as a way to investigate children's unconscious feelings, anxieties, and experiences.

Klein's work led to a major disagreement with Anna Freud, who believed that children could not be psychoanalyzed. Klein suggested that analyzing a child's actions during play allowed the therapist to explore how various anxieties impact the development of the ego and the superego.

Today, Kleinian psychoanalysis is considered to be one of the major schools of thought within the field of psychoanalysis.

If you've read about Mamie Phipps Clark in your textbooks, her name was likely mentioned only in passing. This is unfortunate because Clark made many important contributions to psychology including the developing the Clark Doll Test, her research on race, and her role in the famous 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case.

Clark became the first black woman to earn a degree from Columbia University. Despite considerable prejudice based on both her race and her sex, Clark went on to become an influential psychologist. Her research on racial identity and self-esteem help pave the way for future research on self-concept among minorities.

Christine Ladd-Franklin's role as a female leader in psychology began early in life as both her mother and aunt were staunch supporters of women's rights. This early influence not only helped her succeed in her field despite considerable opposition, it also inspired her later work advocating for women's rights in academia.

Ladd-Franklin had ranging interests including psychology, logic, mathematics, physics, and astronomy. She challenged one of the leading male psychologists of the day, Edward Titchener, for not allowing women into his group for experimentalists and developed an influential theory of color vision.

She studied at John Hopkins and completed a dissertation titled "The Algebra of Logic." However, the school did not permit women to receive a Ph.D. at that time. She went on to spend time in Germany studying with Hermann von Helmholtz and Artur Konig and eventually rejected both of their theories of color vision to develop her own. Finally, in 1926, 42 years after completing her dissertation, John Hopkins awarded her the doctorate degree she had rightfully earned.

Today, she is remembered for both her work in psychology and her influence as a pioneering woman in a field once dominated by men.

Margaret Floy Washburn was the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in Psychology. She conducted her graduate studies with Edward B. Tichener and was his first graduate student. Like many women on this list, her work in psychology took place in a time when women were often denied positions in academia based on their gender. Despite this, she became a well-respected researcher, writer, and lecturer.

Her primary research interests were in the areas of animal cognition and basic physiological processes. She strongly influenced comparative psychology and developed a motor theory of cognition suggesting that the body's movements had an influence on thought.

Eleanor Maccoby's name is likely familiar to anyone who has ever studied developmental psychology. Her pioneering work in the psychology of sex differences played a major role in our current understanding of things such as socialization, biological influences on sex differences, and gender roles.

She was the first woman to chair the psychology department at Stanford University and, by her own description, the first woman to ever deliver a lecture at Stanford wearing a pantsuit. She continues to hold a position as professor emeritus at Stanford and has received numerous awards for her groundbreaking work, including the Maccoby Book Award named in her honor.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, many women made important contributions to the early development of psychology as a science. While women once made up a minority in psychology, the tides have turned dramatically. Today, women make up nearly two-thirds of all psychology graduate students, more than half the members of the American Psychological Association, as much as 75 percent of psychology majors.

View Article Sources

Coon, D., Mitterer, J. O. (2010). Introduction to psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior with concept maps. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Psychology has long placed an emphasis on the contributions of male psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, John B. Watson, and other thinkers. Unfortunately, the important contributions of female psychologists are often overlooked in psychology textbooks. There were many women in psychology, however, who made critical contributions and helped shape the development of the field of psychology.

# data[].attributes.body
The history of women in psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ann Johnson

The "History of Women in Psychology" symposium at the APS 21st Annual Convention provided a glimpse into the history and challenges women psychologists have faced, through the eyes of both historical researchers and two pioneering women who lived that history.

Ann Johnson of the University of St. Thomas described the "classic history" of women in psychology: "Women psychologists' contributions and lives were excluded or minimized in traditional accounts of the field for many, many years, but that began to change, finally, after the infusion of feminist critique and analysis into psychology in the â€˜60s and â€˜70s, when their contributions and their lives were resurrected and historians started to document the life stories of these women and to preserve their voices." In recent years, the "first generation" of female psychologists have started to receive more recognition, Johnson said, but it is challenging to find information regarding the "second generation" of female researchers (those receiving PhDs between 1906 and 1945). Johnson also observed that historians tend to focus on psychologists who worked as academics and not so much on those working in applied psychology and, as a result, we know very little about women who were applied psychologists in the first and middle part of the 20th century. However, there are a few, including Mildred Mitchell (a clinical psychologist who worked in military settings) and Georgene Seward (an experimental psychologist who challenged traditional gender roles with empirical research in her book Sex and the Social Order). Johnson concluded that we should rethink our criteria for role model status among women in psychology and consider new role model categories such as career flexibility, work-family balance, and persistence.

Alexandra Rutherford of York University began her talk on "Feminism and Psychology," by noting that "the explicitly feminist storylines of psychology's past" have not been explored as much as other parts of psychological history. During her presentation, Rutherford emphasized that feminism has taken different forms, depending on the time period. Her talk was organized according to these "waves" of feminism in order to keep the focus on feminism as political movement and the ways in which that political movement "influenced some women who were making their way as psychologists during those periods." First wave feminism had an impact on psychology through the individual efforts of select women, as they were "trying to do better science to combat the socially sanctioned beliefs about women that were taken as fact." Feminism went underground during the period that Rutherford referred to as "between the waves"- women continued challenging sexist practices, but with a less overt and prominent gender-based agenda. Feminist psychology emerged as an institutionally recognized field during the second wave of feminism in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the Association for Women in Psychology was formed in 1969. This period saw successful challenges to institutionalized sexism as well as challenges to male-centric psychological theories. Rutherford concluded with a description of post-second wave feminism, when critical feminist psychology emerged, and noted that feminist empiricism continues today, in the form of gender differences research.

Eleanor Maccoby

APS Secretary, Anne Treisman, Princeton University, and Eleanor Maccoby, an APS Fellow and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University, provided fascinating overviews, peppered with a number of colorful anecdotes, of how their careers have evolved. Treisman admitted that she was pretty lucky and "probably not very typical of my generation." During her career, she experienced minor examples of discrimination, which she managed to brush off. For example, early in her career, she was lecturing to a group of doctors. During the question and answer session, she was asked, "What's a nice girl like you doing in psychology?" Treisman observed that timing had a lot to with how her career developed. When she was starting out, the expectations were very different compared to today - there were not as many journals to read, less job competition, and fewer publications expected. Also, the "two-body problem" (trying to find a job in the same place as your spouse) is more of an issue today than when she was beginning her career. She joked that for this reason, she always advised her daughters that a "portable spouse is a huge asset." She concluded that one of the reasons for her success was the expectations she had for herself - she had always expected to be treated equally.

Maccoby described how she was often an unwitting catalyst for social change. One particular incident occurred when she was working at the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, DC. She had set a lunch meeting with a researcher who had wanted a consultation from her. The researcher was African-American and Maccoby had not been aware that her building's lunchroom was segregated. Following their lunch, "there was hell to pay," including her secretary refusing to work for her anymore. As a result, Maccoby met with one of the Directors, and upon telling him what happened, he announced that the public areas in the building would no longer be segregated. The audience burst into a huge round of applause as Maccoby concluded, "So I involuntarily desegregated the Federal Reserve Building cafeteria!" Maccoby also talked about her time teaching at Harvard and Stanford. After she arrived at Stanford, a group of students stole records of faculty salaries and divulged how much the professors earned during the graduation ceremony. When they got to Maccoby, they announced, "Oh, and here comes the lowest paid full professor in the university." Maccoby had no idea that was the case and she ended up getting a "nice raise" a few weeks after.

Like Treisman, Maccoby overall did not feel discriminated against; her focus was to produce excellent research. She "did not want to be a role model, just because I'm a woman." Like any good researcher, she wants the focus to be on the science.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ann Johnson The "History of Women in Psychology" symposium at the APS 21st Annual Convention provided a glimpse into the history and challenges women psychologists have faced, through the eyes of both historical researchers and two pioneering women who lived that history. Ann Johnson of the University of St.

# data[].attributes.body
APA - Women in psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Award Citations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Descriptions and citations of recipients of the Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Awards from 1985 to the present.

# data[].attributes.body
Society for the psychology of women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Society for the Psychology of Women (Division 35)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Society for the Psychology of Women (APA Division 35) promotes feminist research, theories, education, and practice toward understanding and improving the lives of girls and women; advocates for equality and social justice; and studies the interaction of gender with ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, age and sexual orientation.

# data[].attributes.body
Feminist psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Psychologists for Social Action, the New University Conference, NOW, and various other liberation groups, to focus on job discrimination and sexist practices at the APA Convention and in academia and the professions

# data[].attributes.body
selection of programmes and clips

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A selection of programmes and clips relating to the nature/nurture debate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Psychology has a fascinating and rich history, filled with amazing advances. But it wasn't all progress. Psychology has a painful past - with many victims.

One of the most devastating times in psychology was a movement called eugenics, a name coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883. The goal of eugenics was to improve the genetic composition of the population: to encourage healthy, smart individuals to reproduce (called positive eugenics) and to discourage the poor, who were considered unintelligent and unfit, from reproducing (negative eugenics).

One of the main methods to discourage reproduction was through sterilization. While it seems ludicrous now, many people, both abroad and in the U.S., agreed with the principles of eugenics.

In fact, state governments soon started establishing sterilization laws. In 1907, Indiana was the first state to legalize sterilization.

According to scientist Stephen Jay Gould in Natural History:

"Sterilization could be imposed upon those judged insane, idiotic, imbecilic, or moronic, and upon convicted rapists or criminals when recommended by a board of experts."

While sterilization laws were in place in many states, they weren't really used. According to Harry H. Laughlin, director of the Eugenics Record Office and a major player in the eugenics movement, that was because the laws were either too confusing or too poorly written to be constitutional.

So in 1922, he published a model sterilization act, which later became the model for many states.

By the 1930s, over 30 states had sterilization laws. Some states even expanded the definition to include blindness, deafness, drug addiction and alcoholism.

Buck v. Bell

In 1924, Virginia passed its sterilization law based on Laughlin's model. In 1927, Carrie Buck was the first person to be sterilized in the state under the new law, which included sterilizing anyone who was feeble-minded, an imbecile or epileptic. The Supreme Court upheld the decision in Buck v. Bell, validating sterilization and increasing sterilizations throughout the country.

Carrie's mother, Emma Buck, was deemed "feebleminded" and "sexually promiscuous," and involuntarily institutionalized at the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in Lynchburg, Virginia. Then 17 years old, Carrie, believed to have inherited these traits, was committed to the same asylum after giving birth to an illegitimate daughter, Vivian.

When Vivian was examined at six months old, experts concluded that she was "below the average." According to a social worker, "there is a look about it that is not quite normal." (Interestingly, this social worker would later deny that she diagnosed Vivian as feebleminded or even examined her.)

When the case went to the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:

"It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind...Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

But the definitions of imbecile and feebleminded were essentially arbitrary and meaningless. Also, relevant information was left out of Carrie's trial. For starters, Carrie had made the honor roll (so did her daughter, Vivian). So the feebleminded accusation wasn't even accurate (though, again, these terms were problematic to begin with).

Even more important, Carrie was raped by a relative of her foster family. It was likely that she was institutionalized because of the shame this would bring to the family (many unwed mothers were institutionalized during this time).

The entire case was a conspiracy.

"Recent scholarship has shown that Carrie Buck's sterilization was based on a false "diagnosis" and her defense lawyer conspired with the lawyer for the Virginia Colony to guarantee that the sterilization law would be upheld in court."

After Carrie was sterilized, she was released from the institution. Carrie was married twice, and lived until her 70s, helping to take care of others.

Carrie's younger sister, who was told that she was going in for appendicitis surgery, was also sterilized. She didn't find out until she was in her late 60s.

Since Carrie's case, about 65,000 Americans with mental illness or developmental disabilities have been sterilized. Involuntary sterilizations continued until the 1970s.

Germany used language from Laughlin's law for their sterilizations.

In 1938, Joseph S. DeJarnette, director of Western State Hospital in Virginia, expressed his disappointment that American numbers lagged behind Germany's:

"Germany in six years has sterilized about 80,000 of her unfit while the United States with approximately twice the population has only sterilized about 27,869 to January 1, 1938 in the past 20 years... The fact that there are 12,000,000 defectives in the US should arouse our best endeavors to push this procedure to the maximum."

References
Three generations, no imbeciles: Virginia, Eugenics & Buck v. Bell at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, the University of Virginia.

Carrie Buck's Daughter: A popular, quasi-scientific idea can be a powerful tool for injustice in Natural History.

U.S. eugenics legacy: Ruling on Buck sterilization still stands in USA Today.

Eugenics & The Story of Carrie Buck

Related Articles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Psychology has a fascinating and rich history, filled with amazing advances. But it wasn't all progress. Psychology has a painful past - with many victims. One of the most devastating times in psychology was a movement called eugenics, a name coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that the human species can be subdivided into biologically distinct taxa called "races," and that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism ( racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority. Before the mid- 20th century, scientific racism was accepted throughout the scientific community, but it is no longer considered scientific. The division of humankind into biologically separate groups, along with the assignment of particular physical and mental characteristics to these groups through constructing and applying corresponding explanatory models, is referred to as racialism, race realism, or race science by those who support these ideas. Modern scientific consensus rejects this view as being irreconcilable with modern genetic research.

Scientific racism misapplies, misconstrues, or distorts anthropology (notably physical anthropology), craniometry, evolutionary biology, and other disciplines or pseudo-disciplines through proposing anthropological typologies to classify human populations into physically discrete human races, some of which might be asserted to be superior or inferior to others. Scientific racism was common during the period from the 1600s to the end of World War II, and was particularly prominent in European and American academic writings from the mid-19th century through the early-20th century. Since the second half of the 20th century, scientific racism has been discredited and criticized as obsolete, yet has persistently been used to support or validate racist world-views based upon belief in the existence and significance of racial categories and a hierarchy of superior and inferior races.

After the end of World War II, scientific racism in theory and action was formally denounced, especially in UNESCO's early antiracist statement, " The Race Question" (1950): "The biological fact of race and the myth of 'race' should be distinguished. For all practical social purposes, 'race' is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth of 'race' has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years, it has taken a heavy toll in human lives, and caused untold suffering." Since that time, developments in human evolutionary genetics and physical anthropology have led to a new consensus among anthropologists that human races are a sociopolitical phenomenon rather than a biological one.

The term scientific racism is generally used pejoratively when applied to more modern theories, such as those in The Bell Curve (1994). Critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions, such as a genetic connection between race and intelligence, that are unsupported by available evidence. Publications such as the Mankind Quarterly, founded explicitly as a "race-conscious" journal, are generally regarded as platforms of scientific racism, because they publish fringe interpretations of human evolution, intelligence, ethnography, language, mythology, archaeology, and race.

Antecedents

Enlightenment thinkers

During the Age of Enlightenment (an era from the 1650s to the 1780s), concepts of monogenism and polygenism became popular, though they would only be systematized epistemologically during the 19th century. Monogenism contends that all races have a single origin, while polygenism is the idea that each race has a separate origin. Until the 18th century, the words "race" and "species" were interchangeable.

François Bernier

François Bernier (1620-1688) was a French physician and traveller. In 1684, he published a brief essay dividing humanity into what he called "races," distinguishing individuals, and particularly women, by skin color and a few other physical traits. The article was published anonymously in the Journal des Savants, the earliest academic journal published in Europe, and titled "New Division of the Earth by the Different Species or 'Races' of Man that Inhabit It."

In the essay, he distinguished four different races: 1) The first race included populations from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, south-east Asia, and the Americas; 2) the second race consisted of the sub- Saharan Africans; 3) the third race consisted of the east- and northeast Asians; and, 4) the fourth race were Sámi people. A product of French Salon culture, the essay placed an emphasis on different kinds of female beauty. Bernier emphasized that his novel classification was based on his personal experience as a traveler in different parts of the world. Bernier offered a distinction between essential genetic differences and accidental ones that depended on environmental factors. He also suggested that the latter criterion might be relevant to distinguish sub-types. His biological classification of racial types never sought to go beyond physical traits, and he also accepted the role of climate and diet in explaining degrees of human diversity. Bernier had been the first to extend the concept of "species of man" to racially classify the entirety of humanity, but he did not establish a cultural hierarchy between the so-called 'races' that he had conceived. On the other hand, he clearly placed white Europeans as the norm from which other 'races' deviated.

