see also Bell Curve, The
IQ testing, 23, 27, 29, 40, 44, 46–47, 49, 367, 372–74, 384, 385–89
in Burt’s argument of innateness, 310
craniometry and, 176–78
education affected by, 41, 179–84, 386–88, 389
hereditarianism supported in, 182–88, 310
Spearman’s g and, 293–95
Ireland, absence of snakes in, 395
Jackson, George, 172
Jefferson, Thomas, 63, 64, 402, 412, 422
Jensen, Arthur, 22, 23, 30, 45, 159, 189, 214, 265–66, 343, 369, 373, 397
Spearman’s g and, 295, 347–50
Jews, 38, 377
army mental tests and, 255, 258
false beliefs about, 49, 392, 394–98
Johnson, Lyndon, 30
Jolson, Al, 39
Joseph, Chief, 424
Jouvencel, M. de, 112, 121–22
Jung, C. G., 143
juvenilia, 413, 416
Kallikak family, 26, 198–201
Goddard’s photographs of, 59, 200, 201, 203
Kaus, Mickey, 371, 372, 373
Kemelman, Harry, 19
Kennedy, John F., 37
King, Martin Luther, 30
Kipling, Rudyard, 148
Kotzebue, Otto von, 414
Lafitte, Jacques, 267–68
Lamarckian evolution, 37, 408
Le Bon, Gustave, 136–37
Lee Kuan Yew, 368
left-handedness, 313–14, 401
Lewontin, R., 23, 353
Lincoln, Abraham, 64, 66, 422
Linnaeus, C., 66, 403–6
Lippmann, Walter, 204, 209–10
lobotomy, 134–35
Lombroso, Cesare, 139, 142, 152–73, 174, 179, 210
retreat in attack on, 162–65
see also criminal anthropology
Lovejoy, A. O., 56
Love’s Labours Lost (Shakespeare), 31
Luria, Salvador, 45
Lyell, Charles, 69
McGee, W. J., 124
McKim, W. D., 59
Malay race, 402–4, 409, 410–12
Mall, Franklin P., 112, 114, 120
Manouvrier, Léonce, 58, 138, 139, 169
“Man With the Hoe, The” (Markham), 198–99
Medawar, Sir Peter, 56n, 135
meliorism, 419
Mendel, Gregor, 191–93
mental age, 46, 179–80, 386
in army mental tests, 225–29, 252–54
mental deficiency, 188–204
Goddard’s unilateral scale of, 189–91
of immigrants, 194–98
moral behavior and, 190–91, 210–11
taxonomy of, 188–89
see also morons
mental tests, 40–44, 45, 46, 384–90
residual variance of (s), 287, 317, 318
Spearman’s tetrad procedure for, 288–91, 316
in Thurstone vs. Burt-Spearman schools of factor analysis, 326–46
two-factor theory of, 286–88, 316, 317, 333
see also army mental tests; IQ; IQ testing; Spearman’s g
Middkmarch (Eliot), 61, 129
Mill, John Stuart, 58, 151, 215, 350, 378
Millet, Jean François, 199
miscegenation, 76, 80–81, 380, 398
Mismeasure of Woman, The (Tavris), 21
missionaries, 414–16, 420, 421
molecular biology, 32–33
Mongolian race, 78, 88, 98–99, 101, 129, 402, 404–5, 409
mongolism, 164–65
monogenism, 71–72
defined, 71
evolutionary theory and, 105
slavery defended by, 102
monstrosus, 404
Montagu, Ashley, 150, 249–50
Montessori, Maria, 139, 152
Moore, T. V., 298–99
“Moral State of Tahiti, The” (Darwin and FitzRoy), 413–16
Morgan, Elaine, 139
morons, 188–204
army mental tests and, 226–27
Goddard’s identification of, 188–89
institutionalization of, 193–94
