A
Focus on: the intent of the authors
When reading a book or article, it is essential to keep in mind
the backgrounds and biases from which the authors are coming.
In 1996, Steven Jay Gould revised his book The Mismeasure
of Man (1)with additional essays in response
to The Bell Curve (2) by Herrnstein and Murray, whose book provided
yet another resurgence of the "g factor" and its applications. "g"is
a given measure of "general cognitive ability"(3). Gould is passionate
and a social activist. He asserts that it is important to be passionate because
only then will you truly contribute to your chosen pursuit or preference.
Science cannot be objective because it is created and performed by scientists,
who are merely yet wonderfully human beings. They are inevitably subject to
their culture: preferences, biases, beliefs, and innate characteristics of
custom, habit, or idea due to their upbringing. And that is okay. It
is simply important, however difficult, to realize and be aware of ones preferences
so that one does not them taint the work performed.
Gould writes in response to what he sees as two main fallacies: the
reification of intelligence as one quantity (i.e., IQ testing) and the ranking
of intelligence as a means of defining the superiority or inferiority of specific
groups of people. This is especially seen correlated with genetic claims of
innateness or heritability. Gould feels that he is best able to write The
Mismeasure of Man for several reasons. He is passionate about the refutation
of The Bell Curve and of past studies performed in an attempt to rank
groups of humans; this passion is a direct product of his liberal upbringing
and experience. He is an analytical scientist who understands the data,
yet at the same time loves history and thus approaches the history
of the development of the theory of unilateral intelligence. The recurring
issues and debates over this topic are not new, but rather restatements of
past arguments. He thus confronts the heart of the issue; that is, he addresses
the first, founding studies. Gould says that the resurgence of the ranking
of races by intelligence has "sociopolitical"motives (i.e., best
serving the needs and wants of conservative politicians). Alfred Binet in
France developed IQ testing as a means to identify students with special needs;
it was in America that Stanford professor Lewis M. Terman transformed the
IQ tests into an issue of ranking. Gould felt passionately obligated to right
the wrongs that he perceived to exist.
Anne Fausto-Sterling, author of Myths of Gender (4), is both a scientist and most definitely a feminist--what is most
striking, however, about both Gould and Fausto-Sterling is how they use, appreciate,
and accept their "biases." They are both very open to and cognizant
of their preference and perspective and champion the importance of this awareness.
It is those scientists who are not introspective who let their biases adversely
influence their work.
Myths of Gender focuses on presenting and exposing previous
studies done on gender differences--differences in areas such as emotion,
aggression, hormones, intelligence, and ability. This book is intended to
"debunk"the numerous inadequacies and fallacies that Fausto-Sterling
sees in the ways that the data are presented and analyzed and in the ways
that conclusions are drawn and perhaps misconstrued.
Both these works, The Mismeasure of Man and Myths of Gender,
are openly political. Fausto-Sterling, like Gould, is a social activist.
While her training is in developmental genetics, she has taught both gender
and biology classes and was a political activist. It is possible to sense
a significant amount of tension in her writing, particularly in the preface
to the revised edition of her book. She revised her book upon prompting from
other colleagues as the discussion homosexuality became more open and widespread
in the early 1990s. She is not sympathetic in her preface, but appears to
actually be resentful of having to rework and expand her book. Perhaps she
felt obligated to expand the book, even though she had already moved onto
new issues of investigation. It is peculiar that she might feel resentment,
however, because it was she who made the ultimate decision to expand, however
difficult declining would have been.
(1)
Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man, Revised
and Expanded Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996.
(2)
Herrnstein, Richard J., and Murray, Charles. The
Bell Curve: the reshaping of American life by difference in intelligence.
New York: Free Press, 1994.
(3)
Plomin, Robert. “Genetics and General Cognitive
Ability.” Nature. 2 December 1999. Vol 422, Supplement, pp C25-C29.
(4)
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Myths of Gender: biological theories
about men and women, 2nd Edition. New York: Basics Books, 1992.
For
further responses by members of the academic community to The Bell Curve:
(5)
Fraser, Steven. (Ed.) The Bell Curve Wars: Race,
Intelligence, and the Future of America. New York: Basic Books, 1995.
(6)
Devlin, Bernie; et al . (Eds.) Intelligence, Genes,
and Success: Scientists Respond to the Bell Curve. Copernicus.
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