Bernard D. Davis looked at Neo-Lysenkoism, IQ, and the press after Stephen J. Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man gained so much popular acclaim:
He personalizes his expository writing in a breezy, self-deprecating manner, and he comes across as warm-hearted, socially concerned, and commendably on the side of the underdog. Hence he is able to present scientific material effectively to a popular audience — a valuable contribution, and a public service, as long as his scientific message is sound.
It is therefore not surprising that Gould’s history of the efforts to measure human intelligence, The Mismeasure of Man, received many glowing reviews in the popular and literary press, and even a National Book Critics Circle award. Yet the reviews that have appeared in scientific journals, focusing on content rather than on style or on political appeal, have been highly critical of both the book’s version of history and its scientific arguments. The paradox is striking. If a scholar wrote a tendentious history of medicine that began with phlebotomy and purges, moved on to the Tuskegee experiment on syphilitic Negroes, and ended with the thalidomide disaster, he would convince few people that medicine is all bad, and he would ruin his reputation. So we must ask: Why did Gould write a book that fits this model all too closely? Why were most reviewers so uncritical? And how can non-scientific journals improve their reviews of books on scientific aspects of controversial political issues?
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Unfortunately, the approach that Gould has used to combat racism has serious defects. Instead of recognizing the value of eliminating bias, his answer is to press for equal and opposite bias, in a virtuous direction — not recognizing the irony and the danger of thus subordinating science to fashions of the day. Moreover, as a student of evolution he might have been expected to build on a profound insight of modern genetics and evolutionary biology: that the human species, and each race within it, possesses a wide range of genetic diversity. But instead of emphasizing the importance of recognizing that diversity, Gould remains locked in combat with a prescientific, typological view of heredity, and this position leads him to oppose studies of behavioral genetics altogether. As the reviewer for Nature stated, The Mismeasure of Man is “a book which exemplifies its own thesis. It is a masterpiece of propaganda, researched in the service of a point of view rather than written from a fund of knowledge.”
In effect, we see here Lysenkoism risen again: an effort to outlaw a field of science because it conflicts with a political dogma. To be sure, the new version is more limited in scope, and it does not use the punitive powers of a totalitarian state, as Trofim Lysenko did in the Soviet Union to suppress all of genetics between 1935 and 1965. But that is not necessary in our system: A chilling atmosphere is quite sufficient to prevent funding agencies, investigators, and graduate students from exploring a taboo area. And such Neo-Lysenkoist politicization of science, from both the left and the right, is likely to grow, as biology increasingly affects our lives-probing the secrets of our genes and our brain, reshaping our image of our origins and our nature, and adding new dimensions to our understanding of social behavior. When ideologically committed scientists try to suppress this knowledge they jeopardize a great deal, for without the ideal of objectivity science loses its strength.
Because this feature of science is such a precious asset, the crucial lesson to be drawn from the case of Stephen Jay Gould is the danger of propagating political views under the guise of science. Moreover, this end was furthered, wittingly or not, by the many reviewers whose evaluations were virtually projective tests of their political convictions. For these reviews reflected enormous relief: A voice of scientific authority now assures us that biological diversity does not set serious limits to the goal of equality, and so we will not have to wrestle with the painful problem of refining what we mean by equality.
In scientific journals editors take pains to seek reviewers who can bring true expertise to the evaluation of a book. It is all the more important for editors of literary publications to do likewise, for when a book speaks with scientific authority on a controversial social issue, the innocent lay reader particularly needs protection from propaganda. Science can make a great contribution toward solving our social problems by helping us to base our policies and judgments upon reality, rather than upon wish or conjecture. Because this influence is so powerful it is essential for such contributions to be judged critically, by the standards of science.
From what I have heard from people who had the misfortune to have dealings with him, there are no grounds for assuming that SJG was well-motivated in his systematic dishonesty. He lied for the usual expedient reasons.
By Far the biggest, most expensive, most intrusive, most dishonest and incompetent Lysenkoism is surely the ‘Climate change scam – the world has never seen anything to approach it…
However, the dishonesty about IQ since the mid 1960s is also extremely important, because it is necessary to rationalise the vast structure of Leftist politics in The West.
So maybe it is even more important than Climate Change, because more fundamental – in a sense the systematic denial of group differences in intelligence (personality traits etc) underpins the political system which implemented the global warming scam.
To put it another way, both are major strategies of the evil global establishment and their demonic overlords…
I take a pragmatic and cautious view about all this… I think there are differences between groups of humans, but I don’t frame it by virtue of the external markers we all use as shorthand cues. Race exists, in other words, but it’s a lot more nebulous than just stereotyping by melanin content.
Witness the differences between the European Ashkenazic Jews and the Sephardim, who did not experience the pressure-cooker that was the Jewish ghetto of the European Middle Ages. How different are they, and to what degree are they adapted to different environments? Is it racism to acknowledge the intellectual achievements of the Ashkenazi, while noting that the Sephardim have far less of whatever it is that creates that potential?
As well, how sure are we that these things are related to genes, and how much are environmental?
Whatever it is in humans that’s expressed as personality and that quality we have come to term “intelligence”, there’s a huge question as to where it comes from–If it were strictly learned, cultural, then many of the twin studies done over the years wouldn’t produce such disquieting results. If it were strictly genetic, then we wouldn’t have these cases where genius and intelligence pop out of nowhere in the population, either.
So, in the end, my belief is that the solution is to observe and learn more. The nature of what makes us human isn’t at all clear, nor is that chimerical quality that everyone terms “intelligence”. Which, I have to tell you, I’ve come to view with a very, very jaundiced eye, given that so many of those acclaimed to possess that quality are actually ‘effing idjits when I’ve observed them and the product of their efforts out in the real world.
In his chapter on relative brain volumes, Gould stated that to compare sample means one should use the sample standard deviations rather than the standard errors of the means. This is such an outrageous error that it must have been a lie, especially since Gould routinely used statistics in his own research. That was the beginning of my disenchantment with Gould.
And then there is Lewontin’s Fallacy. Another Marxist subverting science.
There was no such thing as a Tuskegee “experiment”. There was a study done, that much are clear, yes. Not an experiment as that word experiment understood.
This is off-topic, but a reply to Bob Sykes:
Group mean difference comparisons expressed as standard deviations (e.g. Cohen’s d, Hedges’ g) is the typical way to express effect sizes, and is widely used in meta-analyses.
You may refer to the use of standard errors in statistical testing, which is used to determine whether a found group difference is likely to be real or not. The problem with the standard error is that it is dependent on the sample size, and therefore non-informative outside that specific context. Whatever his other faults, your description of the passage does not support calling Gould a liar.