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In the chapter entitled “The Hereditarian Theory of IQ:
An American Invention” in The Mismeasure of Man (New
York: Norton, 1996), Stephen Jay Gould analyzes the reasoning
behind intelligence tests. Gould begins the chapter by
stating how Alfred Binet, who studied the measurement of
intelligence, began this endeavor in order to institute special
education for learning-disabled and other disadvantaged children.
Gould continues his analysis by reporting that three of
Binet’s followers, H. H. Goddard (who brought Binet’s scale
to America), Lewis M. Terman (who developed the Stanford-
Binet scale), and Robert M. Yerkes (who persuaded the army
to test the intelligence of 1.75 million men in World War I),
corrupted Binet’s work and used his tests to measure an element
they called “intelligence,” which ultimately resulted in
peoplebeing labeled as either “intelligent” or “stupid.” In this
chapter, Gould successfully demonstrates that the work of
these three men was affected by their unconscious biases and
preconceived ideas.
According to Gould, Alfred Binet developed his scale for
a sensible, effective motive. The original purpose of Binet’s
scale was to identify children whose poor performances in
school suggested a need for special education. Unlike previous
tests, Binet’s scale utilized a variety of distinct activities, such as
counting coins and comprehension, which tested a child’s different
abilitites: “Binet decided to assign an age level to each
task, defined as the youngest age at which a child of normal
intelligence should be able to complete the task successfully”
(179). The age parallel with the last task the child could successfully
complete was that particular child’s “mental age.” A
child’s level of intelligence was determined by
subtracting his/her mental age from his/her true chronological
age. Those children whose mental ages were a great deal
behind their chronological ages were recommended for special
education programs. In 1912, W. Stern suggested instead of
subtracting the mental age of a child from his/her chronological
age, the mental age should be divided by his/her chronological
age, and thus the intelligence quotient (IQ) came into
existence. Binet never once labeled IQ as inborn intelligence;
he simply used his scale to identify those children who were
learning-disabled, in an effort to direct them to places where
they would receive special help.
H.H. Goddard was the first person to make Binet’s scale
popular in America. However, Goddard distorted Binet’s scale
and relied on it to identify the allegedly intellectually defective
people in the country; he even relied on his preconceived notions
to label these individuals “feeble-minded” and “morons”
from the Greek word meaning foolish. All people whose actions
went against moral behavior were designated “morons.”
These people included criminals, alcoholics, and prostitutes.
According to Gould, Goddard believed “morons” should be
placed in institutions where they would be properly cared for
and fed. Goddard also argued for “morons” to control their
sexual urges for the good of mankind so that the “moron”
population would be eliminated. Goddard supposedly also
identified a “feeble-minded” gene present in foreigners. As
a result, Goddard sent two women to Ellis Island where they
were instructed to identify the “feeble-minded” by sight and
give them an intelligence test. Most of these people failed the
test, and Goddard believed it was due to their lack of intelligence.
However, many of these people never went to school,
and few could speak English. Because Goddard stated that
intelligence was capable of being measured, he believed that
the country’s government should be ruled by the wisest, most
intelligent human beings. Eventually, Goddard changed his
opinions and became an avid supporter of Binet, whose work
Goddard had formerly distorted.
Lewis M. Terman also perverted Binet’s scale and used it to
rank people according to their level of intelligence. Terman
revised Binet’s scale, extended it to adults, and increased the
number of assignments to 90. This revision became known as
the Stanford-Binet scale and was the standard for all IQ tests
that followed. Terman’s goal was to test everyone and then
sort them into roles he conceived as suitable for their level of
intelligence. Terman believed that society must first eliminate
the feeble-minded and those people whose intelligence was too
low for them to be able to lead an effective life. These people
included criminals, prostitutes, and social incompetents. Next,
Terman argued that biologically acceptable people must be
placed in professions suited for their intelligence level. An IQ
of 75 or below placed people in positions of unskilled labor.
People who earned scores of 75-85 were sorted into places
requiring semi-skilled labor. Any profession of authority and
high-paying salary was open to those people who scored over
115. Terman also “took the hereditarian line on race and class
and proclaimed its validation as a primary aim of his work”
(Gould 219). Soon, Terman, like Goddard, changed his opinion
on intelligence and decided to test environmental hypotheses
for differences in intelligence.
Robert M. Yerkes was another American hereditarian who
distorted Binet’s scale. He persuaded the army to test the intelligence
of 1.75 million men in World War I. Yerkes’s IQ testing
relied on three types of tests. Literate recruits were given
the Army Alpha, which was a written examination, illiterates
were given the Army Beta, which was a test based on pictures,
and failures in Beta received an individual examination. Army
psychologists would then grade each man from A to E. Men
who scored “D and E could not be expected ‘to read and understand
written directions’” (244). The army tests
had the following results: the average mental age of white
Americans was slightly above the score for a “moron,” European
immigrants graded by their country of origin fell slightly
below white Americans, and African Americans were at the
bottom of the scale with the lowest mental age. However, the
information derived from the Alpha and Beta tests was a result
of an unconscious cultural bias. Immigrants could not answer
questions on the written examination because there were questions
about American food, sports, etc., and the pictorial test
consisted of American objects that were foreign to these new
citizens. The time allotments were not long enough to answer
many questions, and the instructions were not clear to the immigrants.
Yerkes studied his information very carefully, but he
never came to the conclusion that the poor scores on his tests
were a result of his unconsious cultural bias.
Goddard, Terman, and Yerkes each had an a priori prejudice
which was evident in their work. H.H. Goddard discriminated
against foreigners and individuals who were intellectually
defective by labeling them “feeble-minded” and “morons”
and stating that, for the benefit of mankind, they ought not
to reproduce. Lewis M. Terman felt that by determining a
person’s level of intelligence, scientists could place them in an
appropriate social class, and in doing so, he chose to ostracize
the “feeble-minded,” criminals, prostitutes, and social incompetents
by eliminating these people from society. Robert M.
Yerkes isolated blacks and European immigrants in two distinct
ways: by assuming they were illiterate and giving these people
the Army Beta test instead of the Army Alpha, and also by
subjecting them to questions that were a result of an unconscious
cultural bias. Each one of these men altered Alfred
Binet’s original scale, which ultimately affected the reasons for
and results of giving intelligence tests.
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