preventing immigration and propagation of, 194–201
Morton, Samuel George, 57, 74, 82–101, 102, 106, 116, 117, 142, 189, 352, 355
conscious bias of, 92
corrected values for final tabulation by (table), 98
craniometric procedure of, 85, 89–92, 96–97, 100
finagling of, categorized, 100–101
finagling of, as unconscious, 87–88, 97, 98–99, 101
final tabulation by (1849), 98–99
on Indian inferiority, 26, 88–92
skull collection of, 83–84, 85
species defined by, 84
multiple intelligence, 22, 372, 373
multiple regression technique, 371, 374–76
multivariate analysis, 42–43, 47
see also factor analysis
Murray, Charles, 22, 23, 30, 31–32, 33, 34–36, 37–38, 48–49, 50, 295, 302n, 325n, 347, 350, 367–90, 397
Mussolini, Benito, 136
Myrdal, Gunnar, 53, 55, 114
National Book Critics Circle award, 44
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 371
Natural History, 49
natural selection, 37, 41, 70, 356
nature vs. nurture, 34, 389
Nazis, mental testing by, 224n–95n
“Neo-Lysenkoism, IQ, and the Press” (Davis), 45
neoteny, 132–35, 363
in ranking human groups, 149–51
recapitulation theory vs., 148–49
New Republic, 370–71, 372
Newsweek, 389–90
New Yorker, 48, 50
New York Times, 371
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 379
Nixon, Richard M., 30
Nott, Josiah C., 101, 102, 380
Oedipus complex, 143
Once and Future King, The (White), 363–64
Ontogeny and Phytogeny (Gould), 143n
“ontogeny recapitulates phytogeny”, concept of, 142, 143
Origin of Species (Darwin), 104
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 261
Other America (Harrington), 37
Parmelee, Maurice, 172
Pascal, Blaise, 412
Passel, Peter, 371
paternalism, 408, 416, 419–21, 423
Pauling, Linus, 40
Pearl, Raymond, 286
Pearson, Karl, 267–68, 270
Pearson’s r, 240
Pedagogical Anthropology (Montessori), 139
pelycosaurian reptiles, 43
phrenology, 21–22, 57n, 92, 129, 286
Plato, 51–52, 63, 166, 210, 269, 282, 320
polygenism, 71–74
Agassiz as theorist of, 74–82
defined, 71
evolutionary theory and, 105
Morton as empiricist of, 82–101
slavery justified by, 101–4
Pope, Alexander, 62
Powell, J. W., 124
primary mental abilities (PMA’s), 329–40, 341, 345
egalitarian interpretation of, 332–37
primitive peoples:
children compared with, 145–46
criminal behavior in, 155–56
European brains vs., 155–56
Pritchard, James Cowles, 132
progress, idea of, 56, 189
Protagoras, 20
Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Browne), 391–98
psychoanalytic theory, recapitulationism in, 143
Psychological Examining in the United States Army (Yerkes), 225–28
Psychologie des foules, La (Le Bon), 136–37
Psychology of Reasoning (Binet), 180
Public Interest, 45
punctuated equilibrium, 45
Pygmalion effect, 387
quantification:
in American psychometrics, 222–25
analys
is, 57–59
as common style of fallacies, 56–57.
