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The Mismeasure of Man ::
Stephen Jay Gould wrote The Mismeasure of Man, at least in part, to dispel the myth that the abstract concept of human intelligence is something that is biologically determined, and that it is not only immutable, but that it is quantifiable through scientific observation and intelligence testing. Starting with the practice of Craniometry in the Nineteenth Century, then moving to IQ testing that developed in the last 100 years, he profiles scientists and psychologists who develop a way of quantifying human intelligence. In each profile, the scientist is hit with an inconclusive or contradictory set of data, and in each instance, Gould points to the person’s underlying prejudices and racial misconceptions, which originally buttressed their conclusions, but ultimately resulted in their undermining.
The main strength of The Mismeasure of Man is that it fundamentally works to disabuse us of the myth of the reification of intelligence. Gould goes in to excruciating detail on how, precisely, complex practices such as Factor Analysis fail when they are used to determine human intelligence. However, by focusing on hard science (much of which, I must admit, was over my head), the book lacks discussion on how we might change our educational practices in such a way that they are more inclusive and beneficial to a more diverse group of people. I am aware that such a topic is well outside the scope of the book, nonetheless, now that I have accepted Gould’s argument, I am at a loss as to where we move from here.
So, more than twenty years after its original publication, and in spite of its lack of a “vision for the next step,” I think The Mismeasure of Man is still as important as it was when it first came out in 1981. Just eight years before its first publication, people were being affected in very real ways by the Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision (which legalized sterilization of people who lacked a certain amount of “innate” intelligence); in the past decade, we saw the publication of The Bell Curve, which influenced public policy (although in a limited way) in spite of its mean-spiritedness and poor science. Seeing these conditions indicates that The Mismeasure of Man will continue to be important until our political and educational institutions no longer demand that some children be left behind.
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