A Brief Primer on Eugenics and Mental Testing
The recognized ‘Father of Eugenics’, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was an inveterate
quantifier of anything that could be measured, embodying Sir Isaac Newton’s oftabused quote “If it cannot be
measured, it doesn’t matter.” Galton was a pioneer in the fields of statistics, anthropometry, psychometrics,
twin-studies, differential psychology, forensic science, and a host of other quantitative methodologies still used
by the social sciences. Galton’s seminal speech in 1904 on the “aims and goals of eugenics” was printed in
scientific journals around the world. Within decades his dreams had become reality in America. Here is his charge
to posterity:
It must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has strong claims to become an
orthodox religious tenet of the future… What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do
providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that
direction. (Galton, 1904, p. 5)
In America, the seminal ideas of Galton and other early British eugenic pioneers combined with prevalent
Nativist or Nordic biases, along with pre-existing strains of scientific-racism and
‘clean-living’ movements. American apostles of Galton’s biometrics and Mendel’s genetics joined with acolytes of
evolutionary biology/anthropology/psychology. Collectively, they lent scientific authority to the proto-eugenical
seedlings from the post-civil-war ‘Clean-living Movement’ and polygenic creation theories (such as S.G. Morton,
the father of the American School of Anthropology, who used measurements of cranial capacity as an empirical
metric of intelligence and societal fitness of various races). These reputedly precise, empirical and quantitative
sciences validated and legitimized eugenics as a rational and progressive social movement, that was then carried
to all corners of the world by ardent disciples of this ‘new secular religion’. Eugenics memes were part of the
intellectual base of Colonialism and Empire, carried to all parts of the world within a decade of Galton’s death in
1911.
A 1922 advertisement from the Human Betterment Foundation in Collier’s Magazine. The ‘Prof Ross’ is
renowned sociologist E.A. Ross, of Univ. of Wisconsin. The pedigree charts are from Goddard (1912).
Henry Goddard and Mental Testing in the Service of Eugenics and Selective Immigration
One of the pioneers of American eugenics, Henry H. Goddard (a student of G. Stanley Hall), adapted Alfred
Binet’s test for diagnosing learning-disabilities in French schoolchildren, to the formidable task of the reliable
identification of the ‘feebleminded’ in America, including potential immigrants from non-Nordic countries at Ellis
Island. Their ‘bad heredity’ was seen to be ‘muddying the streams’ of the American gene-pool, and corrupting the
superior Nordic elements of the established Anglo-Saxon Protestant order, who could proudly trace their
ancestry back to the Mayflower. Indeed, Goddard’s seminal book on eugenics, The Kallikaks (1912), showed the
corruption of one of the these fine old New England families, by the lasting taint of
‘bad blood’, from the ‘unholy union’ of Martin Kallikak, with a ‘feeble-minded tavern girl’ during the
Revolutionary War.1 Kallikak is a composite play on the Greek words kallos (beautiful) and kakos (bad or ugly),
showing how even the best ‘hereditary stocks’ could be forever corrupted by immoral living (alcohol, venereal
disease) or any unfortunate, dysgenic crossing with such undesirable streams of heredity during moments of
moral turpitude.
1
Although Goddard never revealed the real family-name of the Kallikaks, other researchers, notably J. David
Smith, in Minds Made Feeble (1985), identified the very prominent and well-respected
Edwards family (as in the recently disgraced Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards).
Goddard introduced the world to the
‘Kallikaks’ - a real extended family in
New Jersey - with both a ‘worthy - side’
and a ‘degenerate - side’ .
The Kallikak family became a staple
model of eugenic pedigree studies for
decades. This version is from a 1932
‘civic - biology’ textbook.
In a 1935 edition of a German ‘race hygiene’ textbook, the appearance of the
degenerate side of ‘Die Kallikak’ family
was altered to make them look Jewish.
-s ee Sm ith (1985) for additional pedigree
charts and pictures of the Kallikaks.