The qualities which he attributed to each race were not strictly Eurocentric, because he thought that peoples of temperate Europe, the Americas, and India-although culturally very different from one another-belonged to roughly the same racial group, and he explained the differences between the civilizations of India (his main area of expertise) and Europe through climate and institutional history. By contrast, he emphasized the biological difference between Europeans and Africans, and made very negative comments towards the Sámi (Lapps) of the coldest climates of Northern Europe, and about Africans living at the Cape of Good Hope. For example, Bernier wrote: "The 'Lappons' compose the 4th race. They are a small and short race with thick legs, wide shoulders, a short neck, and a face that I don't know how to describe, except that it's long, truly awful, and seems reminiscent of a bear's face. I've only ever seen them twice in Danzig, but according to the portraits I've seen, and from what I've heard from a number of people, they're ugly animals." The significance of Bernier's ideology for the emergence of what Joan-Pau Rubiés called the "modern racial discourse" has been debated, with Siep Stuurman considering it the beginning of modern racial thought, while Joan-Pau Rubiés believes it is less significant if Bernier's entire view of humanity is taken into account.

Robert Boyle

An early scientist who studied race was Robert Boyle (1627-1691), an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor. Boyle believed in what today is called 'monogenism,' that is, that all races, no matter how diverse, came from the same source: Adam and Eve. He studied reported stories of parents' giving birth to differently coloured albinos, so he concluded that Adam and Eve were originally white, and that whites could give birth to different coloured races. Theories of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton about color and light via optical dispersion in physics were also extended by Robert Boyle into discourses of polygenesis, speculating that perhaps these differences were due to "seminal impressions." However, Boyle's writings mentioned that at his time, for "European Eyes," beauty was not measured so much in colour, but in "stature, comely symmetry of the parts of the body, and good features in the face." Various members of the scientific community rejected his views, and described them as "disturbing" or "amusing."

Richard Bradley

Richard Bradley (1688-1732) was an English naturalist. In his book titled Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature (1721), Bradley claimed there to be "five sorts of men" based on their skin colour and other physical characteristics: white Europeans with beards; white men in America without beards (meaning Native Americans); men with copper-coloured skin, small eyes, and straight black hair; Blacks with straight black hair; and Blacks with curly hair. It has been speculated that Bradley's account inspired Linnaeus' later categorisation.

The Scottish lawyer Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782) was a polygenist; he believed God had created different races on Earth in separate regions. In his 1734 book Sketches on the History of Man, Home claimed that the environment, climate, or state of society could not account for racial differences, so the races must have come from distinct, separate stocks.

Carl Linnaeus

Homo monstrosus, or Patagonian giants, from Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Océanie (Voyage to the South Pole, and in Oceania), by Jules Dumont d'Urville

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the Swedish physician, botanist, and zoologist, modified the established taxonomic bases of binomial nomenclature for fauna and flora, and also made a classification of humans into different subgroups. In the twelfth edition of Systema Naturae (1767), he labeled five " varieties" of human species. Each one was described as possessing the following physiognomic characteristics "varying by culture and place":

The Americanus: red, choleric, upright; black, straight, thick hair; nostrils flared; face freckled; beardless chin; stubborn, zealous, free; painting themself with red lines; governed by habit.

The Europeanus: white, sanguine, muscular; with yellowish, long hair; blue eyes; gentle, acute, inventive; covered with close vestments; governed by customs.

The Asiaticus: yellow, melancholic, stiff; black hair, dark eyes; austere, haughty, greedy; covered with loose clothing; governed by beliefs.

The Afer or Africanus: black, phlegmatic, relaxed; black, frizzled hair; silky skin, flat nose, tumid lips; females with elongated labia; mammary glands give milk abundantly; sly, lazy, negligent; anoints themself with grease; governed by caprice.

The Monstrosus were mythologic humans which did not appear in the first editions of Systema Naturae. The sub-species included: the "four-footed, mute, hairy" Homo feralis (Feral man); the animal-reared Juvenis lupinus hessensis (Hessian wolf boy); the Juvenis hannoveranus (Hannoverian boy); the Puella campanica (Wild-girl of Champagne); the agile, but faint-hearted Homo monstrosus (Monstrous man); the Patagonian giant; the Dwarf of the Alps; and the monorchid Khoikhoi (Hottentot). In Amoenitates academicae (1763), Linnaeus presented the mythologic Homo anthropomorpha (Anthropomorphic man), or humanoid creatures, such as the troglodyte, the satyr, the hydra, and the phoenix, incorrectly identified as simian creatures.

There are disagreements about the basis for Linnaeus' human taxa. On the one hand, his harshest critics say the classification was not only ethnocentric, but seemed to be based upon skin colour. Renato G. Mazzolini argued that classifications based on skin colour, at its core, were a white/black polarity, and that Linnaeus' thinking became paradigmatic for later racist beliefs. On the other hand, Quintyn (2010) points out that some authors believed that Linnaeus' classification was based upon geographical distribution, being cartographically-based, and not hierarchical. In the opinion of Kenneth A.R. Kennedy (1976), Linnaeus certainly considered his own culture as superior, but his motives for the classification of human varieties were not race-centered. Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1994) argued that the taxa was "not in the ranked order favored by most Europeans in the racist tradition," and that Linnaeus' division was influenced by the medical theory of humors, which said that a person's temperament may be related to biological fluids. In a 1994 essay, Gould added: "I don't mean to deny that Linnaeus held conventional beliefs about the superiority of his own European variety over others... nevertheless, and despite these implications, the overt geometry of Linnaeus' model is not linear or hierarchical."

In a 2008 essay published by the Linnean Society of London, Marie-Christine Skuncke interpreted Linnaeus' statements as reflecting a view that "Europeans' superiority resides in "culture," and that the decisive factor in Linnaeus' taxa was "culture," not race." Thus, regarding this topic, Skuncke considers Linnaeus' view as merely " eurocentric," arguing that Linnaeus never called for racist action, and did not use the word "race," which was only introduced later "by his French opponent, Buffon." However, the anthropologist Ashley Montagu, in his book Man's Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race, points out that Buffon, indeed "the enemy of all rigid classifications," was diametrically opposed to such broad categories, and did not use the word "race" to describe them. "It was quite clear, after reading Buffon, that he uses the word in no narrowly defined, but rather in a general sense," wrote Montagu, pointing out that Buffon did employ the French word la race, but as a collective term for whatever population he happened to be discussing at the time; for instance: "The Danish, Swedish, and Muscovite Laplanders, the inhabitants of Nova-Zembla, the Borandians, the Samoiedes, the Ostiacks of the old continent, the Greenlanders, and the savages to the north of the Esquimaux Indians, of the new continent, appear to be of one common race."

Scholar Stanley A. Rice agrees that Linnaeus' classification was not meant to "imply a hierarchy of humanness or superiority"; however, modern critics regard Linnaeus' classification as obviously stereotyped and erroneous for having included anthropological, non-biological features, such as customs or traditions.

John Hunter

John Hunter. Painted by John Jackson in 1813, after an original by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who exhibited his painting at the Royal Academy in 1786.

John Hunter (1728-1793), a Scottish surgeon, believed that the Negroid race was originally white at birth. He thought that over time, because of the sun, the people turned dark-skinned, or "black." Hunter also stated that blisters and burns would likely turn white on a Negro, which he asserted was evidence that their ancestors were originally white.

Charles White

Charles White (1728-1813), an English physician and surgeon, believed that races occupied different stations in the " Great Chain of Being," and he tried to scientifically prove that human races had distinct origins from each other. He speculated that whites and Negroes were two different species. White was a believer in polygeny, the idea that different races had been created separately. His Account of the Regular Gradation in Man (1799) provided an empirical basis for this idea. White defended the theory of polygeny by rebutting French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon's interfertility argument, which said that only the same species can interbreed. White pointed to species hybrids, such as foxes, wolves, and jackals, which were separate groups that were still able to interbreed. For White, each race was a separate species, divinely created for its own geographical region.

Buffon and Blumenbach

The French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788) and the German anatomist Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840) were proponents of monogenism, the concept that all races have a single origin. Buffon and Blumenbach believed a "degeneration theory" of the origins of racial difference. Both asserted that Adam and Eve were white, and that other races came about by degeneration owing to environmental factors, such as climate, disease, and diet. According to this model, Negroid pigmentation arose because of the heat of the tropical sun; that cold wind caused the tawny colour of the Eskimos; and that the Chinese had fairer skins than the Tartars, because the former kept mostly in towns, and were protected from environmental factors. Environmental factors, poverty, and hybridization could make races "degenerate," and differentiate them from the original white race by a process of "raciation." Interestingly, both Buffon and Blumenbach believed that the degeneration could be reversed if proper environmental control was taken, and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to the original white race.

According to Blumenbach, there are five races, all belonging to a single species: Caucasian, Mongolian, Negroid, American, and the Malay race. Blumenbach stated: "I have allotted the first place to the Caucasian for the reasons given below, which make me esteem it the primeval one."

Before James Hutton and the emergence of scientific geology, many believed the Earth was only 6,000 years old. Buffon had conducted experiments with heated balls of iron, which he believed were a model for the Earth's core, and concluded that the Earth was 75,000 years old, but did not extend the time since Adam and the origin of humanity back more than 8,000 years-not much further than the 6,000 years of the prevailing Ussher chronology subscribed to by most of the monogenists. Opponents of monogenism believed that it would have been difficult for races to change markedly in such a short period of time.

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), a Founding Father of the United States and a physician, proposed that being black was a hereditary skin disease, which he called "negroidism," and that it could be cured. Rush believed non-whites were actually white underneath, but that they were stricken with a non-contagious form of leprosy, which darkened their skin color. Rush drew the conclusion that "whites should not tyrannize over [blacks], for their disease should entitle them to a double portion of humanity. However, by the same token, whites should not intermarry with them, for this would tend to infect posterity with the 'disorder'... attempts must be made to cure the disease."

Christoph Meiners

Christoph Meiners (1747-1810) was a German polygenist, and believed that each race had a separate origin. Meiners studied the physical, mental, and moral characteristics of each race, and built a race hierarchy based on his findings. Meiners split mankind into two divisions, which he labelled the "beautiful white race" and the "ugly black race." In his book titled The Outline of History of Mankind, Meiners argued that a main characteristic of race is either beauty or ugliness. Meiners thought only the white race to be beautiful, and considered ugly races to be inferior, immoral, and animal-like. Meiners wrote about how the dark, ugly peoples were differentiated from the white, beautiful peoples by their "sad" lack of virtue and their "terrible vices."

Meiners hypothesized about how the Negro felt less pain than any other race, and lacked in emotions. Meiners wrote that the Negro had thick nerves, and thus, was not sensitive like the other races. He went so far as to say that the Negro possessed "no human, barely any animal, feeling." Meiners described a story where a Negro was condemned to death by being burned alive. Halfway through the burning, the Negro asked to smoke a pipe, and smoked it like nothing was happening while he continued to be burned alive. Meiners studied the anatomy of the Negro, and came to the conclusion that Negroes were all carnivores, based upon his observations that Negroes had bigger teeth and jaws than any other race. Meiners claimed the skull of the Negro was larger, but the brain of the Negro was smaller than any other race. Meiners theorized that the Negro was the most unhealthy race on Earth because of its poor diet, mode of living, and lack of morals.

Meiners wrote that the noblest race was the Celts. This was based upon assertions that they were able to conquer various parts of the world, they were more sensitive to heat and cold, and their delicacy is shown by the way they are selective about what they eat. Meiners claimed that Slavs are an inferior race, "less sensitive and content with eating rough food." He described stories of Slavs allegedly eating poisonous fungi without coming to any harm. He claimed that their medical techniques were also counterproductive; as an example, Meiners described their practice of warming up sick people in ovens, then making them roll in the snow.

Later thinkers

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was an American politician, scientist, and slave owner. His contributions to scientific racism have been noted by many historians, scientists, and scholars. According to an article published in the McGill Journal of Medicine: "One of the most influential pre-Darwinian racial theorists, Jefferson's call for science to determine the obvious 'inferiority' of African Americans is an extremely important stage in the evolution of scientific racism." Writing for The New York Times, historian Paul Finkelman described how as "a scientist, Jefferson nevertheless speculated that blackness might come 'from the color of the blood,' and concluded that blacks were 'inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind'." In his " Notes on the State of Virginia," Jefferson described black people as follows:

They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labor through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But, this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection... Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory, they are equal to the whites; in reason, much inferior, as I think one [black] could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination, they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous... I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstance which cannot be neglected, will admit.

Samuel Stanhope Smith

Samuel Stanhope Smith (1751-1819) was an American Presbyterian minister and author of the Essay on the Causes of Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species (1787). Smith claimed that Negro pigmentation was nothing more than a huge freckle that covered the whole body as a result of an oversupply of bile, which was caused by tropical climates.

Georges Cuvier

Racial studies by Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the French naturalist and zoologist, influenced both scientific polygenism and scientific racism. Cuvier believed there were three distinct races: the Caucasian (white), Mongolian (yellow), and the Ethiopian (black). He rated each for the beauty or ugliness of the skull and quality of their civilizations. Cuvier wrote about Caucasians: "The white race, with oval face, straight hair and nose, to which the civilised people of Europe belong, and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is also superior to others by its genius, courage, and activity."

Regarding Negroes, Cuvier wrote:

The Negro race ... is marked by black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium, and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe: the hordes of which it consists have always remained in the most complete state of barbarism.

He thought Adam and Eve were Caucasian, and hence, the original race of mankind. The other two races arose by survivors escaping in different directions after a major catastrophe hit the earth approximately 5,000 years ago. Cuvier theorized that the survivors lived in complete isolation from each other, and developed separately as a result.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste, or race, is fairer in colour than the rest, and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmins, the Inca, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention, because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers, and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want, and misery, which, in their many forms, were brought about by the climate. This they had to do to make up for the parsimony of nature, and out of it all came their high civilization.

Franz Ignaz Pruner

Franz Ignaz Pruner (1808-1882) was a German physician, ophthalmologist, and anthropologist who studied the racial structure of Negroes in Egypt. In a book Pruner wrote in 1846, he claimed that Negro blood had a negative influence on the Egyptian moral character. He published a monograph on Negroes in 1861. He claimed that the main feature of the Negro's skeleton is prognathism, which he claimed was the Negro's relation to the ape. He also claimed that Negroes had brains very similar to those of apes and that Negroes have a shortened big toe, a characteristic, he said, that connected Negroes closely to apes.

Racial theories in physical anthropology (1850-1918)

The scientific classification established by Carl Linnaeus is requisite to any human racial classification scheme. In the 19th century, unilineal evolution, or classical social evolution, was a conflation of competing sociologic and anthropologic theories proposing that Western European culture was the acme of human socio-cultural evolution. The Christian Bible was interpreted to sanction slavery and from the 1820s to the 1850s was often used in the antebellum Southern United States, by writers such as the Rev. Richard Furman and Thomas R. Cobb, to enforce the idea that Negroes had been created inferior, and thus suited to slavery.

Arthur de Gobineau

The French aristocrat and writer Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), is best known for his book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-55) which proposed three human races (black, white and yellow) were natural barriers and claimed that race mixing would lead to the collapse of culture and civilization. He claimed that "The white race originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence and strength" and that any positive accomplishments or thinking of blacks and Asians were due to an admixture with whites. His works were praised by many white supremacist American pro-slavery thinkers such as Josiah C. Nott and Henry Hotze.

Gobineau believed that the different races originated in different areas, the white race had originated somewhere in Siberia, the Asians in the Americas and the blacks in Africa. He believed that the white race was superior, writing:

I will not wait for the friends of equality to show me such and such passages in books written by missionaries or sea captains, who declare some Wolof is a fine carpenter, some Hottentot a good servant, that a Kaffir dances and plays the violin, that some Bambara knows arithmetic... Let us leave aside these puerilities and compare together not men, but groups.

Gobineau later used the term " Aryans" to describe the Germanic peoples ( la race germanique).

Gobineau's works were also influential to the Nazi Party, which published his works in German. They played a key role in the master race theory of Nazism.

Another polygenist evolutionist was Carl Vogt (1817-1895) who believed that the Negro race was related to the ape. He wrote the white race was a separate species to Negroes. In Chapter VII of his Lectures of Man (1864) he compared the Negro to the white race whom he described as "two extreme human types". The difference between them, he claimed are greater than those between two species of ape; and this proves that Negroes are a separate species from the whites.

Charles Darwin

Darwin's influential 1859 book On the Origin of Species did not discuss human origins. The extended wording on the title page, which adds by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, uses the general terminology of biological races as an alternative for " varieties" such as "the several races, for instance, of the cabbage", and does not carry the modern connotation of human races. In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), Darwin examined the question of "Arguments in favour of, and opposed to, ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species" and reported no racial distinctions that would indicate that human races are discrete species.

