August 13, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



205 



of Vermont. Professor Jones is a native of 

 Wisconsin, who did bis undergraduate work at 

 Ripon College and later took his bachelor's 

 degree at the University of Michigan. He 

 spent three years in graduate study at Michi- 

 gan and took his doctor's degree in 1894. 

 After receiving his bachelor's degree he was 

 appointed botanist at the University of Ver- 

 mont, which position he has held continuously 

 since 1889. 



Sm ISAMBARD Owen, principal of Armstrong 

 College, Newcastle-on-Tyne, has been elected 

 vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol 

 and Professor J. Michell Clarke pro-vice- 

 chancellor. 



DISCUSSION AND COMSESPONDENCE 



AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE AND THE QUESTION 

 OF HEREDITY 



To THE Editor of Science: The statement 

 of Mr. W. J. Spillman in your issue of Feb- 

 ruary 12 regarding the superiority of country- 

 bred boys, which I contraverted in your issue 

 of April 9 by an appeal to " Who's Who in 

 America," led me to examine the data which 

 Professor Cattell collected for his " Statistical 

 Study of American Men of Science.'" 



I pointed out in my former letter that Pro- 

 fessor Cattell found a marked superiority for 

 cities over the rural districts in the produc- 

 tion of men of scientific merit, while my own 

 investigation shows that this may be extended 

 to include leadership in various phases of ac- 

 tivity. 



Professor Cattell, moreover, discusses his 

 data in relation to their bearing on the ques- 

 tion of the inheritance of scientific aptitude. 

 I should like in this letter to make a few 

 points of criticism concerning his interpreta- 

 tion of his results. Although he calls atten- 

 tion to the ambiguity and insuificiency of 

 certain of his figures, he nevertheless gives 

 the impression that he considers his results in 

 general an argument against heredity. For 

 instance, he states (page 734) that 



The inequality in the production of scientific 

 men in different parts of the country seems to be 



' Science, N. S., Vol. XXIV., No. 623, December 

 7, 1907. 



a forcible argument against the view of Dr. Gal- 

 ton and Professor Pearson that scientific per- 

 formance is almost e.vclusively due to heredity.' 

 It is unlikely that there are such differences in 

 family stocks as would lead one part of the 

 country to produce a hundred times as many 

 scientific men as other parts. [This is one of the 

 points I wish to criticize]. 



Also on page 735 Professor Cattell writes: 

 The fact that there is not a significant differ- 

 ence in the average standing of scientific men born 

 in different regions of the country tends to sup- 

 port the conclusion that scientific performance is 

 mainly due to environment rather than to innate 

 aptitude. If the fact that Massachusetts has pro- 

 duced relatively to its population four times as 

 many scientific men as Pennsylvania and fifty 

 times as many as the southern states were due to 

 a superior stock, then we should expect that the 

 average standing of its scientific men would be 

 higher than elsewhere; but this is not the case. 

 [Tlie above sentence expresses the second point 

 that I should like here to criticize.] Like most 

 arguments intended to disentangle the complex 

 factors " nature and nurture," this however is not 

 conclusive. If scientific ability were innate, each 

 tending to reach his level in spite of environment, 

 then a potentially great man of science would be- 

 come such wherever born, and we might expect a 

 favorable environment to produce mediocre men, 

 but not great men. But this argument is an- 

 swered by the small number of scientific men from 

 certain regions of the country. Differences in 

 stock can scarcely be great enough to account for 

 this; it seems to be due to circumstance. A fur- 

 ther analysis of the curves of distribution might 

 throw light on the problem. Thus it might be 

 that the men of greatest genius were independent 

 of the environment, while men of fair average per- 

 formance were produced by it. Examples might 

 be given in favor of this view, but I can not see 

 that it is supported by the forms of the curves 

 of distribution. I hope at some time to take up 

 the question from a study of individual cases, but 

 I have not as yet the data at hand. My gen- 

 eral impression is that certain aptitudes, as for 

 mathematics and music, are mainly innate, and 



■ I should like to ask in passing for the exact 

 references to the writings of these gentlemen in 

 which they have stated that scientific performance 

 is almost exclusively due to heredity, or words to 

 this effect. 



