The Mismeasure of Minds

The Mismeasure of Minds PDF Author: Michael E. Staub
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146964360X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision required desegregation of America's schools, but it also set in motion an agonizing multidecade debate over race, class, and IQ. In this innovative book, Michael E. Staub investigates neuropsychological studies published between Brown and the controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve. In doing so, he illuminates how we came to view race and intelligence today. In tracing how research and experiments around such concepts as learned helplessness, deferred gratification, hyperactivity, and emotional intelligence migrated into popular culture and government policy, Staub reveals long-standing and widespread dissatisfaction—not least among middle-class whites—with the metric of IQ. He also documents the devastating consequences—above all for disadvantaged children of color—as efforts to undo discrimination and create enriched learning environments were recurrently repudiated and defunded. By connecting psychology, race, and public policy in a single narrative, Staub charts the paradoxes that have emerged and that continue to structure investigations of racism even into the era of contemporary neuroscientific research.

The Mismeasure of Minds

The Mismeasure of Minds PDF Author: Michael E. Staub
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146964360X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision required desegregation of America's schools, but it also set in motion an agonizing multidecade debate over race, class, and IQ. In this innovative book, Michael E. Staub investigates neuropsychological studies published between Brown and the controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve. In doing so, he illuminates how we came to view race and intelligence today. In tracing how research and experiments around such concepts as learned helplessness, deferred gratification, hyperactivity, and emotional intelligence migrated into popular culture and government policy, Staub reveals long-standing and widespread dissatisfaction—not least among middle-class whites—with the metric of IQ. He also documents the devastating consequences—above all for disadvantaged children of color—as efforts to undo discrimination and create enriched learning environments were recurrently repudiated and defunded. By connecting psychology, race, and public policy in a single narrative, Staub charts the paradoxes that have emerged and that continue to structure investigations of racism even into the era of contemporary neuroscientific research.

The Mismeasure of Man (Revised and Expanded)

The Mismeasure of Man (Revised and Expanded) PDF Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393340406
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
The definitive refutation to the argument of The Bell Curve. When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. And yet the idea of innate limits—of biology as destiny—dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould. In this edition Dr. Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."

Measuring the Mind

Measuring the Mind PDF Author: Denny Borsboom
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139444638
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Is it possible to measure psychological attributes like intelligence, personality and attitudes and if so, how does that work? What does the term 'measurement' mean in a psychological context? This fascinating and timely book discusses these questions and investigates the possible answers that can be given response. Denny Borsboom provides an in-depth treatment of the philosophical foundations of widely used measurement models in psychology. The theoretical status of classical test theory, latent variable theory and positioned in terms of the underlying philosophy of science. Special attention is devoted to the central concept of test validity and future directions to improve the theory and practice of psychological measurement are outlined.

The Mismeasure of the Self

The Mismeasure of the Self PDF Author: Alessandra Tanesini
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198858833
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The Mismeasure of the Self is dedicated to vices that blight many lives. They are the vices of superiority, characteristic of those who feel entitled, superior and who have an inflated opinion of themselves, and those of inferiority, typical of those who are riddled with self-doubt and feel inferior. Arrogance, narcissism, haughtiness, and vanity are among the first group. Self-abasement, fatalism, servility, and timidity exemplify the second. This book shows these traits to be to vices of self-evaluation and describes their pervasive harmful effects in some detail. Even though the influence of these traits extends to any aspect of life, the focus of this book is their damaging impact on the life of the intellect. Tanesini develops and defends a view of these vices that puts vicious motivations at their core. The analyses developed in this work build on empirical research in attitude psychology and on philosophical theories in virtue ethics and epistemology. The book concludes with a positive proposal for weakening vice and promoting virtue.

Naming the Mind

Naming the Mind PDF Author: Kurt Danziger
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780803977631
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Intelligence, motivation, personality, learning, stimulation, behaviour and attitude are just some of the categories that map the terrain of `psychological reality'. These are the concepts which, among others, underpin theoretical and empirical work in modern psychology - and yet these concepts have only recently taken on their contemporary meanings. This fascinating work is a persuasive explanation of how modern psychology found its language. Kurt Danziger develops an account that goes beyond the taken-for-granted quality of psychological discourse to offer a profound and broad-ranging analysis of the recent evolution of the concepts and categories on which it depends. Danziger explores this process and shows how its conse

The Mismeasure of Desire

The Mismeasure of Desire PDF Author: Edward Stein
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195142446
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
In recent years, scientific research & popular opinion have favoured the idea that sexual orientations are determined at birth, but Edward Stein argues that this may be wrong. This book offers an examination of contemporary thinking on this issue.