The historian Richard Hofstadter wrote:

Although Darwinism was not the primary source of the belligerent ideology and dogmatic racism of the late nineteenth century, it did become a new instrument in the hands of the theorists of race and struggle... The Darwinist mood sustained the belief in Anglo-Saxon racial superiority which obsessed many American thinkers in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The measure of world domination already achieved by the 'race' seemed to prove it the fittest.

According to the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, "The subtitle of [ The Origin of Species] made a convenient motto for racists: 'The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.' Darwin, of course, took 'races' to mean varieties or species; but it was no violation of his meaning to extend it to human races.... Darwin himself, in spite of his aversion to slavery, was not averse to the idea that some races were more fit than others."

On the other hand, Robert Bannister defended Darwin on the issue of race, writing that "Upon closer inspection, the case against Darwin himself quickly unravels. An ardent opponent of slavery, he consistently opposed the oppression of nonwhites... Although by modern standards The Descent of Man is frustratingly inconclusive on the critical issues of human equality, it was a model of moderation and scientific caution in the context of midcentury racism."

Herbert Hope Risley

As an exponent of "race science", colonial administrator Herbert Hope Risley (1851-1911) used the ratio of the width of a nose to its height to divide Indian people into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.

Ernst Haeckel

Like most of Darwin's supporters, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) put forward a doctrine of evolutionary polygenism based on the ideas of the linguist and polygenist August Schleicher, in which several different language groups had arisen separately from speechless prehuman Urmenschen (German for "original humans"), which themselves had evolved from simian ancestors. These separate languages had completed the transition from animals to man, and, under the influence of each main branch of languages, humans had evolved as separate species, which could be subdivided into races. Haeckel divided human beings into ten races, of which the Caucasian was the highest and the primitives were doomed to extinction. Haeckel was also an advocate of the out of Asia theory by writing that the origin of humanity was to be found in Asia; he believed that Hindustan (South Asia) was the actual location where the first humans had evolved. Haeckel argued that humans were closely related to the primates of Southeast Asia and rejected Darwin's hypothesis of Africa.

Haeckel also wrote that Negroes have stronger and more freely movable toes than any other race which is evidence that Negroes are related to apes because when apes stop climbing in trees they hold on to the trees with their toes. Haeckel compared Negroes to "four-handed" apes. Haeckel also believed Negroes were savages and that whites were the most civilised.

Nationalism of Lapouge and Herder

At the 19th century's end, scientific racism conflated Greco-Roman eugenicism with Francis Galton's concept of voluntary eugenics to produce a form of coercive, anti-immigrant government programs influenced by other socio-political discourses and events. Such institutional racism was effected via phrenology, telling character from physiognomy; craniometric skull and skeleton studies; thus skulls and skeletons of black people and other colored volk, were displayed between apes and white men.

In 1906, Ota Benga, a Pygmy, was displayed as the "Missing Link", in the Bronx Zoo, New York City, alongside apes and animals. The most influential theorists included the anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854-1936) who proposed "anthroposociology"; and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), who applied "race" to nationalist theory, thereby developing the first conception of ethnic nationalism. In 1882, Ernest Renan contradicted Herder with a nationalism based upon the "will to live together", not founded upon ethnic or racial prerequisites (see Civic nationalism). Scientific racist discourse posited the historical existence of "national races" such as the Deutsche Volk in Germany, and the "French race" being a branch of the basal " Aryan race" extant for millennia, to advocate for geopolitical borders parallel to the racial ones.

Craniometry and physical anthropology

The Dutch scholar Pieter Camper (1722-89), an early craniometric theoretician, used "craniometry" (interior skull-volume measurement) to scientifically justify racial differences. In 1770, he conceived of the facial angle to measure intelligence among species of men. The facial angle was formed by drawing two lines: a horizontal line from nostril to ear; and a vertical line from the upper-jawbone prominence to the forehead prominence. Camper's craniometry reported that antique statues (the Greco-Roman ideal) had a 90-degree facial angle, whites an 80-degree angle, blacks a 70-degree angle, and the orangutan a 58-degree facial angle-thus he established a racist biological hierarchy for mankind, per the Decadent conception of history. Such scientific racist researches were continued by the naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) and the anthropologist Paul Broca (1824-1880).

Samuel George Morton

In the 19th century, an early American physical anthropologist, physician and polygenist Samuel George Morton (1799-1851), collected human skulls from worldwide, and attempted a logical classification scheme. Influenced by contemporary racialist theory, Dr Morton said he could judge racial intellectual capacity by measuring the interior cranial capacity, hence a large skull denoted a large brain, thus high intellectual capacity. Conversely, a small skull denoted a small brain, thus low intellectual capacity; superior and inferior established. After inspecting three mummies from ancient Egyptian catacombs, Morton concluded that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago. Since interpretations of the bible indicated that Noah's Ark had washed up on Mount Ararat only a thousand years earlier, Morton claimed that Noah's sons could not possibly account for every race on earth. According to Morton's theory of polygenesis, races have been separate since the start.

In Morton's Crania Americana, his claims were based on craniometry data, that the Caucasians had the biggest brains, averaging 87 cubic inches, Native Americans were in the middle with an average of 82 cubic inches and Negroes had the smallest brains with an average of 78 cubic inches.

Illustration from Types of Mankind (1854), whose authors Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon implied that "Negroes" were a creational rank between "Greeks" and chimpanzees.

In The Mismeasure of Man (1981), the evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould argued that Samuel Morton had falsified the craniometric data, perhaps inadvertently over-packing some skulls, to so produce results that would legitimize the racist presumptions he was attempting to prove. A subsequent study by the anthropologist John Michael found Morton's original data to be more accurate than Gould describes, concluding that "[c]ontrary to Gould's interpretation... Morton's research was conducted with integrity". Jason Lewis and colleagues reached similar conclusions as Michael in their reanalysis of Morton's skull collection; however, they depart from Morton's racist conclusions by adding that "studies have demonstrated that modern human variation is generally continuous, rather than discrete or "racial", and that most variation in modern humans is within, rather than between, populations".

In 1873, Paul Broca, founder of the Anthropological Society of Paris (1859), found the same pattern of measures-that Crania Americana reported-by weighing specimen brains at autopsy. Other historical studies, proposing a black race-white race, intelligence-brain size difference, include those by Bean (1906), Mall (1909), Pearl (1934), and Vint (1934).

Nicolás Palacios

After the War of the Pacific (1879-83) there was a rise of racial and national superiority ideas among the Chilean ruling class. In his 1918 book physician Nicolás Palacios argued for the existence of Chilean race and its superiority when compared to neighboring peoples. He thought Chileans were a mix of two martial races: the indigenous Mapuches and the Visigoths of Spain, who descended ultimately from Götaland in Sweden. Palacios argued on medical grounds against immigration to Chile from southern Europe claiming that Mestizos who are of south European stock lack "cerebral control" and are a social burden.

Monogenism and polygenism

Samuel Morton's followers, especially Dr Josiah C. Nott (1804-1873) and George Gliddon (1809-1857), extended Dr Morton's ideas in Types of Mankind (1854), claiming that Morton's findings supported the notion of polygenism (mankind has discrete genetic ancestries; the races are evolutionarily unrelated), which is a predecessor of the modern human multiregional origin hypothesis. Moreover, Morton himself had been reluctant to espouse polygenism, because it theologically challenged the Christian creation myth espoused in the Bible.

Later, in The Descent of Man (1871), Charles Darwin proposed the single-origin hypothesis, i.e., monogenism -mankind has a common genetic ancestry, the races are related, opposing everything that the polygenism of Nott and Gliddon proposed.

Typologies

Cephalic Index. William Z. Ripley's European cephalic index map, The Races of Europe (1899).

One of the first typologies used to classify various human races was invented by Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854-1936), a theoretician of eugenics, who published in 1899 L'Aryen et son rôle social (1899 - "The Aryan and his social role"). In this book, he classified humanity into various, hierarchized races, spanning from the "Aryan white race, dolichocephalic", to the "brachycephalic", "mediocre and inert" race, best represented by Southern European, Catholic peasants". Between these, Vacher de Lapouge identified the "Homo europaeus" (Teutonic, Protestant, etc.), the "Homo alpinus" ( Auvergnat, Turkish, etc.), and finally the "Homo mediterraneus" ( Neapolitan, Andalus, etc.) Jews were dolichocephalic like the Aryans, according to Lapouge, but exactly for this reason he considered them to be dangerous; they were the only group, he thought, threatening to displace the Aryan aristocracy. Vacher de Lapouge became one of the leading inspirators of Nazi antisemitism and Nazi racist ideology.

Vacher de Lapouge's classification was mirrored in William Z. Ripley in The Races of Europe (1899), a book which had a large influence on American white supremacism. Ripley even made a map of Europe according to the alleged cephalic index of its inhabitants. He was an important influence of the American eugenist Madison Grant.

Furthermore, according to John Efron of Indiana University, the late 19th century also witnessed "the scientizing of anti-Jewish prejudice", stigmatizing Jews with male menstruation, pathological hysteria, and nymphomania. At the same time, several Jews, such as Joseph Jacobs or Samuel Weissenberg, also endorsed the same pseudoscientific theories, convinced that the Jews formed a distinct race. Chaim Zhitlovsky also attempted to define Yiddishkayt (Ashkenazi Jewishness) by turning to contemporary racial theory.

Joseph Deniker (1852-1918) was one of William Z. Ripley's principal opponents; whereas Ripley maintained, as did Vacher de Lapouge, that the European populace comprised three races, Joseph Deniker proposed that the European populace comprised ten races (six primary and four sub-races). Furthermore, he proposed that the concept of "race" was ambiguous, and in its stead proposed the compound word " ethnic group", which later prominently featured in the works of Julian Huxley and Alfred C. Haddon. Moreover, Ripley argued that Deniker's "race" idea should be denoted a "type", because it was less biologically rigid than most racial classifications.

Ideological applications

Joseph Deniker's contribution to racist theory was La Race nordique (the Nordic race), a generic, racial-stock descriptor, which the American eugenicist Madison Grant (1865-1937) presented as the white racial engine of world civilization. Having adopted Ripley's three-race European populace model, but disliking the "Teuton" race name, he transliterated la race nordique into "The Nordic race", the acme of the concocted racial hierarchy, based upon his racial classification theory, popular in the 1910s and 1920s.

The State Institute for Racial Biology (Swedish: Statens Institut för Rasbiologi) and its director Herman Lundborg in Sweden were active in racist research. Furthermore, much of early research on Ural-Altaic languages was coloured by attempts at justifying the view that European peoples east of Sweden were Asian and thus of an inferior race, justifying colonialism, eugenics and racial hygiene. The book The Passing of the Great Race (Or, The Racial Basis of European History) by American eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist Madison Grant was published in 1916. Though influential, the book was largely ignored when it first appeared, and it went through several revisions and editions. Nevertheless, the book was used by people who advocated restricted immigration as justification for what became known as scientific racism.

Justification of slavery in the United States

In the United States, scientific racism justified Black African slavery to assuage moral opposition to the Atlantic slave trade. Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen described black men as uniquely fitted for bondage, because of their "primitive psychological organization." In 1851, in antebellum Louisiana, the physician Samuel A. Cartwright (1793-1863) wrote of slave escape attempts as " drapetomania," a treatable mental illness, that "with proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented." The term drapetomania (mania of the runaway slave) derives from the Greek δραπέτης ( drapetes, "a runaway [slave]") and μανία ( mania, "madness, frenzy"). Cartwright also described dysaesthesia aethiopica, called "rascality" by overseers. The 1840 United States Census claimed that Northern, free blacks suffered mental illness at higher rates than did their Southern, enslaved counterparts. Though the census was later found to have been severely flawed by the American Statistical Association, it became a political weapon against abolitionists. Southern slavers concluded that escaping Negroes were suffering from "mental disorders."

At the time of the American Civil War (1861-65), the matter of miscegenation prompted studies of ostensible physiological differences between Caucasians and Negroes. Early anthropologists, such as Josiah Clark Nott, George Robins Gliddon, Robert Knox, and Samuel George Morton, aimed to scientifically prove that Negroes were a human species different from the white people; that the rulers of Ancient Egypt were not African; and that mixed-race offspring (the product of miscegenation) tended to physical weakness and infertility. After the Civil War, Southern (Confederacy) physicians wrote textbooks of scientific racism based upon studies claiming that black freemen (ex-slaves) were becoming extinct, because they were inadequate to the demands of being a free man-implying that black people benefited from enslavement.

In Medical Apartheid, Harriet A. Washington noted the prevalence of two different views on blacks in the 19th century: the belief that they were inferior and "riddled with imperfections from head to toe", and the idea that they did not know true pain and suffering because of their primitive nervous systems (and that slavery was therefore justifiable). Washington noted the failure of scientists to accept the inconsistency between these two viewpoints, writing that:

in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scientific racism was simply science, and it was promulgated by the very best minds at the most prestigious institutions of the nation. Other, more logical medical theories stressed the equality of Africans and laid poor black health at the feet of their abusers, but these never enjoyed the appeal of the medical philosophy that justified slavery and, along with it, our nation's profitable way of life.

Even after the end of the Civil War, some scientists continued to justify the institution of slavery by citing the effect of topography and climate on racial development. Nathaniel Shaler, a prominent geologist at Harvard University from 1869 to 1906, published the book Man and the Earth in 1905 describing the physical geography of different continents and linking these geologic settings to the intelligence and strength of human races that inhabited these spaces. Shaler argued that North American climate and geology was ideally suited for the institution of slavery.

South African apartheid

Scientific racism played a role in establishing apartheid in South Africa. In South Africa, white scientists, like Dudly Kidd, who published The essential Kafir in 1904, sought to "understand the African mind". They believed that the cultural differences between whites and blacks in South Africa might be caused by physiological differences in the brain. Rather than suggesting that Africans were "overgrown children", as early white explorers had, Kidd believed that Africans were "misgrown with a vengeance". He described Africans as at once "hopelessly deficient", yet "very shrewd".

The Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa played a key role in establishing apartheid in South Africa. According to one memorandum sent to Frederick Keppel, then president of the Carnegie Corporation, there was "little doubt that if the natives were given full economic opportunity, the more competent among them would soon outstrip the less competent whites". Keppel's support for the project of creating the report was motivated by his concern with the maintenance of existing racial boundaries. The preoccupation of the Carnegie Corporation with the so-called poor white problem in South Africa was at least in part the outcome of similar misgivings about the state of poor whites in the southern United States.

The report was five volumes in length. Around the start of the 20th century, white Americans, and whites elsewhere in the world, felt uneasy because poverty and economic depression seemed to strike people regardless of race.

Though the ground work for apartheid began earlier, the report provided support for this central idea of black inferiority. This was used to justify racial segregation and discrimination in the following decades. The report expressed fear about the loss of white racial pride, and in particular pointed to the danger that the poor white would not be able to resist the process of "Africanisation".

Although scientific racism played a role in justifying and supporting institutional racism in South Africa, it was not as important in South Africa as it has been in Europe and the United States. This was due in part to the "poor white problem", which raised serious questions for supremacists about white racial superiority. Since poor whites were found to be in the same situation as natives in the African environment, the idea that intrinsic white superiority could overcome any environment did not seem to hold. As such, scientific justifications for racism were not as useful in South Africa.

Stephen Jay Gould described Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race (1916) as "the most influential tract of American scientific racism." In the 1920s-30s, the German racial hygiene movement embraced Grant's Nordic theory. Alfred Ploetz (1860-1940) coined the term Rassenhygiene in Racial Hygiene Basics (1895), and founded the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1905. The movement advocated selective breeding, compulsory sterilization, and a close alignment of public health with eugenics.

Racial hygiene was historically tied to traditional notions of public health, but with emphasis on heredity-what philosopher and historian Michel Foucault has called state racism. In 1869, Francis Galton (1822-1911) proposed the first social measures meant to preserve or enhance biological characteristics, and later coined the term "eugenics". Galton, a statistician, introduced correlation and regression analysis and discovered regression toward the mean. He was also the first to study human differences and inheritance of intelligence with statistical methods. He introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys to collect data on population sets, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for anthropometric studies. Galton also founded psychometrics, the science of measuring mental faculties, and differential psychology, a branch of psychology concerned with psychological differences between people rather than common traits.

Like scientific racism, eugenics grew popular in the early 20th century, and both ideas influenced Nazi racial policies and Nazi eugenics. In 1901, Galton, Karl Pearson (1857-1936) and Walter F.R. Weldon (1860-1906) founded the Biometrika scientific journal, which promoted biometrics and statistical analysis of heredity. Charles Davenport (1866-1944) was briefly involved in the review. In Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929), he made statistical arguments that biological and cultural degradation followed white and black interbreeding. Davenport was connected to Nazi Germany before and during World War II. In 1939 he wrote a contribution to the festschrift for Otto Reche (1879-1966), who became an important figure within the plan to remove populations considered "inferior" from eastern Germany.

