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Summary: Of intelligence, genetics, and environments (again)
Review: Steven J. Gould is most famous among the general public for his collections of essays from his long Natural History series, "This View of Life". But the best of Gould's writing is perhaps to be found in his single-theme books. And The Mismeasure of Man is arguably the finest among them. The volume is about the long history of the search for scientific justification of racism, and the many faux pas that science has committed when it comes to the study of human intelligence. The 1996 edition of the classic 1981 book also contains some interesting addenda: "Critique of the Bell Curve", and "Three Centuries' Perspective on Race and Racism" (as well as a new introduction), just in case you were not convinced by the arguments lined out in the main text. The Mismeasure can conceptually be divided in two parts: the first deals with the misapplication of measurements of the human body (cranial capacity and facial features), the second one is concerned with the mind (IQ and generalized intelligence). In both cases, Gould follows the same approach that has been so successful in some of his technical opuses, such as Ontogeny and Phylogeny: he tracks the history of a discipline or scientific question, highlights the contributions and discusses the motives of the major players, while simultaneously plunging into the technical aspects of the science behind the problem. So, for example, in order to find out why measuring the cranial capacity of the human head does not tell you much about intelligence, we are introduced to biologists of the caliper of Louis Agassiz (Gould currently holds his chair at Harvard), Samuel George Morton, Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin), and - of course - Paul Broca, the father of craniometry. It is indeed fascinating to find out that theories of the origin of human races actually preceded Charles Darwin and evolutionary thinking, with the "polygenic" school apparently providing solid basis for racism: if the term "human" comprises different species, it is only natural that we rank them according to their biological worth (needless to say, the "objective" ranking invariably ended up putting the author's race - and gender - in pole position, and somewhat ahead of everybody else). The supporters of the opposing theory of "monogenism" were by no means kinder to other races, though. Their argument was that there was only one Adam, and that every human race descended from him, and degenerated to a greater or lesser extent (again, you guess who degenerated more and who the least). Regardless of the premise, all we needed to know according to craniometrists was the size of the brain (as estimated by the internal volume of the cranium) and we will know how intelligent (and thereby "worthy") any individual or race really is. Now, one could object that there is indeed a good correlation between cranial capacity and what we intuitively think of as intelligence among animals. After all, biology textbooks report diagrams showing that carnivores have larger brains than herbivores, regardless of body size. And the accompanying explanation makes sense: carnivores need larger brains because they have to process more information and more quickly, they have to face a larger variety of situations, and be able to make a larger number of vital decisions. In other words, they need to be smarter. Gould acknowledges this, but quickly - and correctly - points out that variation across species does not have to have the same cause and meaning as variation within species. He illustrates this with an array of definitely intelligent people whose brain sizes covered almost the whole gamut displayed by non-pathological individuals. However, this is indeed one of the troublesome aspects of this book and, I dare say, of Gould's writing in general. He dismisses contrary evidence or arguments so fast that one gets the impression of seeing a magician performing a trick. One cannot avoid the feeling of having being duped by the quickness of the magician's movement, instead of having observed a genuine phenomenon. In this particular instance, I can vouch for Gould as a biologist, but I'm not so sure that the general public is willing to trust him on his word. After having dismissed both craniometry and the aberrant work of Cesare Lombroso on the anthropological stigmata of criminals, Gould moves on to his main target: IQ and intelligence testing. IQ testing was originally introduced by the French psychologist Alfred Binet with the intention of spotting children who were falling behind in the curriculum, so that teachers could pay particular attention to them. Alas, such a noble intent soon fell victim to the human tendency of ranking everything, and led to an astounding series of "scientific" enterprises characterized by deep racist overtones. H.H. Goddard saw the feeble-minded (the technical term being "moron") as a menace to society; we should care for him, but we should not allow him to reproduce. One of the ghastly consequences of the eugenic movement in the US was the enactment of immigration restriction laws based on perceived racial inferiority, and the actual forced sterilization of individuals deemed genetically inferior: for a few years the United States teetered on the brink of the same precipice over which Nazi Germany readily dove around the