J. B. S. HALDANE 
within the capacities of most people being born at the present 
time ? 
(2) What performances, considered possibly desirable, are 
within the capacity of a small minority only? 
(3) What evolutionary trends may be expected for humanity 
in the absence of conscious control? 
(4) What evolutionary trends may be expected if evolution 
is consciously controlled ? 
. (5) How far must the answers to (3) and (4) be modified for 
human beings living on other planets, satellites, asteroids, or 
artificial vehicles? 
Clearly the answer to (4) depends on that to (2). It may be 
that our remote descendants will be immortal, sessile, or born 
talking perfect English. All these have been suggested. But 
these things, whether desirable or not, are outside the human 
range at present; and as I have limited myself to 10,000 years 
I shall not consider them. On the other hand we know that 
men such as Newton, Beethoven, and Gandhi are possible, and 
I at least hold that on the one hand, most people, however well 
trained, are incapable of such achievements, and, on the other, 
that it is desirable that the fraction of persons with such capacity 
should be increased. 
On few subjects is more nonsense talked and written than on 
the first question. Some successful people believe that everyone 
could do as well as themselves if they tried, others that rare 
innate gifts are needed. On what are probably quite inadequate 
grounds I consider that the truth is between these extremes. 
I think that one of the most important tasks before mankind 
is a complete revision of educational methods, whether we are 
dealing with learning long multiplication or rope climbing. 
Different children differ in the times at which capacities mature, 
and almost as surely in the best methods for developing them. 
Teaching methods appear usually to aim at developing children 
of a capacity a little below the median, and very great harm is 
done by wrong timing and wrong methods. We may have to 
wait for human clonal reproduction before scientific method 
can be applied here. 
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