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A Critique of Gould by Jensen
Robert Sheaffer posted this paper by Arthur Jensen to the newsgroup
sci.psychology on 16 Feb 1995. Scheaffer added the following introductory
remark.
The following is a review of Gould's Mismeasure of Man, in which Dr.
Arthur Jensen replies to Gould's severe criticism of him in the book. Of
course, uncritical admirers of Gould will insist that Jensen is a "racist,"
and hence anything he says can conveniently and automatically be ignored.
But those who are open-minded and want to give both sides a fair hearing
should read Jensen's reply without any preconceived ideas, and ask
themselves: Is this man *really* the terrible bigot and fool that Gould
makes him out to be? Or is he a serious scholar who has been the victim of a
campaign to paint him as a scoundrel because his findings contradict certain
political ideologies? Jensen's reply has, until now, only been seen by a
miniscule fraction of those who have read Gould's Mismeasure. Here is a
chance for the "other side" to state its case.
Contemporary Education Review
Summer 1982, Volume 1, Number 2, pp. 121-135.
THE DEBUNKING OF SCIENTIFIC FOSSILS AND STRAW PERSONS
The Mismeasure of Man
New York: W. W. Norton, 1981
by Stephen Jay Gould
Arthur R. Jensen
[ARTHUR R. JENSEN is Professor of Educational Psychology, University of
California, Berkeley, CA 94720. His areas of specialization are Differential
Psychology, Psychometrics and Behavioral Genetics. Recent publications include
Straight Talk about Mental Tests, New York: The Free Press, 1981. Dr. Jensen
received his B.A. at UC, Berkeley and his Ph.D. at Columbia University.]
This book concerns the biasing influence that social ideology may have on
purportedly objective science--the behavioral and brain sciences especially
and psychometrics in particular. Ironically, the book itself serves as a
patent example of its own thesis.
Stephen Jay Gould is a paleontologist at Harvard's Museum of Comparative
Zoology and offers a course at Harvard entitled, "Biology as a Social Weapon."
Apparently the course covers much the same content as does the present book.
Having had some personal cause for interest in ideologically motivated attacks
on biologically oriented behavioral scientists, I first took notice of Gould
when he played a prominent role in a group called Science for the People and
in that group's attack on the theories of Harvard zoologist Edward 0. Wilson,
a leader in the development of sociobiology (BioSciences, March, 1976, Vol.
26, No. 3). I wonder if Gould's present book is an example of his idea of
"science for the people"? It is written in a popular and sometimes engagingly
entertaining style; it is filled with "human interest," and with vivid
accounts of eminent but self deluding, cheating, and foolish scientific
figures of the past--a kind of intellectual morality play of wrong doing (or
wrong thinking); it focuses on accounts of subsequent "recanting" by the "big
names" in the history of mental testing, those wittingly or unwittingly
self-deceived bad guys in this "tale of zealotry." ("Goddard recants,"
"Brigham recants," "Terman recants," "Spearman recanted," etc. Indeed,
whenever a scientist alters his view on some point over a 20 year period, or
later places a different emphasis on some particular fact, Gould insistently
refers to his "recanting.") Naive readers might develop a gut-level dislike
for the many reactionary elitist schemers exposed in Gould's book. But then
readers will be gratefully relieved to see all the villains toppled to
ignominy for their egregious fallacies.
Most of the reviews of the book which I have seen thus far in the popular
press already bear out half of my prediction: Gould's book will receive much
more uncritically favorable and sentimentally sympathetic reviews from the
professional literati in the popular press (it has won official acclaim from
the National Book Critics' Award) than it will receive in the technical
journals at the hands of qualified professionals in the relevant fields. (I
have not yet seen any reviews in the technical journals.) Gould's debunking
expedition offers many an easy target to critics with an intimate knowledge of
the topics discussed. Before taking aim at those specific points, which I feel
most competent to criticize, I shall first try to abstract the main message of
Gould's book from his own perspective.
Overview of Gould's Thesis
Underlying all the varied detail of Gould's exposition is a philosophy of
science, or rather a sociology of science, which emphasizes the notion that
scientific endeavor generally is not so much a search for o objective
knowledge as it is a sociopolitical activity, reflecting the social context
and value systems within which individual scientists do their work. According
to this view, socially conditioned presuppositions or prior prejudices about
the nature of society force even "good scientists" to produce theories and
conclusions that inevitably confirm their own social prejudices and lend to
them additional support in the guise of scientific truth.
This charge of a social, value-laden science undoubtedly contains an
element of truth. In recent years, however, we recognize this charge as the
keystone of the Marxist interpretation of the history of science. In this
view, science is motivated to promote that form of socioeconomic class
structure that most favors the privileged elite, reinforcing its position of
political and economic power. By the same token, any unwitting biases of
scientists are deemed most prone to line up against the socially
underprivileged and economically disadvantaged classes. Presumably, such
ideological science only pretends to test its hypotheses in the idealized,
objective manner we learned about in our introductory high school and college
science courses. In this view, scientists actually, begin with prejudices,
then frame them as theories, and create only the illusion of demonstrating the
validity of their hypotheses. The conclusions are, to use Gould's apt phrase,
"advocacy masquerading as objectivity." This end is accomplished through
"biased selection" --of data, of methods of analysis, and of various possible
interpretations of evidence--such that the final outcome will confirm whatever
dogma originally motivated the supposedly objective search for the truth. This
theme is the foundation of the seven chapters of Gould's opus.
According to Gould, the inescapable dialectic of science and social
ideology is best illustrated in the behavioral sciences through the agency of
several long-lived and closely intertwined key beliefs.
Biological determinism is the poison root. This notion (a "lie," according
to Gould) is manifested in the attempt to discover, or failing that, to
invent, some biological (i.e. nature-given) justification for "ranking people"
(or groups of people) according to their "inborn worth." Biological
determinism is a "theory of limits," which assumes that the current status of
different races and social groups is an inevitable consequence of their
"innate worth." By Gould's definition, biological determinism essentially is
the attempt to make nature an accomplice in the crime of political and
socioeconomic inequality. It arises in a political context to serve the group
in power. Its perpetuation depends on the myth that science is an objective
enterprise, whereas science actually mirrors the predominantly religious or
political ideology of its time. Biological determinists in the human sciences
are claimed to be identified with politically conservative and reactionary
ideologies. The centrality of this theme for Gould is shown by his claim that
he was inspired to write the book "because biological determinism is rising in
popularity again, as it always does in times of political retrenchment."
Hence, the book is primarily an attack on "biological determinism" as it
applies to human mental ability.
