In the years following its acceptance, readers and students were treated to semi-factual descriptions of individuals, tribes, populations, and societies. In my time, some of this was required reading for all college students. Some of that nonsense has influenced the thinking of three generations and caused untold fortunes to be misspent on social programs that were not to the real point.

The reason for the general acceptance of this doctrine is very possibly a backlash to the genetic components of the holocaust (the genocide of the Jews in Germany), as well as many other examples of genocide, and the genetic components of the civil rights struggle in the United States and South Africa, for example. Rather than suppressing evidence of inherent characteristics, we should be alerting students to the dangers of generalizing characteristics to an entire population. Every measurable population has a wide range and variety of any characteristic. It is unscientific to attribute the average measure of a characteristic to the entire population.

This doctrine is based on the doctrine of enculturation. It takes the position that intelligence is a meaningless word and that any difference in educational development between students is due to disproportionate educational opportunities. Usually there is an allowance for "exceptional" students and "challenged" students; however, everyone in between is considered equal in capability. Teachers are punished for any inequality in the performance of their students.

For numerous reasons, student achievement has become even more important than the learning process. On one hand, every student is supposed to succeed for fear that "failure" will be an insufferable stigma. On the other hand, "dumbing" down the curriculum fails to challenge the student, while "challenging" the student promotes feelings of failure. This doctrine will be addressed in the chapter on Learning.

It has really only been since the industrial revolution that the family roles have begun to change. We have come from a world where the man was required to leave the home to hunt and gather (work) while the woman stayed at home to raise children and prepared food to a world where two wage earners are required to support a family and same-sex couples raise children.

This change of roles isn't a bad thing, per se; however, the millions of years of "traditional" roles and the resulting evolutionary influence on the condition of men and women has to be considered. The doctrine of the family takes the position that all one needs is love to be a family. This relieves the stigma of being a member of an alternative family or the product of a divorce.

This doctrine is so embodied in the "Word of God", that many people find it impossible to relinquish, as if doing so would cause one's entire faith to disintegrate. The Biblical account has spawned all sorts of metaphorical extrapolations in an attempt to justify it with science. As well, there has arisen "Intelligent Design" and other permutations of imagination to modernize the original story. We will examine what the evidence points to in the chapters on Creation and Ontogeny.

When I was taking a post-graduate course in anthropology, and we were studying crime, I took an article to the professor by Dr. Crowe about babies born to mothers in jail and adopted their first year of life. He showed that, compared to babies born to mothers not in jail, many more went to jail themselves. His justified conclusion is that children born of convict mothers inherit criminal traits that later get them in jail. As soon as the professor understood what the paper was about, he looked shocked and held it over a waist paper basket and said: "We don't even think of things like this!"

Later I was giving a talk to a seminar on the same subject, and, when I mentioned the possible heritability of criminality, a professor jumped up and rudely shouted that no such connection had been shown. We are thus in the ludicrous cul de sac that not only are such studies never done but such conclusions are precluded because we cannot think of them!

No science should have a doctrine. In spite of that, anthropology, sociology, education and, to some extent, psychology became cults devoted to the doctrine of enculturation. The sentinels of this doctrine are not evil people, but are afraid that if the truth were known, others might misuse the facts and abuse each other. But without the facts, nothing can be accomplished, and we must repeatedly relive desperate situations with desperate acts. To make a valid and lasting step forward we must take a chance on the Truth.

In the chapters of this book, we will observe conditions of immutable psychology and evolution which are contrary to this doctrine and will discuss their consequences. Realistic Idealism, to some degree, will challenge many doctrines of previous philosophies. To each degree of newness there is a degree of heresy. In this case, without apology, an attempt is made to justify this with new understanding.

There is no guarantee that people experimenting with the Truth will not misuse it. Perhaps there is something especially horrid and revolting when people use the right concepts and yet do evil things. It is like a beautiful, tender woman doing something intentionally violent, such as machine-gunning a crowded bank during a robbery. The irony is almost more than we can stand. We would much rather that miscreants act from ignorance, and thus excuse them. Perhaps we must suffer through periods of misapplication and learn from bad experiences before we can use facts constructively. We certainly cannot be truly constructive using misconceptions, no matter how beautiful they may seem.