same time. One of the chief obstacles to the use of IQ scores is that there are several ways to devise an IQ test, and the results of different tests are not always congruent when performed on the same subjects. But if we have to use a battery of tests, and then somehow weigh their discrepancies, we lose one major attraction of IQ testing: the ability of ranking human beings on a simple, uni-linear scale of worth. Charles Spearman and Cyril Burt set out to accomplish the feat of reducing multiple-tests complexity once again to a single magical number. Burt was a disciple of Spearman (himself one of the founding fathers of modern statistics) and later claimed to have made contributions to the theory of factor analysis which where in fact Spearman's. Gould plunges into one of the best explanations I have ever come across of the multivariate statistical technique of factor analysis, fundamental to both Spearman's and Burt's work. This allows the reader to gain some understanding of a very important tool in modern biostatistics (one that Gould himself uses for his own technical research), while at the same time being able to follow Gould in highlighting the fundamental problems which Spearman and Burt incurred. Simply put, factor analysis is a statistical technique based on the rotation of orthogonal axes in multivariate (i.e., multidimensional) space. This reduces a complex data set (say, made of the results of ten different IQ tests) to a manageable number of linear combinations of the original variables. This smaller set of dimensions identifies the principal "factors" which explain the correlation structure in the original data. Spearman's suggestion was that all IQ tests have one principal factor in common. That is, the scores on each test are correlated to each other, because they all reflect one underlying quantity, which Spearman named "g", or general intelligence. Spearman therefore provided one of the two pillars of the eugenic movement: there seemed indeed to be one way to rank individuals by their intelligence with the use of one number: this was the score on the g-factor, instead of the score on any of the available IQ tests. Burt's major achievement was a supposed confirmation of the second fundamental piece of the puzzle eugenic puzzle: his studies of genetically identical twins suggested a high heritability (incorrectly read as a high level of genetic determination) of intelligence. So, not only do individuals differ in intelligence, but this is easy to measure and genetically determined. Environment, and with it education and social welfare, cannot alter the innate difference among individuals, genders, and races. QED Well, not really.
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Summary: The Mismeasure of Man
Review: The Mismeasure of Man written by Stephan Jay Gould is an expose on the IQ measuring, the classification of people via ranking them according to their supposed gifts of intelligence. I say expose, well, Gould does get to the heart of the matter, and does unearth, reveal, and denounce the Bell Curve for what it really is as a test that is flawed from the beginning. As most, if not all, intelligence measuring is skewed to the tester's favor as the innate prejudices come through.But, reading Gould's explanation, brings out both logical inconsistencies of the theories and the prejudically motivated misuse of the data. Thus, giving the reader a deep look into these measuring techniques from a well grounded position... in particular on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. Gould does an excellent job here, deflating the pseudobiological explanations and bringing to the light fascinating historical facts to illustrate these inconsistencies. It makes it very hard to get an accurated picture of intelligence if the "tester" is testing the wrong things. Gould's historical approach is very evident in reading this book, as he takes his time to lay the ground work, making his point at the root and foundation on the testing procedures. Nevertheless, Gould's humorus wit works its way through his writting and makes reading this book a pleasure. As always, Gould brings the reader upto speed, to a level that you understand what it is he's trying to illustrate. In one of the essays in the final section, Critique of the Bell Curve, Gould makes his eloquent argument. "The Bell Curve" by R.J. Hernstein and C. Murray is a prime example of Gould's rapier mind working to uncover flawed logic, giving the reader an unusual opportunity for insight into the meaning of experiment as a method in science. When reading this book, one feels that Gould works his polemics, not for argument, but for truth, thus, strengthening his position. As Gould mentions, "A note on the title: I hope that an apparently sexist title will be taken in the intended spirit... not only as a play on Protagoras' famous aphorism, but also as a commentary on the procedures of biological determinsts discussed in the book. They did, indeed, study "man" (that is, white European males), regarding this group as a standard and everybody else as something to be measured unfavorably against it. That they mismeasured "man" underscores the double fallacy." Surely reading this book, if not making you "smarter," will leave you better informed on experimental technique and how to evaluate these techniques. Gould is championing truth and how to spot pseudologic and pseudobiological explanations.