Interbellum to World War II

Scientific racism continued through the early 20th century, and soon intelligence testing became a new source for racial comparisons. Before World War II (1939-45), scientific racism remained common to anthropology, and was used as justification for eugenics programs, compulsory sterilization, anti-miscegenation laws, and immigration restrictions in Europe and the United States. The war crimes and crimes against humanity of Nazi Germany (1933-45) discredited scientific racism in academia, but racist legislation based upon it remained in some countries until the late 1960s.

Early intelligence testing and the Immigration Act of 1924

Before the 1920s, social scientists agreed that whites were superior to blacks, but they needed a way to prove this to back social policy in favor of whites. They felt the best way to gauge this was through testing intelligence. By interpreting the tests to show favor to whites these test makers' research results portrayed all minority groups very negatively. In 1908, Henry Goddard translated the Binet intelligence test from French and in 1912 began to apply the test to incoming immigrants on Ellis Island. Some claim that in a study of immigrants Goddard reached the conclusion that 87% of Russians, 83% of Jews, 80% of Hungarians, and 79% of Italians were feeble-minded and had a mental age less than 12. Some have also claimed that this information was taken as "evidence" by lawmakers and thus it affected social policy for years. Bernard Davis has pointed out that, in the first sentence of his paper, Goddard wrote that the subjects of the study were not typical members of their groups but were selected because of their suspected sub-normal intelligence. Davis has further noted that Goddard argued that the low IQs of the test subjects were more likely due to environmental rather than genetic factors, and that Goddard concluded that "we may be confident that their children will be of average intelligence and if rightly brought up will be good citizens". In 1996 the American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific Affairs stated that IQ tests were not discriminatory towards any ethnic/racial groups.

In his book The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould argued that intelligence testing results played a major role in the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 that restricted immigration to the United States. However, Mark Snyderman and Richard J. Herrnstein, after studying the Congressional Record and committee hearings related to the Immigration Act, concluded "the [intelligence] testing community did not generally view its findings as favoring restrictive immigration policies like those in the 1924 Act, and Congress took virtually no notice of intelligence testing".

Juan N. Franco contested the findings of Snyderman and Herrnstein. Franco stated that even though Snyderman and Herrnstein reported that the data collected from the results of the intelligence tests were in no way used to pass The Immigration Act of 1924, the IQ test results were still taken into consideration by legislators. As suggestive evidence, Franco pointed to the following fact: Following the passage of the immigration act, information from the 1890 census was used to set quotas based on percentages of immigrants coming from different countries. Based on these data, the legislature restricted the entrance of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe into the United States and allowed more immigrants from northern and Western Europe into the country. The use of the 1900, 1910 or 1920 census data sets would have resulted in larger numbers of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe being allowed into the U.S. However, Franco pointed out that using the 1890 census data allowed congress to exclude southern and eastern Europeans (who performed worse on IQ tests of the time than did western and northern Europeans) from the U.S. Franco argued that the work Snyderman and Herrnstein conducted on this matter neither proved or disproved that intelligence testing influenced immigration laws.

The Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology, founded in 1922, was the world's first government-funded institute performing research into racial biology. It was housed in what is now the Dean's house at Uppsala and was closed down in 1958.

Following the creation of the first society for the promotion of racial hygiene, the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1905-a Swedish society was founded in 1909 as " Svenska sällskapet för rashygien" as third in the world. By lobbying Swedish parliamentarians and medical institutes the society managed to pass a decree creating a government run institute in the form of the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology in 1921. By 1922 the institute was built and opened in Uppsala. It was the first such government-funded institute in the world performing research into " racial biology" and remains highly controversial to this day. It was the most prominent institution for the study of "racial science" in Sweden. The goal was to cure criminality, alcoholism and psychiatric problems through research in eugenics and racial hygiene. As a result of the institutes work a law permitting compulsory sterilization of certain groups was enacted in Sweden in 1934. The second president of the institute Gunnar Dahlberg was highly critical of the validity of the science performed at the institute and reshaped the institute toward a focus on genetics. In 1958 it closed down and all remaining research was moved to the Department of medical genetics at Uppsala University.

Nazi Germany

The Nazi Party and its sympathizers published many books on scientific racism, seizing on the eugenicist and antisemitic ideas with which they were widely associated, although these ideas had been in circulation since the 19th century. Books such as Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes ("Racial Science of the German People") by Hans Günther (first published in 1922) and Rasse und Seele ("Race and Soul") by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauß (published under different titles between 1926 and 1934) attempted to scientifically identify differences between the German, Nordic, or Aryan people and other, supposedly inferior, groups. German schools used these books as texts during the Nazi era. In the early 1930s, the Nazis used racialized scientific rhetoric based on social Darwinism to push its restrictive and discriminatory social policies.

During World War II, Nazi racialist beliefs became anathema in the United States, and Boasians such as Ruth Benedict consolidated their institutional power. After the war, discovery of the Holocaust and Nazi abuses of scientific research (such as Josef Mengele's ethical violations and other war crimes revealed at the Nuremberg Trials) led most of the scientific community to repudiate scientific support for racism.

Propaganda for the Nazi eugenics program began with propaganda for eugenic sterilization. Articles in described the appearance of the mentally ill and the importance of preventing such births. Photographs of mentally incapacitated children were juxtaposed with those of healthy children. The film showed conflict in nature to legitimate the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring by sterilization.

Although the child was "the most important treasure of the people", this did not apply to all children, even German ones, only to those with no hereditary weaknesses. Nazi Germany's racially based social policies placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of Nazis ideology. Those humans were targeted who were identified as " life unworthy of life" (German: Lebensunwertes Leben), including but not limited to Jewish people, criminals, degenerate, dissident, feeble-minded, homosexual, idle, insane, and the weak, for elimination from the chain of heredity. Although they were still regarded as "Aryan", Nazi ideology deemed Slavs (i.e., Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, etc.) to be racially inferior to the Germanic master race, suitable for expulsion, enslavement, or even extermination.

Adolf Hitler banned intelligence quotient (IQ) testing for being "Jewish".

United States

In the 20th century, concepts of scientific racism, which sought to prove the physical and mental inadequacy of groups deemed "inferior", was relied upon to justify involuntary sterilization programs. Such programs, promoted by eugenicists such as Harry H. Laughlin, were upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in (1927). In all, between 60,000 and 90,000 Americans were subjected to involuntary sterilization.

Scientific racism was also used as a justification for the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act), which imposed racial quotas limiting Italian American immigration to the United States and immigration from other southern European and eastern European nations. Proponents of these quotas, who sought to block "undesirable" immigrants, justifying restrictions by invoking scientific racism.

Lothrop Stoddard published many racialist books on what he saw as the peril of immigration, his most famous being The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy in 1920. In this book he presented a view of the world situation pertaining to race focusing concern on the coming population explosion among the "colored" peoples of the world and the way in which "white world-supremacy" was being lessened in the wake of World War I and the collapse of colonialism.

Stoddard's analysis divided world politics and situations into "white", "yellow", "black", "Amerindian", and "brown" peoples and their interactions. Stoddard argued race and heredity were the guiding factors of history and civilization, and that the elimination or absorption of the "white" race by "colored" races would result in the destruction of Western civilization. Like Madison Grant, Stoddard divided the white race into three main divisions: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. He considered all three to be of good stock, and far above the quality of the colored races, but argued that the Nordic was the greatest of the three and needed to be preserved by way of eugenics. Unlike Grant, Stoddard was less concerned with which varieties of European people were superior to others (Nordic theory), but was more concerned with what he called "bi-racialism", seeing the world as being composed of simply "colored" and "white" races. In the years after the Great Migration and World War I, Grant's racial theory would fall out of favor in the U.S. in favor of a model closer to Stoddard's.

An influential publication was The Races of Europe (1939) by Carleton S. Coon, president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists from 1930 to 1961. Coon was a proponent of multiregional origin of modern humans. He divided Homo sapiens into five main races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid (including Native Americans), Australoid, Congoid, and Capoid.

Coon's school of thought was the object of increasing opposition in mainstream anthropology after World War II. Ashley Montagu was particularly vocal in denouncing Coon, especially in his Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. By the 1960s, Coon's approach had been rendered obsolete in mainstream anthropology, but his system continued to appear in publications by his student John Lawrence Angel as late as in the 1970s.

In the late 19th century, the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) United States Supreme Court decision-which upheld the constitutional legality of racial segregation under the doctrine of " separate but equal"-was intellectually rooted in the racism of the era, as was the popular support for the decision. Later, in the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) decision rejected racialist arguments about the "need" for racial segregation-especially in public schools.

By 1954, 58 years after the Plessy v. Ferguson upholding of racial segregation in the United States, American popular and scholarly opinions of scientific racism and its sociologic practice had evolved.

In 1960, the journal Mankind Quarterly was founded, which is commonly described as a venue for scientific racism and white supremacy, and as lacking a legitimate scholarly purpose. The journal was founded in 1960, partly in response to the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education which desegregated the American public school system.

In April 1966, Alex Haley interviewed American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell for . Rockwell justified his belief that blacks were inferior to whites by citing a long 1916 study by G. O. Ferguson which claimed to show that the intellectual performance of black students was correlated with their percentage of white ancestry, stating "pure negroes, negroes three-fourths pure, mulattoes and quadroons have, roughly, 60, 70, 80 and 90 percent, respectively, of white intellectual efficiency". Playboy later published the interview with an editorial note claiming the study was a "discredited ... pseudoscientific rationale for racism".

International bodies such as UNESCO attempted to draft resolutions that would summarize the state of scientific knowledge about race and issued calls for the resolution of racial conflicts. In its 1950 " The Race Question", UNESCO did not reject the idea of a biological basis to racial categories, but instead defined a race as: "A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens", which were broadly defined as the Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid races but stated that "It is now generally recognized that intelligence tests do not in themselves enable us to differentiate safely between what is due to innate capacity and what is the result of environmental influences, training and education."

Despite scientific racism being largely dismissed by the scientific community after World War II, some researchers have continued to propose theories of racial superiority in the past few decades. These authors themselves, while seeing their work as scientific, may dispute the term racism and may prefer terms such as "race realism" or "racialism". In 2018, British science journalist and author Angela Saini expressed strong concern about the return of these ideas into the mainstream. Saini followed up on this idea with her 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science.

One such post-World War II scientific racism researcher is Arthur Jensen. His most prominent work is The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability in which he supports the theory that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites. Jensen argues for differentiation in education based on race, stating that educators must "take full account of all the facts of [students'] nature." Responses to Jensen criticized his lack of emphasis on environmental factors. Psychologist Sandra Scarr describes Jensen's work as "conjur[ing] up images of blacks doomed to failure by their own inadequacies".

J. Philippe Rushton, president of the Pioneer Fund (Race, Evolution, and Behavior) and a defender of Jensen's The g Factor, also has multiple publications perpetuating scientific racism. Rushton argues "race differences in brain size likely underlie their multifarious life history outcomes." Rushton's theories are defended by other scientific racists such as Glayde Whitney. Whitney published works suggesting higher crime rates among people of African descent can be partially attributed to genetics. Whitney draws this conclusion from data showing higher crime rates among people of African descent across different regions. Other researchers point out that proponents of a genetic crime-race link are ignoring confounding social and economic variables, drawing conclusions from correlations.

Christopher Brand was a proponent of Arthur Jensen's work on racial intelligence differences. Brand's The g Factor: General Intelligence and Its Implications claims black people are intellectually inferior to whites. He argues the best way to combat IQ disparities is to encourage low-IQ women to reproduce with high-IQ men. He faced intense public backlash, with his work being described as a promotion of eugenics. Brand's book was withdrawn by the publisher and he was dismissed from his position at the University of Edinburgh.

Psychologist Richard Lynn has published multiple papers and a book supporting theories of scientific racism. In IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn claims that national GDP is determined largely by national average IQ. He draws this conclusion from the correlation between average IQ and GDP and argues low intelligence in African nations is the cause of their low levels of growth. Lynn's theory has been criticized for attributing causal relationship between correlated statistics. Lynn supports scientific racism more directly in his 2002 paper "Skin Color and Intelligence in African Americans", where he proposes "the level of intelligence in African Americans is significantly determined by the proportion of Caucasian genes." As with IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn's methodology is flawed, and he purports a causal relationship from what is simply correlation.

Other prominent modern proponents of scientific racism include Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein (The Bell Curve); and Nicholas Wade (A Troublesome Inheritance). Wade's book faced strong backlash from the scientific community, with 142 geneticists and biologists signing a letter describing Wade's work as "misappropriation of research from our field to support arguments about differences among human societies."

On June 17, 2020, Elsevier announced it was retracting an article that J. Philippe Rushton and Donald Templer had published in 2012 in the Elsevier journal Personality and Individual Differences. The article falsely claimed that there was scientific evidence that skin color was related to aggression and sexuality in humans.

Clarence Gravlee writes that disparities in the incidence of such medical conditions as diabetes, stroke, cancer, and low birth weight should be viewed with a societal lens. He argues that social inequalities, not genetic differences between races, are the reason for these differences. He writes that genetic differences between different population groups are based on climate and geography, not race, and he calls for replacing incorrect biological explanations of racial disparities with an analysis of the social conditions that lead to disparate medical outcomes. In his book Is Science Racist, Jonathan Marks similarly asserts that races exist, however, they lack a natural categorization in the realm of biology. Cultural rules such as the " one-drop rule" must be devised to establish categories of race, even if they go against the natural patterns within our species. According to Marks' writing, racist ideas propagated by scientists are what make science racist.

In her book Medical Apartheid Harriet Washington describes the abuse of Black people in medical research and experimentation. Black people were tricked into participating in medical experiments through the use of unclear language on consent forms and a failure to list the risks and side effects of the treatment. Washington mentions that, because Black people were denied adequate health care, they were often desperate for medical help, and medical experimenters were able to exploit that need. Washington also emphasizes that when treatments were perfected and refined as a result of those experiments, Black people almost never benefited from the treatments.

References

1. ^ Norton, Heather L.; Quillen, Ellen E.; Bigham, Abigail W.; Pearson, Laurel N.; Dunsworth, Holly (July 9, 2019). "Human races are not like dog breeds: refuting a racist analogy". Evolution: Education and Outreach. 12 (1): 17. doi:10.1186/s12052-019-0109-y. ISSN 1936-6434. S2CID 255479613.

2. ^ Kenyon-Flatt, Britanny (March 19, 2021). "How Scientific Taxonomy Constructed the Myth of Race". Sapiens.

3. "Ostensibly scientific": cf. Theodore M. Porter, Dorothy Ross (eds.) 2003. The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 7, The Modern Social Sciences Cambridge University Press, p. 293 "Race has long played a powerful popular role in explaining social and cultural traits, often in ostensibly scientific terms"; Adam Kuper, Jessica Kuper (eds.), ^ The Social Science Encyclopedia (1996), "Racism", p. 716: "This [sc. scientific] racism entailed the use of 'scientific techniques', to sanction the belief in European and American racial Superiority"; Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Questions to Sociobiology (1998), "Race, theories of", p. 18: "Its exponents [sc. of scientific racism] tended to equate race with species and claimed that it constituted a scientific explanation of human history"; Terry Jay Ellingson, The myth of the noble savage (2001), 147ff. "In scientific racism, the racism was never very scientific; nor, it could at least be argued, was whatever met the qualifications of actual science ever very racist" (p. 151); Paul A. Erickson, Liam D. Murphy, A History of Anthropological Theory (2008), p. 152: "Scientific racism: Improper or incorrect science that actively or passively supports racism".

4. Gould 1981, pp. 28-29. "Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within."

5. Kurtz, Paul (September 2004). "Can the Sciences Help Us to Make Wise Ethical Judgments?". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on November 23, 2007. There have been abundant illustrations of pseudoscientific theories-monocausal theories of human behavior that were hailed as "scientific"-that have been applied with disastrous results. Examples: ... Many racists today point to IQ to justify a menial role for blacks in society and their opposition to affirmative action.

6. Templeton, A. (2016). EVOLUTION AND NOTIONS OF HUMAN RACE. In Losos J. & Lenski R. (Eds.), ^ How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society (pp. 346-361). Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26. That this view reflects the consensus among American anthropologists is stated in: Wagner, Jennifer K.; Yu, Joon-Ho; Ifekwunigwe, Jayne O.; Harrell, Tanya M.; Bamshad, Michael J.; Royal, Charmaine D. (February 2017). "Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 162 (2): 318-327. doi:10.1002/ajpa.23120. PMC . PMID 27874171. See also: American Association of Physical Anthropologists (March 27, 2019). "AAPA Statement on Race and Racism". American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

7. Cf. Patricia Hill Collins, ^ Black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed., 2000), Glossary, p. 300: "Scientific racism was designed to prove the inferiority of people of color"; Simon During, Cultural studies: a critical introduction (2005), p. 163: "It [sc. scientific racism] became such a powerful idea because ... it helped legitimate the domination of the globe by whites"; David Brown and Clive Webb, Race in the American South: From Slavery to Civil Rights (2007), p. 75: "...the idea of a hierarchy of races was driven by an influential, secular, scientific discourse in the second half of the eighteenth century and was rapidly disseminated during the nineteenth century".

