In 1968, long before the publication of Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, or Arthur Jensen's Bias in Mental Testing, Irving Gottesman published a book chapter that addressed head-on the issues that would define the relationship between the genetics of social behavior and large-scale social theory for the next 50 years. That he could do so with his characteristic scholarly thoroughness and scientific tough-mindedness without once lapsing into regressive hereditarianism is a testimony to the scope of his scientific knowledge and the generosity of his intellectual spirit.