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Summary: For the soft-minded
Review: Noticing that a book was on the market that rehashed the same, tired old 1960's idocy that there is "no difference" between races (subspecies) of homo sapiens, my ever-so-PC liberal arts college gobbled up copies of this book and distributed them as required reading for evolutionary psychology classes. Overall, this book was a big waste of time and contributed NOTHING to what is otherwise a fine field of study. Simple, regressive logic such as "just because some 19th century racists drew exaggerated pictures of blacks to make them look like apes" this means there are no differences between subspecies of human beings that evolved in isolated environments over 100,000's of years. Pure nonsense and totally worthless; not "scholarly" at all but rather an amateur foray into "science" for the feminist/ultra-left crowds.
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Summary: good arguments, but pay attention to what it leaves out
Review: I agree with the grad student whose review recommends reading both this book and The Bell Curve. Gould does an excellent job shooting down work that claims to find racial differences in intelligence. However, that is not the same thing as proving that those differences don't exist. But Gould superbly points out the degree to which preconceptions can influence "science," even subconsciously, and points out the need for a generous dose of skepticism when research purports to divine the intelligence (or cognitive) ability of groups. This skepticism should be heightened when the researcher goes beyond attempting to identify measurable aspects of intelligence and relate them to groups, and takes the additional step of suggesting social policy.
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Summary: To truly measure human intelligences is to "see" beyond 'g'
Review: Review of Stephen Jay Gould's 1996 revised and expanded publication of "The mismeasure of man" New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1981) In "Thoughts at Age Fifteen", the sub-title to the new Introduction to the Revised and Expanded Edition of "The Mismeasure of Man", Stephen Jay Gould (1996) calls himself a "working scientist by trade" (p. 24), then "a statistically minded paleontologist" (p. 25) and finally "an evolutionary biologist by training" (p. 41). The author of thirteen books, Mr. Gould currently teaches geology, the history of science and biology at Harvard University. His strong interest in intelligence initially arose from his desire to bring science and its discoveries to the attention of the nonscientist. In considering the mainstream arguments made about "the theory of a measurable, genetically fixed, and unitary intelligence", Dr. Gould (1996, p. 21) became concerned about how the social sciences, especially psychology, were misused in the development of the concept of intelligence, in particular, the whole nature of intelligence testing itself. Over the past 19 years, Gould has well responded to such misuses with two timely publications. First of all, in 1981 he produced "The Mismeasure of Man" mainly to argue against the social and political results of those misapplications, more specifically, in response to Arthur R. Jensen's (1969) article "How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement?" Likewise, in 1996, Gould generated the revised version of "The Mismeasure of Man" as a response to Richard L. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's (1994) book "The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life" (Gould, 1996). Throughout the four hundred twenty-four pages of the 1996 version, Gould "argues that early researchers (perhaps unconsciously) biased their measurements of intelligence based on race and points to shortcomings of those trying to substantiate "g" (Yam, 1998, p. 7). Gould uses his 1996 version to reiterate, once again, his two central themes. First and most simply stated for this note, he argues that the psychological construct "intelligence" has not been shown to be any physical object or real thing (see pp. 27, 48, 56, 185, 189). Instead, he suggests that intelligence is one's ability to face problems in an unprogrammed or creative manner. Throughout the book, he argue that intelligence is what he calls "the ground of culture," not a biological entity. In short, he views intelligence as the product of cultural evolution ... distinct from biological evolution. However, Gould feels that because of the efforts of a group of American psychologists during the war years, the concept of intelligence has been endowed, as just outlined, to the position of a real object. To cite his precise wording, Gould says that