Mayr, Ernst, 1904-2005
The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers
Crick, Francis, 1916-2004
In his letter the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr commented on the contemporary debate in the United States about the role of genetics, race, and environment in human behavior. The debate was triggered by comments made by the Nobel Prize winning physicist William Shockley that the lag in educational achievements of black Americans could be accounted for by inherited racial traits, namely a lower IQ. Mayr rejected Shockley's thesis as racist and simplistic, calling instead for a research program in "positive eugenics," the idea of increasing the frequency of desirable traits by encouraging reproduction by individuals with these traits.
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