James Price Sociology 337 Professor Wilson-Figueroa December 9, 1997 "A Critique and Analysis of "The Ape's IQ" by Allen Shelton" In this paper I shall analyze and critique Allen Shelton's essay "The Ape's IQ", as found in the text Measured Lies. Shelton, a visiting professor at SUNY-Geneseo, writes as a response to the claims made by Hernstein and Murray in The Bell Curve. In their book, the authors assert that intelligence is a unidimensional quantity, denoted by 'g'. The Bell Curve argues that 'g' is a mathematical and scientific entity capable of being precisely measured. Shelton uses imagery from Kafka, Josephine Baker, and his own personal life to illustrate the follies of Hernstein and Murray, and their peers operating in the field of the study of intelligence. Hernstein and Murray, Shelton asserts, have a political and social agenda to justify. Although having, on the surface, positive and helpful motives, such as the elimination of genetic diseases, and the increase in the general intellectual capabilities of the people of the planet, a sinister and vicious hidden motive is at play. Shelton sees 'an X-File state' where one race is 'turning certain groups back into apes' (Kincheloe, 93-94). Since it is no longer fashionable to purport to scientifically measure the relative superiority of one race to another based on skin color, a new ruler must be found. Shelton notes that now we can measure bodies not from the outside in, but from the 'inside out' (Kincheloe, 92). No crude and racist differentiating trait is needed any longer, now a new scientific suite to evaluate individuals is awaiting our use. Shelton examines the history of the intelligence quotient, or IQ, and finds that it first saw large-scale application during World War I, when the army tested 1.75 million recruits (Kincheloe, 96). Deprived of the cultural cues provided when the test was first administered in the posh, private offices of the likes of Freud, the recruits lacked important hints on how to answer. Gould cites an example of a Sicilian recruit who drew in a crucifix in one diagram of a house without a chimney, because in his old country it always was placed so as to appear in that location, but was marked wrong since it was not the 'correct' answer anticipated by the designers of the test (Gould, 200). Indeed, some of the men were so bewildered by the entire process that they actually received a zero on their intelligence tests (Gould, 200). In his essay "Tainted Sources", Charles Lane uses the example of requiring a tennis net to be sketched into a picture as an example of 'blatant cultural bias' (Jacoby and Glauberman, 132). Here we see a foundation of bias built into the precarious house of cards that is IQ testing. Even over time, inconsistent results are obtained using these flawed measures of intelligence. In "Ethnicity and IQ", Thomas Sowell points out the fact that "...mental test results from American soldiers tested in World War II showed that their performances on these tests were higher than the performances of American soldiers in World War I by the equivalent of about twelve IQ points. (Fraser, 74)." Similar shifts can also be noted on a per-race basis, if one breaks down the results along such lines and analyses the drifts upward taken by all. Sowell notes that this observation alone is 'devastating to the central hypothesis' offered by Hernstein and Murray. I consider it to be quite unlikely that any such actual rise in intelligence really occurred during the brief period of time between the two wars. I think there are simply too many variables to get an unmuddied picture of what is really behind this rise. Shelton relates personal anecdotes about his own anxieties in school, and his own experiences in being found lacking and on the low end of the now-familiar bell curve. He also recalls the fact that he was given an IQ test, although he claims to not recall taking the test itself. His mother, he says, assured him he was quite smart, but would not inform him of his score (Kincheloe, 100). He relates how he would have frequent nightmares about needing to score well on such a test in order to get into heaven. Shelton suggests that one should place "one's own biography, as Kafka's ape did, on the bell curve and get in touch with the dull ache in the back of the head (Kincheloe, 104)." I can personally recall my own unhappy experience in being given an IQ test. Admitted to a new middle-school, I was given an IQ test which was designed to tell if I was a good investment for the limited and finite resources of the school's 'Gifted and Talented' program. When I was orally asked to define what a 'muscle' was, I explained how it was a mollusk often found clinging to the sides of ships. My secret score, never to be told to me by the examiner or my parents, was sadly too low to qualify me for the program. Too dumb to join the smart kids in their advanced studies, I was an idiot savant when it came to reading the examiner's scrawl upside-down. I secretly knew that I had shamed myself and my family by only managing to clock in with an IQ of 126, less than two standard deviations (of 16) from the would-be normalised average of 100. Years later I would take the SAT, receiving a score which was in the top 1%, qualifying me for entrance to both the elitist, self-congratulatory society known as Mensa, and to Portland State University's Honors Program. What my phenomenal rise in intelligence can be attributed to can only be guessed at, unless the 'rise' itself was nothing more than differing results provided by two highly questionable methods to measure a thing as intangible as innate intelligence. In Majority-Minority Relations, John Farley writes that "standardized testing is particularly problematic when children are labeled on the basis of tests at such early ages, because group placements...can linger throughout a child's educational career (Farley, 366)." Long lasting harm can be inflicted on children from minority and low-income backgrounds by intelligence tests being used to place them in remedial classes, and otherwise impede their progress, when there is no actual need for such treatment. I think it is very sad to consider of all the lives which are being ruined by such testing and school policies that are based around the scores of these tests. I think the temptation to divide students along racial lines is far too often exercised in such cases, and it can be noted that students will often strive to achieve exactly as little or as much as is expected from them. Lowered expectations are internalized by the students and, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy limits their academic potential (Farley, 352). I found Allen Shelton's critique of The Bell Curve to be lively and thought provoking. Hernstein and Murray and their thesis may well be met by critiques that, as Shelton describes his attempt, push "towards absurdity" the very notions upon which Hernstein and Murray make their foundation. Shelton's surreal portraits of Kafka's ape addressing the academy, and of Josephine Baker's dancing as a measure of a grace and genius far removed from the realm of mere intelligence, help to illuminate the absurdity of the position taken by The Bell Curve. By reducing intelligence to a one dimensional quantity, Hernstein and Murray reduce entire races to imaginary, geometric points to be plotted, at will, on their graph of humanity. The Bell Curve pretends to be objective science, but in the end is revealed to be nothing more than 'scientific' racism without merit.