Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir

The Institute Newsletter continues to be quite interesting, and I look forward to every issue.

With regard to the last issue, number 15, it would seem that the Institute’s namesake, Sir Francis Galton, might have been included. After all, a clear and insightful mind is obviously needed when the subject of population is discussed.

In the second edition of Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1907), page 207, the section titled “Population”, Sir Francis explains that common sense approaches to human problems often fail because they do not take into account human nature and the resulting behaviours. Malthus has proposed a delay in the time of marriage, and Sir Francis says: “The doctrine would only be followed by the prudent and self-denying; it would be neglected by the impulsive and self-seeking. Those whose race we especially want to have, would leave few descendants, while those whose race we especially want to be quit of, would crowd the vacant space with their progeny, and the strain of population would thenceforward be just as pressing as before.”

In the United States, the authors of The Bell Curve have stated that just such a situation as Francis Galton described is in fact occurring, and the average IQ may be falling at the rate of slightly less than one point per year.

Gary E Pittman, Dallas, Texas

The Editor Replies: Professor Armytage's series of articles explores the more popular expressions of eugenic concern to be found in the non-scientific literature of the twentieth century; a subsequent series is planned which will examine the more strictly theoretical work of the pioneers of the eugenics movement. A review of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve has been commissioned for a future issue of the Newsletter.  In the above quote from Galton it is important to note that the term "race" was not being used in its popular modern sense but meant what would now be termed "genetic endowment" or simply "genes".