ABSTRACT
Science, ideally, of course, is objective. But science unfortunately is done by scientists, who, more or less, are lacking in complete objectivity. Anyone familiar with workers in the mental deficiency area can make guesses as to what biases are most significant among them, certainly many of them seem impelled to ' defend' mental defectives rather than to 'explain' what is going on. The use of terms like 'children' or notions like 'therapy' in discussing mental defectives may therefore be construed as involving an implicit plea for exemption from normal adult responsibilities on the ground that the 'charges' are 'growing up'. Analogously, mental defectives are more likely to be stigmatized, despised, or institutionalized if they look unusual, if they do something which other people regard as 'disgusting' rather than just 'silly' or, probably, if they have the misfortune to live in a group which places a high premium upon intellectual skill.
