Scientist or Charlatan

LAST YEAR, PROFESSOR RICHARD HERRNSTEIN wrote "IQ" in the September, 1971 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which generated a huge controversy. Scholars in the fields of genetics and psychology challenged the "scientific" material he used for justification; and criticized his conclusion of a developing meritocracy. In a new article in Commentary magazine in April, 1973 (as well as in a book which appeared this week, IQ in the Meritocracy), Herrnstein merely repeats the "IQ Argument" he set forth last Fall, to paraphrase his three premises:

1) IQ tests are at least adequate measures of intelligence;

2) About 80% of the variance in IQ scores is attributable to heredity; and

3) Earnings and prestige depend largely upon IQ.

The conclusion Herrnstein draws from these premises is that social standing is based largely upon differences among people which are inherited and therefore beyond the influence of social action. Furthermore, this genetic caste system will only become more rigid as stratification becomes more "meritocratic" and less arbitrary.

Let us examine each of Herrnstein's three premises.

1) Is it true that "the measurement of intelligence is psychology's most telling accomplishment?" Herrnstein answers by pointing out how well IQ tests work: "Rarely did a bright child, as judged by the adults around him, score poorly, and rarely did a poor scorer seem otherwise bright."

But which children do adults judge to be bright? In a well-known study, Rosenthal and Jacobson told teachers that a group of primary-school children, in fact randomly selected, were "spurters" of high intellectual potential. Because of the teachers' expectations, these children ended the year with higher IQ s than the "non-spurters."

What IQ tests do, to a large extent, is to label as "bright" or "dull" those children who do or do not meet capitalist society's "expectations": expectations conditioned by racial prejudice and class background, among other factors.

2) Herrnstein's (and Jensen's) figure of .8 heritability for IQ comes almost entirely from a review of studies of identical twins reared apart. Since such twins have the same genes, any variation in IQ must be due to environment. Thus, it is imperative that the twins be raised in independent surroundings if any general conclusions are to be drawn.

In one of the largest studies, however, over half the twins were reared by relatives. For example, "The paternal aunts decided to take one twin each and they have brought them up amicably living next-door to one another..." Another researcher claimed that "his" twins were placed randomly, but his own later data contradict him.

Kamin has demonstrated other problems with the twin studies, including haphazard testing procedures, failure to control for age and sex, and selective rejection of unfavorable data. Finally, the technique of analysis of variance depends on the dubious assumption that environment and heredity act independently upon IQ.

3) The strong association among IQ, educational attainment, and social class feeds the popular myth that American society is a "meritocracy" in which the intelligent and industrious rise to the top.

In a recent article, however, Bowles and Gintis "partialed out" the effects of these three factors on economic success. While class background and education strongly predicted economic success, IQ alone contributed almost nothing to success.

In summary, Herrnstein has not shown that IQ measures intelligence. Even assuming that IQ does measure intelligence, he has not shown that IQ is inherited. And even assuming that IQ is an inherited measure of intelligence, he has not shown that success depends upon high IQ. Thus, he has not given the slightest credence to his conclusion that social standing is based on inherited differences in intelligence.

Given such a shoddy excuse for scholarship, it is understandable that this incompetent amateur shrinks from publication in professional journals and refuses "ever again" to discuss his theory in public. Herrnstein has repeatedly denied social policy implications drawn from his description of a "less endowed" lower class. He reasserts in Commentary that any criticism is a misrepresentation: "Not many of my critics seemed to have read it ['IQ']. Perhaps not many people at all read it; it was, after all, rather long and tough going in spots. There seemed, in fact, to be a pattern: Those who gave clear signs of having read it rarely got excited, while those who got excited usually had not read it." Herrnstein denied several points about "IQ": that his emphasis on genetics had any racial implications; that his "meritocracy" referred to present society or his "lower class" to today's poor.

In Commentary he is more straightforward. On race: "We do not know why blacks bunch toward the lower end of the social scale, or, for that matter, why Jews bunch toward the top." But even acknowledging the complications of "nongenetic" factors, Herrnstein "calls attention" to the "genetic spine running through the social class continuum, giving it a rigidity that few social theorists, let alone ordinary laymen, recognize."

He describes not an abstract society of the future, but conditions here and now. He claims it is "a well-established fact that the upper and lower classes differ in psychological makeup, for example in their measured intelligence," and that "technology...may be...wiping out those intellectually simple jobs that used to occupy the less-endowed portion of the population." This says that unemployment can be explained by the innate inability of the poor to master new jobs!

In Commentary, he openly advocates policy: "Many of the means and ends of contemporary social policy fail to take into account these biological constraints, and they may consequently misfire. Equalizing educational opportunity may have the unexpected and unwelcome effect of emphasizing the inborn intellectual differences among people. It may instead be better to diversify education, providing multiple pathways instead of just one."

Although Herrnstein's scientific justification and syllogism have been seriously questioned, he gives no new evidence nor does he refute his critics. Instead, he slanders them: "I suspected that many liberal social scientists, wedded to environmantalism, were not keen for open exchange in any event..." Quite arrogant, since he has refused public debate on the question and has yet to respond to criticism of his data.

The SDS action last year was distortion and threat, says Herrnstein. This is not true. The assertion that critics did not read "IQ" is false. SDS sold over 2000 copies on campus and encouraged people to read it. He claims that SDS created an atmosphere of intimidation in Soc Sci 15. Herrnstein's refusal after the first lecture to allow any questions except those of clarification in fact prevented open discussion. Finally, Herrnstein says the campaign was the effort of ten or twelve who succeeded in convicing others of their distortion. Hundreds across the country signed statements deploring his racism or his tactics, and large groups at Harvard condemned his conclusions in The Crimson.

Herrnstein's advocacy of social policy based on the false assumption of genetically determined social classes comes at a time of severe government cutbacks in education, medical care, welfare and housing. Cuts are justified on the racist grounds that those receiving aid are culturally or genetically unable to benefit. One Boston school committee member, for example, pointed to low reading scores of black children to justify oppostion to busing, and the terrible school conditions.

There are striking parallels in history to this combination of oppressive policy and "science" to back it up. Several of Herrnstein's sources, Francis Galton and Lewis Terman, were in the 1920s eugenics movement, which led to 30 states passing laws against interracial marriage and for sterilization of 10,000 of the "defective" in 24 states. Herrnstein is aware of the inadequacy of his data and of the seriousness of the social policy he advocates. By publishing again in a popular news magazine, providing no new evidence to prove his case, and by calling for social policy whose application could only be racist, Herrnstein is acting as a political organizer, not a scholar. SDS feels he should be responded to as such.

Beth Kilbreth is a member of SDS and lives in Cambridge.