8. ^ Diana Smay, George Armelagos (2000). "Galileo wept: A critical assessment of the use of race in forensic anthropolopy" (PDF). Transforming Anthropology. 9 (2): 22-24. doi:10.1525/tran.2000.9.2.19. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 18, 2018.

9. ^ Rotimi, Charles N. (2004). "Are medical and nonmedical uses of large-scale genomic markers conflating genetics and 'race'?". Nature Genetics. 36 (11 Suppl): 43-47. doi:10.1038/ng1439. PMID 15508002. Two facts are relevant: (i) as a result of different evolutionary forces, including natural selection, there are geographical patterns of genetic variations that correspond, for the most part, to continental origin; and (ii) observed patterns of geographical differences in genetic information do not correspond to our notion of social identities, including 'race' and 'ethnicity

10. Jen E. Boyle (2010), "Anamorphosis in Early Modern Literature: Mediation and Affect", Ashgate, p. 74

11. ^ Palmeri, Frank (2006). Humans And Other Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Culture: Representation, Hybridity, Ethics. pp. 49-67.

12. ^ Staffan Müller-Wille (2014). "Linnaeus and the Four Corners of the World". The Cultural Politics of Blood, 1500-1900. pp. 191-209. doi:10.1057/9781137338211_10. hdl:10871/16833. ISBN 978-1-349-46395-4.

13. Linnaeus used the Latin term: ^ diurnus, varians cultura, loco: Systema Naturae, 13th edition, p. 29

14. Mary J. Morris & Leonie Berwick (2008), ^ The Linnaean Legacy: Three Centuries after his birth Archived 2013-05-13 at the Wayback Machine, A forum for natural history. The Linnean Special Issue No. 8. Linnean Society of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. Was Linnaeus a racist?, p. 25

15. Montagu, A. (2001 edition) Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 69.

16. ^ Harris, Marvin (2001) [1968]. The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture (Updated ed.). Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press. pp. 84-87, 110-111. ISBN 978-0-7591-1699-3.

17. Paul Finkelman (November 12, 2012). ^ "The Monster of Monticello". The New York Times.

18. ^ Tiedemann, Friedrich (1836). "On the Brain of the Negro, Compared with that of the European and the Orang-outang" (PDF). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 126: 497-527. Bibcode:1836RSPT..126..497T. doi:10.1098/rstl.1836.0025. S2CID 115347088.

19. ^ Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Volume II, Section 92

20. ^ Gustav Jahoda, Images of Savages: Ancients [sic] Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture, 1999, p. 82

21. Price, R.G. (June 24, 2006). "The Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist". rationalrevolution.net.

22. A. J. Woodman, 2009, ^ The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, p. 294. (The Germanic race was also regarded by Gobineau as beautiful, honourable and destined to rule: 'cette illustre famille humaine, la plus noble'. While was originally an endonym used only by Indo-Iranians, "Aryan" became, partly because of the Essai a racial designation of a race, which Gobineau specified as 'la race germanique'.

23. Gustav Jahoda, Images of Savages: Ancients [sic] Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture, 1999, p. 83

24. "It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant... they graduate into each other, and.. it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them... As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who had these same characters.", ^ Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man p. 225 onwards.

25. David Hurst Thomas, Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, And The Battle For Native American Identity, 2001, pp. 38-41

26. ^ Lewis, Jason E.; Degusta, David; Meyer, Marc R.; Monge, Janet M.; Mann, Alan E.; Holloway, Ralph L. (2011). "The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias". PLOS Biology. 9 (6): e1001071+. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001071. PMC . PMID 21666803.

27. See ^ Pierre-André Taguieff, La couleur et le sang - Doctrines racistes à la française ("Colour and Blood - Racist doctrines à la française"), Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2002, 203 pages, and La Force du préjugé - Essai sur le racisme et ses doubles, Tel Gallimard, La Découverte, 1987, 644 pages

28. Richard Bodek. "Review of John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors & Race Science in Fin-de-Siècle Europe", H-SAE, H-Net Reviews, May 1996 (in English)

29. Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen (1972). ^ Racism and Psychiatry. New York: Carol Publishing Group.

30. ^ Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 42. ISBN 978-0767929394.

31. ^ Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate (1905). Man and the Earth. New York: Duffield & Company.

32. Slater, David; Taylor, Peter J. (1999). The American Century: Consensus and Coercion in the Projection of American Power. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 290. ISBN 978-0631212225.

33. ^ Snyderman, M.; Herrnstein, R.J. (1983). "Intelligence Tests and the Immigration Act of 1924". American Psychologist. 38 (9): 986-95. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.38.9.986.

34. ^ Franco, J.N. (1985). "Intelligence tests and social policy". Journal of Counseling and Development. 64 (4): 278-9. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.1985.tb01101.x.

35. ^ Björkman, Maria; Widmalm, Sven (December 20, 2010). "Selling eugenics: the case of Sweden". Notes and Records of the Royal Society. 64 (4): 379-400. doi:10.1098/rsnr.2010.0009. ISSN 0035-9149. PMID 21553636. S2CID 16786101.

36. ^ Ambrosiani, Aron (2009). Rektor Lennmalms förslag - Om 1918-1921 års diskussioner kring ett Nobelinstitut i rasbiologi vid Karolinska institutet (PDF). Nobel Museum Occasional Papers. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 16, 2017.

37. ^ Ericsson, Martin (June 30, 2020). "What happened to 'race' in race biology? The Swedish State Institute for Race Biology, 1936-1960". Scandinavian Journal of History: 1-24. doi:10.1080/03468755.2020.1778520. ISSN 0346-8755.

38. ^ Clauß, Ludwig Ferdinand (1926). Rasse und Seele: Eine Einführung in die Gegenwart [Race and Soul: An Introduction to the Contemporary World]. München: J. F. Lehmann.

39. ^ Gray, Richard T. (2004). "Learning to See (Race): Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss's Racial Psychology as Applied Phenomenology". About Face: German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz. Wayne State University Press. pp. 273-332, 393-396. ISBN 9780814331798. Rasse und Seele has a curious publication history. The first edition appeared under this title in 1926 with the subtitle "Eine Einführung in die Gegenwart" (An Introduction to the contemporary world). A second, heavily revised edition appeared in 1929 under an entirely different title, Von Seele und Antlitz der Rassen und Völker (On the soul and face of races and nations). A third revised edition, which returned to the original title Rasse und Seele, was published in 1934, this time with the subtitle of "Eine Einführung in den Sinn der leiblichen Gestalt" (An introduction to the meaning of somatic form), and this latter edition remained the basis for all subsequent printings ... [t]he content of the three books is similar, though the various editions tend to organize this material in very different ways.

40. ^ Smith, Justin E. H. (2015). "The Nature of Science and the Nature of Philosophy". Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference. Princeton University Press. pp. 10-15. ISBN 978-1400866311.

41. ^ Rodenfels, H. (2007) [Published in German in May 1939]. "Frauen, die nicht Mutter werden dürfen" [Women Who May Not Be Allowed to become Mothers]. . Vol. 7. Translated by Bytwerk, Randall. pp. 16-21 - via German Propaganda Archive.

42. ^ Mineau, André (2004). "Conclusion: Anthropology and the Peculiarities of the East". Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics against Human Dignity. Rodopi. pp. 180-182. ISBN 9789042016330.

43. Christa Wirth, ^ Memories of Belonging: Descendants of Italian Migrants to the United States, 1884-Present (Brill Publishers, 2015), pp. 190, 198.

44. ^ Winston, Andrew S. (May 29, 2020). "Scientific Racism and North American Psychology". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.516. ISBN 978-0-19-023655-7.

45. ^ Gresson, Aaron; Kincheloe, Joe L.; Steinberg, Shirley R., eds. (March 14, 1997). Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined (1st St. Martin's Griffin ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-312-17228-2.

46. ^ "9. Challenges to the Race Concept", Race Unmasked, Columbia University Press, January 31, 2014, doi:10.7312/yude16874-011, ISBN 978-0-231-53799-5

47. ^ Sussman, Robert Wald (January 31, 2014). The Myth of Race. Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674736160. ISBN 978-0-674-73616-0.

48. ^ Rushton, J. Philippe; Jensen, Arthur R. (2005). "Wanted: More race realism, less moralistic fallacy". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 11 (2): 328-36. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.521.5570. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.328.

49. ^ Angela Saini (January 22, 2018). "Racism is creeping back into mainstream science - we have to stop it". Guardian.

50. ^ Sanday, Peggy R. (1972). "An Alternative Interpretation of the Relationship between Heredity, Race, Environment, and IQ". The Phi Delta Kappan. 54: 250-254 - via JSTOR.

51. ^ Rushston, J Philippe (2001). "Genes, Brains, and Culture: Returning to a Darwinian Evolutionary Psychology". Behavior and Philosophy. 29: 95-99.

52. ^ Brand, Chris (2003). "IQ guru talks to Skeptic magazine? Given the chance to explain how he chose to endure denunciation for 'fascism', psychologist Arthur Jensen holds his peace". Heredity. 90 (5): 346-347. doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800226. ISSN 1365-2540.

53. Brand, Christopher (1996). "3". The g Factor: General Intelligence and Its Implications.

54. ^ Kerr, Anne; Cunningham-Burley, Sarah; Amos, Amanda (1998). "Eugenics and the New Genetics in Britain: Examining Contemporary Professionals' Accounts". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 23 (2): 175-198. doi:10.1177/016224399802300202. ISSN 0162-2439. PMID 11656684. S2CID 20393035.

55. ^ MORSE, STEPHEN (2008). "The geography of tyranny and despair: development indicators and the hypothesis of genetic inevitability of national inequality" (PDF). Geographical Journal. 174 (3): 195-206. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008.00296.x. ISSN 0016-7398.

56. ^ "Personality and Individual Differences Retracts Rushton and Templer Article".

57. ^ "Elsevier journal to retract 2012 paper widely derided as racist". June 17, 2020.

58. Gravlee CC. How race becomes biology: embodiment of social inequality. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2009 May;139(1):47-57. ^ doi:10.1002/ajpa.20983. PMID 19226645.

59. Mills, Malcolm. ^ The Journal of African American History, vol. 94, no. 1, [The University of Chicago Press, Association for the Study of African American Life and History], 2009, pp. 101-03, JSTOR 25610054.

Bibliography

Asséo, Henriette; Fings, Karola; Sparing, Frank; Kenrick, Donald; Heuss, Herbert (1997). From "race science" to the camps. The Gypsies During the Second World War. Vol. 1. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN 978-0900458781.

Biddiss, Michael D. (1970). Father of Racist Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau. New York: Weybright and Talley.

Dennis, Rutledge M. (1995). "Social Darwinism, scientific racism, and the metaphysics of race". Journal of Negro Education. 64 (3): 243-52. doi:10.2307/2967206. JSTOR 2967206.

Detterman, Douglas K. 2006. "Intelligence." Microsoft Student 2007 DVD. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation.

Efron, John M. (1994). Defenders of the race: Jewish doctors and race science in fin-de-siècle Europe. New Haven CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300054408.

Ehrenreich, Eric (2007). The Nazi ancestral proof: genealogy, racial science, and the final solution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253349453.

Ewen, Stuart; Ewen, Elizabeth (2007). Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-58322-776-3.

Gould, Stephen Jay (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W W Norton and Co. ISBN 978-0-393-01489-1.

Gross, Paul R.; Levitt, Norman Jay (1994). Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-4766-0.

Hecht, Jennifer Michael (2003). The end of the soul: scientific modernity, atheism, and anthropology in France. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0231128469. OCLC 53118940.

Higgins, A.C. n.d. "Scientific Racism: A Review of The Science and Politics of Racial Research by William H. Tucker". Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Accessed October 21, 2007.

Lombardo, Paul A. (2002). "'The American Breed': Nazi Eugenics and the Origins of the Pioneer Fund". Albany Law Review. 65 (3): 743-830. PMID 11998853.

Murray, Charles (September 2005). "The Inequality Taboo". Commentary Magazine. Archived from the original on September 24, 2005.

Poliakov, Leon (1974). Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe. New York: Basic Books.

Proctor, Robert N. (1988). Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Sapp, Jan (1987). Beyond the gene: cytoplasmic inheritance and the struggle for authority in genetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195042061.

Schaffer, Gavin (2007). ""'Scientific' Racism Again?": Reginald Gates, the Mankind Quarterly and the Question of "Race" in Science after the Second World War". Journal of American Studies. 41 (2): 253-78. doi:10.1017/S0021875807003477. S2CID 145322934.

Taguieff, Pierre-André (1987). La Force du préjugé. Essai sur le racisme et ses doubles (in French). Paris: Gallimard, La Découverte. ISBN 978-2070719778.

Tucker, William H. (2007). The funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252074639.

Jackson, J. (2004). "Racially stuffed shirts and other enemies of mankind: Horace Mann Bond's parody of segregationist psychology in the 1950s". In Winston, A. (ed.). Defining difference: Race and Racism in the History of Psychology. Washington DC: American Psychological Association. pp. 261-283.

Neisser, U.; Boodoo, G.; Bouchard, T.J. Jr.; Boykin, A.W.; Brody, N.; Ceci, S.J.; et al. (1996). "Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns" (PDF). American Psychologist. 51 (2): 77-101. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.51.2.77. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 16, 2010.

Further reading

Alexander, Nathan G. (2019). Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850-1914. New York/Manchester: New York University Press/Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1526142375.

Condit, Celeste M. (2010). Rhetorical Engagements in the Scientist's Process of Remaking Race as Genetic. The University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1299241091.

Fredrickson, George M. (2002). Racism: A Short History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00899-8.

Redman, Samuel J. (2016). Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674660410.

Saini, Angela (2019). Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0008341008.

Spiro, Jonathan P. (2009). Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant. University of Vermont Press. ISBN 978-1584657156.

External links

"Race, Evolution and the Science of Human Origins" by Allison Hopper, Scientific American (July 5, 2021).

Fact Sheet on Eugenics and Scientific Racism from the National Human Genome Research Institute

Scientific racism, history of at Encyclopedia.com (Cengage)

The Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist - Refutes claims that Darwin was a racist or that his views inspired the Nazis

Purves D; Augustine GJ; Fitzpatrick D; et al., eds. (2001). "Box D. Brain Size and Intelligence". Neuroscience (2nd ed.). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.

Reviews of Race: The Reality of Human Differences

RaceSci: History of Race in Science Archived February 11, 2021, at the Wayback Machine

Gardner, Dan. Race Science: When Racial Categories Make No Sense. The Globe and Mail, October 27, 1995.

Institute for the study of academic racism (ISAR)

Race, Science, and Social Policy. From Race: The Power of an Illusion. PBS.

"How Can We Curb the Spread of Scientific Racism?" a review of Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

Ball, Philip (June 9, 2021). "The unwelcome revival of 'race science': 20 years after the human genome was first sequenced, dangerous gene myths abound". The Guardian.

The Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University's Timeline of Scientific Racism, [1]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that the human species can be subdivided into biologically distinct taxa called "races," and that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism ( racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1932, the USPHS, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis. It was originally called the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" (now referred to as the "USPHS Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee"). The study initially involved 600 Black men - 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease. Participants' informed consent was not collected. Researchers told the men they were being treated for "bad blood," a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. In exchange for taking part in the study, the men received free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance.

By 1943, penicillin was the treatment of choice for syphilis and becoming widely available, but the participants in the study were not offered treatment.

In 1972, an Associated Press story about the study was published. As a result, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs appointed an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to review the study. The advisory panel concluded that the study was "ethically unjustified"; that is, the "results [were] disproportionately meager compared with known risks to human subjects involved." In October 1972, the panel advised stopping the study. A month later, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs announced the end of the study. In March 1973, the panel also advised the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) (now known as the Department of Health and Human Services) to instruct the USPHS to provide all necessary medical care for the survivors of the study. ¹ The Tuskegee Health Benefit Program (THBP) was established to provide these services. In 1975, participants' wives, widows and children were added to the program. In 1995, the program was expanded to include health, as well as medical, benefits. The last study participant died in January 2004. The last widow receiving THBP benefits died in January 2009. Participants' children (10 at present) continue to receive medical and health benefits.

