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The Mismeasure of Man
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"The Mismeasure of Man" Quotes

"The Mismeasure of Man" exposes the flaws and biases in attempts to measure human intelligence and the consequences of those flawed measurements.

Quotes

The abstraction of intelligence as a single entity is still deeply entrenched in the public mind and in the minds of many scientists.

Stephen Jay Gould

intelligencesociety

The history of the race and intelligence has been a chronicle of efforts to defame and belittle groups and races.

Stephen Jay Gould

racediscrimination

We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.

Stephen Jay Gould

injusticeopportunity

We can learn something important about the nature of science from the history of the intelligence testing movement.

Stephen Jay Gould

sciencehistory

The operational definition of intelligence is a receding chimera.

Stephen Jay Gould

intelligence

Biological determinism provides a clean and simple explanation for the status quo, and its very simplicity may underlie its tenacity.

Stephen Jay Gould

biologystatus quo

The Mismeasure of Man is a book about the wrong-headed ideas of the past and the wrong-headed ideas of the present.

Stephen Jay Gould

mistakesideas

Those who have a voice in the creation of knowledge have a responsibility to humanity to treat the subjects of such knowledge with respect.

Stephen Jay Gould

responsibilityrespect

The pursuit of science is more than the pursuit of understanding. It is also the pursuit of equity.

Stephen Jay Gould

scienceequity

The Mismeasure of Man is an attempt to understand the strengths and weaknesses of this most human of all activities—science.

Stephen Jay Gould

sciencehumanity