Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Growth) in Biology and in Education 189
One might also speak of a given child's pattern of growth in reading
as showing a period of plateau from ages six to nine with a rapid
increase or spurt in the period from ages nine to twelve.(ll)
A study of the patterns of growth of large numbers of children
has led Olson (12, 16) to rather definite ideas about the growth
of children. Some of these ideas are "unfolding design," "going
togetherness," "variation," "stability of the center of gravity,"
"resistance to displacement," "convergence," and "deprivation."
Unfolding Design. Everyday experience supplies us with the information
that, as children grow physically, some kind of "unfolding"
of mental attributes occurs and that this unfolding
roughly parallels physical development. No one doubts this. Nor
does anyone doubt that children are as different in mental attributes
as they are in physical attributes. But as a person goes
from an examination of biological gro,vth to an examination of
early and late mental development of children, he will recognize
the stringent limitations of "unfolding design" as a scientific concept.
Olson (12) states "... that a child has a design for growing,
that optimum nurture fulfills this design." What does he mean
by "design"? Does he mean that "design" and "optimum nurture"
are singular and fixed for a developing child? In this quotation it
seems that he does consider them singular and fixed, yet in his
discussions of nature and nurture he seems not to take such a
limited view of the potentialities of human development.
Once the data are in and the growth curves are plotted, a single,
limited design for a child certainly is present on the graph. Consider,
however, a child of five. Is there a single design to be
followed by this child in his grovvth? As a biologist I cannot conceive
of the design as fixed except within very wide and, at
present, very indefinite limits. Several years ago I became aware
that the biological concept of optimum nutrition was of little
use. Innumerable combinations of nutrients produce maximum
growth in weight, while some of these combinations and perhaps
still others unidentified produce optimum qualitative character-