What a coincidence! Last night I was browsing through old copies of American Psychologist that I was getting ready to discard when I came upon a commentary by Herrnstein on a sentence similar to the one below that shows the same percentages of mentally deficient from various nationalities and that has been attributed to Goddard at various times. The commentary ends as follows:
"In summary, the familiar sentence attributed to Goddard on excessive retardation in the IQs of immigrants is (a) not Goddard's sentence, but Kamin's; (b) not found in any form in the reference to Goddard made by Kamin; (c) almost certainly not based on IQ scores, assuming Kamin did find something relevant someplace in Goddard; and (d) probably based on a long-gone test known by Terman and others to overestimate adult retardation seriously even in native American populations" (p. 424). Reference: Herrnstein, R. J. (1981). Try again, Dr. Albee. American Psychologist, April, 424-425. Miguel -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Christopher D. Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Mike Palij wrote: http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/kallikak.shtml >From the latter website we have the following text that may help set the context for what immigrants may have had to expect on reaching Ellis Island: "The height of Goddard's success came at a time when America was experiencing a large influx of immigrants from Europe. The Immigration Restriction Act, passed in 1924 (which remained in effect until 1965) was influenced by American eugenics' efforts. In 1913 Goddard was invited to Ellis Island to help detect morons in the immigrant population. In his Intelligence Classification of Immigrants of Different Nationalities (1917) he asserted that most of the Ellis Island immigrants were mentally deficient. For example, he indicated that 83% of all Jews tested were feeble-minded, as were 80% of the Hungarians, 79% of the Italians, and 87% of the Russians. The result was that many immigrants were turned away and sent back to Europe." Regretible as the experiment with Godard's test at Ellis Island was, my understanding is that it was relatively limited in duration (although it has gotten an enormous amount of "play" since Gould's _Mismeasure of Man_ was published). Unfortunately, I don't have a reliable source ready to hand. Does someone have a copy of Leila Zenderland's biography of Goddard? Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> 416-736-5115 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ====================================== <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
