The Mismeasure of Man

ISBN: 0393014894

Author: Stephen Jay Gould

Condition: Used

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