Misuses of Statistics in the Study of Intelligence: The Case of Arthur Jensen

17\\ Ablex Publishing Corporation \j-\J Stamford, Connecticut INTELLIGENCE Few scientific topics generate as much controversy as the study of intelligence. Practically from the moment the first intelligence test was published in France by Albert Binet in 1905, scholars and members of the general public have debated what intelligence is; whether it is, in fact, reliably measured by IQ tests; the degree to which it is genetically determined; whether some racial, ethnic, and social class groups arc on average more intelligent than other groups; the relationship between intelligence and social problems such as crime, poverty, and immorality; and related questions. These debates are, to a great degree, arguments about the proper use and interpretation of statistical methods. In the United States there have been three periods of particularly intense debate about intelligence. The first such period occurred in the I920s, when the results of IQ tests given to Army recruits during World War I became ammunition for advocates of immigration restriction who argued that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were lowering the genetic quality of the country's population. These arguments played a role how much of a role is a matter of dispute in the passage of the racist Immigration