Customer Reviews

Shockley on Eugenics and Race: The Application of Science to the Solution of Human Problems

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Throughout the last three decades of his life, Nobel-Prize winning physicist William Shockley (1910 - 1989) was a highly controversial figure. Not because of his pioneer works in electronics, which were one of the foundations for the rise of the Silicon Valley companies and their technological progress and commercial success, but because of his views about the danger of declining cognitive capabilities in the United States. Convinced of the mainly hereditary origin of intelligence differences, Shockley saw a clear dysgenic trend in Western societies and publicly talked and wrote about the causes and possible remedies of this development. The most important of his articles about these topics can be found in "Shockley on Eugenics and Race". These essays demonstrate that Shockley wasn't motivated by racial oder elitist prejudices, but by certain facts and serious concern about the future of Western civilization. Shockley's articles with such provoking titles as "Society has a Moral Obligation to Diagnose Tragic Racial IQ Deficits" or " Has Intellectual Humanitarianism Gone Berserk?" are no scientific papers about cognitive psychology, behavioral genetics or the social implications of eugenics, but nevertheless interesting statements of a highly intelligent outsider in these fields, in a debate which isn't finished. The most interesting parts of the book are a lengthy "Preface" of the eminent psychologist Arthur R. Jensen, who thinks of W. B. Shockley as "a truly genius" (which doesn't mean that Jensen's "Preface" is an uncritical eulogy), the very informative "Introduction" of the editor Roger Pearson with many biographical details about Shockley and the political-ideological background of his activities, and finally, last but not least, the "Playboy"-Interview with Professor Shockley in August 1980. In that interview Shockley tells the reader for example - among other details of his biography (one of the most controversial themes: Shockley's famous participation in an elite sperm bank), his political and ideological opinions - that he himself was not tested as an extreme bright kid in the seminal longitudinal study of Stanford psychologist Lewis M. Terman - the young Shockley did not belong to the Top One Percent of Californian school-children. This really strange result should be one of many reasons to remain cautious in matters of IQ and society, more cautious than the courageous electronic engineer and physicist Shockley was.

William Shockley basically started silicon valley. He was a monumental genius in many ways. More importantly, he worked tirelessly for the future of genius and the future of all children on Earth who might benefit from the inventions and blessings of genius. These are precarious things which can evaporate overnight if we are not careful. No charity, nothing you can possibly do, can have more lasting and beneficial impact on society than what Shockley was trying to enlighten the world about. Some people just are not corruptible. They love truth and will stick to it. The habitat of truth is minds like Shockleys... I don't want to live in a world without them. Neither do you. See "The Textbook of the Universe: The Genetic Ascent to God" to see the absolute necessity of these ideas, and how the very revolution which Shockleys transistor started may simply be part of a larger gearing-up of humanity towards taking control of our own genetics -- which makes Shockleys 2 main contributions to humanity go together perfectly! These writings should be required reading in high school and college. EVERYONE who cares about the future should read this book.

Winner of the 1956 Nobel Prize as co-inventor of the transistor, Professor William Shockley of Stanford University was also a scientific researcher in the fields of intelligence and genetics.
Contents include a lengthy preface by renowned Berkeley psychologist Professor Arthur Jensen as well as an introduction by Roger Pearson; an account of Shockley's life history; and a series of Shockley's own papers including his suggestion that the U.S. might consider offering a cash bonus to any younger persons of low IQ who voluntarily agreed to sterilization. This "thinking exercise" suggested that volunteers might be offered a pecuniary award directly related to the extent to which their IQ fell below 100. This and twenty-two of Shockley's original articles on heredity, eugenics, and dysgenic trends in the U.S. -- no longer available elsewhere -- are reprinted in this remarkable volume.