A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind

A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind PDF Author: Robert A. Burton, M.D.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 125002840X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
What if our soundest, most reasonable judgments are beyond our control? Despite 2500 years of contemplation by the world's greatest minds and the more recent phenomenal advances in basic neuroscience, neither neuroscientists nor philosophers have a decent understanding of what the mind is or how it works. The gap between what the brain does and the mind experiences remains uncharted territory. Nevertheless, with powerful new tools such as the fMRI scan, neuroscience has become the de facto mode of explanation of behavior. Neuroscientists tell us why we prefer Coke to Pepsi, and the media trumpets headlines such as "Possible site of free will found in brain." Or: "Bad behavior down to genes, not poor parenting." Robert Burton believes that while some neuroscience observations are real advances, others are overreaching, unwarranted, wrong-headed, self-serving, or just plain ridiculous, and often with the potential for catastrophic personal and social consequences. In A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind, he brings together clinical observations, practical thought experiments, personal anecdotes, and cutting-edge neuroscience to decipher what neuroscience can tell us – and where it falls woefully short. At the same time, he offers a new vision of how to think about what the mind might be and how it works. A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind is a critical, startling, and expansive journey into the mysteries of the brain and what makes us human.

The Mismeasure of Wealth

The Mismeasure of Wealth PDF Author: Patrick Murray
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004326073
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
The Mismeasure of Wealth: Essays on Marx and Social Form gathers Patrick Murray’s essays reinterpreting Marx and Marxian theory published since his Marx’s Theory of Scientific Knowledge (1988), along with a previously unpublished essay and an introduction. Murray’s essays concentrate on Marx the historical materialist, the investigator of historically specific social forms of wealth and labour. There is no production in general; the production of wealth always involves specific social forms and purposes that matter in many ways. Marx’s attention to the dynamics and far-reaching consequences of historically specific social forms – in particular those that are constitutive of the capitalist mode of production – sets him off from classical political economy and traditional Marxism. In probing Marx’s dialectical accounts of the commodity, value, money, surplus value, wage labour and capital, The Mismeasure of Wealth establishes Marx’s singular relevance for critical social theory today.

Standardized Minds

Standardized Minds PDF Author: Peter Sacks
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9780738204338
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
"Standardized Minds" dramatically shows how an unhealthy and enduring obsession with intelligence testing affects everyone. Drawing creative solutions from the headlines and front lines, Sacks demonstrates proven alternatives to such testing, and details a plan to make the American meritocracy legitimate and fair.

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory PDF Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674417925
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1460

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Book Description
The world’s most revered and eloquent interpreter of evolutionary ideas offers here a work of explanatory force unprecedented in our time—a landmark publication, both for its historical sweep and for its scientific vision. With characteristic attention to detail, Stephen Jay Gould first describes the content and discusses the history and origins of the three core commitments of classical Darwinism: that natural selection works on organisms, not genes or species; that it is almost exclusively the mechanism of adaptive evolutionary change; and that these changes are incremental, not drastic. Next, he examines the three critiques that currently challenge this classic Darwinian edifice: that selection operates on multiple levels, from the gene to the group; that evolution proceeds by a variety of mechanisms, not just natural selection; and that causes operating at broader scales, including catastrophes, have figured prominently in the course of evolution. Then, in a stunning tour de force that will likely stimulate discussion and debate for decades, Gould proposes his own system for integrating these classical commitments and contemporary critiques into a new structure of evolutionary thought. In 2001 the Library of Congress named Stephen Jay Gould one of America’s eighty-three Living Legends—people who embody the “quintessentially American ideal of individual creativity, conviction, dedication, and exuberance.” Each of these qualities finds full expression in this peerless work, the likes of which the scientific world has not seen—and may not see again—for well over a century.