By what means can the "lie" of biological determinism be sustained by the
establishment? How can this reactionary hope, belief, or claim (viz., that
"worth" can be assigned to individuals or groups) be implemented, while still
maintaining the appearance of objective, scientific sanction?
Intelligence, or rather the concept that intelligence can be measured as a
"single quantity," is the answer. Gould portrays this concept as utterly
fallacious. Indeed, Gould characterizes the attempt of psychometrists, past
and present, at the quantification of intelligence, as the attempt to assign
"all individuals to their proper status in a single series." But how can this
scheme be made scientifically believable? How can we justify scientifically
the determination of people's "worth" on the basis of assigning a single
number or score on an "intelligence test" to each person?
Reification of the concept of intelligence is the answer, according to
Gould. By converting an abstract concept, intelligence, into a "unitary
thing," a "single substance," an "object" (all Gould's words) that occupies
space inside the brain, the pioneer psychometrists established the essential
rationale for ranking individuals, social classes, and races on a
unidimensional scale of "worth." The awful fallacy of reifying intelligence
(or Spearman's g, the general factor common to a large number of cognitive
abilities) becomes a central theme in Gould's account. The conscious or
unconscious motive behind this reification of general mental ability, or
intelligence, is that such reification presumably is demanded by the dogma of
biological determinism. The "quantification" and the reification of
intelligence facilitate and justify the distinctions and divisions between
people, which political and social orders dictate, according to this view.
The whole nefarious, fallacious enterprise is best exemplified by two
fields of research: "craniometry," in the 19th century, and its replacement in
the 20th century, by "psychometry," particularly intelligence testing. Scorn
heaped on the early craniometrists, particularly those concerned with the
relationship of brain size to intelligence, should transfer to modern
psychometrists who are interested in the measurement and nature of
intelligence. "We live in a more subtle century, but the basic arguments never
seem to change. . . The crudities of the cranial index have given way to the
complexity of intelligence testing" (p.143). To Gould, the old-fashioned
craniometric science and modern psychometric science are as parent and
offspring. The purpose of both is essentially the same: to prove that the
innate construction of people is reflected in their present social and
economic roles. Both the outmoded craniometry of the 19th century and the
mental tests of the present day have stemmed from the false belief that
intelligence is a "thing" in the head, according to the measurement of which
all persons, social classes, and races can be ranked in "mental worth"--a term
that Gould uses repeatedly (in addition to "innate worth" and "ultimate
worth") as a substitute for "intelligence" or "IQ," as if to imply that all
these terms are entirely synonymous in present-day psychometrics.
The essential message of Gould's book is epitomized in his own words:
"This book. . . is about the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity,
its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each
individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of
worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups--races,
classes, or sexes--are innately inferior and deserve their status" (pp.
24-25).
General Criticisms
Before addressing specific points in each of the chapters, I shall first
mention what seems to me to be general deficiencies pervading the work as a
whole.
Sociology of Science
First, I think Gould exaggerates the threat of the sociology of science as
an obstacle to objective science. Errors, blind spots, and biases on the part
of individual scientists have always existed in every scientific field. Yet
over the course of time there indisputably has been scientific progress and
the growth of objective knowledge in every sphere of scientific endeavor. Of
course, the theory that science cannot be objective because it cannot escape
the context of social values is itself not exempt from the same
generalization. If this theme is overplayed, as it is by Gould, it places its
advocate in a position not unlike that of the Greek philosopher's paradox of
the Cretan who declared, "All Cretans always lie. " If the statement is true,
it must be untrue, and hence need not be taken seriously.
Fortunately, progress in scientific knowledge is distilled out of the
endeavors of the many individually imperfect scientists who investigate the
same phenomenon. The enterprise succeeds in its aim of objectivity, in the
long run, despite the subjective biases of individual scientists and despite
the influence of social context as portrayed by the Marxist sociology of
science. Mendel's theory is accepted and Lysenko's is rejected (even by the
Soviet ideologues who once promoted it), not because one scientist was
necessarily a better man than the other, but because there is indeed a reality
out there in the realm of phenomena, a reality in terms of which theories can
be criticized and tested by innumerable other scientists, albeit each with his
or her own individual biases or blind spots, each scrutinizing and testing the
others formulations. One chief virtue of science is that, in order to succeed,
its practitioners need not be saints or paragons of detached objectivity. When
many individual scientists--ordinary men and women with specialized technical
competencies--are all able to think as they please and do their research
unfettered by collectivist or totalitarian constraints, science is a
self-correcting process.
In any case, the Marxist sociology of science, whatever general truth it
may contain, cannot exempt the critic from a detailed analysis of any
particular theory or empirical claim, showing precisely how it fails as
objective science, or why it should be rejected and replaced by some competing
formulation or body of evidence. That has always been the normal procedure of
science, and we know that it works. At one point, Gould covers himself by
claiming this general view: "As a practicing scientist, I share the credo of
my colleagues: I believe that a factual reality exists and that science,
though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it" (p. 22). But
Gould would want us to believe that the behavioral sciences are especially
unlucky in this regard. That could be. Still, the situation would be by no
means hopeless. The behavioral sciences, including differential psychology,
psychometrics, and behavioral genetics, surely can be, and for the most
partake, normal science.
Unfortunately, Gould's book itself contributes heavily to promoting the
ideological encumbrance of these fields. This is a pity. The field is faced
with many real problems, which call for objective analysis and research, yet
in my judgment Gould's book contributes absolutely nothing to this effort. The
Mismeasure of Man attempts to debunk, and, as far as I can make out, attempts
to do nothing else. Of course, debunking can be a useful activity in the
scientific enterprise, provided the specific objects of attack are real and
present issues. The disappointment of this book is its failure really to
debunk anything currently regarded as important by scientists in the relevant
fields. Because of Gould's peculiar selection of flawed scientific relics as
targets for attack, it is hard for me to imagine that this work will impress
any but those unfamiliar with current research in these fields, despite the
author's evident intelligence and keen literary style. I believe he has
succeeded brilliantly in obfuscating all the important open questions that
actually concern today's scientists. Instead of taking on the real issues of
contemporary research in these fields, paleontologist Gould tilts at a museum
collection of scientific fossils and at many a straw person of his own making.
