The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

Mitchell believes that Gould’s fanciful story of Morton consciously or unconsciously influencing the data during the measurement process is not supported by the data. According to Mitchell, Gould was correct that Morton had preconceived viewpoints that he tried to use science to justify, but Gould was wrong about the accuracy of Morton’s data. The debate continues, with a new article indicating that Morton’s interpretations were racist, but that his data collection was accurate. However, the incompleteness of Morton’s reporting and problems with his sampling led Kaplan, Pigliucci, and Banta to argue that Morton’s analysis was indeed flawed, but that Gould was equally mistaken in believing that any re-analysis would be useful in understanding Morton’s motives and actions.

Lewis et al.’s claim was contested by Weisberg, who argued that Lewis et al.’s re-analysis was flawed, and that Gould’s arguments were mostly sound. argued that Gould himself selectively reported, manipulated, and distorted data in order to bolster his argument that Morton worked to support his preconceived notions. When Gould evaluated Samuel George Morton’s work on cranium size differences among racial groups, Gould claimed Morton selectively reported, manipulated, and distorted data in order to reach a conclusion about the supposed racial superiority of Europeans (on the basis of a larger skull capacity). One interesting recent development is the possibility that Gould himself distorted the data that he reported in his book. Instead, the Army Beta was a well-designed test by the standards of the time, and all evidence indicates that it measured intelligence a century ago and can, to some extent, do so today. By consulting the historical record and conducting a pre-registered replication of Gould’s administration of the test to a sample of college students, we show that Gould mischaracterized the Army Beta in a number of ways. We evaluated Gould’s arguments that the Army Beta (a) had inappropriate content, (b) had unsuitable administration conditions, (c) suffered from short time limits, and (d) could not have measured intelligence. In this article, we investigate a section of The Mismeasure of Man in which Gould evaluated the Army Beta intelligence test for illiterate American draftees in World War I.

To show the potential consequences of this, Gould used examples from the early days of psychometrics and allied fields, arguing that inappropriate assumptions and an elitist desire to rank individuals and/or groups produced incorrect results.

In The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould argued that the preconceived beliefs and biases of scientists influence their methods and conclusions.

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould