The Mismeasure of Man

I'm surprised no one has mentioned how very literate and artfully written this book is. Readers of Gould's essays will not be surprised by this, but if you're expecting to pick up a dry technical tome with unfathomable jargon, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Gould has written a great book without ``dumbing it down.''


On the mismeasure of Gould   December 19, 2008
O. Buxton (Highgate, UK)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

Some critics complain that in The Mismeasure of Man Stephen J. Gould attacks a straw man: craniometry is, after all, no more than fin-du-siècle quackery with which no self-respecting scientist would dream of having truck these says. Likewise, the naïve early attempts at to link IQ with heredity that Gould spends so much time recounting have long since been soundly and uncontroversially demolished, so Gould at best is shooting fish in a barrel, and many suspect him of something more mendacious than that. Some suspect a political agenda. The late Stephen Jay Gould, you see, was a *Marxist*, after all.

That particular, ad hominem, charge has mystified me the more I've read of Gould's work. I first encountered Gould in discouraging circumstances where his evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium was subjected to a contumelious lambasting at the hands of (usually) mild-mannered philosopher Daniel Dennett, in his (otherwise) wonderful and thought-provoking book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life.

Taken as I was by Dennett's general argument at the time (I'm less swooned by it these days), I thought his vituperative treatment of Gould was out of character - from what I can tell Dennett is a positively genial chap - but otherwise thought nothing of it, other than supposing Gould to be part of the problem and not the solution.

There I surely would have left it, and Stephen J. Gould, were it not for Richard Dawkins' silly entry to the "religious wars" The God Delusion - as good an example as one could ask for of how perfectly thoughtful, sensible and smart scientists tend to make arses of themselves when they stray from their stock material. About the only interesting thing in Dawkins' book was how, again, poor old Steve Gould, now sadly deceased, got another shoeing, this time for his pragmatic attempt to reconcile science and religion in Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life.

This time I had the BS radar switched on, found Dawkins' attack to be pretty obviously misguided (Dawkins may be a great biologist but his epistemology would have had him kicked out of PHIL 101) and wound up being more, not less, persuaded by Gould's concept of "non-overlapping magisteria".

In any case, at the very least this Gould chap seemed like the sort of contrarian agitator who was clearly a good sport and an interesting critter, but more to the point it sounded like he had something interesting to say. And so, it transpired, he does. I've since read a number of his books and articles, all of them articulate, beautifully written, witty, erudite and excellent in substance, and never once have I seen any suggestion of Marxist bias (eager followers of my reviews will know I have no particular sympathy with left wing politics).

As regards The Mismeasure of Man such insinuations would be especially ironic, since Gould's very point is to illustrate that well-meaning and well respected scientists are all too prone to be deceived into equating their wilful interpretations as scientific truths. In fact, I suspect Gould would even concede to some bias: that, he would say, is the point.

Against all the odds, there seem to be a few brave souls who hold out hope for a hereditary aspect to intelligence: indeed a couple seem to be active on this site. Gould's only substantive point for them is to say that, whatever we even mean by "intelligence", it is so obviously situational and environment-dependent (this shouldn't be news to anyone who's seen Crocodile Dundee) - in other words *socially constructed* - that seeking to tie it to something like biology - which by its very definition isn't - is on its face a waste of time. Gould the liberal then adds, by way of political commentary, that the harmless if silly conclusion that the two *are* related is liable to be misinterpreted by unscrupulous (or simply unsuspecting) people, particularly if they have a particular social agenda which would find it convenient to establish innate differences between - for which read "innate deficiencies in certain (other)" - racial groups. That isn't a scientific point, it's a political one, and to my (un-Marxist) mind, Gould is perfectly right to make it.

Now a different objection to Gould's enterprise might be that such a point doesn't require 300 pages of careful demolition of unequivocally bunk science to make (unless your correspondent is funded by the Pioneer Foundation, apparently: and for those lucky souls, not even 300 pages of argument will do it). But the methodological point is the one that interests Gould: how the hypothesis conditions the evidence sought but even the interpretation placed upon it. Gould's patient history would function as a case study for Thomas Kuhn's superb essay on the contingency of Scientific knowledge The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Gould also sees analogy between the hereditarian's linear view of intelligence with the naive ordering of all creation to accord with a supposed evolutionary progression from bacterium to homo sapiens sapiens. Again, it's not the Marxist but the Paleontologist who patiently explains that evolution doesn't work like that: it is better viewed as an expanding bush that a linear progression.

To be sure, in the early parts of this book there is a level of detail that seems superfluous, but the later aspects, and particular Gould's insight into statistical correlation and factor analysis are fascinating and well explained for a layman, and the handsomeness of his turn of phrase and the constancy of his erudition - scientists tend to be poorly read outside their fields, but this was most certainly not the case of the late professor Gould - make this a fascinating and enjoyable work by a profoundly wise and sadly missed thorn in the establishment's side.

They don't make them like this anymore, alas.

Olly Buxton


Abuses of Science   December 8, 2006
Dustin Martinez (St. Louis, MO USA)
14 out of 19 found this review helpful

Gould's The Mismeasure of Man is pretty much a classic by now, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in science or intelligence testing.

The intent of the book is basically to show how people have abused science either consciously or unconsciously in other to support untenable claims about intelligence. The first half of the book devastatingly critiques head measurement as a gauge of intelligence and explains that pre-existing racist and sexist motivations blinded these researchers to more obvious theories that made better sense of the facts recorded. With hindsight it seems obvious that measuring the size of a brain doesn't tell us anything about intelligence, but this is just the sort of hindsight needed in order to examine more modern methods of assessing intelligence--that being IQ testing.

Most people today accept IQ testing and have even taken such a test before. However, Gould points out that Binet's original intention in creating such tests wasn't to measure intelligence, but to assess the correct learning environments for people with learning disabilities. He also notes that the reification of intelligence into some sort of metaphysical entity is totally uncalled for--and any anti-platonists will surely enjoy this aspect of the book, even though he doesn't go into any philosophical depth in critiquing such views.

This book not only critiques bad usages of science in the past, but it also shows the reader the correct way to think scientifically, to measure data, and so on. Don't be fooled by all the talk about science, either--this book is intended for lay people and can be easily grasped by anyone, really.


Excellent refutation of scientific racism   November 25, 2003
50 out of 71 found this review helpful

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.


One of the most important books I own   January 1, 2008
Matt Willett (Cedar Rapids, IA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

Are there entire populations of people who are born with an innate, quantifiable intelligence greater than others? Can intelligence even be quantified? According to Gould, science has not yet arrived at a meaningful and scientifically legitimate understanding of this concept of intelligence, nor a way to measure it, nor any proof that certain races are naturally smarter than others.

I would expect an eminent evolutionist to spend his time making a case for how biological diversity lends itself to multiple levels of mental ability through natural selection. But instead Gould puts on a turtleneck and tweed and plays historian--quite well, too! His scientific background gives him the credibility to explore this topic like no historian could.

Gould walks through the history of science's attempt to quantify human intelligence and demonstrates how and why each method eventually failed. But of course this type of science exists today in various types of IQ tests, bell curves, all of which are used to not only measure this thing we call intelligence, but also by some to argue that some groups are naturally superior to others. Gould analyzes the history, methods and underlying theories behind these contemporary incarnations.

The book is readable, well illustrated, well documented, and has a lot of solid historical analysis.