Good books on the history of intelligence testing

November 27, 2018 10:44 AM

My 17yo is looking for a good book to read on the history of intelligence testing. Recommendations?

I know of Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, which I read as a teenager, but it's a very old book now, is making an anti-intelligence-testing argument, and has some problems with Gould himself mis-reporting findings to support his point.

What's newer? Better? Thoughtfully critical but not necessarily anti-testing? Thanks.

posted by Orlop to Society & Culture (7 answers total)

None of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude was great; although it's a bit old now, the arguments still stand.
posted by sockermom at 10:49 AM on November 27, 2018

Nicholas Lemann's The Big Test is pretty great. Pretty sure I read it in high school as well.
posted by General Malaise at 10:52 AM on November 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

I like both the Gould and Lemann books better, but Stephen Murdoch's 'IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea' is... another option. While I haven't read James R. Flynn's 'Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century,' it is another book on the subject.
posted by box at 11:33 AM on November 27, 2018

Seconding that Gould and Lemann are probably the best bets still. It's going to be very difficult to find work on the history of intelligence testing that comes across as anything but critical just because of, well, what the history is. Igo's The Averaged American is academic but pretty readable and gives some context to the notion without focusing on the perfidies of ETS or anything.
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 11:53 AM on November 27, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks for the recommendations. I appreciate it.
posted by Orlop at 2:16 PM on November 27, 2018

This is related, but not a direct hit: your kid might enjoy Imbeciles by Adam Cohen. Talks about the history of the American eugenics movement and how intelligence often got deliberately muddled with socioeconomic and racial status. It doesn't focus on the validity of intelligence testing itself, but demonstrates that throughout the early twentieth century people didn't care about its validity. The book is about more than intelligence testing specifically, but would do a lot to explain the broader context of the era from which it originated.
posted by lilac girl at 5:30 PM on November 27, 2018

Leon Kamin: The Science and Politics of I.Q. is a must-read on this topic.
posted by flabdablet at 3:45 AM on November 28, 2018 [2 favorites]