The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 21, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 24, 1980 Page: 2 of 20
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Carter should support ERA,
not reactivate selective service
President Carter announced last night that he will
present legislation next month to provide funding for
the revitalization of the Selective Service system. This
is a dangerous and frightening action. War has seldom
been this nation's only option for response in times of
crisis. All too often history teaches the sobering lesson
that the grand rhetoric urging a nation into battle has
been a cheat and a deception.
There are reasons for fighting: it seems very clear
that individuals have the right to defend their own
lives, just as it seems clear that nations may fight to
defend the lives of their citizens. It does not seem clear
that the expense of life is rightly spent in the defense of
important ports, ocean lanes or national self-images.
Individuals and nations choose their responses to
threats after evaluating their own strength. The
reinstitution of the selective service can thus only have
ais its first and most dangerous result the creation of a
new bellicosity in our government. Now is not the time
to prime the pump which would funnel lives into an
Asian war.
The Equal Rights Amendment failed Tuesday in
Georgia's State Senate by a vote of 59-37. The fact
that the vote was not even close, in this state where
Mr. Carter once served as governor, makes the
President's confident assertion last night that "we
want. . . an America with equal rights. . .for women
guaranteed in the United States Constitution" ring
sadly hollow.
President Carter's recent use of political fillips to
advance his re-election campaign demonstrates that
he knows how to use the substantial political powers
of his office to further causes he considers important.
Thus, the failure of the E.R.A. in Georgia by such a
substantial margin must be taken as evidence that
President Carter failed to make a sufficient
committment of his and his staffs energies towards
the ratification of the amendment in Georgia.
Under legislation extending the ratification
deadline, three more states must vote to ratify before
June 30, 1982 if the E.R.A. is to become a part of the
Constitution. Those states which have not yet ratified
include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North
Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. It is going
to take more work than was apparently expended in
Georgia to secure the acceptance of this amendment in
these traditionally conservative states.
One can only hope that President Carter's
statement of support for the Equal Rights
Amendment is more than the cynical andpolitically
motivated empty phrase which events in Georgia
make it appear to be. —Matt Muller
SPANNING THE HEDGES/by David Dow
An old debate has erupted
again, and the nature versus
nurture adversaries are lashing at
each other as violently as ever. The
nature advocates hope that by
controlling the environment we
can mold man into a Platonic
ideal; the nurture backers point
out that many traits escape the
manipulative grasp of society.
Social policy cannot, for example,
affect the gene which transmits
height. Tall parents usually have
tall children. Environmentalists
accept the application of
Mendelean genetics to physical
characteristics like height, but
when the science transcends those
limits, and makes claims about
abstruse qualities like intelligence,
it provokes the ire of those who 1
believe the environment exercises
the central influence on an
individual's mind and personality.
The ensuing debate illuminates
scientific data while it shrouds our
moral obligations — which exist
independent of any laboratory
discoveries. The environmentalists
Jose sight of this commitment.
in many ways that is under-
standable. Our social system
rewards intelligence highly and
selectively. J.P. Morgan
bankrupts lesser competitors
through cunning and intellectual
talent, and society admires him: A1
Capone bursts into a bank and
uses force to clean out its safe, but
society loathes and hunts him.
Intelligence defines social status. It
makes sense, then, that if genes are
the primary factor in intelligence,
those designated as inherently
inferior intellectually will react
with a vengeance. Not sur-
prisingly, at their sides stand the
environmentalists who cling to the
dream that all men will compete
equally for positions of wealth and
power.
Others less directly involved also
join the fight. Marxists dream of a
classless society while egalitarians
assert each individual's equality.
Even capitalists must concede that
Horatio Alger needed more than
diligence. Genetics destroys
dreams; it renders the ideal
unattainable. Sadly, instead of
concentrating on modifying their
goals in the light of scientific
evidence, the idealists deny it. The
fervor results from a fear that
however neutral the evidence
racists can apply it deviously, a la
Hitler's Aryans.
Some racists do in fact appear
While scientists like Richard
Hernnstein of Harvard carefully
refrain from bifurcating the issue
OH, NO, YOU JUST THINK
YOU'VE SEEN "INSTANT NOSTALGIA"-
MX) HAVtWT SEEN THI5'" *
Are
Lnr W |Sf
THRESHING-IT-OUT
The Rice Thresher, January 24, 1980, page 2
into black versus white, others like
Arthur Jensen of Berkeley report,
on the basis of IQ test scores, that
blacks are less intelligent —
hereditarily—than whites. To
reach that conclusion, Jensen
disregards salient features of the
black environment: Black women
suffer from malnutrition during
pregnancy more often than whites;
disease infects black infants more
often than it does whites; and black
families must survive on $57 a day
where whites get $100. As Carl
Rowan wonders; "Given these and
other disparities in environment
and opportunity, is anyone really
surprised that a black ten year old
might perform at the level of a
white eight year old?"
Is anyone surprised? It certainly
may be the case that genes affect
intelligence, but we will never
know for sure and how much until
scientists control for environment
and culture. Nobody — including
Jensen — has done so, but several
— Jensen among them — go so far
as to quantify the effect of heredity
(80 percent, they say) as opposed
to environment (20 percent).
Very unscientific. Yet the Rowan
line of passionate rhetoric, that
"common sense tells us much more
than his (Jensen's) scholarship,"
has as little intellectual appeal as
applying percentages randomly. A
more cogent opposition questions
the validity of the data, the
rigorousness of the experiments,
and the interpretation of tne
results. Those questions get
shallow answers.