Goddard (1912) included dozens of pedigree charts for various generations of the family, comparing the
normal-side and the degenerate-side. The phenotypes were largely determined by interviews conducted by Miss
Elizabeth Kite. She interviewed surviving family members, neighbors, and local officials in the communities where
the family had spread to since 1776.
The pedigree charts for the ‘unworthy side’ illustrated the regular inheritance of feeblemindedness, sexual
immorality, alcoholism, criminality and insanity in the ‘bastard-family’ of Martin Kallikak. Each of these dysgenic
characteristics was assumed to be determined by single genes operating as simple (dominant-recessive)
Mendelian traits.
American eugenics and ‘civic biology’ textbooks continued to use Goddard’s pedigree charts, pictures, and
flawed family history until shortly after WW II (Selden, 1985). The late
Historian of Science, Stephen J. Gould had the Smithsonian’s photographic expert analyze a first edition of The
Kallikaks. He determined that the mouths and eyes in the family photos of the
‘degenerate side’ had been crudely altered to make them look ‘more sinister’ (Gould, 1981). Goddard also
created the term moron (Greek for foolish - defined as a ‘mental-age’ between 8 and 12) to distinguish the highfunctioning feeble-minded ‘morons’ from the “obviously defective” imbeciles and idiots. Goddard was especially
concerned with identifying this moronclass of defectives, as “they could otherwise pass for normal”.
“The idiot is not our greatest problem. He is indeed loathsome... Nevertheless, he lives his life and is
done. He does not continue the race with a line of children like himself... It is the moron type that
makes for us our great problem. The moron threatens racial health because he ranks highest among
the undesirable and might, if not identified, be allowed to propagate and flourish. We all recognize the
idiot and the imbecile and know what must be done; the scale must be broken just above the level of
the moron.” (Goddard, 1912, p. 101)
“Where they Fail”, from
Goddard (1919).
After ‘standardizing’ his mental-test on the small population at Vineland, Goddard took his show on the road
to Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, the main entry point into America for successive waves of hopeful European
immigrants. Here his ideas became part of government policy, and had profound effects on the fates of many
would-be immigrants from Europe.
An aerial view of Ellis Island, the main
processing station for ‘aliens’ (immigrants)
into America, circa 1915.
Immigration of non-Nordics (mainly
from
eastern and southern Europe) was seen to
threaten proper WASP society, and the
continued progress and prosperity of the nation (Grant, 1916, is the most forceful and influential advocates of
keeping America as a ‘civilization preserve’ for the
‘Great [Nordic] Race’). Goddard was invited to use his test and ‘trained eugenic field-workers’ to screen for the
‘feeble-minded’ and ‘mentally-defective’ among the hopeful immigrants at Ellis Island.2 Goddard again relied on
his cadre of trained eugenic field-workers, mostly female, recent college graduates, including his star-pupil, Miss
Elizabeth Kite. According to Goddard
(1913), women had superior intuition in spotting the tell-tale signs of feeble-mindedness and racial degeneracy:
After a person has had considerable experience in this work, he gets a sense of what a feebleminded
person is so that he can tell one afar off. The people who are best at this work, and who I believe
should do this work, are women. Women seem to have closer observation than men. It was quite
impossible for others to see how these two young women could pick out the feeble-minded without
the aid of a Binet test at all. (p. 106)
The results of his study were ‘shocking’, and were later instrumental in having greater restrictions placed on
non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants (the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of
1924, for which various pedigree charts from Goddard’s Kallikak study and his Ellis Island data were used on
Capitol Hill as scientific evidence of the ‘menace of the feeble-minded’).3 Once Goddard’s IQ test had been
developed and tested on a suitable population, it could be correlated to facial picture-cards of ‘model subjects’
displaying the underlying ‘dysgenic traits’ that were being screened against. These recent arrivals could then be
pulled aside, and Goddard’s I.Q. Test could be administered as the arbiter of their eugenic fitness, and thus alert
immigration officials to those undesirable immigrants who should be denied entry. As SJ Gould chronicles in his
The Mismeasure of Man (1981), most of these non-Nordic immigrants had been traumatized by their arduous
journey across the Atlantic in 3rd-class or steerage. They had been cooped-up for weeks in the foul confines of
the bowels of steamships, many were sick; and many had never even held a pencil before, let alone filled-out
timed mental-tests in noisy, crowded waiting-rooms, administered by officials in uniforms, and using ‘naturalized’
immigrant translators who had only recently secured their own legal status. Many hopeful immigrants failed the
tests miserably.
