U.S. AIDS figures increased from 26 torn31 percent, Ilispanics increased from 14rnto 17 percent, Asians and Amerindiansrncombined held at less than one percent,rnand whites decreased from 59 to 51 percent.rnIn mv book Race, Evolution, and Behavior,rnI documented numerous surveysrncarried out around the world showingrnracial differences in frequency of sexualrnintercourse. The results show that bothrnbefore and after marriage, people ofrnAfrican ancestry are more sexually activernthan Europeans, who are more sexuallyrnactive than Asians. Concomitant racialrndifferences are found in sexual attitudes,rnwith Asian groups being least permissivernand African groups most permissive, andrnEuropean groups in between. Tpically,rnblack samples are found to have had intercourserneadier, with a greater numberrnof casual partners and with a more positivernattitude to sexual display than eitherrnwhite or Asian samples. I suggest thatrnthese differences in sexual behavior arernthe cause of racial differences in thernprevalence of AIDS.rnJ. Philippe Rushton is a professor of psychologyrnat the University of Western Ontariornin Canada. His latest book is Race,rnEvolution, and Behavior (Transaction).rnD U C A T I O NrnWhatever Happenedrnto the New Math?rnby Ralph A. RaimirnSchool math textbooks 50 years agornwere not written by mathematicians.rnThe typical author was the chairman of arnschool science department somewhere,rnin a district large enough to make writingrna textbook remunerative even if nobodyrnelse in the country used it. That he wasrnignorant of mathematics was unnoticedrnby an ignorant public and cadre of teachers,rnand that his prose was abominablernwas perhaps admired, so strong was therngeneral (mistaken) belief that mathematicsrnis not written in prose.rnTeachers, mainlv trained in schools ofrneducation, knew little about mathematicsrnto begin with; many habituallyrnignored anything demanding in theirrntextbooks and took refuge in teachingrnthe algorithms they had themselvesrnlearned as children. Textbook publishersrnwouldn’t dare print a book containingrnsomething its predecessors did not eontain,rnbecause no school would buy it.rnAnd what real mathematician wouldrnspend his time writing a school textbookrnthat nobodv would use?rnEuclid’s Elements, for example, history’srngreatest textbook of reason, had beenrnbowdlerized, reduced, or supplanted byrnproducts that were sold as more practical,rnwhen the real attraction was theirrnsupposed “teachability”: interest rates,rnsurveyors’ triangles, and rigid algebraicrnrituals for the college-bound. Anyonernwith half a mind could recite them, butrnneither teacher nor student wasted arnminute on their meaning or utility.rnWorse, each generation’s authors addedrna bit of new misunderstanding to whatrnmight have been right in eadier editions.rnSputnik gave us a chance to break thisrngridlock. The 1945 atom bomb had alreadyrngiven physical scientists and mathematiciansrna prestige without precedent;rnnow the Russian success of 1957 addedrnfear, which paid better. The year 1958rntherefore kicked off the largest and bestrnfinanced single reform effort ever seen inrnmathematics education, the SchoolrnMathematics Study Group (SMSG), uponrnwhich the National Science Foundationrn(NSF) spent millions of dollars overrna 12-year period.rnEdward Begle, a professor of mathematicsrnat Yale University, was chosen tornhead the new organization, and gave uprntopology for this new and unfamiliarrncalling. The existing professional educationrnbureaucracy, later called “the PEB”rnby William Duren, a reform mathematicianrnof the time, was thus suddenlyrnoutflanked by a new partw That is, thernteachers’ colleges, the National Councilrnof Teachers of Mathematics, and all thernstate and federal departments of educationrnand nurture, who though loosely organizedrndid still govern all teaching belowrnthe college level, were compelled tornfollow our lead.rnWhat Begle saw in the schools couldrnnot be cured by a friendly environment,rngood lighting, or deep pedagogical insight,rnso long as the textbooks, and thernmathematical conceptions of thousandsrnof teachers, amounted to a pack of lies.rnHe first assembled several separate teamsrnof mathematicians to write exemplaryrntextbooks, eventually covering all gradesrnfrom one to 12 and a bit more, thatrnwould be free of the ignorance, ambiguity,rnopacity, irrelevance, and tedium ofrnthe traditional curriculum. He includedrnpracticing schoolteachers in each writingrnteam, hoping (ainly as it turned out) tornkeep his textbooks within the realm ofrnthe classroom possible; but the mathematiciansrndrove the effort. SMSG invitedrnall commercial publishers to study,rncopy, or plagiarize these texts, whichrnSMSG placed in the public domain asrnmodels.rnSimultaneously, SMSG establishedrnhundreds of institutes, i.e., special collegerncourses for existing teachers, somernin the summers and some on Saturdays,rnto which eventually thousands (paid bvrnthe NSE) came to study the new material,rnto practice its pedagogy under therneyes of SMSG authors and master teachers,rnand then to carry the books back intornthe world for classroom testing on arnnationwide scale. The writing groupsrnwould reassemble summer after summer,rnstud)’ the reports from the field,rnand revise the texts and the teachers’rnguides for the next set of institutes andrnexperimental classes.rnAlmost half of the nation’s highrnschool teachers of mathematics attendedrnat least one such institute during the 12-rnyear life of SMSG; but an equivalentrnseeding was impossible for elementaryrnschool teachers, who outnumbered thernhigh school math teachers ten to one.rnWhile there were some institutes for elementaryrnschool teachers, these werernmainly for experimentation. The SMSGrnbooks themselves achieved unexpectedlyrnwide circulation, and were indeed, as Beglernhad urged, enthusiastically if often ignorantlyrnimitated, even (or especially) atrnthe more elementary levels. And the researchrnliterature produced in the collegesrnof education, and the journals of classroomrnpractice written and read by teachers,rnwere marked throughout the 60’s byrnobeisance to the SMSG program.rnThe result, after 12 years, was totalrnfailure. By any reasonable measure, andrnmeasures were taken, school mathematicsrnwas worse off in 1975 than it had beenrnin 1955. The idiocies of the older curriculumrnhad in most places been removed,rnbut often to be replaced withrnnew ones. Tom Lehrcr’s 1965 songrn”New Math,” lampooning the pretentiousrnlanguage used to justify an inabilityrnto calculate, had the mathematical com-rn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn