杏吧原创

POSTERITY would have been kinder to William Shockley had he not survived a head-on collision with a drunk driver in 1961. Then 51, he had won the Nobel prize in physics for his work on the transistor, and was a leader in the hot field of semiconductor physics. As an entrepreneur, he had brought the first semiconductor company to Silicon Valley. His death would have been mourned as a tragically early end to a brilliant career.

Yet by 1961 Shockley鈥檚 best years were behind him. His inept management had driven away eight top men from Shockley Semiconductor and the company was fading fast. Most disastrously, Shockley鈥檚 interests were turning to the inheritability of intelligence, leading him into a quagmire that would leave his reputation in ruins.

What transformed the giant of the semiconductor revolution into an ageing crank who insisted on taping every phone call to his home office? One of his oldest friends, Frederick Seitz, said Shockley was never the same after the car crash. But in Broken Genius, Joel Shurkin shows that the problems went much deeper.

鈥淭he real disaster was Shockley鈥檚 move into eugenics鈥�

Born in London in 1910, Shockley was the only child of an eccentric globetrotting American couple. Often isolated from his peers by his doting mother, he led an erratic childhood. That didn鈥檛 stop him from mastering physics. But as hard as he tried, Shockley never mastered dealing with other people. He could recognise talented people, but was utterly unable to manage them. Soon after the invention of the transistor, his incompetent management pushed co-inventor John Bardeen 鈥� the only person to win two physics Nobel prizes 鈥� to leave Bell Labs.

But the real disaster was Shockley鈥檚 move into eugenics. He was not alone in thinking that intelligence was largely inherited. Nor was he alone in worrying that dullards were having so many more children than the intelligentsia that the future would be a world of 鈥渕arching morons鈥�, as science-fiction writer Cyril Kornbluth depicted in his classic 1951 story of the same name. As the civil rights movement swept across the US, Shockley became the leading figure from the intellectual establishment to argue publicly that genetics was the reason behind the claim that average IQs were lower among African Americans.

It was the wrong thing to say at the wrong time. It put Shockley in league with the marching morons of the 20th century: racists fighting the civil rights movement. 鈥淚t became a full-time obsession for Shockley. It released dark forces in him that seemed always to have been lurking,鈥� Shurkin writes. Although he did little original research on intelligence, Shockley would talk about almost nothing else, alienating himself from friends and colleagues. Craving media attention, he gave deliberately provocative talks that made him a lightning rod for critics, and donated to a sperm bank intended to breed brighter children.

Shockley鈥檚 obsession destroyed his reputation. It was particularly perverse, Shurkin writes, because Shockley was 鈥渁 living embodiment of the weakness of IQ tests鈥�. As a boy, he was tested twice by Lewis Terman, developer of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, and both times fell short of the score of 135 that would have included him in Terman鈥檚 lifelong study of 鈥済eniuses鈥�. Shockley joked about it, yet insisted Terman鈥檚 geniuses must have gone on to greater things. In that he was wrong; none won a Nobel prize, and Terman鈥檚 test also failed to spot a second physics laureate, Luis Alvarez.

What sent Shockley astray? Shurkin does a good job of portraying a difficult man, but he wisely lets us ponder that question for ourselves. It is possible some mental disorder contributed to Shockley鈥檚 problems, but we will never know for sure. Others have followed the same recipe for self-immolation: tackle a complex problem outside your range of expertise; simplify the issues until you get results that fit your personal prejudices or political beliefs; state your case loudly; and refuse to listen to contrary evidence. Ironically, Shockley鈥檚 old friend Seitz, now in his mid-90s, followed a similar course. He became a strident critic of global warming 鈥� a field far from his speciality of solid-state physics 鈥� and he also found himself pushed aside by the scientific community.