For a chilling illustration of the abuse of semiotics for eugenic purposes, see the YouTube video “Faces of the
Feebleminded”, taken from the PBS program Forgotten Ellis Island. It discusses the use of Goddard’s IQ
Test and standardized ‘face-recognition cards’ used by the Eugenic field-workers’ to screen immigrants.
2
3
Harry Laughlin, superintendent of the Eugenic Records Office, testified as an expert witness to Congress.
His graphic presentations that circled the rotunda of the Capitol Building greatly aided passage of the bill.
The U.S. Army Mental Tests of WW I
America’s late participation in World War I (The U.S. did not declare war until April, 1917), gave the proponents
of mental testing their greatest opportunity. Robert M Yerkes, a professor of psychology at Harvard University
since 1902, was commissioned as a Colonel, and appointed to head the Army Mental Testing Program, given to
some 1.75 million recruits during general mobilization of the largest American draft to date. Yerkes and the other
members of the Committee on the Psychological Examination of Recruits (see picture and caption on title page)
used to opportunity to put psychology – and mental testing in particular on a firm empirical and theoretical
footing – and thus to elevate the discipline to an accepted science (Gould 1996, 222225). As Gould notes, the
Army was often indifferent to the program, and their lackadaisical handling of the testing regime belied their
intrinsic value to the professional military (until 1940, when they were resurrected and used internally). Rather,
the importance of the tests lay in their popular and political propaganda value, and their empirical significance as
“a philosopher’s stone of psychology: the copious, useful, and uniform body of numbers that would fuel a
transition from dubious art to respected science” (Yerkes, 1917, quoted in Gould, 1996, 224).
Yerkes and his committee met at Henry Goddard’s Vineland School, from May-July 1917, to develop the first
‘group intelligence tests’, which could be administered to large groups of recruits. They developed two main
instruments: the text-based Alpha Test for English literates, and the pictorial-based Beta Test, for illiterates and
recent non-English speaking immigrants. After piloting and standardizing the tests, they were administered to
recruits, often in far less than ideal testing conditions that today would invalidate the data (Kevles, 1968; Gould,
1996). After the armistice a flurry of effort ensued to collate, analyze, and draw conclusions from the voluminous
data. The resulting academic, political, and popular publications dramatically boosted the careers of the principals
of the study, including Brigham, Goddard, Terman, Yerkes, and their assistants, statistical technicians, and
graduate students (many of whom) had also volunteered for ‘military-scientific service’ during the ‘Nation’s time
of need’. One of the most accessible sources is Carl C. Brigham’s A Study of American Intelligence (1923), which
includes a forward by ‘Colonel’ Robert Yerkes. Brigham would go on to become the father of the S.A.T.4 (See
appendix for class activity using Brigham’s (1923) text and excerpts from Yerkes’ forward, as well as Brigham’s
sweeping conclusions.)
4
The Scholastic Aptitude Test or S.A.T. has become an industry unto itself, as well as a legend of pop culture,
featuring prominently in many young-adult oriented Sit-Coms, in college movies, stand-up, etc.
