For the soft-minded
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Noticing that a book was on the market that rehashed the same, tired old 1960's idocy that there is "no difference" between races (subspecies) of homo sapiens, my ever-so-PC liberal arts college gobbled up copies of this book and distributed them as required reading for evolutionary psychology classes. Overall, this book was a big waste of time and contributed NOTHING to what is otherwise a fine field of study. Simple, regressive logic such as "just because some 19th century racists drew exaggerated pictures of blacks to make them look like apes" this means there are no differences between subspecies of human beings that evolved in isolated environments over 100,000's of years. Pure nonsense and totally worthless; not "scholarly" at all but rather an amateur foray into "science" for the feminist/ultra-left crowds.
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Gould chooses political correctness over science
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Gould wants to abolish the opinions that intelligence can be measured and that it is unevenly distributed among ethnic groups. He is the wrong person to do it as he has a checkered history when it comes to keeping to the facts. As Oxford academician Richard Dawkins says (see Bryson, "A Short History of Nearly Everything", pp. 330-332) "If only Stephen Gould could think as clearly as he writes!" Dawkins accused Gould of misrepresenting facts in one of his previous books. Gould's conclusions in "Wonderful Life" were further attacked by Dawkins as "mistaken or carelessly inflated." Reading Gould's hysterical attack on "The Bell Curve" is enlightening for only one reason: it shows how irrational people can become when science removes the foundation for their political beliefs. It is all right for Gould to make a career out of skewering fundamentalists for their belief in creationism (and he is right to do so) but it looks as if Gould can't handle the evidence when one of his own beliefs (in the doctrine of equal ability and intelligence) is shown to be groundless. Rather than admit the truth (as many scientists quietly do so), Gould goes to outrageous ends to try to attack the ideas that intelligence can be measured or that I.Q. is a valid concept.
This book is popular because Gould writes well. It is nonsense because Gould is no longer writing science; he is writing devotional tracts for what's left of the old lefties in academia.
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Gould is too biased for this subject
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Gould is usally an excellent science writer but his extreme liberal biases prevents him from writing objectively on the subject of intelligence and the evidence that it is unevenly distributed among the races. Gould is so anxious and paranoid about where this admission might lead that he denies its possibility right from the start before looking at the evidence - hardly a good way to do science but a great way to keep politically correct. This is a sad, pathetic book from a once great science writer. It looks like Gould would rather maintain his beliefs rather than look at the evidence - the very thing Gould has accused creationists of doing in his previous books. Interestingly, Gould attacks the authors of "The Bell Curve" for the conservative leanings that appear in that book. He suggests that their politics influenced their reading of the data. But this is exactly what Gould has done in his own book! In Gould's case it is his far left politics that have clouded his reading of the data. Very sad. Some readers will buy this book based on Gould's excellent reputation. In this case, Gould was living off his reputation rather than furthering it.
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Excellent refutation of scientific racism
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This book is a touchstone of sorts. You can tell a lot about someone from what they say about it and from what they think Gould is saying. Some accuse Gould of trying to argue that there are no IQ differences among people -- he is not arguing that. Some people say that he is trying to argue that there are no IQ differences between any two given people of difference racial backgrounds -- he is not arguing that, either. Gould's argument is fairly straightforward. He is of the opinion that the differences *between* racial groups are on average no greater than the differences *within* racial groups. How Gould's argument could get so distorted and why it gets so many people upset tells me that some people have a need to feel superior and like thinking that there is a scientific justification for them to feel superior. Based on his analysis of historical instances of intelligence testing, he is also of the opinion that the general goal of intelligence testing has been to (1) come up with a single number scale, ranked highest to lowest, that can be used to peg people in a hierarchy of intelligence and then (2) use the results of that numbering scheme to determine social policies used on those people and (3) pass those results on to the public to reinforce the idea that those people who are disadvantaged actually deserve to be disadvantaged because they belong to an inferior race. You can gauge based on how upset people get at Gould's reasoning how close to the truth -- and to the nerve -- he is striking. I think this is an excellent and superbly argued book, and should be read by more people.
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Gould can't hide his political agenda
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Gould is a very confused person! His ambitious goal was to prove that intelligence is not inherited but a product of environmental factors such as education. The only way one could do such thing is to find a way to measure intelligence and then prove that better education and better environment can increase it. This is where Gould's problem comes in.
He mocks all attempts to measure intelligence. The only clear point that he makes throughout the book is that intelligence can't be measured or even defined clearly.
I agree but just because we can't measure it, doesn't mean that we didn't inherit it from our parents. Measurement and heritability are two different things and they must not be confused. We can't say that the Milky Way Galaxy doesn't exist only because we can't account for every single star, planet, and satellite in it.
Gould points out that average height in a third world country may be lower than average height in the US due to poor nutrition. Then he goes on to say that if people in the third world were as well fed as Americans, their average height may turn out to be higher. Unconsciously, Gould has destroyed his own argument. If two populations receive equal amount of nutrition and yet one of them turns out to have lower average height then what else other than genes could account for the difference?
He points out that IQ test scores could be increased with more education but then he totally dismisses IQ as an indicator of how smart we are. He ends up with no argument against heritability. If we can't measure intelligence then we can't prove that education can increase it, and if we can't prove that education can increase it then we have no argument against heritability.
Why can't we turn chimpanzees into PhDs? Could it be because chimpanzee's genes do not allow them to build sophisticated brains like ours? And if the sophistication of our brain is determined by our genes then the capacity for high intelligence is clearly inherited.
Basketball players are tall not because they practice to be tall but because they inherited a collection of genes, which in the presence of healthy diet can build tall bodies. Others who eat equally healthy may not grow so tall. Jumping up and down on a basketball course won't make them any taller than they already are. I can use many other analogies but I think I proved my point.
The only good thing about this book is that it points out the silliness of trying to prove the intellectual superiority of one race over another. That was the only reason I gave it two stars.
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