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.
Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary: Introduction to the Revised and Expanded Edition: “Thoughts at Age Fifteen”
In Gould’s introduction to his revised and expanded edition of The Mismeasure of Man, the author outlines the frame of his original work and also provides the rationale for revising his book after fifteen years. His original intent in 1981 was to refute the argument that intelligence “can be meaningfully abstracted as a single number capable of ranking all people on a linear scale of intrinsic and unalterable mental worth” (20). Gould explains that his critique of leading theorists and theories of measurable, heritable intelligence rests on combining his expertise in data analysis with his interest in tracing the historical contexts of biological determinism, resulting in a book that will remain relevant to popular audiences.
In his original work, Gould addressed the “timeless and timely” topic of measurable intelligence, whose popularity has historically appeared in episodic cycles (26). In 20th-century America, the first of these cycles arrived in the form of IQ testing in the 1920s, and was followed by the 1969 publication of Arthur Jensen’s article “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Achievement?” However, after the “remarkable impact” of Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994), Gould revised his own work in order to rebut their claim that intelligence is a “unitary, rankable, genetically based, and minimally alterable thing in the head” (35, 36).
Gould provides additional reasons for this revision, which include his political, professional, and personal interests in social justice. In addressing criticisms of his professional expertise, Gould states that while he is not an expert in the field of psychology and the uses of mental testing, The Mismeasure of Man focuses on the analysis of variation within population groups, and, more specifically, utilizes his expert knowledge of multivariate factor analysis.
In reviewing his original work, Gould cites the acclaim and criticism The Mismeasure of Man received upon publication. He also clarifies his rationale for including specific, “small, but fascinating, details” grounded in historical and scientific contexts, while eliminating unnecessary scientific jargon (46). In this revised edition, minor errors of fact and typography have been corrected, and the book includes a new Introduction, the inclusion of Gould’s book reviews for The Bell Curve, and three historical essays by Gould examining the views of racial difference held by Thomas Browne, J.F. Blumenbach, and Charles Darwin.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Introduction”
Chapter 1 of The Mismeasure of Man is the original version of the book’s Introduction. Here, Gould introduces readers to the Socratic myth that tells individual men they have inherited their talents, and that these gifts will, in turn, be passed on to their children, in order to maintain a “stable society” (51). From this, Gould pivots to a modern-day version of the myth, which is grounded in scientific attempts to prove biological determinism, or how “worth can be assigned to individuals and groups by measure of [inheritable] intelligence as a single quantity” (52).
Gould then introduces the primary argument undermining biological determinist theories, which is that they are embedded within a broader society’s belief that “oppressed and disadvantaged groups—races, classes, or sexes—are innately inferior and deserve their status” (57). Historically, these prejudicial beliefs underlaid avenues of scientific investigation that validated the racial biases held by individual scientists investigating intelligence in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Chapters 2-4 focus on the 19th century science of craniometry, or the measuring of human skulls in order to rank the intelligence of human groups by race. Chapters 5-6 focus on the introduction of IQ tests as measures of intelligence, and on their uses and impact upon American society in the 20th century.
Gould concludes Chapter 1 with a reanalysis of historical, scientific data sets that show how the “leading and most influential scientists” of the 19th and 20th centuries were presenting data that contained “unconscious biases that record subtle and inescapable constraints of culture” (59). In addition, biological determinism has been historically used to justify social policy that denies people “an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without” (60-61). As “a theory of limits” enjoying renewed popularity, biological determinism’s historical prejudices deserve “renewed attention” for the influence it holds over millions of lives(60).
Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
In Gould’s revised Introduction, the author notes that measurable intelligence is the perennially popular idea that intelligence is quantifiable and rankable because it is unalterable and innate. In 1981, Gould’s original intention was to write a book on biological determinism that would remain relevant to popular audiences. Therefore, in The Mismeasure of Man, Gould focused on leading 19th- and 20th-century scientists as a means of 1) examining the most prominent historical arguments and 2) accurately reflecting the scope of the mainstream attitudes these men harbored in their research.
In reviewing the hereditarian search for measurable intelligence, there is the sense that, historically, people who find themselves in the top tiers of society are looking, desperately, for justification of their status, or for the means to hold onto that status. What better place to find that justification than in the rational, fact-based world of science? With the popular reception of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994), Gould was inspired to revise his own work in order to rebut their newly-rehashed claims regarding racial intelligence.
Gould provides additional glimpses into motivations for his revision, and touches on personal, political, and professional reasons for his commitment to social justice. These include the immigration experiences of his grandparents, as well as his own participation in the civil rights movement. Gould also describes his experience of writing on subjects he finds fascinating (the sharing of specific details that can illustrate and bring life to otherwise “tendentious” generalities), and choosing to write a corrective on a topic of personal expertise (“my favorite research tool had arisen for an alien social usage”) (44, 46).
In rebutting “narrow-minded complaint[s]” of his original work, Gould argues that he holds an agnostic view of mental testing, and that his issue is rather with the hereditarian view of intelligence and the very real sociopolitical impact it has on the lives of individuals (40). Above all, Gould appears to be driven by the desire to call attention to false arguments “misused for alien social purposes” and which, purposefully or not, have the effect of diminishing lives (50).
In the original Introduction to The Mismeasure of Man, Gould provides a more objective entrée into his work, introducing biological determinism by way of Socratic myth, and his intent to demonstrate “the scientific weaknesses and political contexts of determinist arguments” (53). He outlines the topics of each subsequent chapter, and orients the reader with a broad overview of craniometry and intelligence testing. He explains that in “reanalyzing classical data sets,” this work is a conscious effort to expose unconscious biases (59). According to Gould, in order to identify truth, scientists must paradoxically give up the myth of objectivity and the idea of an “inexorable march toward truth” (55).