now intelligence has been become "reified, or made real". More simply worded, Gould "sees" reification as a real thing, as something each person possesses that is, unitary, genetically fixed, measurable and constant (for a more detailed account of Gould's basic premises, the reader is asked to see Carroll, 1985, especially pp. 123-125). Gould's second major point is that using an abstract concept such as intelligence to quantify and rank people's worth is an exceedingly dangerous enterprise. He points out that this way of ranking is a fallacy because the task of ranking people implies quantification, or measurement resulting in one single number for each person -- the IQ (intellectual quotient) score. Further, "Gould shows how this sort of ranking can lead (and, as he shows clearly, has led) to the erroneous conclusion that oppressed and disadvantaged groups -- races, classes, sexes -- are found to be innately inferior and deserving of their reduced status, with all of this based on the measurement of something that exists only as an abstract concept at best" (Miller, 1993, p. 8). To sum up all of the aforementioned, Gould considers the use of psychological testing to rank ones' worth on the basis of the single IQ or general "g" score THE major misuse of science in this century. References Carroll, John, B. (1995). Reflections on Stephen Jay Gould's 'The Mismeasure of Man' (1981): A retrospective review. Intelligence, 21, 121-134. Herrnstein, Richard. J, & Murray, Charles (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press. Jensen, Arthur R. (1969). How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement? Harvard Educational Review, 39(1), 1-123. Miller, Lynda (1993). What we call smart: A new narrative for intelligence and learning. San Diego, California: Singular Publishing Group. Yam, Philip (1998, Winter). Intelligence considered, [Special Issue]. Scientific American, 9(4), 6-11.
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Summary: Gould chooses political correctness over science
Review: Gould wants to abolish the opinions that intelligence can be measured and that it is unevenly distributed among ethnic groups. He is the wrong person to do it as he has a checkered history when it comes to keeping to the facts. As Oxford academician Richard Dawkins says (see Bryson, "A Short History of Nearly Everything", pp. 330-332) "If only Stephen Gould could think as clearly as he writes!" Dawkins accused Gould of misrepresenting facts in one of his previous books. Gould's conclusions in "Wonderful Life" were further attacked by Dawkins as "mistaken or carelessly inflated." Reading Gould's hysterical attack on "The Bell Curve" is enlightening for only one reason: it shows how irrational people can become when science removes the foundation for their political beliefs. It is all right for Gould to make a career out of skewering fundamentalists for their belief in creationism (and he is right to do so) but it looks as if Gould can't handle the evidence when one of his own beliefs (in the doctrine of equal ability and intelligence) is shown to be groundless. Rather than admit the truth (as many scientists quietly do so), Gould goes to outrageous ends to try to attack the ideas that intelligence can be measured or that I.Q. is a valid concept.
This book is popular because Gould writes well. It is nonsense because Gould is no longer writing science; he is writing devotional tracts for what's left of the old lefties in academia.
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Summary: Gould is too biased for this subject
Review: Gould is usally an excellent science writer but his extreme liberal biases prevents him from writing objectively on the subject of intelligence and the evidence that it is unevenly distributed among the races. Gould is so anxious and paranoid about where this admission might lead that he denies its possibility right from the start before looking at the evidence - hardly a good way to do science but a great way to keep politically correct. This is a sad, pathetic book from a once great science writer. It looks like Gould would rather maintain his beliefs rather than look at the evidence - the very thing Gould has accused creationists of doing in his previous books. Interestingly, Gould attacks the authors of "The Bell Curve" for the conservative leanings that appear in that book. He suggests that their politics influenced their reading of the data. But this is exactly what Gould has done in his own book! In Gould's case it is his far left politics that have clouded his reading of the data. Very sad. Some readers will buy this book based on Gould's excellent reputation. In this case, Gould was living off his reputation rather than furthering it.