Focus on the Past
The fossil nature of practically all the objects of Gould's expose is
suggested by the fact that, although the book is not properly a history of
mental testing, most of the key references are amazingly old. Present-day
workers in these fields will have nothing to worry about! Few, if any, will
consider it worth the bother to dig into such ancient tomes to check the
validity of Gould's interpretations. Of all the book's references, a full 27
percent precede 1900. Another 44 percent fall between 1900 and 1950 (60
percent of those are before 1925); and only 29 percent are more recent than
1950. From the total literature spanning more than a century, the few "bad
apples" have been hand-picked most aptly to serve Gould's purpose. Yet what
relevance to current issues in mental testing are the inadequacies and errors
of early anatomical studies by Samuel Morton (who died in 1851) or Paul Broca
(who died in 1880) concerning racial variation in cranial capacity (to which
Gould devotes the better part of two chapters): Who now wishes to resurrect
Lombroso's (1836-1909) theory of physical criminal types; Cyril Burt's 1909
report (his very first publication) of social class differences in
intelligence; Goddard's account of the Kallikak family (1912) and the long
since discredited theory of "feeblemindedness" as a simple Mendelian
character; Terman's pronouncements in 1916 about eugenic measures to reduce
the incidence of mental retardation; the primitive 1917 army mental tests; or
the U.S. Congress's 1924 Immigration Restriction Act, which cited the 1917
army test data? These antiquated topics, which occupy most of Gould's book,
can in no way serve to undermine or discredit current work in physical
anthropology, psychometrics, differential psychology, behavioral genetics, and
sociobiology. Readers expecting to find a forthright critique of the present
status of issues and controversies in these fields are in for disappointment.
The closest thing they will find to criticism of contemporary mental testing
is the insinuation of its guilt through remote historic lineage.
In distant retrospect, the early history of every science often looks
bizarre in some respects. Why should we expect the behavioral and brain
sciences to be the great exception? Should we ridicule the Early astronomers
for claiming that the Earth is the center of the universe, or the early
anatomists for claiming that the heart is the seat of emotion? Why should
anyone demand of psychology that it be hatched fully mature and perfect at its
very beginnings?
Gould devotes the larger part of a chapter to a minutely detailed and
damning critique of the first group mental test ever devised. Yet everyone
today would surely agree that the first army tests fall far short of current
standards of test theory and construction. Psychometric theory and technology
have come a long way since 1917. Indeed, a half-century after the first group
tests were used in the army, the office of the Surgeon General estimated that
the use of modern tests for selection in the armed forces saves the nation
more than $14O million a year in the cost of training recruits after basic
training--not a trivial utility for psychology's most practical and most
indisputably successful invention.
Gould's exclusive critical focus on forebears (and the worst examples, at
that) is much like trying to condemn the modern automobile by merely pointing
out the faults of the Model T. An entire chapter is devoted to Lombroso and
his school of criminal anthropology! As an undergraduate nearly 40 years ago,
I recall learning that Lombroso's theory of "criminal types," all bearing
distinctive anatomical stigmata of their moral pathology, had long since been
discredited. Although it makes for amusing reading to see Lombroso's old
theories once again so enthusiastically panned, Gould's motive in reviewing
them seems clear. The Lombroso critique serves merely as a long prelude to the
short epilogue of this chapter, which disparages modern research on the
suspected relationship of the XYY chromosomal anomaly to violent and criminal
behavior, research Gould refers to as a "reincarnation" of Lombroso. Gould
writes, "The signs of innate criminality are no longer sought in stigmata of
gross anatomy, but in twentieth-century criteria: genes and the fine structure
of the brain" (p. 143). Apparently any research on the biological correlates
of human behavior is deemed anathema by Gould.
Distorted and Misleading Information
It would be practically impossible for me to assess the accuracy of
representation or the carefulness of interpretation of all the specific
targets of Gould's multifarious critique. Frankly, I feel little inclination
to comb the many archaic references on which most of Gould's debunking
depends, especially because they are no longer of any concern to modern
researchers in these fields. Who in 1982 is interested in debating precisely
what was said by whom about the phlogiston theory in its heydey? I am able,
however, to testify concerning a number of contemporary references, which are
already at my fingertips.
In his references to my own work, Gould includes at least nine citations
that involve more than just an expression of Gould's opinion; in these
citations Gould purportedly paraphrases my views. Yet in eight of the nine
cases, Gould's representation of these views is false, misleading, or grossly
caricatured. Nonspecialists could have no way of knowing any of this without
reading the cited sources. While ant author can occasionally make an
inadvertent mistake in paraphrasing another, it appears Gould's paraphrases
are consistently slanted to serve his own message. Through hyperbole and
caricature he converts real issues into straw persons, which can be easily
disproved.
Some examples are:
1. Gould states that the normal variation within a population is a
different biological phenomenon from the variation in average values between
populations. (Actually, this may be or may not be true for any given trait;
it is an empirical question.) Failure to recognize this distinction, Gould
claims, is an error that occurs "over and over again "and is the "basis of
Arthur Jensen's fallacy in asserting that average differences in IQ between
American whites and blacks are largely inherited" (p. 127). The fact is, of
course, that I have never "asserted" (Webster: "assert implies stating
confidently without need for proof or regard for evidence") that IQ
differences between any races are largely inherited. Nor have I ever claimed
that the well-established heritability of individual differences in IQ
within races proves the heritability of differences between races. To quote
directly from some earlier writing (Jensen, 1970): "Group racial and social
class differences are first of all individual differences [i.e., they are
the statistical averages of individual measurements], but the causes of the
group differences may not be the same as of the individual differences"
(p.154, italics added). Whether the causes are or are not the same for any
particular trait for any particular groups is a question open to rival
hypotheses and empirical investigation. Such has always been my position, a
position spelled out most recently in Chapter 6 of my book Straight Talk
About Mental Tests (Jensen, 1981a).
