From Publishers Weekly

With fast-paced storytelling, freelance journalist Murdoch traces now ubiquitous but still controversial attempts to measure intelligence to its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He takes readers back to 1905 when French psychologist Alfred Binet first formulated tests to measure reasoning, language, abstract thinking and complex cognitive abilities. However, many psychologists began to use the tests as a device to separate the mentally retarded from the rest of society. As Murdoch points out, the tests were often administered unfairly to members of various races, offering proof to the test's administrators of their own theories that intelligence was linked to race. Murdoch also demonstrates that the tests were often used as eugenic devices. In the landmark case of Carrie Buck, faulty IQ testing was used as a justification for involuntary sterilization as part of a move to eliminate feeblemindedness in future generations. Murdoch concludes that IQ testing provides neither a reliable nor a helpful tool in understanding people's behavior, nor can it predict their future success or failure. While much of this material is familiar, this is a thoughtful overview and a welcome reminder of the dangers of relying on such standardized tests. (June)
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From

Like the polygraph, the intelligence test gained acceptance more for its practicality than its scientific rigor. As journalist Murdoch tours its history, introducing the psychologists who promoted mental tests and a series of people affected by them, he makes plain his dubious view of IQ tests. Yet in a rough-and-ready way, they continue to suit organizations that need to categorize masses of people according to brain power, such as schools and the military. Murdoch recognizes the IQ test's utility while arraigning its pretenses to objective measurement. The author argues that case effectively as he delves into the construction of tests by nineteenth-century eugenicist Francis Galton, early-twentieth-century psychologist Alfred Binet, American psychologists in World War I, and contemporary testers. Behind the professional history, however, Murdoch's readers may be most engaged by personal stories arising from forced sterilizations in 1920s America, or the tragedy of an Ursula H. swept into Nazi Germany's policy of murdering the mentally handicapped. Including discussion of the SAT, Murdoch challenges IQ testing while he ably relates its century of application. Gilbert Taylor
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