in craniometry vs. intelligence testing, 140
Galton as apostle of, 107–9
later nineteenth century dominated by, 105–6
in Spearman’s g, 291–93
races, 380, 398–400
interfertility of, 71, 84
monogenist theory of, 71
polygenist theory of, 71
unity of, 39–40, 45–46, 405, 407–8, 411, 421
racial classification, 401–12
Caucasian race in, 49, 401–2, 409, 410–12
degenerationism and, 407–8, 409, 410–11
Malay race in, 402–4, 409, 410–12
racial prejudice, biological justification of, 62–104
racial ranking, 403, 404–12, 416
cultural context of, 63–70
in “mongolism,” 164–65
Morton on, 82–101
neotenyand, 149–51
preevolutionary justifications for, 71–74
in recapitulation theory, 144–51
racial segregation, polygeny and, 72–82
ranking as fallacy, 56, 62–63, 189
Reagan, Ronald, 37
recapitulation theory, 72, 142–51
child comparisons in, 144–51
craniometry and, 144–45
criminality and, 155–56
imperialism justified by, 147–48
influence of, 143
neoteny vs., 148–51
ranking of “inferior” groups aided by, 144–51
reductionism, 27, 34
reification fallacy, 27, 48, 56, 181, 185, 189
in factory analysis, 268–69, 280–82, 298–99, 318–22, 326
hereditarian bias combined with, 303–4
in Spearman’s g, 251–55, 295–99, 347–50
in Thurstone’s primary mental abilities (PMA’s), 329–32, 337–40
Retigio Medici (Browne), 392, 400
Republic (Plato), 51–52, 63
Resurrection, (Tolstoy), 151–52, 173
Retzius, Anders, 131
Saint-Hilaire, Etienne Geoffroy, 40
Santayana, George, 371
science, 36–44
academic parochialism and, 39–44
as agent of change, 54–55
experimental method of, 367
objectivity vs. preference in, 36–37
as overriding principle, 52–53
as socially embedded activity, 53–55, 87–88, 98n
theory formulation in, 403, 405–6, 411
Scott, Dred, 380
Selden, Steven, 201
sexual Darwinism, initial meaning of, 368
sexual differences, Darwin’s view of, 418
Shakespeare, William, 31, 391, 424
Shearer, Rhonda Roland, 403
Shockley, William, 24, 60, 369, 397
Simpson, O. J., 32
slavery, 398, 408–10, 419, 424
blaming the victim in, 398
in Brazil, 417, 422–23
religious view of, 102, 103–4
slavery, biological justification of, 63–70, 77–82
by American polygenists, 101–4
medical view of, 102–3
smell, sense of, 391, 392, 394–96
Smith, Adam, 402
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 71
social class:
heredity of intelligence and, 305–8
scientific racism extended to, 112
social Darwinism, 142, 146, 367–70
initial meaning of, 368
social ranking, IQ and, 210–13
sociobiology, human, 354–62
sociopaths, mental deficiency and, 190–91, 210–11
Socrates, 51, 61
South African Christian Recorder, 413–16
Spearman, Charles, 43–44, 48, 276n, 372, 373
Burt and, 265, 267–69, 302, 303–4, 315–18, 319, 320, 322, 330, 344–45
factor analysis developed by, 267–68, 281, 284, 287
general intelligence and, 286–302
on group differences, 300–302
Jensen and, 350
“law of constant output” of, 297–98
method of tetrad differences of, 288–91, 316
in reaction to Thurstone, 337–40
recantation of, 298
on “residual variance” (s), 287, 318
two-factor theory of, 286–88, 3l6, 317, 333
Spearman’s g (general intelligence), 35–36, 43, 47, 281–85, 316, 317, 372, 373, 378, 384
hierarchical view of, summarized, 344–45
IQ testing justified by, 293–95
Jensen’s resurrection of, 347–50
political uses of, 322–26
reification of, 281–85, 295–99, 347–50
Spearman on inheritance of, 300–302
Spearman’s assessment of, 291–93, 318, 319
Thurstone and, 326–32, 341–45
Spearman’s s, 257, 317, 318
Speck, Richard, 174
Spencer, Herbert, 146
Spitzka, E. A., 120, 124, 125n
Spurzheim, J. K., 124
Stanford-Binet scale, 196, 205, 368, 385, 389
mass testing and, 204–10
Terman and, 204–10
Stephenson, W. A., 333
sterilization, 365–66
Stern, W., 386
Stocking, George, 105
Stoker, Bram, 152
Strong, Josiah, 147
Student as Nigger, The, 19
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, 38
Study of American Intelligence, A (Brigham), 254
surrogacy, 396–98, 418
Systema naturae (Linnaeus), 403
Tacitus, 155
Tahitians, 413–16
Taine, Hippolyte, 169
Tarde, G., 152, 154
Tavris, Carol, 21
taxonomy, lumpers vs. splitters in, 76
Terman, Lewis M., 29, 109, 187, 196, 204–22, 224, 226, 251, 252, 295, 368, 385, 389