Contents page of Carl Brigham’s A Study of American Intelligence (1922) It is a truly fascinating read,
especially ‘Section 10’, which brings in noted ‘experts’ of eugenics, including Galton, Henry Goddard,
Madison Grant, and E.A. Ross. Students of psychometry should compare the justification of the
reliability of the results by Brigham, et al, with the critique by Kevles (1968) and Gould (1996) Even
more significantly, these new ‘scientific methods’ provided political direction and legitimated the
social agendas of the eugenics movement; such as immigration restriction and eugenic segregation
or sterilization. Another sweeping success of the new I.Q. Tests was in establishing and embedding
these new quantitative applied social sciences into the structure of the modern research university,
as foreseen by Yerkes. ‘Colonel’ Yerkes, two-time president of the American Psychological
Association, distinguished Harvard professor, and director of the Army program, also advocated for
their use throughout the American education system, along with his old colleagues Lewis Terman
(the Stanford-Binet I.Q. Test) and Edward L. Thorndike
(Columbia Teacher’s College), beginning in the inter-war period. They were also recommended as a filter for
immigration, especially the Army ‘Beta Test’ for non-English immigrants, by the American Eugenic Society’s (AES)
Committee on Selective Immigration. Yerkes felt using these
‘scientific’ mental measurements would benefit the eugenic cause in three important ways:
First, the use of these tests would aid them in arguing for the hereditary nature of intelligence, a key
assumption of the movement. Second, the very act of administering the examinations would legitimate
the tests. And third, it would give professional status to those who administered them (Selden, 1999, 29).
Part of an advertisement for the I.Q. tests as modified from the Army mental testing program of WW I,
modified for ‘school needs’. (Gould, 1996, 208)
Today, with the aid of powerful new technologies, new tests and other diagnostic tools, the capabilities of
social scientists and biometricians have been multiplied manifold. As predicted by Yerkes, their legitimacy and
professional status is seldom questioned, and they are often lauded by the technocrats who administer our
modern society.5 Goddard posited his conception of democracy as a means to achieve a sort of meritocratic
aristocracy, consistent with Postman’s (1992) critique of the rise of a powerful technocracy, its bureaucratic
apparatus and the
‘invisible’ technological control mechanisms that operate in modern society:
Democracy, means that the people rule by selecting the wisest, most intelligent, and most human to tell
them what to do to be happy. Thus democracy is a method for arriving at a truly benevolent aristocracy
(Goddard, 1919, 237.).
These scientific indicators have an authority in the modern world that is highly resistant to repudiation,
based on the successes of modern science and technology in creating an intelligible order out of the chaos of the
turbulent political, economic, and cultural milieus in the age of Globalization and Technopoly (Postman, 1992).
That these semiotic indices have their own political and cultural biases embedded in their very structures, is
seldom elucidated, and even then, only actively opposed by outsiders to the prevailing system (see Miele, 2002,
for a fascinating extended conversation with Arthur Jensen, regarding Jensenism and the claimed
‘widespread’ acceptance of his methods, theories, and conclusions by the majority of experts in the field of
psychometrics and differential studies of intelligence).
It is noteworthy that the Army ‘Alpha’ and ‘Beta’ Tests of WW I were the direct progenitors of the Army Mental
Aptitude Tests used in the massive longitudinal study that the authors of The Bell Curve (1994) used to argue for the
emergence of ‘a cognitive elite’ that dominates modern America. Goddard would concur.
5
Latter-Day Revivals and Futuristic Directions
The horror of Nazi race-hygiene programs and the Holocaust served as a brake on eugenics in most
democratic countries. But, by no means was this the end of all entrenched programs, or support from experts
and scientists, despite some official histories that assert this as the end of the era. It may have marked the
beginning of the end for widespread support by professionals and academics for hardline eugenics programs.
There were still entrenched programs that continued such practices as forced sterilization of the ‘feebleminded’
for over three decades: 1971 in Alberta, Virginia in 1972, California in 1979, Oregon in 1981 (Engs, 2005, 54-57).
