history and philosophy

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.

This book is a must-read for anyone. Stephen Jay Gould blows the door open on the way we perceive and evaluate intelligence. He is able to dispense with biological determinism in one graceful stroke.

Though written first, this book is very much a refutation of the controversial The Bell Curve. Gould shows how poor science and prejudice has resulted in assessing inteligence in ways that benefit middle and upper-class whites. He chronicles how skull measurements in the 19th century "proved" that men were smarter than women and western Europeans smarter than everyone else. Out of this grew other methodologies to assess inborn intelligence that has done everything to influence immigration policy and the way we teach our children. Gould looks at the modern form of intelligence assessment, the IQ test, and makes the reader question whether such a thing should exist at all.

Gould writes very clearly and this book is a model in its comprehensiveness. This! book can be tackled by nearly anyone. It will very likely blow your mind.

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.