background and beliefs of, 204–5
on group differences, 218–21
Lombroso criticized by, 210
on past geniuses, 213–18
recantation of, 221–22
Stanford-Binet revised and popularized by, 204–10
technocracy of innateness propounded by, 210–13
Thomson, Sir Godfrey, 299, 322
Thorndike, E. L., 177, 190n
Thurstone, L. L., 22, 47, 269, 276n, 373
environmentalists attacked by, 336
factor analysis criticized and reconstructed by, 326–46
on group factors, 327–29, 333
Jensen and, 347, 349, 350
on oblique simple structure axes and second-order g, 341–44, 317, 349
primary mental abilities as concept of, 329–40, 341, 345
reaction of Spearman and Burt to, 337–40
simple structure and rotated axes invented by, 329–32, 341
on uses of factor analysis, 346
Tiedemann, Friedrich, 116, 131, 136
Tobias, P. V., 140–41
Tolstoy, Leo, 151–52, 173
Topinard, Paul, 116, 118, 119–20, 126–27, 136, 137, 162–64, 169
Totem and Taboo (Freud), 143
Toulmin, Stephen, 355
Toynbee, Arnold, 72n
Tuddenham, R. D., 340n–41n
Turgenev, Ivan, 124, 150
twins, identical, 48, 59, 265–66, 336
Types of Mankind (Nott and Gliddon), 380
Vacher de Lapouge, Count Georges, 257
Vectors of Mind, The (Thurstone), 326, 327, 344, 346
Vietnam War, 30
Virey, J., 132–33
Vogt, Carl, 135, 145, 147
Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin), 19, 69n, 415, 417, 419–20, 422–23, 424
Wagner, Richard, 379
Wagner, Rudolf, 125, 126
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 70
Wallace, James H., Jr., 201
Wall Street Journal, 34–35
Washington, Booker T., 56
Watson, James, 32
Wealth of Nations (Smith), 402
Wheatley, Phillis, 410
White, Charles, 73–74
White, T. H., 363–64
Whitman, Walt, 124, 150, 351
Wieseltier, Leon, 371
William IV, King of England, 420
Wilson, E. O., 329–30, 357n
Winterhalder, Bruce, 358
women, 20–21, 368, 397, 415
Darwin’s view of, 418
Le Bon’s attack on, 136–37 “metaphysical characteristics” of, 146–47
neoteny and, 148–51
in recapitulation theory, 144–48, 149
scientific racism extended to, 112
suicide rates of, 147
supposed extra rib of, 393–94
supposed lasciviousness of, 398
women’s brains:
brains of blacks and white children compared with, 135, 144, 145, 149
Broca’s study of, 58, 120–21, 127, 135–39
criminal, 126
as lobotomy subjects, 135
in Morton’s procedural omissions, 94, 100
Yerkes, Robert M., 26, 29, 46, 187, 207, 208, 222–55, 260, 262
army mental tests conceived by, 223–24
background of, 222–23
in critique of army tests, 229–52
results of army test and, 225–29
Footnotes
* The relatively small number of truly informational footnotes can then be placed at the bottom of the page, where they belong.
* A linguist friend did correctly anticipate the one curious problem that my title would entail. For some reason (and I have done this myself, so I am not casting blame but expressing puzzlement), people tend to mispronounce the first word as “mishmeasure”—leading to unwanted levity and embarrassment in introductions before talks, or in radio interviews. Apparently, or so my friend explained, we anticipate the zh sound to come in “measure”—and we unconsciously try to match the first part of the word to the later sound, therefore saying “mish” instead of “mis.” I find this error fascinating. After all, we make the mistake in anticipation of a sound as yet unsaid, thus indicating (or so I suppose) how our brain monitors language before the fact of expression. Isn’t the form of the error also remarkable? Are we driven to prefer these alliterative, pleasantly repeated combinations of sounds? Does this consonance occur merely for ease of articulation, or is something deeper about cerebral patterning thus revealed? What do such phenomena have to say about the origin and form of poetry? What about the nature and organization of our mental functioning?
* Peter Medawar (1977, p. 13) has presented other interesting examples of “the illusion embodied in the ambition to attach a single number valuation to complex quantities”—for example, the attempts made by demographers to seek causes for trends in population in a single measure of “reproductive prowess,” or the desire of soil scientists to abstract the “quality” of a soil as a single number.