Final answer:
Sir Francis Galton's 1874 work differed from previous thinking by emphasizing environmental influences on intelligence rather than just genetics or racial traits, introducing the problematic concept of eugenics that would later be discredited.
Step-by-step explanation:
Why was Sir Francis Galton's 1874 publication of "English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture" different than the thinking that came before? It was different because it emphasized environmental influences on intelligence, which contrasts with the previously dominant ideas of innate racial differences and genetics as the primary determinants of human abilities.
Sir Francis Galton's work was significant in introducing the concept of eugenics, a controversial belief in the improvement of human populations through controlled breeding for desirable heritable characteristics.
However, eugenics later became associated with pseudoscientific racism and fell into disrepute, especially after the horrors of the Nazi regime's eugenics program during the 1930s and 1940s.
The correct answer to the question is option B: It emphasized environmental influences on intelligence. Galton's publication marks a departure from the deterministic views of the time, which often attributed intelligence and social status to inherent genetic or race-based traits, echoing concepts like Social Darwinism and unilinear cultural evolution.
These theories were used to justify class distinctions, colonialism, and racism, assuming that social success was due to superior breeding rather than environmental factors or opportunity.
In contrast, Galton began exploring the roles of both nature and nurture in the development of human traits, laying groundwork for the modern understanding of the complex interplay between genetics and environment.
Galton's ideas, though pioneering in the study of heredity and environmental influences, were problematic as they eventually laid the foundation for the eugenic movement, advocating for selective breeding to enhance human traits.
This movement gained traction in the early 20th century but was deeply entwined with pseudoscience and often aligned with racist and classist agendas, leading to unethical practices, such as forced sterilizations and genocide, under the guise of creating a superior human race.