2. Gould claims that " ,Jensen recognizes that his hereditarian theory of
IQ depends upon the validity of [Spearman's] q" (p.265), and that " ,Jensen
has demonstrated by example that a reified Spearman's g is still the only
promising justification for hereditarian theories of mean differences in IQ
among human groups" (p. 320). This is simply nonsense. Neither I nor anyone
else in behavioral genetics has ever claimed or believed any such thing. If
the total variance in any battery of tests were treated by different methods
of factor analysis, some methods yielding a large g, or general factor, and
other methods spreading the variance over a number of group factors (or
"primary mental abilities"), the total proportion of genetic variance in all
of the factors would not be altered in the least. This is because
heritability (i.e., the proportion of the total variance that is
attributable to genetic factors) does not depend at all on the factor
structure of the variables in question. (Similarly, either methodological
preference whether for concentrating variance on g and possibly a few large
group factors, or for distributing it more or less evenly over a larger
number of "primaries," should not alter in the least the total amount of
variance associated with race.) All this is not to say, however, that it
would be scientifically trivial or theoretically uninteresting should it
turn out that certain methods of factor analysis yield some factors that
show high heritability while the remaining factors show virtually zero
heritability. We already know that the g factor shows substantial
heritability; and recently, Lloyd Humphreys (1981), in interpreting his
analysis of twin and cross-twin correlations on the Project TALENT tests (a
large battery of diverse aptitude and scholastic achievement tests), stated
that "the genetic contribution to these cognitive tests, whatever its
amount, was restricted to the general factor" (p. 99). This interpretation,
if generally substantiated, would bear out Spearman's (1927) conjecture that
g is the only heritable cognitive factor, while the various group factors
(independent of g) arise from the investment of g in different contents of
learning, as influenced by opportunity, interest, and reward. My own hunch
is that a few of the largest and most stable group factors (e. g., verbal,
numerical, memory, and spatial) as well as some components of musical and
artistic aptitude, will probably also show some heritable variation
independent of g.
3. Gould claims that I have defended a g, or general intelligence, which
is "reified as a measurable object" (p.318). Yet in the same chapter from
which Gould is supposedly paraphrasing my views (Jensen, 1980a), I stated
unequivocally that "[I]ntelligence is not an entity, but a theoretical
construct.... The g factor may also be termed a theoretical construct, which
is intended to explain an observable phenomenon, namely, the positive
intercorrelation among all mental tests, regardless of their apparently
great variety" (p. 249).
4. In a table in Bias in Mental Testing (Jensen, 1980a, p. 220) showing
a factor analysis of 16 tests, the g factor is shown in the first column,
and the first four rotated varimax principal components (including the first
component, which, unrotated, was the g of the first column) are shown in the
next four columns. I make it absolutely clear that the rotated factors g was
extracted. (Note the table headings, the arrangement of the table, the
presentation of the communalities in the last column, and the explanation in
the text.) Nonetheless, Gould offers the following misleading account: "[H]e
[Jensen] records the same thing twice for each test--g as a first principal
component and the same information dispersed among simple structure axes
giving some tests a total information of more than 100 percent. Since big
g's appear in the same chart with large loadings on simple-structure axes,
one might be falsely led to infer that g remains large even in
simple-structure solutions" (p. 319). A thorough twist! And a logical error
to boot, because no factor which could properly be interpreted as g could
possibly emerge from a simple structure, or varimax rotation, the express
purpose of such rotation being to disperse and submerge the general factor
in the rotated primaries!
5. In discussing Burt's (1940) now discredited and probably fictitious
data on the IQs of identical twins reared apart, [note: Burt appears to have
been the victim of a politically-motivated slander, and the case agaainst
him is now collapsing: see Nature 340:439 (10 Aug. 1989); 352:120 (11 July,
1991); 354:97 (14 Nov. 1991)], Gould writes, "It is scarcely surprising that
Arthur Jensen used Sir Cyril's figures as the most important datum in his
notorious article (1969) on supposedly inherited and ineradicable
differences in intelligence between whites and blacks in America" (p. 235).
In fact, I have never used twin differences in any aspect of the discussion
of racial differences, except when pointing out the errors in this approach
by a number of psychologists who had held that monozygotic twin differences
in IQ (because they are entirely nongenetic) favor a strictly environmental
interpretation of the observed race differences in IQ (Jensen, 1973, p.
161).
6. Gould claims that "[h]e [Jensen] believes that all God's creatures
can be ordered on a g scale from amoebae at the bottom (p. 175 [Jensen,
1980a]) to extraterrestrial intelligences at the top (p. 248 [ibidem])" (p.
317). This will be recognized by any fair-minded person who has read my Bias
in Mental Testing (Jensen, 1980a) as a gross travesty of one section in that
book, namely, a section summarizing some of the main research findings on
animal intelligence (pp. 175-182). (Note that I have referred to
"extraterrestrial beings" 74 pages later in another context, and not as
being at the "top" of anything!) To top it off, Gould then refers to his own
travesty as" Jensen's caricature of evolution"! Disbelieving readers may
find it instructive to compare Jensen's (1980a) Chapter 6 with Gould's
flagrant caricature of its content, with "reified" g as an "object"
ascending on a "unilinear" evolutionary hierarchy of all existing species
from amoebae to extraterrestrial beings! Such a picture is, of course, utter
nonsense, but it is Gould's nonsense, not Jensen's.
7. Gould writes: "Arthur Jensen (1980a, pp. 361-362) supports the value
of IQ as a measure of innate intelligence by claiming that the correlation
between brain size and IQ is about 0.30. He doesn't doubt that the
correlation is meaningful and that 'there has been a direct causal effect,
through natural selection in the course of human evolution, between
intelligence and brain size'" (p. 108). What Gould does not indicate is that
this hypothesis was never represented as my own claim. Rather, it was
explicitly and accurately represented as a paraphrase of the most up-to-date
and technically sophisticated review of the evidence on human brain size and
intelligence available, by Leigh Van Valen (1974), a biologist at the
University of Chicago. Why then does Gould not cite Van Valen's thorough and
scholarly treatment of this topic? Instead he makes it appear that Van
Valen's conclusions are simply Jensen's claim. Moreover, the Jensen chapter
has merely summarized the literature on the various physical correlates of
IQ (including brain size, brain-evoked potentials, stature, basal metabolic
rate, obesity, and myopia). Contrary to Gould's paraphrase, it has offered
no opinions at all about the meaning of these correlations with respect to
the "innateness of IQ."
8. In a recent publication (Jensen, 1980a, p. 535), I have presented new
evidence for Spearman's (1927, p. 379) observation that the magnitudes of
the average white-black differences on various tests are positively related
to the g factor loadings of the tests, a point in my review that is germane
to factor-analytic criteria of test bias. Gould writes, "Jensen also uses g
more specifically to buttress his claim that the average difference in IQ
between whites and blacks records an innate deficiency of intelligence among
blacks" (p. 319). Nowhere in the cited reference (Jensen, 1980a) (or in any
other publication) have I ever erred by inferring genetic causation of
racial differences from the g factor or any other use off actor analysis,
and nowhere have I "claimed" an "innate deficiency" of intelligence in
blacks. My position on this question is clearly spelled out in my most
recent book: "The plain fact is that at present there exists no
scientifically satisfactory explanation for the differences between the IQ
distributions in the black and white populations. The only genuine consensus
among well-informed scientists on this topic is that the cause of the
difference remains an open question" (Jensen, 1981a, p. 213). Apparently
Gould does not tolerate so openly agnostic a stance on scientific questions
which have important social implications.
