I am sorry if I hurt your feelings with my letter, but sometimes such cannot be avoided in public discussion.   Richard A. Musgrave

JANUARY 13, 1972

Dear Professor Musgrave:

Your concern for my feelings is generous, but rather beside the point. (I am, incidentally, feeling fine.)

Your letter to the Crimson said: "Not being a geneticist. I will not pass on the question whether ability is inherited or not. Speaking as a layman, it would seem to me reasonable to assume that inheritance is one factor; but speaking as a social scientist with some experience with quantitative work, the evidence mentioned in the article seems to me to be extremely skimpy. Nor do I find evidence of a critical review of the quantitative procedures underlying the alleged findings by the author sufficient to lead me to accept his judgement that the case is indeed proven beyond doubt." The fact of the matter is that there has been no dispute, at least among scholars who study the subject, about the substantial genetic component in the distribution of I.Q. scores in any population for which the relevant data have been collected. The main facts were already noted by Cyril Burt in 1910, although the precision of the estimates of sources of variance has improved greatly since then. My article in the Atlantic merely stated the scholarly concensus, with some representative findings. I have yet to hear of any significantly contrary evidence.

In your letter to the Crimson, you assume the scholarly mantle ("speaking as a social scientist with some experience with quantitative work") and then cast doubt on my description of the scholarly consensus. Given your letter, a lay reader has little alternative other than to conclude that the case for the substantial genetic role in the determination of I.Q. is still a matter of dispute. But that is a false conclusion, as you would quickly find if you surveyed the pertinent literature of the past 60 years, which I assume you have not done.

You also said in your letter "I do not see that the empirical data cited support such a conclusion with a degree of probability acceptable in a sophomore paper on statistics, especially if the massive environmental differentials between racial groups are considered." To what "conclusion" do you refer? As I said in my article, there is a black-white difference in I.Q. (and school achievement) in the United States. While the difference may be more or less genetic, we do not, at this time, have the data to permit a further conclusion. I would be interested to know what statements on this subject (of a statistical character) you would rather have your sophomores make.

I fear I see too plainly what you are really saying. You would rather that human differences not be studied. Or, if the results come out wrong by your lights, that they not be made generally availabe. I could not disagree more. The study of human differences (individual and group, environmental and genetic) is an integral part of my subject, and my subject, like any other academic discipline, may properly be set before the general public in an open society. And not only do I disagree with you, I reject the tone of implicit moral superiority in your letter. I do not believe, and you have not proved, that free and honest discussion of human differences will promote racial injustice or retard its termination. And that, whether you recognize it or not, is actually the issue between us.   R.J. Herrnstein

JANUARY 18, 1972

Dear Professor Herrnstein:

Your further letter has been received. In response, let me restate the purpose of my initial communication, which was to distinguish between two issues, i.e., (1) whether intelligence is hereditary and (2) whether if such is the case, the additional evidence of differential performance on intelligence tests justifies the further conclusion that there exists an hereditary difference in average intelligence between racial groups. Your responses deal very largely with (1) and you chide me for not accepting what you say, is the proven fact of heredity, including. I take it, not only that inheritance is a significant variable in explaining intelligence but that it has overriding explanatory power. My purpose is not to debate this, as it is not the crucial point at issue. The crucial part, as I see it, is point (2).

While you did not draw conclusions thereon I was concerned with the tenor of your Atlantic article and especially its editorial introduction (which must have had your tacit assent) suggesting at least to this reader that the answer to (2) might well also be positive. The statement in your letter, that "while the difference may be more or less genetic, we do not, at this time, have the data to permit a further conclusion," leaves me with the same flavor. As close reading of paragraphs 5 and 6 of my letter will show, it was the support (or lack thereof) of this second proposition to which my "sophomore" quip referred.

As to the matters raised in your last paragraph, I favor freedom of research as much as you do, but I would suggest the following rule of conduct: When dealing with subjects of investigation other than human beings, let researchers feel as free to advance hypotheses as they wish, whatever the evidence (or lack thereof) may be; but when dealing with propositions so monstrous and destructive to human relations and the cause of human dignity as that of hereditary racial inferiority, let this freedom be tempered by the utmost caution and sense of responsibility. In the case of your Atlantic article this, it seems to me, would have called for a careful and extensive discussion of the existing lack of evidence on point (2) and of the considerable difficulties in overcoming it. I do not claim that my morals are superior; but I do believe that a moral as well as a scientific issue is involved.   Richard A. Musgrave