West Coast History of Science Society Meeting
University of California, San Francisco
April 11th - April 14th, 2002[Program]
INTELLIGENCE, SCIENCE, AND POWER: THE STANFORD-BINET IQ TEST AND THE DEFINITION OF INTELLIGENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Shachar Link
Stanford University
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "intelligence" as "the faculty of understanding," a broad definition that leaves room for many kinds of understanding. IQ tests, however, purport to measure this faculty in a more precise fashion. The Stanford-Binet IQ test, first used in 1911 and still used today, is perhaps the quintessential IQ test. Since most "legitimate" IQ tests have to correlate highly with the Stanford-Binet, and this includes the controversial SAT, it is a useful place to look when seeking to understand just what is meant by "intelligence" as defined by the tests. I will argue that the notion of intelligence as exemplified by the Stanford-Binet IQ test relies upon cognitive practices intimately linked to the rise of Western science. More specifically, drawing on the work of Jack Goody and Bruno Latour, the practices associated with the use of a logographic writing system, coupled with perspectival drawing and geometry has allowed the Western 'domesticated' mind to think in this manner that we call 'scientific.' The Stanford-Binet IQ test is simply drawing on these same material cognitive techniques and associating one's ability to use them with the term 'intelligence,' allowing the social classification that was the purpose of the test to be made according to the ability to 'think scientifically.' This paper explores more fully the largely unconscious, unnoticed, yet highly effective linkage of intelligence and science at the turn of the century.