Despite Gould's poor batting average for accuracy and fairness in his
paraphrasing of references to Jensen, may we hope that he has perhaps afforded
more impartial treatment to all the other targets of his critique:
Brain Size and Intelligence
Gould devotes two chapters to race and sex differences in brain size, and
to the relationship between brain size and intelligence. Again, though
practically all the studies cited are more than 100 years old, Gould
meticulously points out their errors and biases.
Brain size is of some scientific interest in relation to intelligence,
presumably because the great increase of brain size in the course of human
evolution resulted primarily from the selective advantage of the greater
capacity for complex learning and problem-solving ability conferred by a
larger cerebrum. It seems a natural question whether variation in brain size
(or any other features of the brain) is related to differences in psychometric
intelligence among contemporary humans. After dismissing the pioneer studies,
Gould is wholly uninformative about current thought and evidence on this
topic.
Van Valen's (1974) well-known review and analysis of the evidence on brain
size and intelligence is conspicuous by its absence from Gould's book.
Although Van Valen's article is an excellent review, it unfortunately
overlooks one crucial point. That point concerns any correlation between
different traits, especially correlations between physical and psychological
traits, namely, whether the obtained correlation represents a functional (i.
e., causal) relationship between the variables or merely an adventitious
genetic correlation resulting from the common assortment of the genes for the
two traits as a consequence of cross-assortative mating for the two traits
(e.g., if blue-eyed persons mated only with curly-haired persons, blue eyes
and curly hair could become correlated in the population, even though there is
no intrinsic connection between these characteristics). No study of the
correlation between brain size and intelligence, to my knowledge, has applied
the necessary methodology based on sibling data (explicated by Jensen, 1980b)
to rule out mere assortative genetic correlation between these variables.
Until this is done, the theoretical significance of the correlation (whatever
its magnitude may be) between brain size and IQ remains unknown. Any
correlation existing between families but not within families (i.e., not among
siblings), is scientifically empty as far as advancing our understanding of
the nature of intelligence. Evidence suggests that such is the case for the
population correlation (of about 0.25) between height and IQ. This does not
mean, however, that one must automatically partial height out of the
brain-size x IQ correlation, as Gould advocates. Theoretical interpretation of
the intercorrelations among brain size, body size, and IQ is possible only by
means of genetical analysis (e.g., analysis employing data on between and
within-family correlations) combined with path analysis.
The essence of Gould's message in his two chapters on race and sex
differences in brain size, and the relationship between brain size and
intelligence is that craniometry served no valid scientific purpose, but was
merely an expression of the prejudicial self-interest of comfortable white
males. But to complain that an investigator's conjectures stem from personal
prejudices (or any other source) is, of course, scientifically irrelevant. The
importance of scientific conjecture arises solely from its relation to some
theory and its testability, or susceptibility to empirical refutation. Gould's
disparagement of craniometry, however, seems to serve merely as a prelude to
the more currently important topic of intelligence testing. Gould writes:
"Craniometric arguments lost much of their luster in our century, as
determinists switched their allegiance to intelligence testing--a more
"direct" path to the same invalid goal of ranking groups by mental worth--and
as scientists exposed the prejudiced nonsense that dominated most literature
on form and size of the head" (p. 108). Not surprisingly, in the last
two-thirds of his book, Gould launches a concerted attack on the "prejudiced
nonsense" of intelligence testing.
IQ Heritability
Gould's first broadside against intelligence testing is an 88-page chapter
entitled "The Hereditarian Theory of IQ. "The most remarkable feature of this
chapter is that it does not present even a hint of the kinds of evidence, or
the quantitative-genetic methods applied thereto, which have caused many
reasonable and fair-minded contemporary scientists to conclude that genetic
factors are substantially involved in individual differences in IQ. The reader
is told nothing at all about the polygenetic basis of individual differences
or about the logic of quantitative genetics and its application to the various
kinship correlations on which the "Hereditarian Theory of IQ" is based. Naive
readers will be completely misled as to the true nature of the current popular
controversy over the inheritance of mental ability.
Instead, they will read about the first (1905) Binet tests and about how
Binet's early American followers, Goddard and Terman, allegedly corrupted
Binet's intentions by reifying the IQ as an inborn "thing" in order that it
might better serve as an instrument of social and racial discrimination. About
30 percent of the chapter is taken up with a fine-grained critique of the
psychometrically primitive 1917 army tests and the purported influence of the
test results on U.S. immigration policy in the 1920s, which, we are told, was
promoted by" Teutonic supremacists."
The Cox (1926), and Terman estimates of the IQs of eminent historical
figures, based on biographical accounts of their childhood accomplishments,
are also unfairly ridiculed by Gould in this chapter. For example, Gould
points out that such major acknowledged geniuses as Copernicus and Faraday
were assigned lower IQs than some figures of lesser eminence (e.g., Galton,
with an estimated childhood IQ of 200). But Cox's monograph makes it very
clear that the estimated IQs are the minimum values that could be estimated on
the basis of the available evidence of early-life accomplishments.
(Shakespeare, for example, was completely omitted because of inadequate
biographical evidence.) In fact, no attempt was made in the monograph itself
to rank-order individual historic geniuses by their estimated IQs. The aim of
the Terman and Cox study was simply to see if there might be evidence for a
higher average level of mental precocity among the world's famous
geniuses--and there clearly is. All the inherent methodological limitations of
the study are fully acknowledged in Cox's (1926) thoroughly careful monograph.
Gould supplies no new information by his sarcastic embellishment.
By this point in Gould's book, the weight of vituperative excess will no
doubt have caused even technically naive but intelligent readers to begin to
question whether the most influential figures in the early history of mental
testing could really have been so utterly foolish and wicked as Gould makes
them appear. The fact that Galton, Goddard, Yerkes, Terman, Brigham,
Thorndike, and other pioneers of psychometrics may have expressed poorly
founded and occasionally dogmatic hereditarian opinions concerning
intelligence at a time before any adequately developed methodology or suitable
evidence was available for the genetical analysis of mental test data, cannot
legitimately be construed as an indictment of all subsequent research in this
area. Yet Gould never mentions any of the considerable body of recent work in
behavioral genetics. One wonders, does he avoid it perhaps because the
technical issues cannot be so simplistically and entertainingly lampooned as
the early efforts of the pioneer mental testers?