So the racists concoct new data
while the environmentalists call
even the respectable scientists
bourgeois fascists. Which is most
unfortunate. It focuses all the
attention on scientific findings
when we have moral and
humanitarian obligations
irrespective of them. New
experimental data may alter the
specifics of certain policies, but not
their underlying philosophy. If we
genuinely believed in survival of
the fittest, we would repeal all laws
and moral guidelines and allow a
state of anarchy to decide who
shall live. But we don't. Human life
has an intrinsic value which is
unrelated to height or mental
ability. Social policies ought to
reflect the judgment.
Guns don't kill,
people do
To the Editor:
In her letter to the Editor, Kathy
Collmer made some rather
inaccurate statements. The claim •
that two-thirds of homicides are
shootings may be true in some
jurisdictions, but is certainly not
true thoughout the United States.
The use of statistics for England
from 1972 is not very valid. The
murder rate in Britain has soared
since that time. The statement that
"the British don't have guns" is
simply not true. There are large
numbers of privately owned
firearms in Britain. Granted, it is
difficult to obtain a hundgun.
However, all it takes to make a
shotgun into a smaller weapon is a
hacksaw. Not surprisingly, one of
the favorite weapons is a sawn off
shotgun.
Ms. Collmer's rule of human
behavior, "where there's guns,
there's killing," is fallacious. A
very negligible number of the guns
in existence are ever used to kill
someone. In Switzerland, where
every able bodied man under the
age of 45 is required to keep his
militia weapon in this house,
murder is almost non-existent.
These weapons include automatic
rifles, machine guns, pistols, and
anti-tank weapons. On the other
hand, in Columbia, where
posession of handguns is
forbidden, with no exceptions, the
murder rate is enormous. The use
of data from other countries is
probably not very valid, since there
are different social factors at work
in each country.
I wonder why people like Ms.
Collmer think I should be deprived
of my right to defend myself.
Ross McMicken
Several factors more
dangerous than guns
To the Editor:
In your last issue, Kathleen
Collmer protested the sponsoring
of gun clinic by the Rice rifle team.
Miss Collmer seems to think that
guns cause the high murder rate in
the U.S., in comparison with
England. If she would examine the
statistics she presented, she might
realize her mistake. She stated that
the murder rate in the U.S. is 30
times greater than in England,
where guns are tightly controlled,
and from this she determined that
guns are the cause of our higher
rate. But she also states that two-
thirds of our murders are
committed with guns. Therefore, if
all the guns in America, magically
disappeared, we would still have a
murder rate 10 times greater than
England's, assuming that none of
the gun-using murderers shifted to
knives, or poison, or clubs, or
explosives,— I think this suggests
that cultural factors other than the
presence of guns are to blame for
our high murder rate.
Certainly, eliminating all guns,
especially handguns, would make
murder more difficult, and thus
reduce the murder rate, but only
because it takes longer to beat
someone to death than to pull a
trigger. A gun just makes our
aggressors more efficient.
I feel that blaming our nigh
murder rate on guns and ignoring
the factors that produce such a
high rate of desire is a copout.
Stuart Derby
mrnm MATTHEW MULLER
Ib Editor
mmmm* JAY OLIPHANT
lHRFSHFR Business Manager
Richard Dees Managing 'Editoi
Carole Valentine Advertising Manager
Rolf Asphaug News Editor
Wayne Derrick Photography Editor
Franz Brotzen Fine Arts Editor
Steve Bailey Sports Editor
Bob Schwartz Back Page Editor
David Butler Senior Associate Editor
Assistant Editors Geri Snider, Amy Grossman
News Staff Anita Gonzalez, Allison Foil,
Kathy Mitchell, Michael Trachtenberg, Bill Bonner, Sarah Herbert, R.B. Johnson,
Lela Smith, Adrienne Clark, Laura Rohwer, J.C. Puckett, Pat Campbell, Eugene
Domack, Ron Stutes, Rawslyn Ruffin, Augusta Barone, Russ Coleman,
Tom McAlister, Robin Baringer
Fine Arts Staff Steve Sailer, Gary Cole,
Thomas Peck, Nicole Van Den Heuvel, Scott Solis, Carol Owen, Thorn Glidden,
Gaye Gilbert. Amanda Lewis, Mehran Gouran, M. Bradford Moody, Jim Fowler
Sports Staff Donald Buckhoit, Michelle Gillespie,
Norma Gonzalez,' Jean Hobart, Ken Xlein, Cindy McCabe, Tami Ragosin,
Laura Rowher, Byron Welch, Rich Whitney, Alison Whittemore
Science Staff Sue Taylor, Joel Breazeale,
Bob Skocpol, Debbie Wenkert, Margaret Schauerte, Greg Greenwell, Owen Wilson
Photography Staff Jay Bauerle, Robert Bohrer
Buster Brown, T.W. Cook, Bruce Davies, Dingbat, Janie Harrison,
Bruce Kessler, Jeff McGee, Laura Rohwer, Wunderwood
Advertising Staff John Szalkowski, James Hadley, David Hou
Production Staff John VanderPut, Gaye Gilbert,
Ann Betley, Kelvin Thompson, Laura Rowher, Dianne Frome,
Vikki Kaplan, Allison Foil, Ruth Hillhouse, Laurie Koch
Circulation Rob Rogen, Vikki Kaplan, Chaijean Heard
The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper at Rice University since 1916, is published
weekly on Thursdays during the school year, except during examination periods and holidays,
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e Copyright 1980, The Rice Thresher. All rights reserved.
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Muller, Matthew. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 21, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 24, 1980, newspaper, January 24, 1980; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245427/m1/2/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.