Arthur Jensen

Arthur Jensen is an American educational psychologist, born August 24, 1923 and educated at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. 1945), San Diego State College (M.A., 1952) and Columbia University (Ph.D., 1956). Jensen was a major practitioner of individual differences psychology with a special interest in intelligence and the nature versus nurture debate, and argued strongly that intelligence is partially heritable (see General_intelligence_factor).

Gould's criticism

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, known for his popularizations of science in mass market books and magazines, attacked Jensen's work in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man.

Related Topics:
Stephen Jay Gould - The Mismeasure of Man

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Gould makes three criticisms. The first is the criticism commonly leveled against Jensen and other researchers dealing with race and intelligence:that Jensen misapplies the concept of "heritability." Heritability measures the percentage of variation of a trait due to inheritance, within a population. (Gould 1981: 127; 156-156). Jensen has used the concept of heritability to measure differences in inheritance between populations, and this is the basis of the criticism.

Related Topics:
Race and intelligence - Heritability

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Secondly, Gould disagrees with Jensen's belief that IQ tests measure a real variable, g, or "the general factor common to a large number of cognitive abilities" which can be measured along a unilinear scale. This is a claim most closely identified with Cyril Burt and Charles Spearman. According to Gould, Jensen misunderstood the research of L. L. Thurstone to ultimately support this claim; Gould however argues that Thurstone's factor analysis of intelligence revealed g to be an illusion (1981: 159; 13-314).

Related Topics:
General factor - Cyril Burt - Charles Spearman - L. L. Thurstone - Factor analysis

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Third, Gould disagrees with Jensen's support of the attempts of others to calculate the IQ's of dead people (such as the famous Polish astronomer and Prussian monetary theorist Copernicus) (1981: 153-154).

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In a 1982 review of Gould's book Jensen gives point-by-point rebuttals to Gould's characterizations of his work, including Gould's treatment of heritability, the "reification" of g and the use of Thurstone's analysis (see http://www.debunker.com/texts/jensen.html). Gould's responses can be found in the latest edition of The Mismeasure of Man (1996).

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See also: the discussion of race and intelligence.

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