Letter from Ernst Mayr to Francis Crick
- 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