The idea of IQ / Russell Marks.

  • Marks, Russell.
Date:
[1981], ©1981
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The idea of IQ / Russell Marks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    strate its unmalleability. While psychologists suc¬ ceeded in creating an impressive experimental tool, the I.Q, test, their work was nevertheless marred by conceptual confusion. In a larger sense, the concept¬ ual shortcomings of the idea of I.Q. reflected the conceptual shortcomings of twentieth-century psychol¬ ogy . As renowned philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein noted in 1951: The confusion and barrenness of psycho¬ logy is not to be explained by calling it a young science; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginning. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathe¬ matics . Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and con¬ ceptual confusion. (As in the other case conceptual confusion and methods of proof.) The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solv¬ ing the problems which trouble us: though problem and method pass one ano¬ ther by.'' Nowhere was this combination of conceptual confusion and impressive experimental methods more evident than in the idea of I.Q. The conceptual confusion was not corrected, however, because what psychologists found on I .Q. tests confirmed their preconceptions, their ideas about human nature and society, the construct of indi¬ vidual differences and the meritocratic world-view. The Construct of Individual Differences The social construction of the concept of individu¬ al differences was intimately tied to major developments in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century psycholo¬ gy. Fundamental to these developments was the creation of a new perspective for viewing human beings. James -4-