Abstract
DR. C. S. MYERS contributes an article on Human Improvability to a recent issue of the Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Journal (vol. 49, No. 183). He says that the problem of human improvability is as interesting as it is difficult. One difficulty lies in the definition of improvement, which is not necessarily synonymous with progress, and for which we can have only subjective criteria. The prevailing biological view is that all changes in living form and function are evoked by accident, and are perpetuated by heredity and by their suitability to the environment; improvement might then be regarded as involving a more perfect adaptation to the physical and social environment.Some thinkers, however, find such a view inadequate to account for the facts, and therefore postulate in addition some, to us unknown, purpose in the universe. Our developing knowledge of other peoples has replaced many illusions as to natural differences by the recognition of likenesses as well, and confirms the importance of the social environment. It is not unlikely that man's mental and moral development depends in part upon the relation between his inheritance and the physical and social environment in which he grows up. Dr. Myers analyses several modern environmental conditions and concludes that changes have occurred which justify a belief in human improvability; these improvements do not, however, appear to come from the innate improvability of a race but from the improvement in the social heritage. The paper is provocative and stimulating, and in view of Dr. Myers's intimate knowledge of many aspects of modern civilisation, it is worthy of very serious consideration. It is all the more important at the present time, when so much pessimism is shown in the interpretation of the changes which our environment is experiencing.
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Human Improvability. Nature 130, 17–18 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130017d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130017d0