The Mismeasure Of Man

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was a French psychologist who created the first IQ tests to differentiate students with special needs in a classroom. During his lifetime, Binet pursued a wide range of interests, ranging from law to physiology. In 1895, he founded the publication L’Année psychologique, the first French journal to focus on psychology research. Between 1908 and 1911, he and his colleague, Théodore Simon, published versions of their IQ scales, which they had created and refined with the intent of identifying ranges of reasoning and thinking ability among children. 

Paul Broca (1824-1880) was a French surgeon, anthropologist, and anatomist recognized for his work on identifying and matching areas of the brain to specific brain functions. He is also known for his work on Broca’s area, a region of the brain’s frontal lobe involved with language functions. In 1859, Broca founded the Anthropological Society of Paris, and in 1876, he founded the Modern Anthropological School. A polygenist inspired by the research of Samuel Morton, Broca devised numerous techniques to study and measure the brains and skulls of the different human races using mustard seed and BB shot.

Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971) was an English educational psychologist who is best known for his contributions to statistical analysis and the development of factor analysis techniques. Burt’s analysis of psychological testing results led him to conclude that intelligence was a heritable trait that could be influenced by social and environmental factors. After his death, reanalysis of his research data led to the discovery that he had used falsified data to support his theories of inheritable intelligence among stratified social classes. 

H.H. Goddard (1866-1957) was an American educator and psychologist known for his work in introducing IQ testing in America, which was used to identify intellectually-disabled people in schools, hospitals, and the military. His work with the disabled led to the provision of special education in the public-school systems, and he testified in court that mental disability should limit one’s responsibility for criminal action. At the same time, Goddard believed intelligence to be a heritable trait, and he argued that the mentally disabled should be kept from having children, a position that was affirmed by other eugenicists.

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was an Italian physician, psychiatrist, and criminologist who created a taxonomy of physical traits (stigmata) that he claimed could be used to identify the inheritors of criminal, atavistic behaviors. The founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology, Lombroso’s hereditary theories gained popularity in Europe during the turn of the century, but fell out of favor by the mid-20th century.

Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) was an American naturalist and physician who published numerous books on geology, human anatomy, and animal and plant biology. Morton amassed a voluminous collection of skulls in an attempt to scientifically measure the cranial capacity of the various human races, which, as a polygenist, he believed to be members of separate species. His published works on the cranial measurements of Native American and African skulls, which were compared to Caucasian and Asian skulls, was a widely-cited resource used to bolster non-religious arguments for slavery in America.

Charles Spearman (1863-1945) was a German-trained English psychologist and statistician who pioneered work in multivariable factor analysis and theorized a general factor of intelligence (g). Spearman’s work on intelligence testing led to the development of the “Plus-Elevens,” a series of tests administered to British youth to track their education into university or technical schools based on their assessment performance.

Lewis M. Terman (1877-1956) was an American psychologist and Stanford professor who revised the Binet-Simon IQ scale and renamed it the Stanford-Binet IQ scale. These tests became the most popular instrument of intelligence testing in American schools at the time, and have been used as the model for all subsequent American standardized tests. Terman was interested in studying children with high IQs, believed that intelligence was an inheritable trait, and was a member of the Human Betterment Foundation, a eugenicist group that advocated for the sterilization of those deemed mentally unfit.

L.L. Thurstone (1887-1955) was an American psychologist who pioneered the field of psychometrics, invented exploratory multivariate factor analysis, and developed the “Thurstone scale” for measuring an individual’s attitude towards a particular social issue, one of the first attempts at creating a comparative judgment scale. While at the University of Chicago, Thurstone established the Psychometric Laboratory, and was a founding member of the Psychometric Society. In analyzing traditional factor analysis of intelligence testing, Thurstone proposed a new method for calculating correlations between identified intelligence factors, which led to the creation of the Primary Mental Abilities Test.