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Author : George Wesley Critz
Title : The biology of the race problem
Year : 1962

Link download : George_Wesley_Critz_-_The_biology_of_the_race_problem.zip

Introduction. The United States Supreme Court's ruling on the school integration cases is potentially one of the most fateful decisions ever made by a court. It could largely determine the nature of the flesh, bone, blood, and mind of future generations of Americans. Support for that decision and adherence to or rejection of the programs that it imposes should be based upon the most complete and reliable knowledge and understanding that it is possible to obtain. There is no record that the Court or the Federal government has at any time sought to get that knowledge and understanding, although the opinions of certain "authorities" were cited as justification for the ruling. When the Justices of the Supreme Court abandoned former legal precedents and the historic meaning of the Constitution, and based their decision in Brown vs. Board of Education upon "science" and the opinions of "authorities", they inevitably made the validity of their ruling dependent upon the truth and validity of their scientific material. This should have been subjected to critical examination and was not. In addition there was a great deal of established tact and pertinent evidence bearing on the issue which the court neglected entirely. One of the most important problems facing Americans today is, Shall we pursue programs that would result in mixing the genes of the Negro race with those of the White race and so convert the population of the United States into a mixed-blooded people? Before saying yes to that question, before making any revolutionary decisions relative to so important and irreversible a matter, the information we have that bears on the issue should be carefully examined and critically evaluated. As a contribution to presenting such evidence and for the purpose of weighing the merit of dogmas built up and imposed upon the public as a basis for revolutionary social and political programs, it is the object of this study to ask certain questions of a fundamental biological nature and to see what answers are given by the facts as discovered and reported by the most credible scientists. Some of these questions are: 1) Are babies born equal in the biological sense, or are there significant differences between them before environment plays a part in molding them? 2) What is the mechanism of biological inheritance? 3) Is the difference between the White and Negro races primarily a "paint job" or are there differences of such fundamental nature and significance that they should be taken into consideration in deciding upon social and educational policies involving the relations of the races? 4) Are significant differences in individuals and in races hereditary or are they produced anew in each generation by environmental influences? 5) What should we expect to be the long range results of a program that would lead to racial amalgamation? During the last four decades, while knowledge of heredity has been accumulating rapidly, there has been a widespread and intensive campaign to break down belief in the importance of heredity in the affairs of men and to establish environment as the major if not the only factor of significance in determining the nature of their lives and accomplishments. The purpose of this campaign has been to win the support of men's minds for certain educational, social, and political programs. In order to belittle heredity and establish environmentalism in our thinking, it was necessary to promote the idea that all babies born into the world arrive with essentially equal endowments and that subsequent differences are the result of forces outside the individual. Through the use of clever sophistry, and much repetition, great progress has been made in establishing the thought that all men are equal biologically—not merely equal in their right to justice. As a result of persistent mental conditioning, "the doctrine of the essential uniformity of human infants has been widely accepted and is held by a great body of social psychologists, sociologists, social anthropologists and many men in public life." Furthermore it has been made the basis for revolutionary changes in human affairs. But is it valid? To each of these questions, among others, this report will now address itself. ...