Later in 1973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the study participants and their families, resulting in a $10 million, out-of-court settlement in 1974.

On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton issued a formal Presidential Apology for the study.

References

1 "HEW News" Office of the Secretary, March 5, 1973; Memorandum "USPHS Study of Untreated Syphilis (the Tuskegee Study; Authority to Treat Participants Upon Termination of the Study," from Wilmot R Hastings to the secretary, March 5, 1973.

2 Vonderlehr, R.A., Clark, T., Wenger, O.C., Heller, J.R., Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro, Journal of Venereal Disease Information. 17:260-265, (1936).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Ideographic vs' Nomothetic Approaches to Psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
to achieve a unique understanding of them. This approach emphasises the ... tend to be more unreliable and unscientific because they tend to be subjective, ... - A free PowerPoint PPT presentation (displayed as a Flash slide show) on PowerShow.com - id: 161ee7-ZDc1Z

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Personality

Sunny is just like her name: she's happy, upbeat, and laid-back. She's shy and doesn't like to be in a crowd, but for the people who are close to her, she's a ray of sunshine.

Her friend Diana is different, though. Diana is outgoing and loves a party, but she's also a very intense person who experiences big emotions and worries about the future. She and Sunny are opposites!

What makes individuals unique? How can someone like Diana be so different from Sunny? In psychology, the study of what makes people unique is called personality. Everyone's personality is different, and it's what really makes them who they are. Let's examine two different approaches to studying personality: the nomothetic approach and the idiographic approach.

Nomothetic Approach

Sunny and Diana are very different from each other. Sunny is happy-go-lucky but introverted, whereas Diana is extroverted but more of a worrywart than Sunny. But they still have a few things in common, including the fact that they are both highly organized people who like travel and experiencing new things.

The nomothetic approach to personality looks at what people have in common with each other. It comes from the Greek word nomos, which means 'law,' and the nomothetic approach is interested in finding patterns or laws of human personality.

Take Sunny and Diana: they are different from each other when it comes to being outgoing or not: while Diana is extroverted, Sunny is more shy. But both of their personalities can be described based on the personality trait of extroversion or introversion.

Extroversion is one of several traits identified by nomothetic psychologists when trying to figure out general patterns in personality. Essentially, these psychologists look at traits like extroversion or conscientiousness and say, 'This person is extroverted and organized,' or 'That person is introverted and disorganized.'

In the nomothetic approach, then, a person's unique personality is a result of the combination of general traits that they display. Sunny being introverted is not unusual; she has that in common with much of the population. But it is the combination of introversion, optimism, organization, and openness to new experiences that makes Sunny unique.

Nomothetic psychologists measure personality via psychometrics, or measuring traits using tests or experiments. To them, a person can take a personality test and their score on different traits will give an outline of who they are. For example, Sunny might score pretty low as far as being high-strung is concerned, whereas Diana might score pretty high. Either way, they are getting a score for that and other traits, and it is their composite that will tell them who they are.

Idiographic Approach

But can personality really be defined by a score on a test? And can the complexity of humanity be narrowed down to just a few traits? Some psychologists don't believe so. They prefer to look at what is unique in each individual, in a method known as the idiographic approach to psychology.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
researching personality traits: nomothetic and idiographic analysis - video & lesson transcript | study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Researching Personality Traits: Nomothetic and Idiographic Analysis - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sunny is just like her name: she's happy, upbeat, and laid-back. She's shy and doesn't like to be in a crowd, but for the people who are close to her, she's a ray of sunshine. Her friend Diana is different, though.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AS Psychology - Student presentation on Holism and Reductionism Debate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
AQA AS Psychology Homework set for one of the main debates Year 12

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reductionism and Holism in Psychology | Simply Psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This view clearly has implications for treatment. Gender can also be reduced to biological factors (e.g. hormones). Also, language can be reduced to structures in the brain, e.g. Broca's area, Wernicke's area (but holism could state: influence of family, education, social class on language). Another example of biological reductionism is aggression - e.g.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Do men and women REALLY have different brains?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Debate is the subject of BBC 2's Horizon, which airs tonight at 9pm Programme will look at whether hormones in the womb make people's brains more 'masculine,' as well as men and women's tolerance to pain Research from Cambridge University suggests higher levels of testosterone in the womb leads to

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abnormalities in the brain may make some people more likely to become drug addicts, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge.

They found the same differences in the brains of addicts and their non-addicted brothers and sisters.

The study, published in the journal Science, suggested addiction is in part a "disorder of the brain".

Other experts said the non-addicted siblings offered hope of new ways of teaching addicts "self-control".

It has long been established that the brains of drug addicts have some differences to other people, but explaining that finding has been more difficult.

Experts were unsure whether drugs changed the wiring of the brain or if drug addicts' brains were wired differently in the first place.

This study, funded by the Medical Research Council, attempted to answer that by comparing the brains of 50 cocaine or crack addicts with the brain of their brother or sister, who had always been clean.

Both the addicts and the non-addict siblings had the same abnormalities in the region of the brain which controls behaviour, the fronto-striatal systems.

The suggestion is that these brains may be "hard-wired" for addiction in the first place.

Lead researcher Dr Karen Ersche said: "It has long been known that not everyone who takes drugs becomes addicted."

Case Study
By David Shukman Science Editor, BBC News
I met two of the participants in the study in Cambridge yesterday.

Sophia has the pallor and nervousness of a long-term user of cocaine and crack. Her elder sister Teresa is smartly-dressed and describes herself as a control freak.

They went through the tests and the scans and were surprised to find that they share the same abnormalities of the brain. It's a discovery that makes their contrasting lives all the more remarkable.

Sophia is receiving treatment but admits she has trouble with self-control. Theresa, with a similar biological predisposition to addiction, has found the strength of character to stay clean.

Poles apart, they are nevertheless devoted to each other and these findings bring them closer. A unique project has an unexpectedly moving outcome.

She told the BBC: "It shows that drug addiction is not a choice of lifestyle, it is a disorder of the brain and we need to recognise this."

However, the non-addicted siblings had a very different life despite sharing the same susceptibility.

"These brothers and sisters who don't have addiction problems, what they can tell us is how they overcome these problems, how they manage self-control in their daily life," Dr Karen Ersche said.

Dr Paul Keedwell, a consultant psychiatrist at Cardiff University, said: "Addiction, like most psychiatric disorders, is the product of nature and nurture.

"We need to follow up people over time to quantify the relative risk of nature versus nurture."

It is possible that the similarities in the sibling's brains may not be down to genetics, but rather growing up in the same household. Research on the relationship between addiction and the structure of the brain is far from over.

However, many specialists believe these findings open up new avenues for treatment.

"If we could get a handle on what makes unaffected relatives of addicts so resilient we might be able to prevent a lot of addiction from taking hold," said Dr Keedwell.

The chief pharmacist for Derbyshire Mental Health Trust, David Branford, said the study, "implies that addiction does not produce noticeable changes to brain structure and function which means that there may be provision for looking at new treatment techniques for addiction".

Prof Les Iversen, from the department of pharmacology at the University of Oxford, said: "These new findings reinforce the view that the propensity to addiction is dependent on inherited differences in brain circuitry, and offer the possibility of new ways of treating high-risk individuals to develop better 'self control'."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abnormalities in the brain may make some people more likely to become drug addicts, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge. They found the same differences in the brains of addicts and their non-addicted brothers and sisters. The study, published in the journal Science, suggested addiction is in part a "disorder of the brain".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Both nature (meaning our genes) and nurture (the environment we grow up in) are known to significantly affect traits like our height and weight, our IQ, and our chance of developing behavioural problems or autism.

But how strong environmental factors are in determining each characteristic, compared with the influence of DNA, differs significantly across the country, scientists have found.

Researchers from King's College London studied 45 childhood characteristics in 6,759 pairs of identical and non-identical twins across the UK, to determine whether their genes or their environment was more important.

A new series of "nature-nurture" maps produced by the team revealed that some areas are "environmental hotspots" for particular traits, but in other places the same attribute is mainly governed by genetics.

For example, across most of the country 60 per cent of the variation in children's behaviour at school - whether they were unruly or not - was down to their genes.

But in London environment played a greater role - possibly because wealth varies so dramatically within communities, meaning twins growing up on the same street are more likely to fall in with different groups of friends who could influence their behaviour.

Dr Oliver Davis, who led the Wellcome Trust-funded study, published in the Molecular Psychiatry journal, said: "There are any number of environments that vary geographically in the UK, from social environments like health care or education provision to physical environments like altitude, the weather or pollution.

"The message that these maps really drive home is that your genes aren't your destiny. There are plenty of things that can affect how your particular human genome expresses itself, and one of those things is where you grow up."

The video above demonstrates the spACE visualisation program that was developed to explore the variation in genetic and environmental influences across the UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nature vs nurture: outcome depends on where you live

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Both nature (meaning our genes) and nurture (the environment we grow up in) are known to significantly affect traits like our height and weight, our IQ, and our chance of developing behavioural problems or autism. But how strong environmental factors are in determining each characteristic, compared with the influence of DNA, differs significantly across the country, scientists have found.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Genetic influence explains almost 60% of the variation in GCSE exam results, twin studies suggest.

Scientists studied academic performance in more than 11,000 identical and non-identical 16-year-old twins in the UK.

The team from King's College London found that on average, genes explained 58% of differences between GCSE scores in core subjects such as maths.

Differences in grades due to environment, such as schools and families, accounted for about 36%.

The remaining differences in GCSE scores in maths, English and science are explained by environmental factors unique to each person, say the researchers.

Environment 'still influential'

Study leader Nicholas Shakeshaft, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's, said: "Our research shows that differences in students' educational achievement owe more to nature than nurture.

While the genetic influence is slightly more than 50% that still leaves a massive role for environmental factors
Dr Simon Underdown, Oxford Brookes University,

"Since we are studying whole populations, this does not mean that genetics explains 60% of an individual's performance, but rather that genetics explains 60% of the differences between individuals, in the population as it exists at the moment.

"This means that heritability is not fixed - if environmental influences change, then the influence of genetics on educational achievement may change too."

The researchers studied two sets of twins - identical and non-identical - to help distinguish between the effects of nature and nurture at the age of 16.

If identical twins' scores at GCSE are more alike than those of non-identical twins, it can be assumed that genetics plays a bigger role than the shared environment - attending the same school and family influences.

Professor Robert Plomin, director of the Twin Early Development Study, also from the Institute of Psychiatry, said it was important to recognise the major role that genetics plays in children's educational achievement.

"It means that educational systems which are sensitive to children's individual abilities and needs, which are derived in part from their genetic predispositions, might improve educational achievement," he said.

Nature-nurture debate

Previous research has shown large numbers of genes may be involved in academic ability, many of which have not been identified.

Prof Michael O'Donovan, from the Medical Research Council, which funded the research, said: "Further research is needed to assess the implications of the findings for educational strategies."

Dr Simon Underdown, principal lecturer in biological anthropology at Oxford Brookes University, said the results must be treated with caution.

"While the genetic influence is slightly more than 50%, that still leaves a massive role for environmental factors.

"What this research does is show that complex traits like intelligence are not the product of one or two simple genes. Rather it is managed by an intricate process that relies on genetic factors and environmental influences. The nature-nurture debate is not over yet."

The findings are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Genetic influence explains almost 60% of the variation in GCSE exam results, twin studies suggest. Scientists studied academic performance in more than 11,000 identical and non-identical 16-year-old twins in the UK. The team from King's College London found that on average, genes explained 58% of differences between GCSE scores in core subjects such as maths.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the beginning The Die created the heaven and the earth. And The Die said, Let there be chance, and there was chance.
~ The First Book of The Die

To many people in our society, the idea that the will is not free is loathsome. We feel that we are in charge of many of our actions, and we want it to be so. Likewise, we enjoy holding others responsible for their actions, particularly when they annoy us. The specter of determinism threatens all this. If we live in a universe where everything happens for a reason (or more appropriately, for a cause), how could our behaviors -- and the intentions that precede them -- be exempt? At least implicitly, psychological science rests on the assumption that human behavior and experience can be studied because they arise in a deterministic world, just like everything else. Skinner's Beyond freedom and dignity is still valid (as is Nietzsche's Beyond good and evil).

The idea of free will means that we are free to make up our mind and that the resulting choices do not depend on causes preceding our decision-making. In other words, our decision-making is cut off from the causal flow of events. It arises from nothing. At the same time, our choices are not supposed to be random. Suppose I have a choice between renting an Italian and a French movie. My choice is free in the sense that there are no external constraints. Both types of movie are available, they cost the same, and no one is holding a gun to my head to go French. So when I choose the Italian movie, my choice is free in the everyday sense of the word. But my will isn't. I have a preference for Italian movies, and that's good. I know what I want. My will is unfree because I cannot choose what I want, as Schopenhauer pointed out 150 years ago in his award-winning essay.

For the sake of argument, suppose this 'I' of mine were to make a truly free choice between Italian and French. If I have a freely willed preference, who is this I inside of me that makes it so? How did this I decide for me to have this preference? You see, here we go again with the dreaded homunculus and the paradox of infinite regress (there's a homunculus inside the homunculus and so on ad infinitum et ad nauseam). The problem of free will cannot be solved thus; it can only be pushed back, and then be pushed back some more, until we get tired.

Arguments likes this have been made many times, but they don't seem to have much effect on everyday imagination. Determinism just feels horrible. Who wants to be an automaton? So let's take a different tack. Instead of pitting determinism against free will, let's see how it compares with randomness.

This is where the Dice Man comes in. The whole instinct of human behavior is to find environments congenial to the relaxation of consciousness. By creating problems for myself, I created thought.
~ The Dice Man

In his 1971 novel, The Dice Man, Luke Rhinehart proposes a daring thought experiment. What if we let our actions be chosen randomly? This is what his hero, who is also called Luke, starts doing out of boredom. The rules of his game are simple. He develops of set of options (e.g., watch a movie or spend time with sexy Arlene) and a set of probabilities. Then he rolls the dice and does whatever they tell him. The odds he gives himself against 'seducing' Arlene are long, but when the dice speak he listens. Soon he is hooked. With time, what he has regarded as his personality is eroded away. His conventional self still controls the available behavior alternatives and their associated probabilities, but the choice of behavior at the end of the process is no longer his. At this final and crucial stage, both conscious will and other deterministic properties of his mind are overcome.

What a way to live! Luke learns to explore and experiment, discovering ever more behaviors and experiences that he would have never known had he remained in the traditional frame of will and determinism. The novel has many twists and turns that I'd rather not reveal here and spoil the fun. What I'm describing is only Rhinehart's opening salvo. What I take him to claim is this: We experiment far too little. Our behaviors and experience are constrained, limited, and stunted in myriad ways, hence giving us the illusion that we 'are' a certain way. Among the best passages in the book are those that mock group therapy as Rhinehart experienced it in his day, where people agonize over their true selves. To Rhinehart, there are none.

The Dice Man is such a bold thought experiment because chances are [ ☺ ] that few, if any, will ever try for real what Rhinehart does in fiction, which raises the question of 'Why not?' It seems to me that the book holds a message for the free will versus determinism debate. If we had free will, it should not be so scary to let chance rule once in a while. We can always put a stop to it. If determinism is true, however, our anxiety over chance makes sense. If our character, preferences, and behaviors are determined, it seems that we'd lose something essential if we gave ourselves over to chance. In Freud's terms, it's the ego's fear of its own destruction. A truly free ego would not need to be afraid.

Don't try the dice game at home, but read the book and visit Luke's website.
December 8, 2012
I emailed the Dice Man today and he responded! I don't know what odds he gave that but he shared that he selected 2 to 1 odds for addressing me by my first name. The die selected informality. Luke, whose real name is George, sent me links to a British production of Diceworld. The first one is here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the beginning The Die created the heaven and the earth. And The Die said, Let there be chance, and there was chance. ~ The First Book of The Die To many people in our society, the idea that the will is not free is loathsome.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Determinism is a far-reaching term affecting many areas of concern, that most widely and radically states that all events in the world are the result of some previous event, or events. In this view, all of reality is already in a sense pre-determined or pre-existent and, therefore, nothing new can come into existence. This closed view of the universe and of our world holds all events to be simply the effects of other prior effects. This has radical and far-reaching implications for morality, science, and religion. If general, radical, determinism is correct, then all events in the future are unalterable, as are all events in the past. A major consequence of this is that human freedom is simply an illusion.

2 Genetic Determinism

One area of contemporary discourse in science that relates to the issue of human freedom is the notion of genetic determinism. Here, the concept of determinism is linked directly to the genes in the DNA of a person. Because we already know that aberrations in certain genes can lead to various forms of physical and mental disease in humans, we can say with some certainty that people are physically determined by their genes. But genetic determinists want to extend this further, by claiming that even our behaviour is determined by our genes. In this line of thinking, we are but victims of our genetic makeup, and any effort to change our moral nature or behavioural patterns is useless. This is sometimes termed "puppet determinism," meaning metaphorically that we dance on the strings of our genes.