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Summary: Excellent refutation of scientific racism
Review: This book is a touchstone of sorts. You can tell a lot about someone from what they say about it and from what they think Gould is saying. Some accuse Gould of trying to argue that there are no IQ differences among people -- he is not arguing that. Some people say that he is trying to argue that there are no IQ differences between any two given people of difference racial backgrounds -- he is not arguing that, either. Gould's argument is fairly straightforward. He is of the opinion that the differences *between* racial groups are on average no greater than the differences *within* racial groups. How Gould's argument could get so distorted and why it gets so many people upset tells me that some people have a need to feel superior and like thinking that there is a scientific justification for them to feel superior. Based on his analysis of historical instances of intelligence testing, he is also of the opinion that the general goal of intelligence testing has been to (1) come up with a single number scale, ranked highest to lowest, that can be used to peg people in a hierarchy of intelligence and then (2) use the results of that numbering scheme to determine social policies used on those people and (3) pass those results on to the public to reinforce the idea that those people who are disadvantaged actually deserve to be disadvantaged because they belong to an inferior race. You can gauge based on how upset people get at Gould's reasoning how close to the truth -- and to the nerve -- he is striking. I think this is an excellent and superbly argued book, and should be read by more people.
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Summary: Gould can't hide his political agenda
Review: Gould is a very confused person! His ambitious goal was to prove that intelligence is not inherited but a product of environmental factors such as education. The only way one could do such thing is to find a way to measure intelligence and then prove that better education and better environment can increase it. This is where Gould's problem comes in.
He mocks all attempts to measure intelligence. The only clear point that he makes throughout the book is that intelligence can't be measured or even defined clearly.
I agree but just because we can't measure it, doesn't mean that we didn't inherit it from our parents. Measurement and heritability are two different things and they must not be confused. We can't say that the Milky Way Galaxy doesn't exist only because we can't account for every single star, planet, and satellite in it.
Gould points out that average height in a third world country may be lower than average height in the US due to poor nutrition. Then he goes on to say that if people in the third world were as well fed as Americans, their average height may turn out to be higher. Unconsciously, Gould has destroyed his own argument. If two populations receive equal amount of nutrition and yet one of them turns out to have lower average height then what else other than genes could account for the difference?
He points out that IQ test scores could be increased with more education but then he totally dismisses IQ as an indicator of how smart we are. He ends up with no argument against heritability. If we can't measure intelligence then we can't prove that education can increase it, and if we can't prove that education can increase it then we have no argument against heritability.
Why can't we turn chimpanzees into PhDs? Could it be because chimpanzee's genes do not allow them to build sophisticated brains like ours? And if the sophistication of our brain is determined by our genes then the capacity for high intelligence is clearly inherited.
Basketball players are tall not because they practice to be tall but because they inherited a collection of genes, which in the presence of healthy diet can build tall bodies. Others who eat equally healthy may not grow so tall. Jumping up and down on a basketball course won't make them any taller than they already are. I can use many other analogies but I think I proved my point.
The only good thing about this book is that it points out the silliness of trying to prove the intellectual superiority of one race over another. That was the only reason I gave it two stars.
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Summary: Maybe what you want to hear; but biased, and wrong.
Review: If you want to believe that IQ doesn't mean anything, that "g" doesn't exist, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary: just give yourself permission to believe it. Don't make things worse by encouraging yourself to believe another huge conspiracy theory, exposing yourself to too much snideness. Learning, by example, to argue as if "persuasion", not objectivity, not a full and balanced account, not logic, and not even the truth, is the only goal or consideration. If, on the other hand, you want to believe that IQ exist, (which is not to say life isn't complicated: As a simple example we could talk about a thing called Physical Strength, and believe it exist, even if someone else points out that there is "arm" strength and "leg" strength and proceeds to quibble and moan about your tests of strength ... not that I want to take this analogy any further), OR what you want is "objectivity", read the Bell Curve. Sincerely,
Mark D. Stump
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