The Mismeasure of Man
The Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard University was Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002). He authored almost twenty novels, won the MacArthur Fellowship, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Mismeasure of Man, which was first published in 1981, was immediately praised as a masterpiece and the resounding rebuttal to those who sought to categorize and rank people in accordance with their alleged genetic strengths and limitations.
However, the notion that biology determines one's fate persists, as evidenced by the attention given to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so deftly anticipated and comprehensively refuted. Stephen Jay Gould has added a major new preface to this edition explaining how and why he created the book as well as chronicling the history of the innateness debate from its inception to The Bell Curve. Additionally, he has included five pieces on issues related to The Bell Curve, racism, and biological determinism in general. These features support the book's assertion that it is "a substantial contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social ills," in the words of Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University.
Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393314251/
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