e causal relationships between specific environmental features and IQ outcomes. Storfer (1990) delineates the two extremes of the nature versus nurture controversy:
At one extreme, proponents argue that intelligence is so strongly governed by heredity that environment scarcely influences it, although they may acknowledge the ability of extremely deprived upbringings to stifle intellectual development. At the other extreme are people convinced that (with rare exceptions) a person's environment has far more to do with how well he or she performs on an IQ test than does his or her heredity. As a consequence, this group tends to view IQ tests as indicators of environmental deprivation rather than as measures of differences in innate ability. (p. 517)
The interactionist approach to a theory on intelligence does not rely exclusively on either heredity or environment to explain intellectual differences; instead, such an approach seeks to reconcile Storfer's two extremes. As will be seen later, even some hereditarians believe that heredity and environment both contribute to intelligence, although to very different extremes. The interactionist places much more emphasis on the ability of the environment to influence one's innate abilities.
The primary concern of those studying intelligence (even today) has been the degree to which mental ability is hereditable. Historically, most theoreticians who have worked in psychometrics, the psychological technique of mental measurement, have not been content to merely measure ability. They have attempted to generate genetic theories as to why certain races or classes of individuals are "smarter" than others. Such attempts have more often than not resulted in the "mismeasure of man," to borrow the title of Stephen J. Gould's (1981) excellent work on the subject. Gould (1981) seeks to demonstrate both the scientific weaknesses and political contexts of biological determinist a...