Measuring Intelligence: Facts and Fallacies

by David J. Bartholomew

This book penetrates the thicket of controversy, ideology and prejudice surrounding the measurement of intelligence to provide a clear non-mathematical analysis of it. The testing of intelligence has a long and controversial history and whether intelligence exists and can be measured still remains unresolved. The debate about it has centered on the "nurture versus nature" controversy and especially on alleged racial differences and the heritability of intelligence.

Genres: Psychology

186 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Measuring Intelligence: Facts and Fallacies purports to be a neutral scientific look at intelligence. The author however is not neutral and obviously favours some approaches in the literature. This damages the credibility of his claims which are often highly questionable and rely on very weak assumptions. Is (g) actually unchangeable after birth? (page 150)
This seems unlikely given the malleable nature of the brain that changes significantly throughout an individuals life time.
The book additionally suffers from bad structure, the book goes back and forth in topic without a clear focus. The books poor structure is not helped by some errors in the writing.
In fairness some of the descriptions of factor analysis and its limitations are helpful but these are overshadowed by the remaining faults of the book.