One of the post-Nuremburg Trial reactions of American eugenics (and its British equivalents) was to rebrand
itself, and incorporate elements of an environmental program (euthenics) into the movement. This had already
begun as the Great Depression wore on, but was accelerated during and after World War II. This can be seen in
the efforts and works of later
American eugenic leaders, such as Yale’s Ellsworth Huntington (President of the AES during the
1930s: see Huntington, 1920, 1935, 1945) and Frederick Henry Osborn (Henry Fairfield
Osborn’s nephew) who was president of the AES during the early post-war years (see Osborn, F.H., 1934, 1968,
1974). Both could best be described as pioneers of human geography, demographics and social biology. Both
were prolific authors and influential leaders. (See Engs, 2005, for short biographies of both.) Frederick Osborn
succeeded his uncle as president of the American Natural History Museum, was commissioned as a General in
the U.S. Army to head the ‘Morals Branch’ in WW II, and later served as a deputy to the United Nations Atomic
Energy Commission. He was appointed president of the Population Council in 1954 by John Rockefeller III,
serving until 1959. Osborn predicted that in the future, “Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under
another name than eugenics” (Osborn, 1968, 104). Sir Frederick was correct, but he also underestimated the
staying-power of hardline eugenics. Osborn even wrote a nostalgic history of the American Eugenic Society in its
‘rebranded’ journal, Social Biology, in 1974.
This trend of relabeling organizations and retooling the agenda continued after World War
II. Paul Popenoe’s Human Betterment Foundation – a pioneer eugenic sterilization organization – was rolled into
Planned Parenthood after WWII, and he became a marriage counselor and a founder of the clinical science of
genetic counseling (Engs, 2005, 181-182).6
6
Paul Popenoe (1888 -1979) author of Applied Eugenics - the most-used textbook, was a prolific editor of the
Journal of Heredity
until WW I, when he served on the Surgeon General’s staff as director of venereal diseases
control section. He became executive director of the
American Social Hygiene Association, and later the Human
The American Eugenics Society became the Society for the Study of Social Biology in 1973, and its journal
Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969 (Engs, 2005, 7-8). It is now published as Biodemography and
Social Biology. In London, the Galton Chair of Eugenics, once occupied by Karl Pearson, became the Galton
Chair of Human Genetics in 1954, and its journals and publications were similarly renamed (Engs, 2005, 84-85).
The venerable old British
Eugenics Education Society changed its name to the Galton Institute, and renamed its journal The Eugenics
Review to the Journal of Biosocial Science in 1968.
However, some academics, even prominent respected scientists, remained ardent supporters of hardline
eugenics, even when the tide had turned against them. One of the most interesting and bizarre cases is that of
American physicist and Nobel laureate William Shockley. Best known for his contribution to the development of
the first transistor in 1947, he was serving as an engineering chair at Stanford University when he embarked on a
late crusade for hardline eugenics. Shockley addressed a Nobel Conference in 1965 with a presentation on
“Genetics and the Future of Man” (Tucker, 1994, 183). After acknowledging his lack of formal training in the area,
he expressed his “long-held” concerns with both the quantity and quality of human beings:
One of the greatest threats to the future was the ‘genetic deterioration’ of the human race...that
improvements in medical technology, together with the abundance in American society were assuring
to all the privilege of reproducing their kind, even those suffering from genetic defects that would not
have allowed them to survive to the age of reproduction in a more primitive environment (Tucker, 1994,
184).
Although most of the mass media ignored him, U.S. News and World Report interviewed him, and published
a lengthy feature article. It included themes reminiscent of old-time eugenics, such as the “increasing
reproduction of the inferior strains”, wherein “especially in Blacks, the genetically least capable were producing
the largest number of offspring” (Tucker, 1994, 185).
The strong reaction from Shockley’s Stanford colleagues in the genetics department was spurred when the article
was reprinted in the Stanford M.D., the medical school’s alumni magazine. Their response was unequivocal. An
open letter signed by all seven genetics department faculty, including Joshua Lederberg, also a Nobel laureate,
repudiated Shockley’s statements as:
Betterment Foundation. His best-selling book, Modern Marriage (1925), was in print for decades. After WWII, he
again served as assistant editor for the Journ. of Heredity (Engs, 2005, 181).
the kind of pseudo-scientific justification for class and race prejudice [that] that we would not ordinarily
have cared to react to. However, Professor Shockley's standing as a Nobel laureate and as a colleague at
Stanford, and now the appearance of his article with a label of Stanford medicine, creates a situation
where our silence could leave the false impression that we share or acquiesce in this outlook, which we
certainly do not ... [we] deplore the tone of his entire discussion about ‘bad heredity’ (Tucker, 1994, 185).