The "hereditarian fallacy" (p. 156) is described by Gould as (1) the
implication that" heritable" is equated with "inevitable," and (2) the
assumption that if genetic factors explain a certain proportion of the
individual differences variance within population groups, they explain the
same proportion of the mean differences between various populations, such as
racial groups. This" hereditarian fallacy" constitutes a strawperson if ever
there was one. I cannot recall a single living "hereditarian" who has ever
expressed either of these beliefs, though I know of many who have noted their
inherent logical fallacy. I myself, dubbed by Gould as "America's best-known
hereditarian," have attempted in several publications from 1969 to 1982 to
explicate the illogic of trying to prove the heritability of mean differences
between groups from a knowledge of the heritability of individual differences
within groups. I have also attempted over the years to dispel the common, but
unwarranted, assumption that heritability necessarily implies the
inevitability or immutability of human differences. (A nontechnical treatment
of these matters is found in Jensen [1981a, pp. 108-115 and 226-232].)
Certainly these issues are more complex than Gould's brief treatment even
begins to suggest; they require considerably more explication than he
presents, for even the barest understanding of them. Correctly understood,
moreover, these are not matters of theoretical contention among behavioral
geneticists.
The "Reification" of General Intelligence
In a chapter entitled "The Real Error of Cyril Burt," we come to the core
of Gould's argument: his perceived necessity for demolishing the concept of g,
Spearman's symbol for the common factor in all cognitive tests. Because g
constitutes by far the largest part of the variance in all "intelligence"
tests, it is often termed the "general intelligence" factor. Gould gives a
good nonmathematical explanation of the workings of factor analysis (and
principal components analysis) and how g and other factors are "extracted"
from a correlation matrix. After this quite acceptable explanation, Gould
begins his battle.
According to Gould, g is the quintessential abomination. He writes, "The
chimerical nature of g is the rotten core of Jensen's edifice, and of the
entire hereditarian school" (p. 320). What especially makes g so awful,
according to Gould, is the error of reification. This, he claims, is the "real
error" of Cyril Burt, and also of Charles Spearman, the inventor of factor
analysis and the discoverer of g. These pioneers in the field are charged with
the crime reifying g. Yet the kind of outlandish verbal reification for which
they stand accused is, in fact, absolutely contrary to any expression about g
that one can find in the works of Spearman or Burt, or, indeed, in any of the
serious literature of factor analysis and intelligence, The g factor as
supposedly conceived by Spearman and Burt is variously referred to by Gould as
"ineluctable, innate general intelligence," "innate essence of intelligence,"
a "hard, quantifiable thing," a "quantifiable fundamental particle," a
"single, scalable, fundamental 'thing' residing in the human brain," "a
'thing' in the most direct, material sense," and so forth. This language is
all completely misleading. More importantly, it is Gould's language, and not
the language of those he chooses to discuss.
Reified or not, the factor g itself and factor analysis in general have
nothing to do with "innateness" or the nature-nurture question. Whether
individual differences (or group differences) in g factor scores have a
heritable component or not is an entirely separate question, which cannot be
answered by any methods of factor analysis, but only by the methods of
quantitative genetic analysis.
Moreover, to anyone who has carefully read the major works of Burt and
Spearman on factor analysis, the claim that they (or any other experts in this
field) are guilty of reifying g will be recognized as another straw person, an
unqualified hoax. Few psychologists, or few scientists in any field for that
matter, have been as sophisticated in the philosophy of science as Spearman
and Burt. The most sophisticated discussion of the whole issue of the meaning
of factors to be found in the entire literature is Burt's( 1940) chapter
entitled "The Metaphysical Status of Mental Factors." In it, Burt states" [t]o
speak of factors of the mind as if they existed in the same way as, but in
addition to, the physical organs and tissues of the body and their properties,
is assuredly indefensible and misleading" (p. 218). Burt's entire discussion
is well worth reading even today. Surely no one before or since has ever
presented a more intellectually profound and subtle consideration of the
nature and interpretation of the factors derived by the factor analysis of
mental tests.
As will be equally apparent to anyone reading Spearman's (1927) great work,
The Abilities of Man, he too was fully aware of the reification issue.
Certainly Spearman makes it extremely clear that he intended his hypothesis of
g as "mental energy" as just that--a hypothesis, a theoretical attempt to
account for the phenomenon which the g factor highlights and quantifies,
namely, positive manifold (i.e., the presence of all positive
intercorrelations among all diverse tests of cognitive abilities, when the
tests are given to representative samples of the general population). Spearman
made no apologies for hypothesizing causal mechanisms to explain g. Quite the
contrary:
[Psychology] is a science in its own right, and can no more fulfill this mission without hypotheses than a man can run properly with his legs tied in a sack. What would physics do without its electrons, its ether, or its heat, none of which are, or perhaps even can be, directly perceived? Indeed, there is no necessity for believing that such entities really exist at all. (p. 128)
In fact, what Gould has mistaken for "reification" is neither more nor less
than the common practice in every science of hypothesizing explanatory models
or theories to account for the observed relationships within a given domain.
Well-known examples include the heliocentric theory of planetary motion, the
Bohr atom, the electromagnetic field, the kinetic theory of gases,
gravitation, quarks, Mendelian genes, mass, velocity, and so forth. None of
these constructs exists as a palpable entity occupying physical space. The g
factor, and theories attempting to explain g in terms of models independent of
factor analysis itself, are essentially no different from the other constructs
of science listed above. Nor is there any good reason that hypothetical models
attempting to account for g should necessarily exclude all considerations of
neural or biochemical processes. All such theoretical speculations about the
nature of g, whether offered by Spearman, Burt, Jensen, or anyone else, have
involved hypothetical processes or system concepts, presumably going on in the
brain (where else?). But these theories have never depicted g as some
"single," "ineluctable," "hard," "object," of the sort characterized by Gould.
Would Gould then deny psychology the common right of every science to the use
of hypothetical constructs or any theoretical speculation concerning causal
explanations of its observable phenomena? He writes," My complaint lies with
the practice of assuming that the mere existence of a factor, in itself,
provides a license for causal speculation" (p.268). But haven't all sciences
always exercised free license for theoretical speculation about the causes of
the observable phenomena in their domains? Of course they have.
The crucial question, which is summarized by the existence of the g factor
is this: In respect to what processes or mechanisms is it that persons who
perform well on anyone test, in general, also perform well on many other
tests, even on tests that are highly dissimilar in content and sensory and
motor modalities? The concept of intelligence depends not on the fact that
people can be ranked by this test or that, but rather on the fact that,
whatever the test, so long as it is cognitive in the broadest sense, a
positive correlation emerges between the ranks for any two tests. If an IQ
test were just a rag-bag collection of cognitive tasks that did not all
measure a common factor, there could be no positive manifold. Scientists today
are trying to understand the causes of positive manifold, and this is what the
present g theory is all about. Gould offers no alternative ideas to account
for all these well-established observations. His mission in this area appears
entirely nihilistic.
