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462 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.”But what strikes me most about Watson’s boast is not its radical environmentalism—nor even its convenient unfalsifiability—but rather its breathtaking arrogance.
“This gives rise to the hypothesizing of still other, more subtle environmental factors that either have not been or cannot be measured—a history of slavery, social oppression, and racial discrimination, white racism, the ‘black experience,’ and minority status consciousness [etc]” (Straight Talk About Mental Tests: p223).Jensen has termed this mysterious factor the ‘X-factor’.
“I believe I know what this X factor is… I can describe it quite clearly. Black kids and white kids identify with different groups that have different norms. The differences are exaggerated by group contrast effects and have consequences that compound themselves over the years. That’s the X factor” (p248-9).Interestingly, although she does not develop it, Harris’s claim is actually compatible with, and potentially reconciles, the findings of two of the most widely-cited studies in this area.
Here's what I think: Middle-class Americans of European descent try to use the Just Right parenting style, because that is the style approved by their culture. If they don't use it, it's because they have problems or their kid does. If they have problems, it could be because they have disadvantageous personality characteristics that they can pass on to their kid genetically. (...)**