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2.0 out of 5 stars
Lysenko rides again, January 5, 2006
This review is from: Psychology for A2 Level (Paperback)
In reviewing this book, we have some good news and some bad news. First the good news.
As the Description and Synopsis above show, a great deal of thought has gone into this book. it is handsomely produced and liberally, one might even say lavishly, illustrated with pleasing photographs. The organisation seems natural and logical. Many tutorials are hard to use as reference books and vice versa; this volume may be used with equal ease as either. Adequate space is taken for author and subject indices, a glossary and a list of references. There are also tables of statistical significance.
Particularly commendable and useful is a section at the front explaining how the exam will be structured, what features will be expected in good answers, how best to revise, and helpful hints on how to pass the examination. But then we come to the following statement:
'Note that there are no "right answers" in psychology - there are only answers that are well informed and well argued.'
It is here that the reader may possibly feel the slightest twinge of unease. After all, Joseph Black and Daniel Rutherford argued well for the phlogistic theory of combustion, but it was still wrong - because it led to counterfactual conclusions.
So this is in fact tantamount to saying that statements in Psychology are not falsifiable, which would disbar it from qualifying as a science at all.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Now the bad news. Unfortunately, addressing this is rather like like addressing the question 'Why couldn't Superman really exist?' - it can't be done in a couple of sentences. So gird your loins and grit your teeth, dear reader, and come with me on a journey to an imaginary university not unadjacent to Egham, Surrey. Imagine, too, that you are reading a modern text, not about Psychology, but about Astronomy. This is what you read:
'For hundreds of years scholars accepted that the Earth was the centre of the Universe and that the heavens revolved around it.
'In the early 17th century a certain Galileo Galilei, following correspondence with his friend Nicolai Copernicus, advocated a rival theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. However, following a discussion in Rome, Galileo apparently changed his mind, and publicly disavowed this opinion. Copernicus himself was not sufficiently convinced of it to publish it in his own lifetime.'
Now you know all about the geocentric and heliocentric theories.
Whether this flight of fancy has any relationship to the present book, I must of course leave to the reader. 'Can this be?' you ask. 'Surely a modern textbook must be a model of scientific integrity and impartiality?'
Follow me now, then, as I in turn follow the authors, tiptoing, metal-detector in hand, through the minefield of inconvenient facts.
Unfortunately, even Amazon's generous space allowance is not enough to deal with the subject fully. I must concentrate on the topic which impressed the Galileo analogy on me most forcefully; even here I can only provide a few examples. It is (unsurprisingly), the issue of differences in intelligence (on average) between groups - most controversially, between races.
On p.393 we learn 'Jensen (1969) and H.J. Eysenck (1981) argued that genetic differences might be involved'.
Eysenck first argued it, and more fully, in "Race, Intelligence and Education" (1971), which was entirely devoted to the topic. There is no mention of this, and no reference to it in the back, although that book caused more fuss in Britain than any other work on the subject. What is curious about this is that RI&E is by the father of one of the present authors.
Then on the next page, we find:
'Herrnstein & Murray (1994) published the controversial book "The Bell Curve", in which they argued that there are genetic differences in IQ. Since these differences are inevitable, why are we wasting money in trying to educate individuals who will never progress beyond a fixed potential?'
The first sentence is certainly true. However, I cannot recall, nor can I now find, anything remotely likely the second, and I notice that there are no quotation marks nor page reference.
And on p.394 again:
'Indeed, the whole notion of "race" has been questioned, and seems to have no scientific definition.'
Well, now. There is one in RI&E (p.36): '[Races] are populations that differ genetically and may be distinguished phenotypically (i.e. by appearance). Races are not species; they are able to interbreed, and are fertile when they do.' (etc.)
It seems strange that MWE, at least, should be unaware of this. Maybe Ms. Black wrote this part of the book.
Or how about this?
'Human races are viewed not as discrete, or Platonic, categories, but rather as breeding populations that, as a result of natural selection, have come to differ statistically in the relative frequencies of many polymorphic genes. The genetic distances between various populations form a continuous variable that can be measured in terms of differences in gene frequencies. Racial populations differ in many genetic characteristics, some of which, such as brain size, have behavioral and psychometric correlates...',
from Jensen, and published two years before the present volume.
The authors again:
'Even H.J. Eysenck (1981, p.79) admitted that the issue cannot be resolved by experimental evidence: "Can we... argue that genetic studies... give direct support to the hereditarian position? The answer must, I think, be in the negative. the two populations (black and white) are separate populations, and none of the studies carried out on white people alone, such as twin studies, are feasible." '
But this quotation from Eysenck & Kamin's "The Intelligence Controversy" is itself a quotation from RI&E (p.117), which continues:
'...critics are perfectly right in saying that the genetic evidence existing at the moment is not conclusive.
However, it constitutes presumptive evidence which is quite strong, and cannot be disregarded. Any argument aimed at disavowing the genetic evidence runs into difficulties which may be more disturbing to the environmentalist hypothesis than anything postulated in this book.' (etc.)
The authors kindly inform us:
'This illustrates the extremely political nature of the debate.'
It does indeed, but perhaps not quite in the way intended.
Some - notably, and probably most coherently Chomsky (1987, pp.199-202) - have argued that the matter is of no scientific interest and intrinsically unimportant. But when millions of pounds and dollars are spent - as they are - on remedial education programmes, must not the assumptions those programmes are based on be sound, if they are to have any hope of success? And if the subject is discussed at all, surely it should be accurately?
BUT IS IT USEFUL?
Still, you may say, even if some parts of the book are less than ideal, surely the rest is valuable? The trouble is, as the late Richard Mitchell well observed:
'Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought'.
Perhaps the authors can be trusted on uncontroversial subjects like the anatomy of the cerebral cortex (p.145)? But how can we be sure where the dividing line is? Even a tangential statement about kangaroos seems logically faulty to me. And political correctness pervades the book like a miasma.
But, you will say, a book should be judged, not on some absolute scale, but by how well it fulfils the purpose for which it was written. This one was written to get the student through the A2 exam; if it achieves that end, it is a useful book, regardless of its factual content. And since one of the authors is an examiner, the chances would seem fairly high that the book is appropriate.
Perhaps. But if this is the intention, there is still considerable room for improvement. For instance:
On p. 393, we find a criticism (very serious if true) ascribing culture bias to the tests used in IQ research published in 1988 by Rushton. (To those familiar with the literature, the selection of this particular study for ridicule is in itself of some interest; but let it pass.)
Even after nearly 400 pages, some students may still have some vestiges of critical faculty left. Thus they may be impelled to ask:
* Is this an accurate characterisation of Rushton's study? If so,
* Is it the only study, or are there other studies, using culture-reduced and/or substantially different tests, and if so, what are the results?
* If there *are* other studies, is there a consensus among experts (that is, people who have specialised in the relevant fields of behavioural genetics, psychometrics and intelligence testing, have contributed significantly to these areas, and are familiar with the all the research which is relevant to a discussion of the field); and if so, what is it?
Such students will first look in the References section to find the details of Rushton's study. Of course, the reference isn't there (whether because it's been removed, or overlooked, or because the authors never bothered to read it and took their opinion at second hand isn't elucidated). Furthermore, we are not told exactly which Rushton this is - smart, since even if the student is using an Internet search engine, he/she may well be stuck if he/she doesn't know it's J. Philippe. So far so good.
But the student may be moved to search further and check...
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