L. L. Thurstone, the leading American psychometrician and factor analyst,
might have emerged as a minor hero in Gould's drama, were it not for his
alleged tendencies toward factor reification and his avowed hereditarian
stance. At least Thurstone's factors were a number of "primary mental
abilities" and not the unholy g. Gould dubs Thurstone "the exterminating angel
of Spearman's g" (p. 296). With the development of multiple-factor analysis,
Thurstone had chosen to rotate the factor axes in such a way as to maximize
the variance of the loadings on all the latent common factors in a correlation
matrix (a criterion he termed "simple structure"), a procedure that yields a
number of first-order factors, or "primary mental abilities" (e.g., verbal,
numerical, spatial, memory). According to Gould, "the hegemony of g was
broken. >From the midst of an economic depression that reduced many of its
intellectual elite to poverty, an America with egalitarian ideals (however
rarely practiced) challenged Britain's traditional equation of social class
with innate worth. Spearman's g had been rotated away, and general mental
worth evaporated with it" (p. 304). Actually, the g variance was not at all
"exterminated" by Thurstone's method, but merely' dispersed among the primary
factors. Later, Thurstone himself realized that he could obtain a closer fit
to his criterion of simple structure by allowing the factor axes to be
obliquely rotated (i.e., correlated). Thurstone also came to realize that
subsequent factor analysis of the intercorrelations among the oblique primary
factors would recover the g factor, essentially the same g as arrived at by
the Spearman and Burt methods of g extraction!
In discussing Thurstone's primary abilities, Gould states, "Some children
are good at some things, others excel in different and independent qualities
of mind" (p. 304). If Gould is talking about cognitive abilities, this
statement is deceptively plausible (because we know that everyone is better at
certain things than at others). In the context of his discussion of factor
analysis, however, it is essentially wrong and misleading. If Gould's
statement were wholly true, a second-order g factor could not emerge from any
large collection of diverse mental tests. Yet, in fact, a second-order g
always appears for all cognitive tests obtained in any representative sample
of the general population. (This is equivalent to saying that the overall
ability differences between individuals are generally greater than the average
differences that exist between various abilities within individuals).
Moreover, g factor scores, when g is extracted either as a first principal
factor (Spearman-Burt) or as a hierarchical, second-order factor (Thurstone),
are generally very highly correlated with one another, usually above .95 in
most factor analyses of the same battery of tests in the same subject sample.
(Congruence coefficients between the g factor loadings in the two methods are
usually even higher.) True, the hierarchical, second-order g carries somewhat
less variance than the g extracted as a first principal factor, but Gould
greatly exaggerates this point in his effort to belittle the second-order g,
In 10 factor analyses of Wechsler subtest batteries that I have examined, in
which g has been extracted both as a first principal component and as a
hierarchical second-order factor (using the Schmid-Leiman, 1957,
transformation), the second-order g accounts for about 8O percent of the
variance accounted for by the first principal component. The second-order g
also accounts for about two-thirds of the total common-factor variance in the
test battery, whereas the three primary factors (verbal, performance, and
memory), after g is removed, account for about one-third of the variance. It
would be a rare, even freakish, collection of cognitive tests that would yield
a g which, by any proper method of extraction, would be subordinate to any of
the rotated first-order factors.
No knowledgeable factor analyst of either the Spearmanian or Thurstonian
school disputes the fact that the various methods or models of factor analysis
are all mathematically equivalent in their ability to" account for" the matrix
of intercorrelations. Other, nonmathematical considerations must determine
preferences for one method over another. Although the number of factors that
can be extracted from a correlation matrix is necessarily limited by the
number of variables, there is virtually an infinite number of possible
rotations of the factor axes, and hence an infinity of different possible
factors. There is no rule in science that restricts the particular factors
that any investigator may choose to focus upon. Some factor solutions make
much more sense, psychologically, than others, however, and psychologists may
suspect that there is more "pay dirt" in certain factors than there is in
others.
In this respect, factor solutions that yield a g, and the g factor itself,
have generally been of greatest interest throughout the history of
psychometry. More scientific curiosity has been stirred up by g than by any
other products of factor analysis, and for a number of good reasons. Here is a
baker's dozen:
1. The fundamental reason is the phenomenon of positive manifold: that
is, the existence of positive correlations between all tests in the
cognitive domain, over a wide range of diversity, regardless of the content
or other surface characteristics of the tests. The g factor represents this
salient fact of nature better than any other single factor or any
combination of multiple orthogonal factors (which disperse the g variance
and thus artificially create the misleading impression that there are zero
correlations among the several clusters of tests defining group factors or
primary abilities).
2. Taken together, the g factor plus smaller group factors (primary
abilities independent of g) best represent the fact that, on average,
overall differences between individuals in the population are greater than
the differences among various abilities within individuals. Multiple
orthogonal factors, without g, would not lead us to this (empirically
established) expectation.
3. Certain tests (generally those involving greater complexity of mental
manipulation) are consistently more g-loaded than others, when analyzed in
different batteries of various tests. Other tests (usually involving
sensory-motor skills or rote-learning ability) have rather consistently weak
g loadings under these conditions.
4. Essentially the same g emerges from collections of tests which are
superficially quite different. Unlike all other factors, g is not tied to
any particular type of item content or acquired cognitive skill. (This is
the basis for Spearman's principal of "the indifference of the indicator" of
g.)
5. It has proved impossible to construct a test to measure any of
Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities (or any other first-order cognitive
factors) that does not also measure g. That is to say, scores on "factor
pure" tests (i.e., tests designed to measure some factor other than g)
always measure g in addition to whatever primary ability factor they were
specially devised to measure. The g variance in tests of primary mental
abilities is, moreover, generally greater than the variance attributable to
the primaries. It has proved possible, however, to devise tests that measure
g and little or nothing else.
6. The g factor reflects more of the variance in informal, common-sense
estimates of differences in people's intelligence by parents, teachers,
employers, and peers than any other factor that can be extracted from
psychometric tests. In addition, g discriminates more accurately than any
other factor between average persons and persons diagnosed as mentally
retarded by independent, nontest criteria, and between average persons and
those who are recognized as intellectually gifted on the basis of their
accomplishments.
