Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

Technical Misconceptions and Obfuscations 57
learning ability had 100 percent heritability it would not mean
that individuals cannot learn, and therefore the demonstration of
learning or the improvement of performance, with or without
specific instruction or intervention by a teacher, says absolutely
nothing about heritability. But knowing that learning ability has
high heritability does tell us this: if a number of individuals are
all given equal opportunity - the same background, the same
conditions, and the same amount of time - for learning something,
they will still differ from one another in their rates of learning and
consequently in the amount they learn per unit of time spent in
learning. That is the meaning of heritability. It does not say
the individuals cannot learn or improve with instruction and
practice. It says that given equal conditions, individuals will
differ from one another, not because of differences in the external
conditions but because of differences in the internal environment
which is conditioned by genetic factors. ‘Teachability’
presumably means the ability to learn under conditions of
instruction by a teacher. If this is the case, then it is true that
heritability has nothing to do with teachability. But was this ever
the question And is not propounding it as an answer apt to be
quite misleading No one has questioned the fact that all school
children are teachable. The important question has concerned
differences in teachability - differences both among individuals
and among subgroups of the population. And with reference
to the question of differences, heritability is indeed a relevant
concept.
But what, if anything, is wrong with the statements of Bloom
and Husen, quoted above, and which Hirsch must have had in
mind when he correctly criticized the notion that teachability is
inversely related to heritability It comes back again to the fact
that heritability deals with differences. The degree to which equal
conditions of teaching or instruction wrill diminish individual
differences in achievement is inversely related to the heritability
of the ‘teachability’ of the subject in question, and various school
subjects probably differ considerably in heritability - a topic
discussed in a later section.
But is it incorrect, as Hirsch asserts, to say that there is potentially
more we can do environmentally to reduce individual or subgroup
differences if we find that the heritability is low No, it is not
incorrect. It is precisely what the agricultural geneticist does with