"Linnaeus, Blumenbach, the Founding Fathers, Phrenology . The effort continued in the United States throughout the 20th century with intelligence or IQ testing. Yes, intelligence testing originated in our country. At various times in this century it was big business. In the '50s. '60s, and '70s 'What's your IQ?' was a very popular question. Some industries used IQ's to evaluate prospective employees. School systems used IQ's to track students along academic and vocational paths. IQ's were a very big deal. We are still testing people today. In fact , some researchers still use such testing as an effort to prove the 'superiority' of one group over another . The amazing thing about all this testing is that IQ's are meaningless numbers, scientifically speaking.
"In his book, THE MEASURE OF MAN, Stephen J. Gould reviews the history of intelligence testing and discusses its problems. His work is quite fascinating and I highly recommend reading it. It is important to understand Gould 's work, because IQ testing is widely accepted as science, as Linneaus' work of was accepted as such in his day, and we must understand how little science was actually involved in its development . Intelligence testing is more or less the 20th century version of phrenology.
"It all started with Alfred Binet , an educator at the turn of the century in France. He noticed a few of his students would fall behind and wondered if he could develop a test so he could give these students attention sooner. In his writings, he specifically cautioned his readers not to think of his test as having anything to do with intelligence; intelligence being, he believed, inherently unmeasurable.
"In the early 1900s a group of American social scientists disregarded Binet's warning, modifying his test and eventually concocted tests they asserted measured intelligence. The end result of these concoctions was the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, the granddaddy of all IQ tests , the test all other IQ tests have been measured against for decades ."
P. 64, "The Fallacy of Intelligence Testing," THE POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME by Dr. Joy DeGruy (2005)
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
THE FALLACY OF INTELLIGENCE TESTING
"Linnaeus, Blumenbach, the Founding Fathers, Phrenology . The effort continued in the United States throughout the 20th century with intelligence or IQ testing. Yes, intelligence testing originated in our country. At various times in this century it was big business. In the '50s. '60s, and '70s 'What's your IQ?' was a very popular question. Some industries used IQ's to evaluate prospective employees. School systems used IQ's to track students along academic and vocational paths. IQ's were a very big deal. We are still testing people today. In fact , some researchers still use such testing as an effort to prove the 'superiority' of one group over another . The amazing thing about all this testing is that IQ's are meaningless numbers, scientifically speaking.
"In his book, THE MEASURE OF MAN, Stephen J. Gould reviews the history of intelligence testing and discusses its problems. His work is quite fascinating and I highly recommend reading it. It is important to understand Gould 's work, because IQ testing is widely accepted as science, as Linneaus' work of was accepted as such in his day, and we must understand how little science was actually involved in its development . Intelligence testing is more or less the 20th century version of phrenology.
"It all started with Alfred Binet , an educator at the turn of the century in France. He noticed a few of his students would fall behind and wondered if he could develop a test so he could give these students attention sooner. In his writings, he specifically cautioned his readers not to think of his test as having anything to do with intelligence; intelligence being, he believed, inherently unmeasurable.
"In the early 1900s a group of American social scientists disregarded Binet's warning, modifying his test and eventually concocted tests they asserted measured intelligence. The end result of these concoctions was the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, the granddaddy of all IQ tests , the test all other IQ tests have been measured against for decades ."
P. 64, "The Fallacy of Intelligence Testing," THE POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME by Dr. Joy DeGruy (2005)