7. There is no general factor of human learning ability that is different
from, or independent of, the g of psychometric tests. However, there is much
more "specificity" (i.e., variance not related to any common factors) in
learning tasks than in most psychometric tests composed of numerous items.
8. Although g may not be equally valued in all cultures, individual
differences in g-related abilities are easily recognized, even by persons in
societies that differ tremendously from Western or industrial civilizations.
9. In its practical ability to forecast the success of individuals in
school and college, in armed forces training programs, in employment in
business and industry, and so forth, g carries far more predictive weight
than measures of any other factor or any other combination of factors
independent of g (see Jensen, 1981 b). This fact also means that many "real
life" kinds of performance, and not just psychometric tests, are
substantially g-loaded.
10. Humphreys (1981) has pointed out that even where mental tests are not
implicated, the naturally occurring educational and occupational selection
in our society involves g more than any other measurable psychological
variables. Each "sieve" in the educational and occupational ladders selects
on g, and this is as true in those communist countries in which mental
ability tests are officially forbidden as it is in the United States. For
this and for many other reasons, Humpreys [sic] aptly refers to g as "The
primary mental ability."
11. Although more evidence is still needed for a firm conclusion, what
evidence we have suggests that g has the highest degree of heritability of
any component of variance in psychometric tests (e.g., Humphreys, 1981 ).
The group factors (and specificity) show little or no heritability apart
from the heritability of g.
12. The genetic phenomenon of inbreeding depression (i.e., the diminution
of a metric character in the offspring of genetically related parents, such
as siblings or cousins) is indicative of genetic dominance of the genes
enhancing the trait in question. Large-scale data on the offspring of cousin
matings show that the degree of inbreeding depression observed on 11 diverse
subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children is positively and
significantly correlated with the subtests' g loadings (Jensen, in press).
(This is equally true whether g is extracted as a first principal factor or
as a hierarchical second-order factor.)
13. The g factor (and g factor scores) are substantially correlated with
measures of the speed of information processing in simple laboratory tasks,
such as simple and choice reaction times, which bear no resemblance to the
usual psychometric tests from with the g factor is extracted (Jensen,
1980c). Recently it has been found, in a sample of 100 university students,
that speed of information processing, as measured by reaction-time
techniques, is highly correlated with the g factor of the Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Scale, and that no additional component of variance in the 12
WAIS subtests (including the verbal, performance, and memory factors) shows
a significant correlation with the reaction time measures (Vernon, 1981).
Vernon writes, "Given the strength of the association between mental speed
and g, it is further argued that these attributes are largely the same: a
person's intelligence can be defined in terms of the speed and efficiency
with which he can execute a number of basic cognitive operations" (p. 83).
At an even more basic level, there is now considerable evidence that g is
correlated with the amplitude, latency, and complexity of average devoked
potentials in the brain, as measured by means of EEG apparatus and
electrodes attached to the scalp (e.g., Eysenck, 1981; Jensen, Schafer, &
Crinella, 1981). If such important findings are examples of what Gould
wishes to suppress by his railing at the "reification" of g, then I will
shout three cheers for "reification"!
But Gould does not tell his readers about any of these interesting things
on the present scene. The fact is that psychologists have been witnessing in
recent years a great revival of interest and research on Spearman's g,
research aimed mainly at discovering the basic processes--cognitive and
neurophysiological--that will eventually explain the nature of g. That the
theory of general intelligence is presently thriving is evidenced in many
current publications, such as the relatively new journal Intelligence and the
recent multiauthored books edited by Friedman, Das, and O'Conner (1981)
Sternberg (1982), and Eysenck (1982). These publications are recommended for
readers who want factual, up-to-date information about research on
intelligence and mental testing.
Gould's book, on the other hand, is so repetitiously cluttered by
doctrinaire disparagement that it can hardly provide any real enlightenment
regarding mental measurement. Although Gould's book will be warmly embraced
(along with Leon Kamin's, 1974, The Science and Politics of IQ) by the
dwindling band of genetic egalitarians and neo-Lysenkoists, it is hard to see
that this book makes any scientific contribution or serves to inform the
general public in any responsible way about the truly important issues in
mental testing today.
Editor's Note. Dr. Gould has been invited to respond to this article for
publication in a subsequent issue of CER.
[The next few issues contain no reply from Gould. If he ever
replied, I have been unable to find it.]
--note added by David Scheaffer
REFERENCES
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psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1940.
COX, C. M. Genetic studies of genious, vol 2: The early mental traits of
300 geniuses. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1926.
EYSENCK, H. J. The nature of intelligence. In M. P. Friedman, J. P. Das, &
Neil O'Connor (Eds.), Intelligence and learning. New York: Plenum, 1981.
EYSENCK, H. J. (ED.). A model of intelligence. New York: Springer, 1982.
FRIEDMAN, M. P., DAS, J. P., & O'CONNOR, N. (Eds.). Intelligence and
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GOULD, S. J., & ELDREDGE, N. Punctuated equilibrium: The tempo and mode of
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HUMPHREYS, L. G. The primary mental ability. In M. P. Friedman, J. P. Das,
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JENSEN, A. R. Can we and should we study race differences? In J. Hellmuth
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JENSEN, A. R. Educability and group differences. New York: Harper & Row,
1973.
JENSEN, A. R. Bias in mental testing. New York: The Free Press, 1980. (a)
JENSEN, A. R. Uses of sibling data in psychological and educational
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JENSEN, A. R. Straight talk about mental tests. New York: Free Press, 1981.
(a)
JENSEN, A. R. Test validity: g versus the specificity doctrine. Invited
address at the annual convention of The American Psychological Association,
Los Angeles, California. August 26, 1981. (b)
JENSEN, A. R. The effects of in breeding on mental ability factors.
Personality and Individual Differences, in press.
JENSEN, A. R., SCHAFER, E. W. P., & CRINELLA, F. M. Reaction time, evoked
brain potentials, and psychometric g in the severely retarded. Intelligence,
1981, 5, 179-197.
KAMIN, L. J. The science and politics of IQ. Potomac, Md.: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1974.
SCHMID, J., & LEIMAN, J. M. The development of hierarchical factor
solutions. Psychometrika, 1957, 22 53-61.
SPEARMAN, C. The abilities of man. New York: Macmillan, 1927.
STERNBERG, R. J. (Ed.). Recent advances in research on intelligence.
Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1982.
VAN VALEN, L. Brain size and intelligence in man. American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, 1974, 40, 417-423.
VERNON, P. A. Speed of information processing and general intelligence.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1981.
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