This chapter has as its concern a debate that begins with Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton (1822–1911) around the degree to which human psychological functions, especially intelligence, is a matter of biological inheritance or whether experience makes any contribution. It is known as the argument over nature versus nurture. More specifically we will consider:

• Galton’s dismissal of nurture in favor of eugenics and biological determinism.
• Intelligence testing and the elimination of human defect.
• Evolutionary psychology and the explanation of human activity as adaptations to ancient envi­ronmental challenges encoded in brain mechanisms.
• Cultural psychology’s explanations of human conduct in terms of historical-cultural develop­ments and processes.

You should become sensitized to the potential harm that can come from, and is associated with, biological determinism as an explanatory paradigm and of its limitations.