The Mismeasure of Man Paperback | Pages: 446 pages

Present Appertaining To Books The Mismeasure of Man

Title	:	The Mismeasure of Man
Author	:	Stephen Jay Gould
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	2nd edition
Pages	:	Pages: 446 pages
Published	:	June 17th 1996 by W. W. Norton Company (first published October 28th 1982)
Categories	:	Science. Nonfiction. History. Psychology. Anthropology. Biology. Evolution

Explanation In Pursuance Of Books The Mismeasure of Man

The definitive refutation to the argument of The Bell Curve. How smart are you? If that question doesn't spark a dozen more questions in your mind (like "What do you mean by 'smart,'" "How do I measure it" and "Who's asking?"), then The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould's masterful demolition of the IQ industry, should be required reading. Gould's brilliant, funny, engaging prose dissects the motivations behind those who would judge intelligence, and hence worth, by cranial size, convolutions, or score on extremely narrow tests. How did scientists decide that intelligence was unipolar and quantifiable? Why did the standard keep changing over time? Gould's answer is clear and simple: power maintains itself. European men of the 19th century, even before Darwin, saw themselves as the pinnacle of creation and sought to prove this assertion through hard measurement. When one measure was found to place members of some "inferior" group such as women or Southeast Asians over the supposedly rightful champions, it would be discarded and replaced with a new, more comfortable measure. The 20th-century obsession with numbers led to the institutionalization of IQ testing and subsequent assignment to work (and rewards) commensurate with the score, shown by Gould to be not simply misguided--for surely intelligence is multifactorial--but also regressive, creating a feedback loop rewarding the rich and powerful. The revised edition includes a scathing critique of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, taking them to task for rehashing old arguments to exploit a new political wave of uncaring belt tightening. It might not make you any smarter, but The Mismeasure of Man will certainly make you think.--Rob Lightner This edition is revised and expanded, with a new introduction

Be Specific About Books Conducive To The Mismeasure of Man

Original Title:	The Mismeasure of Man
ISBN:	0393314251 (ISBN13: 9780393314250)
Edition Language:	English URL http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-31425-0/
Literary Awards:	National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction (1981), National Book Award Finalist for Science (Hardcover) (1982)

Rating Appertaining To Books The Mismeasure of Man

Ratings: 4.04 From 7794 Users | 337 Reviews

Judge Appertaining To Books The Mismeasure of Man

A must-read for everyone interested in the history of race and racialism.

Before a proper summation can be given, one first has to understand the Why of The Mismeasure of Man. The Why being hundreds of years of conservative, white-folk-do-well-because-they're-smartest ideology supported by "science", and the more recent belief in the existence of an inherited IQ number by which all humans can be ranked, culminating in The Bell Curve, by Herrnstein and Murray (1994). It is a book that asserts poor people are, in short, intellectually inferior to the non-poor, and thus



"We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within".I cannot do this book justice in a review. The matter is complicated and lies at the heart of what I believe. I have not yet taken an IQ test which I couldn't have done better if I had practiced certain things beforehand. Next number in a line,

This book is a political document, not a popular science book. Unfortunately, the book is an example of dishonest cherry picking of findings and selective omission of studies that would ruin the story Gould tries to construct. Ironically, Gould commits the same "crime" he accuses the racist scientists of: selective bias.There is no scientific honesty in this book, and as a consequence, Gould gives ammo to those he tries to discredit and disarm. Irony once again.Maybe this topic should be left

A brilliant debunking of the ideas of innate, unchangeable intelligence, IQ, and the Bell Curve.Gould narrates a fascinating, horrifying history of the search for a scientific proof of innate, unchangeable, heritable intelligence, featuring many elitist, racist and sexist characters. He makes complex scientific and mathematical ideas simple, understandable, and enjoyable to read.Well worth a read.

I read from this book (though I readily admit I haven't read the whole thing) during my introductory psychology course at university because the lecturer pointed it out as an example of good science debunking racial prejudices. I was somewhat sceptical then (about a book on science being written for the express purpose of countering a political attitude supposedly resting on scientific grounds), and as it turned out, Gould was overzealous with his case and may have proceeded with just the kind