Title:

Letter from Ernst Mayr to Francis Crick

Creator:

Mayr, Ernst, 1904-2005

Recipient:

Crick, Francis, 1916-2004

Date:

14 April 1971

Description:

In his letter the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr commented on the contemporary debate in the United States about the role of genetics, race, and environment in human behavior. The debate was triggered by comments made by the Nobel Prize winning physicist William Shockley that the lag in educational achievements of black Americans could be accounted for by inherited racial traits, namely a lower IQ. Mayr rejected Shockley's thesis as racist and simplistic, calling instead for a research program in "positive eugenics," the idea of increasing the frequency of desirable traits by encouraging reproduction by individuals with these traits.

Original Repository:

The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers

Location:

Box: 12. Folder: PP/CRI/D/1/2/8

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of Ernst Mayr.

Genre:

Letters (correspondence)

Subject:

Genetics, Intelligence, and Continental Population Groups

Format:

Text

Extent:

3 pages

Relation:

Letter from Francis Crick to Ernst Mayr, 1971

Language:

English

Legacy Source Citation:

Original Repository. Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers. 11646. URL. http://archives.wellcome.ac.uk/

Legacy ID:

SCBBMW

NLM ID:

101584582X183

Profiles Collection:

The Francis Crick Papers

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X183

Story Section:

Embryology and the Organization of DNA in Higher Organisms, 1966-1976