The debate over racism has split his own field. He noted the 1995 resignation of then President-elect Pierre Roubertoux of France from the Behavior Genetics Association after outgoing President Glayde Whitney argued that there was a racial basis for different murder rates between U.S. cities. Hernstein and Murray, he said, completely accepted the writings of Arthur R. Jensen of the University of California at Berkeley, who claimed that the genetic determination of intelligence had been proven. In a study, referred to in the Congressional Record, Hirsch showed that Jensen had distorted and misrepresented many of the 159 references in a 1969 paper. The endorsement, Hirsch said, came before careful academic scrutiny was done.
Heredity refers to what parents transmit genetically to offspring.
Heritabiliy measures the relationship between a gene pool of a particular population and the expression of a certain trait under certain environmental conditions, Hirsch said. Heritability sounds like heredity, but they are in no way the same thing. Heritability estimation appeals to the racists. Calculate a nature-nurture ratio, and you've got genetic inferiority. That's absolutely wrong.