He said he suspected that discrimination was relatively unimportant, and that the variability of aptitudes might matter a lot.
IN "DIVERGENT", A book series and Hollywood film, humans in a post-apocalypse Chicago are split into five different groups according to their aptitudes and values.
In one of his best chapters, "The Many Roots of Our Suffering", Mr Pinker suggests that conflict between the drives which evolution has landed us with and the aptitudes that would now help us prosper is probably inevitable.
Keystone Education, which offers specialist education tailored to different aptitudes in several states, claims that 80% of its graduates keep on the right side of the law for at least a year after they have left, whereas just 20% or so from the state's special schools do.
This originated in the 1930s when what became known as the Hawthorne research, involving the workers and management of an industrial plant near Chicago, brought out the importance to productivity of social or informal organization, good communications, individual and group behaviour, and attitudes (as distinct from aptitudes).
Problems also arose at the upper secondary level, where education remained rigidly uniform even though students were increasingly diverse in abilities, aptitudes, and interests.
Similar considerations apply to vocal and instrumental musical aptitudes wherein unique combinations of such anatomical structures as lips, teeth, larynx, tongue, eyes, ears, hands, and arms can facilitate the attainment of virtuoso skill.
The aptitudes of individuals (as measured by industrial psychologists) are imperfect predictors of job performance.
Given such examples, it is likely that inherited factors underlying behavioral aptitudes and capacities may have evolved from different selective pressures in different ecological niches.
Education was to be compulsory from age 6 to 18. Schooling was to be divided into three successive stages: (1) 6 to 11, aimed at mastery of the basic skills and knowledge, (2) 11 to 15, a period of guidance to discover aptitudes, and (3) 15 to 18, a stage during which education was to be diversified and specialized.
