[lbo-talk] It's the IQ, stupid

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Sat Aug 28 11:34:30 PDT 2004


Calvin Ostrum wrote:
> And ravi wrote:
>>
>> isn't gould's book a pretty straightforward critique of certain theories
>> and personalities in the history of the intelligence measurement
>> community? isn't adventures into the philosophy of science, in
>> responses, the real strawman?
>
> Not at all. The above is nothing more but an attempt to
> describe a significant aspect of Gould's own position, as briefly
> outlined in the very first pages of "The Mismeasure of Man", once you
> get past the inevitable literary showing off of the opening paragraphs.
> The description is overly extreme in that Gould would not say that "social
> prejudices" *inevitably* are confirmed by the scientific theories produced
> under their influence, but this kind of error on Jensen's part is
> understandable and even somewhat excusable since Gould's position
> is rather slippery and not very carefully expressed.
>

by such measure, the reasoning in gould's general audience book is excusable too, since he is attempting to fight ill-conceived and unjust theories paraded a science (my understanding of his introduction). throughout the two introductions to the book (the original introduction and the introduction to the revised and expanded edition) gould lays out the the foundation of the book, the motivation behind it, and its central theme. only once, in the old introduction, does he touch upon the notion of science as a search for objective knowledge. but he quickly adds:

i do not ally myself with an extension now popular in some historical circles: the purely relativistic claim that scientific change only reflects the modification of social contexts, that truth is a meaningless notion outside cultural assumptions, and that science can therefore provide no enduring answers. as a practicing scientist, i share the credo of my colleagues: i believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it.

<end quote>

in all of the rest of the introduction, he deals with the main thrust of the book, his challenges to the notion of a single, inheritable, unchanging trait of intelligence, that can be measured. this is again made clear from the table of contents i.e., this is no deep philosophy of science assumption/commitment required to follow the text or accept or reject its argument.

--ravi

table of contents of 'the mismeasure of man':

2. American Polygeny and Craniometry before Darwin: Blacks and Indians as Separate, Inferior Species A shared context of culture Preevolutionary styles of scientific racism: monogenism and polygenism Louis Agassiz--America's theorist of polygeny Samuel George Morton--empiricist of polygeny The case of Indian inferiority: Crania Americana The case of the Egyptian catacombs: Crania Aegyptiaca The case of the shifting black mean The final tabulation of Conclusions The American school and slavery 3. Measuring Heads: Paul Broca and the Heyday of Craniology The allure of numbers Introduction Francis Galton--apostle of quantification A curtain-raiser with a moral: numbers do not guarantee truth Masters of craniometry: Paul Broca and his school The great circle route Selecting characters Averting anomalies BIG-BRAINED GERMANS SMALL-BRAINED MEN OF EMINENCE LARGE-BRAINED CRIMINALS FLAWS IN A PATTERN OF INCREASE THROUGH TIME Front and back THE CRANIAL INDEX THE CASE OF THE FORAMEN MAGNUM Women's brains Postscript 4. Measuring Bodies: Two Case Studies on the Apishness of Undesirables The ape in all of us: recapitulation The ape in some of us: criminal anthropology Atavism and criminality Animals and savages as born criminals The stigmata: anatomical, physiological, and social Lombroso's retreat The influence of criminal anthropology Coda Epilogue 5. The Hereditarian Theory of IQ: An American Invention Alfred Binet and the original purposes of the Binet scale Binet flirts with craniometry Binet's scale and the birth of IQ The dismantling of Binet's intentions in America H. H. Goddard and the menace of the feeble-minded Intelligence as a Mendelian gene GODDARD IDENTIFIES THE MORON A UNILINEAR SCALE OF INTELLIGENCE BREAKING THE SCALE INTO MENDELIAN COMPARTMENTS THE PROPER CARE AND FEEDING (BUT NOT BREEDING) OF MORONS Preventing the immigration and propagation of morons Goddard recants Lewis M. Terman and the mass marketing of innate IQ Mass testing and the Stanford-Binet Terman's technocracy of innateness Fossil IQ's of past geniuses Terman on group differences Terman recants R. M. Yerkes and the Army Mental Tests: IQ comes of age Psychology's great leap forward Results of the army tests A critique of the Army Mental Tests THE CONTENT OF THE TESTS INADEQUATE CONDITIONS DUBIOUS AND PERVERSE PROCEEDINGS: A PERSONAL TESTIMONY FINAGLING THE SUMMARY STATISTICS: THE PROBLEM OF ZERO VALUES FINAGLING THE SUMMARY STATISTICS: GETTING AROUND OBVIOUS CORRELATIONS WITH ENVIRONMENT Political impact of the army data CAN DEMOCRACY SURVIVE AN AVERAGE MENTAL AGE OF THIRTEEN? THE ARMY TESTS AND AGITATION TO RESTRICT IMMIGRATION: BRIGHAM'S MONOGRAPH ON AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE THE TRIUMPH OF RESTRICTION ON IMMIGRATION BRIGHAM RECANTS 6. The Real Error of Cyril Burt: Factor Analysis and the Reification of Intelligence The case of Sir Cyril Burt Correlation, cause, and factor analysis Correlation and cause Correlation in more than two dimensions Factor analysis and its goals The error of reification Rotation and the nonnecessity of principal components Charles Spearman and general intelligence The two-factor theory The method of tetrad differences Spearman's g and the great instauration of psychology Spearman's g and the theoretical justification of IQ Spearman's reification of g Spearman on the inheritance of g Cyril Burt and the hereditarian synthesis The source of Burt's uncompromising hereditarianism BURT'S INITIAL "PROOF" OF INNATENESS LATER ARGUMENTS BURT'S BLINDNESS BURT'S POLITICAL USE OF INNATENESS Burt's extension of Spearman's theory Burt on the reification of factors Burt and the political uses of g L. L. Thurstone and the vectors of mind Thurstone's critique and reconstruction The egalitarian interpretation of PMA's Spearman and Burt react Oblique axes and second-order g Thurstone on the uses of factor analysis Epilogue: Arthur Jensen and the resurrection of Spearman's g A final thought 7. A Positive Conclusion Debunking as positive science Learning by debunking Biology and human nature Epilogue Critique of The Bell Curve The Bell Curve Disingenuousness of content Disingenuousness of argument Disingenuousness of program Ghosts of Bell Curves past Three Centuries' Perspectives on Race and Racism Age-old fallacies of thinking and stinking Racial geometry The moral state of Tahiti--and of Darwin



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