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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

> "the mismeasure of man" is a garbage book by the noted fraud and liar steven jay gould.

When you post like this, do you ever stop to think how you're making psychology and its supporters look?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Awards

Quote: "The first edition of The Mismeasure of Man won the non-fiction award from the National Book Critics Circle; the Outstanding Book Award for 1983 from the American Educational Research Association; the Italian translation was awarded the Iglesias prize in 1991; and in 1998, the Modern Library ranked it as the 24th-best non-fiction book of all time.[10] In December 2006, Discover magazine ranked The Mismeasure of Man as the 17th-greatest science book of all time."

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the opinions of ignorant journalists are not really relevant. it was strongly criticized by experts in the relevant area. do you realize how intellectually lazy you look when you form strong opinions on subjects without even doing basic research first?

> ... without even doing basic research first?

If self-reference were a disease, you would be in an emergency room. You know nothing about me or the research I have conducted, apart from the fact that your argument represents an all-too-common logical error.

> the opinions of ignorant journalists are not really relevant.

> it was strongly criticized by experts in the relevant area.

So, which is it? Did journalists decide, or did experts decide? And do you know why neither of those sources carry weight in science, a field where evidence trumps eminence?

Do you know why I'm playing you along, even though you have nothing to contribute to this discussion? I just want the readers in this forum to see what passes for reasoning among psychologists and their supporters.

at this point you are just embarrassing yourself with your weird crusade attack "psychologists and supporters". I'm sure most readers in this forum feel intuitively that mental ability can be measured with some accuracy, so I doubt you will convince many people. and anyone who cares to look will find a vast psychometric literature that supports the validity of IQ.

> I doubt you will convince many people.

I don't need to. The director of the NIMH already agrees with me, and high-level policy changes are under way to permanently change the status of psychiatry and psychology, demote them to the status of astrology. Didn't you get the memo?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/the-s...

> ... anyone who cares to look will find a vast psychometric literature that supports the validity of IQ.

Yes, that works for people suffering from a bad case of confirmation bias, and who can't grasp basic scientific principles. The rest of us will continue practicing science and advocating in favor of neuroscience as psychology's obvious replacement.

IQ testing will become valid only when it is based on science rather than anecdote. Assuming that ever happens.

Most of the stuff in The Mismeasure of Man regarding Morton's skull research was wrong. http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjour...

For anybody reading this in the future, "truthteller" isn't the voice of reason in this thread, he/she is a troll.

The link above by defens is a legitimate criticism of The Mismeasure of Man and is well worth reading. It doesn't speak to the overarching theme of the book, which is it's attack on the goals and the content of intelligence testing, but to a mischaracterization that Gould made of the conclusions of someone else's research, turning them into a bit of a straw man representing subconscious testing bias. It definitely weakens Gould's case in that regard.

The book is still an amazing hidden history.

> The link above by defens is a legitimate criticism of The Mismeasure of Man and is well worth reading.

I agree completely -- the Gould book was an important contribution to the debate about IQ testing, and it contained a number of errors. Both of the above statements are true -- indeed, it's rare for such an important work of this scope to be error-free.

It's my hope that, as psychology is replaced by neuroscience (a process now under way), the role of opinions will be substantially replaced by scientific evidence, which until now has been in deplorably short supply in this field.

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