Researching Racial Inferiority?

Researching Racial Inferiority?

Pursuing scientific inquiry into the applications of solid-state physics, Bell Laboratories Physicist William Shockley played a major role in the invention of the junction transistor, shared a 1956 Nobel Prize for his efforts, and made a substantial impact on technology and society. Now on the faculty of Stanford University, he is creating yet another stir by advocating a similar approach in a science far afield from his own. In speeches and interviews during the past three years, Shockley has charged that the scientific community has been ignoring or blocking research into possible differences in the genetic makeup of races. He has been accused, in turn, of fostering racial prejudice.

Shockley cites the increasing problems of Negro ghettos and the failure of one out of four youths--a high percentage of them Negroes--to pass the Armed Forces Qualifications Tests. Shockley asks: "Is environment the only cause? Is perhaps some of the cause hereditary?" After searching for answers in scientific literature, the physicist recently told a meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California that he found "only unconvincing assertions that carry no sense of certainty." This "environment-hereditary uncertainty," he says, prevents an intelligent attack on city slum problems and may be contributing to a decline in the overall quality of the U.S. population.

Worries, or Plans. Shockley attributes the uncertainty to "inverted liberalism," which he says has resulted in taboos against research on genetic differences. He charges that such institutions as the Federal Government and the American Anthropological Association have discouraged investigation because they might reach "unpalatable" conclusions. "Our intellectuals." he says, "treat this problem like a frightened person who hides an uncertainty even from himself and does not expose a tumor to a doctor's inspection."

To the genetics faculty of Stanford, which accused him of seeking "pseudoscientific justification for class and race prejudice," and to other critics, Shockley says: "Let's ask the questions, do the necessary research, find the facts, discuss them widely--then either worries will evaporate or plans for action will develop."

But many scientists agree with University of California Psychologist David Krech, who insists that it is the difficulty involved in measuring racial differences, rather than any taboo, that is responsible for the lack of evidence that Shockley demands. In any such research, says Krech, there must be the fundamental assumption: "If all other conditions are equal." At present, he adds, there is no such situation between large groups of Negroes and whites in America.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.