The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
1 Rating(s)
List: $21.99 | Sale: $15.39
Club: $10.99

The Mismeasure of Man

Author: Stephen Jay Gould

Narrator: Arthur Morey

Unabridged: 19 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/20/2011

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits.

Yet the idea of of biology as destiny dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined. In this edition, Stephen Jay Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."

About Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard University. He published over twenty books, including The Book of Life, Ever Since Darwin, The Flamingo's Smile, and Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes. Stephen received the National Book and National Book Critics Circle Awards, and a MacArthur Fellowship.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alok on April 06, 2021

19th century physicians used the sheen of science to justify racism. American naturalist Samuel Morton believed that white people had the largest brains and that this was evidence of superior intellect. He finagled his results in order to confirm his prejudice: excluding small white skulls to raise......more

Goodreads review by Max on March 30, 2009

NOTE: Feel free to read the full review, but I can sum it up in a fact. Gould need only have written the two-page epilogue to his book, a concise essay, rather than the remainder of the book. In fact, the entire thing is just so much pink fiberglass insulation leading up to the final page of the boo......more

Goodreads review by Geoffrey on May 12, 2012

Intellectually fraudulent, utterly ignorant of modern intelligence research, politically biased.......more

Goodreads review by Erik on March 04, 2015

The public school system I attended in Park Ridge, Illinois had us taking standardized texts several times a year, year after year: Iowa Tests, California Testa, PSAT, NMSQT, ACT, SAT etc. Some of us, the cooperative ones, got quite good at it and had our choice of colleges. We were, we were told, i......more

Goodreads review by Danny on March 17, 2012

I'm no expert in psychometrics, neuroscience, genetics, education, biology, physiology, psychology, factor analysis, or quantitative methodology. I'm only a layperson with an interest in literature, humanity, and science. So just note that the comments below are offered by a nonprofessional. My comme......more