40 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen Jay GouldThe Mismeasure Of Man
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Critique of The Bell Curve and Three Centuries’ Perspectives on Race and RacismChapter Summaries & Analyses
Summary: “Critique of The Bell Curve”
Gould offers two reviews of Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. The first review was originally published in The New Yorker (November 28, 1994), and the second appeared in Natural History (February 1995).
In his first review, Gould notes that The Bell Curve offers “no new arguments and presents no compelling data” to support its social Darwinist view that there is a biological basis for human differences, which can be seen in the differentiation of innate cognitive abilities by class and race (367). He notes that their arguments are based on the false premise of intelligence as a single, measurable number that remains innate and unchanging in individuals and across groups.
Gould then points out the disingenuousness of their work in terms of its 1) content—denying that race is an important subject in the book), 2) argument—omitting mention of statistical factor analysis, avoiding mention of sociocultural bias, presenting incomplete data tables (without scatter plots), and relying on low correlation coefficients, and 3) program—presenting dire visions of a society that cannot accept low IQ is an innate trait.
In his second review, Gould references the work of Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau, an influential academic whose works inspired Wagner, Nietzsche, and Houston Chamberlain (who laid the foundation for Hitler’s racist theories). Gould notes that, like Gobineau, Herrnstein and Murray argue that “average differences in intelligence between racial groups are real and salient” while maintaining the “reality of individual achievement” (382-83). Gould then reiterates that Herrnstein and Murray’s arguments are based on the premise of intelligence as an innate, unchanging, singular, measurable number.
Gould revisits the work of the inventor of the modern intelligence test, Alfred Binet, in order to outline Binet’s concerns regarding the misuse of his tests. While Binet’s original intent was to identify mild forms of “retardation or learning disability,” the tests were used to justify hereditarian views that “endowment over training” determines an individual’s measure of intelligence and potentiality.
Summary: “Three Centuries’ Perspectives on Race and Racism”
In this final section, Gould presents three essays examining prominent scientists and their contributions to views on race: Sir Thomas Browne, J.F. Blumenbach, and Charles Darwin.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682), a physician from Norway, wrote in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica a debunking of the then-common view that “Jews stink” (392). In this work, Browne explores the origins of false beliefs and acknowledges the difficulty in ascertaining truth when ignorance is commonplace. However, he lays out a process for discrediting errors by locating the source of the falsehood, presenting the factual evidence, and concluding with a reasoned argument that refutes the error.
Gould traces Browne’s treatment of the argument “Jews stink” and presents corollary myths regarding Irishmen, women, Africans, and other groups. These categorical mistakes are important in understanding how groups of people are devalued “for supposedly inborn and unalterable defects of intelligence or moral vision” (397). Gould notes that as evidence is mounting that humanity arose in Africa, individuals will need to reorient their understanding of human diversity and prepare themselves for “the excitement of thoroughly revised understanding” (400).
J. F. Blumenbach (1752-1840), a German naturalist and professor at the University of Göttingen, revised a taxonomy of the human race originally devised by his mentor Carolus Linnaeus. In his Systema naturae of 1758, Linneaus had divided humanity into four categories defined geographically as Americanus, Europeus, Asiaticus, and Afer (403). Although he further subcategorized by skin color, temperament, and posture, Linnaeus did not explicitly assign any racial hierarchies to the four groups.
In adding a fifth group and reassigning these groups into racial varieties (Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay), Blumenbach was presenting a view of humanity that had been created in a single region, and which had migrated to other regions over time. While Blumenbach “stoutly defended the mental and moral unity of all peoples,” his hierarchical ranking of human diversity would inadvertently set a foundation for future racial ranking (408).
Gould’s essay on Charles Darwin focuses on a very particular aspect of Darwin’s earliest writing, a treatise he completed with Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy. In this essay, Gould notes those passages in Darwin’s writing that reveals his paternalism, and a belief of “know[ing] what is good for the primitives” (416). While Darwin held many admirable views of the “foibles of human nature in all cultures, including his own,” he still held paternalistic views that, at some point, “the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races” (417). In spite of these views, Gould notes that Darwin exhibits genuine attempts to appreciate human differences, which he documented in his Voyage of the Beagle, and that the antidote to cynicism lies in diversity, and “for knowing the works and cultures of minorities and despised groups rendered invisible by traditional scholarship” (424).
