It wasn't available in my local library, but I could get it from a library in the same system, so now I'm reading what is supposed to be the definitive debunking of IQ. It's so much garbage, it's hard to read. Looking at the index alone, there are so many fallacies as to make the book so much fart gas and not a work of scholarly repute. Now having read the introduction to the 1996 version, I know beyond a doubt that the whole damn book is so much fart gas. I am recording my responses to it as I go. When I'm done, I may post the whole review here. In the meantime, I'm curious if anyone else has read it and what your take on it was.
It's a pretty good book, but it is in Gould's unique style. Then again, I read it to learn something, not to make a case against it because it doesn't fit my preconceived notions.
I've changed my mind on enough topics to know that if someone presents a compelling enough case, I can change my mind. But if they present a bunch of crap wrapped in a pseudo-scientific package, I'm going to see through it. And that's what that book is. Here's my review. I didn't read all of it, but I read enough. I can already tell from the introduction that Stephen Jay Gould's motivation for writing The Mismeasure of Man wasn't at all scholarly or scientific but political. His own statements characterize right-wing views as “meanness” and the scholarly investigation into IQ as justification for keeping “disadvantaged groups” down. At no point does he even begin to consider the possibility that there ARE natural reasons for the backwardness of African nations compared to European and Asian nations, for the relative poverty of blacks and the relative wealth of Jews compared to the native white populations. In his introduction, too, he claims that science informs him of logical fallacies, and yet the entire book seems to be built on three logical fallacies: racists came up with IQ so IQ must be racist, which is a guilt by association fallacy; that men's worth can be measured by a single, linear quantity like IQ, which is a straw man fallacy, since no one is arguing that; and that the motivation for studying IQ in latter days is racism, which is a claim without factual support. He has already made a factual error in the introduction, claiming that brain case capacity is unrelated to intelligence, but it isn't. Brain size and intelligence have a .4 correspondence, not determinative by any means, but far higher than mere chance. He also referred to “multiple intelligences”, which has also already been debunked in the most decisive way. This book looks like it's going to be a complete waste of time. Gould has absolutely no arguments worth considering. Gould claims that his book is a “logical, empirical, and historical refutation of the theory of intelligence”, but in the end, it isn't a factual one. The Bell Curve lays out the case for intelligence in cold, hard facts, none of which Gould actually disputes. He only disputes the meaning of those facts, but Herrnstein and Murray didn't imply any meaning to the facts they presented. So Gould has nothing to stand on. If Gould understood evolutionary biology, which is his field, he would know that ALL individual differences that aren't caused by injury, disease, lack of nutrition, etc., are genetic, or else those traits would not be passed on to their offspring and evolution would have nowhere to go. You can't pass on environmental or biological but not genetic information. You can only pass on genetic information. So IQ must be genetic or else it would never have been passed on from one generation to the next and humans would never have developed. “Factor analysis had been invented for a social use contrary to my beliefs and values.” Awww. Boo ****ing hoo. “I felt personally offended...” Awww… poor you. You ******ned son-of-a-bitch. Your ****ing feelings don't matter to the ****ing facts. “[T]he claim that worth can be assigned to individuals and groups by measuring intelligence as a single quantity.” Straw man argument. Literally no one claims this. Ted Bundy, by all accounts, was a very intelligent man, but we don't evaluate his worth on that basis. Mother Theresa, by all accounts, was a very average woman intellectually, but we don't evaluate her worth on that basis. Yogi Berra, by anyone's estimation, was not very bright, but we don't evaluate his worth on that basis. IQ is a single measurement of ability and as such is one factor that may determine a man's or a group's worth, but it is exactly that, one factor. That Gould denies that factor is more telling about Gould than it is about any particular person or group. Oh my God, that son of a bitch attacks science and calls facts suspect. No wonder he can come up with an answer to the IQ debate, he doesn't believe in ****ing facts. He actually resorts to history to support his claims and not to science. Looking over Gould's response to The Bell Curve, Gould makes two logical errors and combines them into one perfectly useless rebuttal. He essentially ignores the facts in the book and dredges up someone entirely different and attacks that person, thereby making a straw man error. Then he accuses Herrnstein and Murray of being just the same as this obscure person, thereby making a guilt by analogy error. At no point does Gould actually attack anything in The Bell Curve as being wrong, because he essentially cannot. Facts are facts and no one has any basis to attack the book on the accuracy of the facts. So they have to attack the book on a variety of other bases, none of which actually disprove the accuracy of the book. It's been 30 years now since The Bell Curve came out and no one has been able to dispute its accuracy. Gould even admits in the book that scientists dismiss his book as so much pablum, but that doesn't stop him from promoting his pet theories. Garbage, complete and utter garbage.
