I have sent this post to Michael and hereby post it in TIPS. Michael Sylvester's post said: On Fri, 26 Mar 1999, Mike Scoles wrote: > I'm still waiting to hear what Anastasi ever wrote that makes her > racist. > In fact, I've been waiting for about 2 years. > I haven't closed my mind, but simply would like "imagination" and > "creativity" to be backed up with a tiny bit of evidence. > Some off-the-wall comments can stimulate good discussions. Others are > harmful nonsense and should be identified as such. > Michael Sylvester then himself wrote: " I have already referred to her book on testing. Please note,that one can be an implicit racist by collaborating with ideas that only enhances a racist differential outlook on the basis of individual differences. U.S immigration policy was once based on the ideas of the psychometricians who believed in the intellectual inferiority of non-WASP people including Italians and Kosovo -Albanians." My Comments on Anne Anastasi: In the latest edition of Anastasi's text on testing (Anasasi & Urbina, 1997), as in previous editions, great care is taken with the discussion of culture issues. On pp. 164 to 171, the question of bias is presented (both slope and intercept). Like other authors, they conclude that there is little statistical evidence of either slope (different validity coefficient) bias or intercept (underprediction on the criterion) bias. On pp. 259 to 270, Anastasi and Urbina discuss the culture problem in general (e.g., what factors might be ruled out in tests for minorities), representative instruments (e.g., Raven) and, perhaps most importanlyt, they give a very insightful presentation of approaches to testing of minorities and people from other cultures than the dominant one (e.g., what is the purpose in giving the test). In addition, on pp. 297-300), they offer a series of important qualifications to the interpretation of heritability coefficients. Taken together with the fact the Anastasi and Urbina hardly mention any mean score difference in IQ scores for racial groups, I find it difficult to see how they can be accused of racism. Finally, with regard to the history of group testing in the U.S.A. at the beginning of the century, they write (p. 39): "The application of such group intelligence tests far outran their technical improvement. That the tests were still technically crude was often forgotten in the rush of gathering scores and drawing practical conclusions from the results. .....Thus, the testing boom of the 1920s, based on the indiscriminate use of tests, may have done as much to retard as to advance the progress of psychological testing." I hope that this shows that the grand old lady of testing deserves credit for care in the presentation of race and historical issues. Stuart ___________________________________________________ Stuart J. McKelvie. Ph.D., Phone: (819)822-9600 Department of Psychology, Extension 2402 Bishop's University, Fax: (819)822-9661 Lennoxville, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Quebec J1M 1Z7, Canada. Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page: http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy ___________________________________________________
