Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

LETTERS TO AND FROM THE EDITOR Dear Sir: Dr. Ingle, in his comments in the Winter, 1968, issue on my letter on racial equality, raises a number ofissues [1, 2]. To answer them all definitively would take much more space andtimethan are available to me,butIwould like to make some comment in return. Many ofDr. Ingle's remarks bear on the question ofthe reality, the pervasiveness, and the persistence of culture as a major determinant ofhuman behavior in society. It is a special contribution ofanthropology to illuminate the workings ofculture and their importance to human life and survival. By the nature ofsome ofhis questions, Dr. Ingle shows what appears to me to be a blind spot in viewing certain ofthe causes of human behavior. For instance, he questions the relevance ofthe survival ofNegroes and others in harsh, primitive environments as an indication ofcultural capacity when "many species oflower animals" survive in even worse environments. The crucial point here is that all human groups require a complex culture in order to survive, whereas other species ofanimals do not. For another species of animal to survive in a "harsh" environment to which it is morphologically and physiologically adapted is no evidence at all ofits cultural capacity. For a human group to survive in the same environment is prime evidence ofits cultural capacity, since humans without culture perish. We can say still more, however. Although I would repeat with emphasis my earlier assertion that "there is no reason to suppose that a member ofcivilization needs to master any greater quantity ofcultural information than does a member ofthe simplest hunting and gathering society," it is undoubtedly true, due to societal variations in the division of labor, etc., that cultures as wholes, beyond the grasp of any one individual participant, vary greatly in their complexity and efficiency as adaptive mechanisms for the total societies bearing them. This is shown by the differential survival ofcontrasting cultural traditions when they come into contact and conflict. How, then, do peoples with less efficient cultures survive before they get a more efficient one? Certainly not very much by virtue ofsuperior inherited morphology and physiology. They survive principally by dint of greater physical and mental effort. This presumes a genetic minimum which is higher than that needed for survival in a complex flourishing civilization. Dr. Ingle also ignores the frequentstubborn persistence ofculture when he asks, "Does experience with slavery explain white-Negro differences which persist a hundred years after slavery ended?" Culture is certainly not immutable or immortal, although men may wish it were. But the persistence ofracialstereotypes developed in slavery for a century or 704 Letters to andfrom the Editor Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Summer 1968 two after the abolition ofslavery is hardly surprising to an anthropologist, who can cite much more striking examples ofmajor cultural conservatism, for example, the survival ofthe major world religions over millennia. To be sure, there are powerful social and emotional reasons for the persistence of religions, but similar reasons exist for the persistence ofracial stereotypes. At the same time, these reasons are completely irrelevant to the scientific evaluation ofthe empirical accuracy ofthe propositions involved. Dr. Ingle questions the extent of the influence of environment on "objective" test scores. There have been numerous investigations indicating that a difference ofas much as thirty points in I.Q. score can be accounted for by environmental differences. This is more than the difference often found between white and Negro averages in the same community; moreover, there is no reason to believe that most ofthese studies maximize possible environmental differences connected with cultural difference and social position. I cannot review the literature on this point here, but a recent striking study ofan environmental effect on LQ. scores is reported in the April, 1968, issue ofthe Scientific American [3]. Reportedly, teachers ofelementary school children were told that tests indicated that certain randomly selected pupils would probably show a great intellectual gain. Over 20 per cent ofthe children so designated "gained" thirty or more LQ. points over a two-year period, as compared to a much smallerpercentage ofthe control group. The investigators plausibly attribute much ofthis striking gain to a single environmental factor, repeatedly and often subtly manifested: changes...