Shockley’s critics mockingly asked why he had not used Goddard’s old Kallikak study as part of his
‘scientific documentation’. Not to disappoint, Shockley later did just that. Shockley also appealed to the National
Academy of Sciences (he was then a vice-president of this august body), making annual urgent “pleas for the
study of racial aspects of the heredity-poverty-crime nexus” (Tucker, 1994, 186). He proposed a system of tax
credits for ‘eugenic desirables’, similar to previous incarnations of eugenicists going back to Francis Galton and, in
a modern flair, supported a sperm-bank (genetic repository of genius) for Nobel Laureates and eminent U.S.
scientists of recognized genius. Shockley also proposed cash incentives for young Americans with an I.Q. under
100, (to the tune of $1000 per I.Q. point below) to be voluntarily sterilized, and payments to ‘bounty hunters’
who would identify and persuade the ‘most promising candidates’ to undergo the procedure (Tucker 2002, 146).
Shockley also attacked his critics as being “undemocratic” and “totalitarian” in nature, and even proffered
that “the lesson to be learned from Nazi history, was the value of free speech, not that eugenics is intolerable”
(Tucker, 1994, 186). Shockley’s eugenic crusade continued for decades. He received significant funding from the
Pioneer Fund, established in 1937, founded by the wealthy philanthropist Wickliffe Preston Draper and
eugenicists Harry Laughlin and
Frederick Osborn; its main objective to “provide grants for research into the study of human nature, heredity and
eugenics (Engs, 2005, 179; Tucker, 1994, 2002). The Pioneer Fund largely replaced previous financial support
from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Shockley was also a popular speaker
for white-supremacist groups, segregationists, or other reactionary groups and was even praised by right-wing
mass media, including the Wall Street Journal (Tucker, 1990, 183-195).
If this attempted ‘old-time’ eugenic revival was limited to one embittered scientist, the nails could perhaps
be driven into the coffin of hardline eugenics. The list goes on, however, notably with Arthur Jensen (Berkeley
psychologist), his protégés Hans Eysenck, R.B. Cattell (another second generation eugenicist), or other members
of the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics; with continued financial support
from the Pioneer
Fund (Tucker, 1990, 194). The eugenics movement continues to this day, with such notables as
The Bell Curve (1994) by Herrnstein and Murray; whose best-seller status prompted Stephen J
Gould to expand and update his Mismeasure of Man (1996). The list also includes the notorious
J. Phillippe Rushton, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario, another
Pioneer Fund beneficiary (Tucker, 2002, 195-291) and its current chairman. While mainstream academia (and the
‘liberal’ press) may view them as annoying anachronisms, they continue to publish, and attract a great deal of
publicity and support from fringe segments of society. Mainstream scientists who should know better, like Nobel
laureate and DNA guru James D. Watson of Cold Spring Harbor, also get unwanted media attention with illadvised public comments on eugenic themes (In Watson’s case, this attention also had career consequences).
With the re-emergence of various forms of neo-Nazis, the Klan, and other white-supremacist groups, the end
of racial eugenics is nowhere in sight. Under pseudonyms it is a key component of the export of Western science
and technologies to the developing world (from abortion, birthcontrol and sterilization; to theories, models and
statistical techniques dating back to Galton and Karl Pearson). This is not even to mention the neo-eugenic
elements of modern biotechnology that are embedded in ventures like the Human Genome Project (Kevles,
1992), and similar ‘BigScience’ initiatives, corporate spin-offs, and societal memes. Then there is the Internet. A
quick search of ‘modern eugenics’ or ‘future eugenics’ exposes a truly mind-boggling plethora of sites, articles,
books, cartoons, images and organizations. By another gauge, the future health of eugenics (by whatever name)
is rosy, extrapolating from the ubiquitous prevalence of eugenic memes and themes in science-fiction storylines
(from the original Star Trek series, through all its sequels, to Star Wars, Dr. Who and many other franchises).
