Family size, intelligence, score and social class

Abstract

Prof. Burt's pamphlet (Burt, 1946) is a stimulating document, especially in its suggestions for further research into the complicated field of the relationship between intelligence and fertility. Yet I feel, for two main reasons, that its pessimistic predictions are premature.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julian Blackburn

Discussion of the relation between differential fertility and national intelligence has, during the last two years, been stimulated by the evidence submitted by the Eugenics Society to the Royal Commission on Population, by Prof. Godfrey Thomson's Galton Lecture (‘The trend of national intelligence’, Eugen, Rev. XXXVIII, no. i), and by Sir Cyril Burt's pamphlet (Intelligence and Fertility, Hamish Hamilton, London, I946). The present paper by Julian Blackburn is in the nature of a review article of the latter pamphlet, and is replied to by Sir Cyril Burr himself in the following paper.