### Introduction - For most of history, poverty reflected God's will and did not reflect on individuals' character. - In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, poverty began to be a reflection of a person's personal failure and inferiority. - Biological definitions of poverty is the oldest theme in post-Enlightenment poverty discourse. This article excavates the definition of poor people as biologically inferior and emphasizes **three themes**: 1. The concept rises and falls in prominence when social / institutional programs fail, offering an easy excuse for why they didn't work. 2. The theory relies on linking genetics and environment via a neo-Lamarkianism, suggesting that inferiority both inherited and shaped by poor conditions. - neo-Lamarkanism: Lamarck's theory of evolution predating Darwin. 3. Hereditarian ideas are always supported by the best science of the day, justifying racial ranking, immigration restrictions, and sterilization. ### 1860s: First instance of hereditarian thought - Beginning in the early 19th century, new institutions were designed to reform delinquents, criminals, cure the mentally ill, and educate children. These were seen as interconnected issues triggered by faulty environments. - After these institutions failed, the blame fail on individuals: inherited deficiencies. ### Social Darwinism and eugenics, immigration restrictions, early IQ testing - By the 1920s, social Darwinism and eugenics converged in the eugenic theory that justified racism and social conservatism. - **Herbert Spencer** was the leading spokesperson of social Darwinists, touring the US in 1882. - Hereditarian beliefs fed widespread fears of "race suicide." - English scientist **Francis Galton** (Darwin's cousin) coined the term eugenics in 1883 to denote the improvement of human stock. - **Charles Davenport**, a key figure in US eugenics, established a research lab to study heredity and promote eugenics-based policies. - By the end of the 1920s, twenty-four states passed laws permitting the involuntary sterilization of the mentally unfit. - In late 19th century US, evolutionary and genetic applications gained traction as a tool for explaining and dealing with vast changes accompanying industrialization and immigration. - Eugenics drew support from both conservatives and progressives. - By the 1920s, the divide between environmentalists (intelligence shaped by environment) and hereditarians (intelligence mostly genetic) widened. - Hereditarians took a hard line, turning to the new science of intelligence tests and continued advocacy of sterilization. - Intelligence tests were developed by French psychologist **Alfred Binet** and brought to the US in 1880 by American psychologist **Henry H. Goddard**. - **Lewis Terman** at Stanford, a hereditarian, introduced IQ, a concept developed in 1912 by German psychologist William Stern. - Eugenics declined in popularity after the 1920s. - Advances in science revealed heredity was far more complex. - Nazi embrace of eugenics discredited the movement. - The Nazi regime praised American eugenicists for the intellectual contributions. - The decline of eugenics shifted the focus from nature to nurture and aligned with the civil rights movement, which rejected racial or biological justifications for discrimination. ### Arthur Jensen's famous 1969 article; the _Bell Curve_ - In the late 1960s hereditarian ideas resurged in response to white backlash against government programs benefitting Black communities and their apparent failure. - Arthur Jensen's 1969 article _How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?_ led to the revival of hereditarianism. - He argued poor and minority children hit a genetic wall on intelligence to benefit from compensatory education. - E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology (1975) argued that social behavior of all organisms, including humans, has a biological basis. - In 1994, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published _The Bell Curve_, popularizing the idea that intelligence is genetically inherited and the cause of the most pressing social problems. - Racial groups differ in intelligence, with Black Americans scoring lower on IQ tests. - Claude Fischer's _Inequality by Design_ was a powerful demolition of the book. ### Neuroscience and epigenetics (1990s-Present) - From the 1990s onwards, new scientific technologies have provided tools to explore linkages between biology and society. - Neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, genomics, and epigenetics have emerged as new ways of explaining social phenomena, like crime, medical issues, and the black-white gap. - **Epigenetics** seemed to offer a bridge between hereditarians and environmentalists: explaining how poverty and environment translate into long-term disadvantages in school performance, criminality, and health. - The media tended to overstate the science or push "neuro-nonsense." - The past misuse of biological science serves as a cautionary tale. We must be wary of repeating histories of eugenics and racism.