Eugenics may just survive as a popular meme longer than any current human race, or its sequels.7
7
My first exposure to the idea of ‘eugenics’ was compliments of the original Star Trek series. In the
“Space Seed” episode a young Ricardo Montalban starred as ‘Khan’, the leader of a band of geneticallyenhanced
‘Supermen’, rescued from a century-old derelict spaceship (the Botany Bay) by the Enterprise crew. In shortorder, Khan and his supermen attempted to commandeer the ship for their own sinister purposes, betraying their
contempt for ordinary humans. ‘Captain Kirk’ and the crew saved the day and dropped-off the mutineers on the
nearest habitable planet. Twenty years later the embittered survivors of this group of eugenic űbermenshen again
played the antagonists for ‘Admiral Kirk’ and the Enterprise crew in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan - featuring an
older, but remarkably fit Ricardo Montalban. I did not really appreciate the eugenic-angle until after formal study
of the subject. The subject of future eugenics programs and trans/post-humans in the age of advanced
biotechnologies became recurring motifs in later Star Trek franchises.
Most other long-running Sci-Fi franchises (including Star Wars) have continued to flog the eugenics theme.
Although they have been explicitly intended as cautionary tales (almost always), each new version has excited
new generations of fan-boys and girls to the possibilities of modern eugenics and trans-human biotechnology.
Actress Jerri Ryan’s ‘Borg-Babe’ Seven-of-Nine is the quintessential example, inspiring more fan-worship than any
previous Star Trek character, Captain Kirk included. The longevity and continued popularity of the theme in
science-fiction and pop-culture is a virtual guarantee of the continued relevance of eugenics as a meme in future
societies. Whether or not Francis Galton or his progressive-era followers would approve, new mass-media have
publicized eugenic memes more effectively than Galton and all his Society’s could have even dreamt.
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.
The following pages present several of the Alpha Test items (for
literate native English speakers) as well as one item from the
Beta Test for educated non-English immigrants and illiterates.
Each sample item is accompanied by Brigham’s comments,
justifications and overall statistical significance. After examining
Test 4 – do you agree with Brigham’s professional explanation
and assessment? How would this test stand-up to criticism
based on modern educational psychology principles and
practices. Do modern I.Q. and mental aptitude tests have
equivalent items to this example. How are they different or less biased in modern analogues of this sort of test?
What’s wrong with this graph? Does this graphic
distribution of test scores indicate a problem?
Does the justification on previous page justify its
purported validity as a ‘high grade test’?
How did/would you do on this test?
Could you finish in 90 seconds? How
would you do as a recent immigrant,
or a disadvantaged rural black recruit?
.
For those unfamiliar with the term ‘Kaffir’ as applied here, it is the equivalent in
South Africa, to the ‘N-word’ in America. Besides its obvious violation of today’s
sensibilities, it is prophetic for the widespread borrowing of negative American
eugenic practices by the Apartheid regime in that other haven of state racism.
.
What groups or individuals might be referenced in the author’s repeated
assertions of ‘arm-chair’ criticism? What does this charge mean in this
context? Are the results (and the interpretations) of the tests not open to
detached analysis and criticism. What does this say about the ‘nature of
science’ in the case of eugenic uses of mental testing?
One item from the ‘Beta Test’ for illiterates and the ‘feebleminded’.
This type of exercise was hailed as being free of cultural bias and
American ethnocentrism, and thus an ‘excellent test’. Do you
Two data tables showing the ‘clear’ mental superiority of the Nordic Race,
and the ‘obvious’ inferiority of Blacks and the non -Anglo-Saxons of the
‘new-wave’ of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. This data
was used to support immigration restriction legislation enacted in 1924,
and segregation in the South. It should be noted that non -Caucasian
immigrants into the U.S. were almost negligible at this time, and did not
form a majority until after 1985.
