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THE IQ CONTROVERSY: Critical Readings by N. J. & Gerald Dworkin--Eds. Block

THE IQ CONTROVERSY: Critical Readings

By

Pub Date: May 1st, 1976
Publisher: Pantheon

If there must be another book about the IQ controversy let it be this one, the best summary to date. The editors are to be complimented for choosing articles which set a high standard of readability in a field notorious for obfuscation. Let it also be said that their neutral title belies their point of view. They are clearly opposed to Jensen's genetic theories and Herrnstein's meritocracy. They let these spokesmen for the high heritability of intelligence speak, but then unleash a barrage of potent challengers who attack on every dependent and independent variable front. Some of the longer papers assume a high level of statistical sophistication, but these are complemented by others where assumptions and measures are carefully spelled out. For the most part the arguments amassed against Jensenism challenge the definition of intelligence, the arbitrariness of the tests, and the statistical assumptions that heritability can be defined and that environmental and genetic factors are independent in defining variance--the spread of IQ scores. The opening section, with reprints of several articles by Walter Lippmann that appeared in the New Republic over 50 years ago, is a refreshing opening battery to the heavier armaments brought up later.