There are two principle forms of genetic determinism; Genetic Fixity and Innate Capacity. Together they link-up to produce the doctrine of statistical variation. These are discussed below.
a) Genetic Fixity: Sphexishness
The first variety of genetic determinism is the rather unsophisticated doctrine of genetic fixity, which holds that the genes of parents inevitably determine the characteristics of their children. Dan Dennett [1996] encapsulates this simple form of determinism under the label SPHEXISHNESS from the powerful example of the digger wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus:

"When the time comes for egg laying, the wasp Sphex builds a burrow for the purpose and seeks out a cricket which she stings in such a way as to paralyze but not kill it. She drags the cricket into the burrow, lays her eggs alongside, closes the burrow, then flies away, never to return. In due course, the eggs hatch and the wasp grubs feed off the paralyzed cricket, which has not decayed, having been kept in the wasp equivalent of deep freeze. To the human mind, such an elaborately organized and seemingly purposeful routine conveys a convincing flavor of logic and thoughtfulness--until more details are examined. For example, the Wasp's routine is to bring the paralyzed cricket to the burrow, leave it on the threshold, go inside to see that all is well, emerge, and then drag the cricket in. If the cricket is moved a few inches away while the wasp is inside making her preliminary inspection, the wasp, on emerging from the burrow, will bring the cricket back to the threshold, but not ins ide, and will then repeat the preparatory procedure of entering the burrow to see that everything is all right. If again the cricket is removed a few inches while the wasp is inside, once again she will move the cricket up to the threshold and re-enter the burrow for a final check. The wasp never thinks of pulling the cricket straight in. On one occasion this procedure was repeated forty times, always with the same result."

- D. Woodridge, 1963, p. 82.

Dennett (1996), following Hofstadter (1982), calls this kind of very simply determined behaviour 'sphexish', but believes that too much has been made of emblematic stories (or intuition pumps) like the one above, because human behaviour is much more complexly determined.

Genes, of course, do influence human development. The differences between humans and chimps are almost entirely genetic. However, even the completion of the human genome project will not enable scientists to predict how a child will develop. Indeed, even a complete knowledge of a child's genes and developmental environment would not allow the complete specification of the organism: chance also plays a significant role in development. This can be seen, for example, in the number of bristles under a fruit fly's wing: this number varies from the left wing to the right, despite the fact that the fruit fly has the same genes and environment on both sides of its body (Lewontin, 1991). Such differences may not be due to pure chance, however, but rather to non-linear dynamic (chaotic) deterministic processes (Molenaar, Boomsma, & Dolan, 1993). Such processes have been shown possible using computer simulations, but whether they operate in real organisms remains an empirical question.
b) Innate Capacity
The second variety of genetic determinism is the slightly more sophisticated doctrine of innate capacity, according to which people are like buckets waiting to be filled (Lewontin, 1991). In an impoverished environment, all people will end up with similar characteristics (wealth, knowledge, etc.); but in an enriched environment, those who naturally have big buckets will end up with more than those with small buckets could possibly hold. For example, people who are malnourished will show smaller individual differences in height than those who are well nourished.
The Doctrine of Statistical Variation
Genetic fixity and innate capacity lead the genetic determinist to the doctrine of statistical variation. This doctrine states that all individual differences can be parsed into either genetic determinants or environmental determinants in some proportion (Lewontin, 1991). For example, it might be said that 80 percent of the variance in children's performance on I.Q. tests is due to genetic influences, and only 20 percent is due to environment. The practical implication seems to be that even a radical change in environment will have only a modest effect on performance. However, this is not the case, as can be seen from the following examples:

i) An ordinary student in primary school today can add a column of numbers much faster than even the most intelligent ancient Roman mathematician, who had to deal with cumbersome X's, V's, and I's. Further, the same student, using an inexpensive calculator, can multiply two five-digit numbers faster than even the most intelligent mathematician a century ago (Lewontin, 1991).

ii) Heritability does not imply immutability. This can be seen from the example of PKU (phenylketonuria), a form of retardation. PKU can be cured by stopping people from eating phenylalanine. One hundred years ago the proportion of genetic variation in acquiring PKU was 100 percent; now individual differences in acquiring PKU are almost completely non-genetic (Plomin, DeFries, & McClern, 1990).
Further Considerations
Genetic determinism gains additional support and wider influence from the popular notion that, since we can now establish a scientific connection between one's genes and one's actual and/or potential physical traits (hair and eye colour, disease susceptibility, etc), then we should use this knowledge to restructure the genetic make-up of certain individuals. In other words, genetic determinism does not just show us how we are victims of our genes; it also shows us how we can use the knowledge of our genes in order to change them and, therefore, change ourselves. This understanding of GENETICS and human freedom, or unfreedom as it were, illustrates the extent to which genetic determinists place the influence of nature (biology and genetics) over nurture (society and family). The fundamental premises of genetic determinism, therefore, come to be that:

We are victims of our genes and have no ultimate freedom, and

With proper knowledge, we can take charge of our genes so that we are no longer their victim, but rather, are their architect. This premise has been termed "Promethean determinism," meaning that with the proper knowledge we can take charge of our genetic and, therefore, moral/ behavioural makeup.

Though a fascinating and long-debated theory, determinism raises serious difficulties regarding the nature of human knowledge and its bearing on our understanding of morality. For example, if one adheres to the idea of determinism and believes that one's life is simply the mechanical and unchangeable outplay of forces beyond one's control, then how does this affect one's relationship to the world and other people. Further questions arise: Does adherence to determinism not lead one into a sense of meaninglessness and impotence regarding one's fate and actions? Does determinism not also lead one into the belief that whatever one does is morally acceptable, by virtue of the fact that whatever one does is already pre-determined, and therefore, meant to be?

If determinism is in fact true, then our whole conception of morality is a pointless illusion. Since everything in existence is the result of necessary and pre-determined causes, then even something like murder can be considered normal. Here, determinism fails to take into account human freedom and choice. The majority of humans would choose not to be killed, just as most humans would choose not to kill another human. Determinists can claim that our choice to be killed or not to kill is itself already a determined effect, but this is only of theoretical interest since the issue of one's life or death is of extreme existential significance. In other words, in relation to issues of morality, determinism is an interesting theory, but in practice it is quite untenable. In essence, the acceptance of determinism makes one into a mere thing, a mechanical and non-autonomous entity without the power to deliberate or change one's direction in life.
3 Free Will
The alternatives to determinism are non-deteminsm, freedom or free will. Here we shall focus on the notion of free will, the doctrine that we as conscious human beings are free to make genuinely undetermined choices in circumstances where we are genuinely able to do so, and where we so freely, or (relavently) unconstrainedly, choose to do so.

Like determinism, free will comes in a variety of types and strengths. Here we shall consider the general scientific view of free will and two common types of philosophical approach to this notion.
3a Free Will: The Scientific View
There is a general scientific picture of the world that lends itself to predictability and certainty of outcomes and hence more to determinism than any notions of freedom or free will. Indeed in many minds, science is still associated with the deterministic picture of the world, as it was in the nineteenth century. Modern science, however, draws a picture that is quite different.

The world according to nineteenth century science was, broadly, as follows. Very small particles of matter move about in virtually empty three-dimensional space. These particles act on one another with forces that are uniquely determined by their positioning and velocities. The forces of interaction, in their turn, uniquely determine, in accordance with Newton's laws, the subsequent movement of particles. Thus each subsequent state of the world is determined, in a unique way, by its preceding state. Determinism was an intrinsic feature of the scientific WORLDVIEW of that time. In such a world there was no room for freedom: it was illusory. Human beings, themselves merely aggregates of particles, had as much freedom as wound-up watch mechanisms.

In the twentieth century the scientific worldview underwent a radical change. It has turned out that subatomic physics cannot be understood within the framework of the Naive Realism of the preceding scientists. The Theory of Relativity and, especially, Quantum Mechanics require that our worldview be based on a critical (scientific) philosophy, according to which all our theories and mental pictures of the world are only devices to organise and foresee our experience, and not the images of the world as it "really" is. Thus along with the twentieth-century's specific discoveries in the physics of the micro-world, we should consider the emergence of a properly critical philosophy as a scientific discovery, and as one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the twentieth century.

We now know the notion that 'the world is "really" space in which small particles move along definite trajectories', is illusory: it is contradicted by experimental facts. We also know that determinism, i.e. the notion that in the last analysis all the events in the world must have specific causes, is illusory too. On the contrary, freedom, which was banned from the science of the nineteenth century as an illusion, became a part, if not the essence, of reality. The mechanistic worldview saw the laws of nature as something that uniquely prescribes how events should develop, with indeterminacy resulting only from our lack of knowledge; contemporary science regards the laws of nature as only restrictions imposed on a basically non-deterministic world. It is not an accident that the most general laws of nature are conservation laws, which do not prescribe how things must be, but only put certain restrictions or constraints upon them.

There is genuine freedom in the world. When we observe it from the outside, it takes the form of quantum-mechanical unpredictability; when we observe it from within, we call it our free will. We know that the reason why our behaviour is unpredictable from the outside is that we have ultimate freedom of choice. This freedom is the very essence of our personalities, the treasure of our lives. It is given us as the first element of the world we come into.

Logically, the concept of free will is primary, impossible to derive or to explain from anything else. The concept of necessity, including the concept of a natural law, is a derivative: we call necessary, or predetermined, those things which cannot be changed at will, or by will.
3b Free Will: The Philosophical View
Most people, if asked, would like genuine freedom of choice, proper free will, but can we really have it? Philosophy offers a more complex analysis of this issue than the general scientific view outlined above. Within the philosophical tradition, and given the general set of philosophical principles belonging to this tradition, there are two main strands of argument for free will, i) ethical and, ii) psychological. It is the set of psychological considerations that concern us more directly here, though, of course the ethical concerns are always present in the background to any debate.

As the main features of the doctrine of free will have been sketched in the history of the problem, a very brief account of the argument for moral freedom will now suffice. Will, where viewed as a free power, is defined by defenders of free will as the capacity of self-determination. By self is here understood not a single present mental state (William James), nor a series of mental states (David Hume and JS Mill), but an abiding rational being which is the subject and cause of these states. We should distinguish between:

Spontaneous acts, those proceeding from an internal principle (e.g. the growth of plants and impulsive movements of animals);

Voluntary acts in a wide sense, those proceeding from an internal principle with apprehension of an end (e.g. all conscious desires); and, finally

Those voluntary in the strict sense, that is, deliberate or free acts.

What distinguishes a voluntary act from a non-voluntary one is that there is a self-conscious advertence (to turn one's attention to) to our own causality or an awareness that we are choosing the act, or acquiescing in the desire of it.

Spontaneous acts and desires are opposed to coaction or external compulsion, but they are not thereby morally free acts. They may still be the necessary outcome of the nature of the agent as, e.g. the actions of lower animals, of the insane, of young children, and many impulsive acts of mature life. The essential feature of free volition is the element of choice - the vis electiva, as St. Thomas Aquinas calls it, or 'because we want to' as Billie Piper puts it. There is a concomitant interrogative awareness in the form of the query "Shall I acquiesce or shall I resist?", "Shall I do it or shall I do something else?", and the consequent acceptance or refusal, ratification or rejection, though either may be of varying degrees of completeness. It is this act of consent or approval, which converts a mere involuntary impulse or desire into a free volition and makes me accountable for it.

A train of thought or volition deliberately initiated or acquiesced in, but afterward continued merely spontaneously, without reflective advertence to our elective adoption of it, remains free in causa (for there was a choice, a free choice, about bringing it about). I am therefore responsible for it, though actually the process has passed into the department of merely spontaneous or automatic activity. A large part of the operation of carrying out a resolution, once the decision is made, is commonly of this kind.

The question of free will may now be stated thus. "Given all the conditions requisite for eliciting an act of will except the act itself, does the act necessarily follow?" Or, "Are all my volitions the inevitable outcome of my character and the motives acting on me at the time?" Fatalists, necessarians, and determinists answer "Yes" to this question. Libertarians, indeterminists and anti-determinists reply "No" to it. The mind or soul in deliberate actions is a free cause. Given all of the conditions requisite for action, we (in virtue or our mind or soul) can either act or abstain from action. It can, and sometimes does, exercise its own causality against the weight of character and present motives.
Ethics and Psychology in Free Will
The evidence for the existence of genuine free will usually consists of one of two kinds, the ethical and the psychological, though the psychological arguments often appeal to ethical considerations, and even the ethical arguments themselves are, in some sense, psychological.
i) Ethical Arguments for Free Will
Necessarianism, fatalism or determinism in any form are usually held to be in conflict with the chief moral notions and convictions of mankind at large. The actual universality of such moral ideas is indisputable. Duty, moral obligation, responsibility, merit, and justice signify notions universally present in the consciousness of normally developed human beings. Further, these notions, as universally understood, imply that human beings really are the master of some of their acts, that they are, at least at times, capable of self-determination, that all their volitions are not the inevitable outcome of their circumstances. This implies that when I say that I ought not to have performed some forbidden act, that it was my duty to obey the law, I imply that I could have done so. The judgement of all human beings is the same on this point. When we say that a person is held justly responsible for a crime, or that they deserve praise or reward for an heroic act of self-sacrifice, we mean th at they were the author and cause of that act in such fashion that they had it in their power not to perform the act.

We exempt the insane or the child, because we believe them devoid of moral freedom and determined inevitably by the motives that happened to act on them. This belief is so strong, or ingrained, or just plain true that determinists have to admit that the meaning of these terms will, according to their view, have to be changed. But this is to admit that their theory is in direct conflict with universal psychological facts. It thereby stands disproved. Again, it may be argued that, if logically followed out, the determinist doctrine would annihilate, or leave no room for, human morality, and consequently that such a theory cannot be true. (Such a view would then correspond to fatalism).
ii) Psychological Arguments for Free Will
Consciousness testifies to our moral freedom. We feel ourselves to be free when exercising certain acts. We judge afterwards that we acted freely in those acts. We distinguish them quite clearly from experiences in which we believe we were not free or responsible. The conviction is not confined to the ignorant; even the determinist psychologist is governed in practical life by this belief. Henry Sidgwick states the fact in the most moderate terms, when he says:

"Certainly in the case of actions in which I have a distinct consciousness of choosing between alternatives of conduct, one of which I conceive as right or reasonable, I find it impossible not to think that I can now choose to do what I so conceive, however strong may be my inclination to act unreasonably, and however uniformly I may have yielded to such inclinations in the past "

- H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics

The weight of such evidence is best judged by carefully studying the various mental activities in which freedom is exercised. Amongst the chief of these are: voluntary attention, deliberation, choice, and sustained resistance to temptation. These mental activities have been analysed at length by philosophers such as David Hume, JS Mill, William James, and of course Sidgwick himself. (You may, nonetheless, prefer to think them out with concrete examples of your own inner experience and feel or intuit the force or power of the notions raised for examination.)

The main objection to the range of psychological arguments for free will is stated in the assertion that we can be conscious only of what we actually do, not of our ability to do something else. The reply is that we can be conscious not only of what we do, but of how we do it; not only of the act but of the mode of the act. Observation reveals to us that we are subjects of different kinds of processes of thought and volition. Sometimes the line of conscious activity follows the direction of spontaneous impulse, the preponderating force of present motive and desire; at other times we intervene and exert personal causality (in other words, we do something about it).

Consciousness testifies (through our being conscious of some relevant such and such) that we freely and actively strengthen one set of motives, resist the stronger inclination, and not only drift to one side but actively choose it. In fact, we are sure that we sometimes exert free volition, because at other times we are the subject of conscious activities that are not free, and we know the difference. Again, it is urged that experience shows that human beings are determined by motives, and that we always act on this assumption. The reply is that experience proves, or at least shows, that human beings are influenced by motives, but not that they are always inexorably determined by the strongest motive. It is alleged that we always decide in favour of the strongest motive. This is either untrue, or the barren statement that we always choose what we choose. A free volition is "a causeless volition". Our self, or our mind itself, is the cause. (Other objections include philosophical ones from the point of view of fatalism and scientific ones from such general principles as the Law of the Conservation of Energy.)
4 The Nature and Range of Free Will: Have We Moral Liberty?
Free will does not mean capability of willing in the absence of all motive, or of arbitrarily choosing anything whatever. It is not non-determinism, randomness or non-causality, in any shape or form. The rational being is always attracted by what is apprehended as good. Pure evil, misery as such, is something a human being could not properly, rationally, desire. However, the good presents itself in many forms and under many aspects such as the pleasant, the prudent, the right, the noble, the beautiful, and in reflective or deliberate action we can choose among these.