Excerpts of Yerke’s Forward to Brigham (1923)
Two extraordinarily important tasks confront our nation: the protection and improvement of the moral, mental and
physical quality of its people and the re-shaping of its industrial system so that it shall promote justice and
encourage creative and productive workmanship. I have been asked to write this Foreword because of my official
connection, as chief of the Division of Psychology, Office of the Surgeon General of the Army, with psychological
examining during the war, but I have consented to write it because of my intense interest in the practical problems
of immigration and my conviction that the psychological data obtained in the army have important bearing on
some of them. (p. v)
It appears that Mr. Charles W. Gould, a clear, vigorous, fearless thinker [and prominent eugenicist] on problems of
race characteristics, amalgamation of peoples and immigration, raised perplexing questions which drove Mr.
Brigham to his careful and critical re-examination, analysis, and discussion of army data concerning the relations of
intelligence to nativity and length of residence in the United States. In a recently published book, America, A
Family Matter, to which this little book is a companion volume, Mr. Gould has pointed the lessons of history for our
nation and has argued strongly for pure-bred races. (p. vi)
Mr. Brigham has rendered a notable service to psychology, to sociology, and above all to our law-makers by
carefully re-examining and re-presenting with illuminating discussion the data relative to intelligence and nativity
first published in the official report of psychological examining in the United States army. Far from belittling or
casting doubt on the general reliability of the results contained in the report, he has essentially confirmed the
major findings in the field of his special inquiry and has adduced new evidences of the trustworthiness and
scientific value of the statistical methods used by military psychologists. His task has been arduous and difficult,
involving an immense amount of tedious labor for mathematical calculations and critical study of results. The
volume which is the outcome of Mr. Brigham's inquiry, and which I now have the responsibility and satisfaction of
recommending, is substantial as to fact and important in its practical implications. It is not light or easy reading but
it is better worth re-reading and reflective pondering than any explicit discussion of immigration which I happen to
know. The author presents not theories or opinions but facts. It behooves us to consider their reliability and their
meaning, for no one of us as a citizen can afford to ignore the menace of race deterioration or the evident relations
of immigration to national progress and welfare. (p. vii)
Colonel Robert M. Yerkes Washington,
D.C. June 1922
Excerpts from Brigham’s (1923) Conclusion
(First three paragraphs of conclusion)
Our study of the army tests of foreign born individuals has pointed at every step to the conclusion that the average
intelligence of our immigrants is declining. This deterioration in the intellectual level of immigrants has been found
to be due to two causes. The migrations of the Alpine and Mediterranean races have increased to such an extent in
the last thirty or forty years that this blood now constitutes 70% or 75% of the total immigration. The
representatives of the Alpine and Mediterranean races in our immigration are intellectually inferior to the
representatives of the Nordic race which formerly made up about 50% of our immigration. In addition, we find that
we are getting progressively lower and lower types from each nativity group or race.
In the light of our findings in Sections IV and IX, it is possible to re-draw our curve (Figure 33) representing increase
of intelligence score with increasing years of residence and to represent it truly as in Figure 46, which shows the
decline of intelligence with each succeeding period of immigration.
It is also possible to make a picture of the elements now entering into American intelligence. At one extreme we
have the distribution of the Nordic race group. At the other extreme we have the American negro. Between the
Nordic and the negro, but closer to the negro than to the Nordic, we find the Alpine and Mediterranean types. (p.
197)
(Last two paragraphs of book)
According to all evidence available, then, American intelligence is declining, and will proceed with an accelerating
rate as the racial admixture becomes more and more extensive. The decline of American intelligence will be more
rapid than the decline of the intelligence of European national groups, owing to the presence here of the negro.
These are the plain, if somewhat ugly, facts that our study shows. The deterioration of American intelligence is not
inevitable, however, if public action can be aroused to prevent it. There is no reason why legal steps should not be
taken which would insure a continuously progressive upward evolution.
The steps that should be taken to preserve or increase our present intellectual capacity must of course be dictated
by science and not by political expediency. Immigration should not only be restrictive but highly selective. And the
revision of the immigration and naturalization laws will only afford a slight relief from our present difficulty. The
really important steps are those looking toward the prevention of the continued propagation of defective strains in
the present population. If all immigration were stopped now, the decline of American intelligence would still be
inevitable. This is the problem which must be met, and our manner of meeting it will determine the future course
of our national life. (p. 210)