Nor does the doctrine of free will imply that a human being is constantly exerting this power at every waking moment, any more than the statement that 'we are rational animals' implies that we are always reasoning. Much the larger part of our ordinary lives are administered by the machinery of reflex action, the automatic working of the organism, and acquired habits. In the series of customary acts which fill up our day, such as rising, meals, study, work, etc., the large majority are, by and large, merely "spontaneous" and are proximately determined by their antecedents, according to the combined force of character and motive. There is nothing to arouse special volition, or call for interference with the natural current, so the stream of consciousness flows smoothly along the channel of least resistance. For such a series of acts we are responsible, though not because we exert deliberate volition at each step, but because each step is free in causa (there is/was a choice about bringing them about). They are so free in causa, because we have either freely initiated them, or approved them from time to time when we adverted to their ethical quality, or because we freely acquired the habits that now accomplish these acts. It is then especially when some act with a specially moral complexion is recognised and acknowledged as good or evil that the exertion of our freedom and the exercise of our free will is brought into play. This may not, of course, occur to everyone at the same time or in the same way. It is open to individual circumstance and is in no way rigidly determined.

In sum, with reflective advertence to the moral quality of the act comes the apprehension that we are called on to decide between right and wrong. It is then that the consciousness, or awareness, arises within us that we are choosing freely, and this carries with it the subsequent conviction both that the act was in the strictest sense our own, and that we are responsible for it; and as for moral actions, so for all other free actions of human beings.
References
D Dennett, 1984, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. The MIT Press

D Hofstadter, 1982, Can creativity be mechanized?, Scientific American, 247, 20-29

D Hume, 1748, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Harvard Classics Volume 37, Click here for online edition

W James, 1890, Principles of Psychology Click here for online edition

R Lewontin, 1991, Biology as Ideology: The doctrine of DNA. New York: Harper Collins

JS Mill - On Liberty (1869) and Utilitarianism

P Molenaar, D Boomsma and C Dolan, 1993, A third source of developmental differences, Behavior Genetics, 23, 519-524

R Plomin, J DeFries, and G McClearn, 1990, Behavioral Genetics: A primer (2nd ed.). New York: Freeman. Click Here to buy from Amazon

H. Sidgwick, 1874, The Methods of Ethics Click here for online edition

D Woodridge - The Machinery of the Brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Great Debate: Determinism and Free Will

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Determinism is a far-reaching term affecting many areas of concern, that most widely and radically states that all events in the world are the result of some previous event, or events. In this view, all of reality is already in a sense pre-determined or pre-existent and, therefore, nothing new can come into existence.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
How Neuroscience Will Shift Blameworthiness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
My Brain Made Me Do It: Neuroscience and Free Will

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sheffield Salon September 2013 debate 'My Brain Made Me Do It' discusses the implications of neuroscience for the concept of free will and asks 'have neuroscience and evolutionary psychology put free will on the slab'? Can anyone be said to be responsible for their actions if they are predicted by neuroscience?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Are you reading this because you chose to? Or are you doing so as a result of forces beyond your control?

After thousands of years of philosophy, theology, argument and meditation on the riddle of free will, I'm not about to solve it for you in this column (sorry). But what I can do is tell you about some thought-provoking experiments by psychologists, which suggest that, regardless of whether we have free will or not, whether we believe we do can have a profound impact on how we behave.

The issue is simple: we all make choices, but could those choices be made otherwise? From a religious perspective it might seem as if a divine being knows all, including knowing in advance what you will choose (so your choices could not be otherwise). Or we can take a physics-based perspective. Everything in the universe has physical causes, and as you are part of the universe, your choices must be caused (so your choices could not be otherwise). In either case, our experience of choosing collides with our faith in a world which makes sense because things have causes.

Consider for a moment how you would research whether a belief in free will affects our behaviour. There's no point comparing the behaviour of people with different fixed philosophical perspectives. You might find that determinists, who believe free will is an illusion and that we are all cogs in a godless universe, behave worse than those who believe we are free to make choices. But you wouldn't know whether this was simply because people who like to cheat and lie become determinists (the "Yes, I lied, but I couldn't help it" excuse).

What we really need is a way of changing people's beliefs about free will, so that we can track the effects of doing so on their behaviour. Fortunately, in recent years researchers have developed a standard method of doing this. It involves asking subjects to read sections from Francis Crick's book The Astonishing Hypothesis. Crick was one of the co-discoverers of DNA's double-helix structure, for which he was awarded the Nobel prize. Later in his career he left molecular biology and devoted himself to neuroscience. The hypothesis in question is his belief that our mental life is entirely generated by the physical stuff of the brain. One passage states that neuroscience has killed the idea of free will, an idea that most rational people, including most scientists, now believe is an illusion.

Psychologists have used this section of the book, or sentences taken from it or inspired by it, to induce feelings of determinism in experimental subjects. A typical study asks people to read and think about a series of sentences such as "Science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion", or "Like everything else in the universe, all human actions follow from prior events and ultimately can be understood in terms of the movement of molecules".

The effects on study participants are generally compared with those of other people asked to read sentences that assert the existence of free will, such as "I have feelings of regret when I make bad decisions because I know that ultimately I am responsible for my actions", or texts on topics unrelated to free will.

And the results are striking. One study reported that participants who had their belief in free will diminished were more likely to cheat in a maths test. In another, US psychologists reported that people who read Crick's thoughts on free will said they were less likely to help others.
Bad taste
A follow-up to this study used an ingenious method to test this via aggression to strangers. Participants were told a cover story about helping the experimenter prepare food for a taste test to be taken by a stranger. They were given the results of a supposed food preference questionnaire which indicated that the stranger liked most foods but hated hot food. Participants were also given a jar of hot sauce. The critical measure was how much of the sauce they put into the taste-test food. Putting in less sauce, when they knew that the taster didn't like hot food, meant they scored more highly for what psychologists call "prosociality", or what everyone else calls being nice.

You've guessed it: Participants who had been reading about how they didn't have any free will chose to give more hot sauce to the poor fictional taster - twice as much, in fact, as those who read sentences supporting the idea of freedom of choice and responsibility.

In a recent study carried out at the University of Padova, Italy, researchers recorded the brain activity of participants who had been told to press a button whenever they wanted. This showed that people whose belief in free will had taken a battering thanks to reading Crick's views showed a weaker signal in areas of the brain involved in preparing to move. In another study by the same team, volunteers carried out a series of on-screen tasks designed to test their reaction times, self control and judgement. Those told free will didn't exist were slower, and more likely to go for easier and more automatic courses of action.

This is a young research area. We still need to check that individual results hold up, but taken all together these studies show that our belief in free will isn't just a philosophical abstraction. We are less likely to behave ethically and kindly if our belief in free will is diminished.

This puts an extra burden of responsibility on philosophers, scientists, pundits and journalists who use evidence from psychology or neuroscience experiments to argue that free will is an illusion. We need to be careful about what stories we tell, given what we know about the likely consequences.

Fortunately, the evidence shows that most people have a sense of their individual freedom and responsibility that is resistant to being overturned by neuroscience. Those sentences from Crick's book claim that most scientists believe free will to be an illusion. My guess is that most scientists would want to define what exactly is meant by free will, and to examine the various versions of free will on offer, before they agree whether it is an illusion or not.

If the last few thousands of years have taught us anything, the debate about free will may rumble on and on. But whether the outcome is inevitable or not, these results show that how we think about the way we think could have a profound effect on us, and on others.
If you would like to comment on this article or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook page or message us on .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does non-belief in free will make us better or worse?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are you reading this because you chose to? Or are you doing so as a result of forces beyond your control? After thousands of years of philosophy, theology, argument and meditation on the riddle of free will, I'm not about to solve it for you in this column (sorry).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The US neuroscientist Sam Harris claims in a new book that free will is such a misleading illusion that we need to rethink our criminal justice system on the basis of discoveries coming from the neurological wards and MRI scans of the human brain in action.

The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously demonstrated in the 1980s that activity in the brain's motor regions can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move. Subjects were hooked up to an EEG machine and were asked to move their left or right hand at a time of their choosing. They watched a specially designed clock to notice what time it was when they were finally committed to moving their left or right hand. Libet measured the electrical potentials of their brains and discovered that nearly half a second before they were aware of what they were going to do, he was aware of their intentions. Libet's findings have been borne out more recently in direct recordings of the cortex from neurological patients. With contemporary brain scanning technology, other scientists in 2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became aware of having made that choice (long before the preparatory motor activity detected by Libet).

Clearly, findings of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the sense that one is the conscious source of one's actions. The discovery that humans possess a determined will has profound implications for moral responsibility. Indeed, Harris is even critical of the idea that free will is "intuitive": he says careful introspection can cast doubt on free will. In an earlier book on morality, Harris argues

Thoughts simply arise in the brain. What else could they do? The truth about us is even stranger than we may suppose: The illusion of free will is itself an illusion ( The Moral Landscape)

But a belief in free will forms the foundation and underpinning of our enduring commitment to retributive justice. The US supreme court has called free will a "universal and persistent" foundation for our entire system of law.
Implications for the criminal justice system
Any scientific developments that threatened our notion of free will would seem to put the ethics of punishing people for their bad behaviour in question. In Free Will Harris debates these ideas and asks whether or not, given what brain science is telling us, criminal justice, in focusing on retribution, rests on an entirely false basis. An example he gives is a murderer who kills because of a brain tumour. This person is a victim, not a criminal. The tumour is the cause of his crimes. People imagine that the normal brain is a different story. But in fact the study of any criminal brain, says Harris, is the equivalent of finding a tumour in it - the wrong genes being transcribed, the brain being dictated by events over which he has no control. Human choice, says Harris,

is as important as fanciers of free will believe. But the next choice you make will come out of the darkness of prior causes that you, the conscious witness of your experience, did not bring into being.

Clearly we need to lock up dangerous people. But there is no sense to the idea that they somehow deserve it. Retributive justice is like requiring us to hate, as well as shoot, a wild animal who escapes from the zoo. His short book opens with an account of an horrific crime that mesmerised America with its cruelty - the home invasion in Connecticut by two men in 2007. Two career criminals first brutally bludgeoned the father (the only survivor), then raped and murdered the mother, and finally killed the two young daughters when they set the house on fire. As one reviewer says,

Harris gives voice to most everyone's worry when he writes that, without (contra-causal) free will, monsters like these men are "nothing more than poorly calibrated clockwork," and therefore they aren't really responsible for their actions. They're just damaged goods.

Speaking on an WNYC interview, Harris explains that the brain precedes a motor plan before our consciousness of our planning of it, even while we think we're still free to decide which way to go.

You can't really take credit for your unconscious predelict. This reaches back into everything we think and do and decide. There is no place in which we can say, the buck stops here. The buck just never stops. Your wants themselves emerge out of a wilderness of causes which you yourself cannot inspect. The only tools at your disposal are those which you inherit from your past. There are certain things about morality and about the legal system which do shift when you take on board that there is no free will.

The evolutionary biologist Stephen Pinker reminds us that our sense of justice tells us that where someone commits a crime, the perpetrator's culpability depends not just on the harm done but on their mental state, what any first year law student knows is the mens rea, the subjective state of intentionality prerequisite to establishing criminal liability. In his recent study of the decline of violence in human history, he gives the following example:

Suppose a woman kills her husband by putting rat poison in his tea. Our decision as to whether to send her to the electric chair very much depends on whether the container she spooned it out of was mislabelled DOMINO SUGAR or correctly labelled D-CON: KILLS RATS - that is, whether she knew she was poisoning him and wanted him dead, or it was all a tragic accident. A brute emotional reflex to the actus reus, the bad act ("She killed her husband! Shame!") could trigger an urge for retribution regardless of her intention. (The Better Angels of our Nature: Ch8, Inner Demons, p 547)

This type of retributive impulse of course we all condemn as unpardonable in civilised society. But if we follow Harris's argument to its logical conclusion, the correct label should no more condemn the murderer to retribution than the misleading one, for the proclivity to do harm is at large, and is in no wise governed by rational choices immediately preceding the actus reus. He is not making a case for exculpation on the basis of identifiable brain lesions or particular genetic mutations, which the psychologist Harold Schechter showed were notably absent from all the notorious subjects of his authoritative compendium The Serial Killer Files.
Are we really rational actors?
Where does this leave human rights? Harris' prescription for rethinking criminal justice may lead to a compassionate outcome: the criminal cannot help himself, restrain him but don't hate him; but let us remind ourselves of the first provision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, endorsed in 1948 by forty-eight countries:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

But if we cannot even be sure that our conscious minds can dictate the movement of our own limbs, how can we direct the whole macro-organism to behave in a civilised manner to the rest of the world, because some international agreement tells us to? By breaching the boundaries between scientific facts and human values, Sam Harris argues convincingly that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Instead of bowing to secular but quasi-biblical commandments such as the UN Declaration, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and so on, we would do better to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys in what Harris calls a "moral landscape." As the abstract of his exploration of morality proposes, there will be a time when science will no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do in the name of "morality"; in principle, science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the best lives possible.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Guilty, but not responsible? | Rosalind English

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The US neuroscientist Sam Harris claims in a new book that free will is such a misleading illusion that we need to rethink our criminal justice system on the basis of discoveries coming from the neurological wards and MRI scans of the human brain in action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Research in Africa, Asia and Latin America is showing how culture and intelligence interact.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg 1988 - Cultural Differences in Attachment | Simply Psychology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Strange Situation test assumes that behavior has the same meaning in all cultures, when in fact cultural perception and understanding of behavior differ greatly. The Strange Situation was created and tested in the USA, which means that it may be culturally biased (ethnocentric), as it will reflect the norms and values of American culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gender Bias in Psychological Research. Issues & Debates (PYA5) What is Gender bias? Gender bias results from the male norm perspective. Traditional ... - A free PowerPoint PPT presentation (displayed as a Flash slide show) on PowerShow.com - id: 3c742c-MTA2M

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Male Bias in Science: Androcentrism, The Feminist Element

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Despite decades of striving toward equality, gender biases appear prevalent amongst researchers in psychology. In a recently published study, the investigators found that psychology researchers most often compare females against an implicit male norm, rather than on their own or vice-a-versa.

When research finds that men and women differ psychologically, which group seems to be more responsible for the difference? Where gender differences were observed in the research examined, they were described as being about males, and less often than as being about females. Males are seen as the standard for the typical human subject. The research was published in the Review of General Psychology, by University of Surrey (UK) psychologists Peter Hegarty and Carmen Buechel. The authors systematically surveyed forty years of gender difference research in four journals published by the American Psychological Association.

"Even the graphs and tables show evidence of the male-norm effect" said Hegarty. "About three quarters of these positioned men's data first, and made women the second sex. But this effect was reversed when psychologists depicted data about parents." The conclusion? Men may be the prototype for modern psychology's picture of the typical person, but mothers remain the most typical kind of parent.

The data are all the more striking as between 1965 and 2004 the journals studied ceased to be male-dominated. Roughly equal numbers of the study authors and roughly equal numbers of the participants in the studies now published in these journals are male and female. Hegarty doesn't find it surprising that this shift in the body politic of psychology didn't undo the male-norm effect. "In laboratory experiments, both women and men tend to spontaneously explain gender differences using a male norm and to attribute differences to females to the same degree. In our study, male and female authors of psychology articles focused their explanations on women to the same degree. Psychologists are not always aware of their implicit decisions about who to explain."

Is the focus on women and girls a problem? Probably.

Hegarty has shown in other research on sexual orientation differences that stereotype-relevant results are explained in ways that perpetuate stereotypes about the group that is not taken as the norm; lesbians and gay men, in that case. Hegarty and Buechel also found that psychologists vastly preferred the phrase 'more than' over 'less than' when explaining gender differences. Put this together with the male-norm effect and you could reach the absurd conclusion that women and girls have more psychology than men and boys do.

Hegarty, a social psychologist himself, is optimistic about what the findings imply for the status of psychology. "They clearly show an area where more critical thinking is needed about gender, but on the other hand psychological methods allowed us to bring this issue to light and to describe it. Our conclusion is not that psychologists should not study group differences, but that we serve the public better when we think deeply about the ways that we implicitly frame questions about whose behavior is the default standard norm and whose is made the subject of psychological scrutiny."

Male Gender Bias in Psychology Research Continues

Related Articles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Male Gender Bias in Psychology Research Continues

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Despite decades of striving toward equality, gender biases appear prevalent amongst researchers in psychology. In a recently published study, the investigators found that psychology researchers most often compare females against an implicit male norm, rather than on their own or vice-a-versa.