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Raymond Cattell
The Malicious Smearing of a Psychological Pioneer
Kevin Lamb
Review of
The Cattell Controversy: Race, Science and Ideology,
by
William H. Tucker
During his twilight years of retirement, Raymond Bernard Cattell had achieved
what few social scientists could ever dream of attaining. The American
Psychological Association (APA) nominated the highly respected psychologist,
author, and co-author of 500 research papers and 56 books, to receive the Gold
Medal Lifetime Achievement Award — the pinnacle of top honors in the profession
— during the APA’s annual convention in August 1997. In nominating Cattell to
receive this prestigious award, the APA summarized his legacy in the APA’s
flagship journal The American Psychologist:
In a remarkable 70-year career, Raymond B. Cattell has made prodigious, landmark
contributions to psychology, including factor analytic mapping of the domains of
personality, motivation, and abilities; exploration of three different medias of
assessment; separation of fluid and crystallized intelligence; and numerous
methodological innovations. Thus, Cattell became recognized in numerous
substantive areas, providing a model of the complete psychologist in an age of
specialization. It may be said that Cattell stands without peer in his creation
of a unified theory of individual differences integrating intellectual,
temperamental, and dynamic domains of personality in the context of
environmental and hereditary influences. (American
Psychologist, 1997, 797).
Although Cattell received numerous tributes over the years for his multifaceted
work in psychology, the APA’s decision to recognize Cattell’s lifetime work
firmly anchored his place as a pioneer in the field. After decades of tireless
energy and unrivaled persistence in pursuing new frontiers in personality and
intelligence research, Cattell finally had earned proper recognition as a
distinguished authority from the leading organization of American psychologists.
As a trail-blazing researcher, Cattell’s work spawned a productive stream
of empirical findings and theoretical breakthroughs that led to several
innovative advances in the study of personality. His theoretical and empirical
contributions helped anchor the field of personality and intelligence research
on firm scientific principles. Many consider Cattell the father of personality
trait measurement.
In 2002, a survey of 1,725 psychologists ranked Cattell 16th among the most
eminent psychologists (top 100) of the twentieth century. Cattell edged out
Behaviorist John B. Watson who placed 17th and followed just below Hans Eysenck
(13) and William James (14). He was the eleventh most-cited psychologist
according to the 1975 Social Science Citation Index.
Cattell co-founded the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing (IPAT) with
his wife Karen Cattell in 1949. IPAT continues to provide testing tools for
private firms to assist in occupational consulting, human resource management
(employee screening, selection, and placement), and clinical guidance. In 1960,
Cattell founded the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP) and
launched its journal Multivariate Behavioral Research.
After his retirement from the University of Illinois, Cattell took up residence
in Hawaii after briefly moving to Colorado and continued work on unfinished
research projects. Upon his retirement, the University of Illinois presented
Cattell with a leather-bound set of his published books.
In the two weeks prior to the APA’s convention in Chicago, Cattell’s work came
under intense scrutiny. As the focus of a last-minute smear campaign, Cattell’s
critics — extreme far-left ideologues — waged an intense media blitz of
distortions, rumor, and innuendo. These axe-grinding ideological adversaries
worked vigorously behind the scenes to undermine the APA’s presentation of the
Gold Medal Award. They accused Cattell of “racism” and “anti-Semitism.” The APA
decided to postpone the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award and
investigate the matter with a “blue-ribbon” panel of experts. The
New York Times and other news
organizations sensationalized the “controversy” that ensued. Cattell denied the
allegations, responded to his critics, and pulled his name as a nominee of the
Gold Medal Award, and, at age 92, died a few months later in February 1998.
This sordid ordeal is the subject of William H. Tucker’s
The Cattell Controversy: Race, Science,
and Ideology published by the University of Illinois Press. Tucker, the
author of The Science and Politics of Racial Research and
The Funding of Scientific Racism, has
carved out a niche as a muckraker of epic proportions. His modus operandi is to
discredit scientists who research racial differences in intelligence and
personality (anthropologists, geneticists, and evolutionary psychologists). He
misleadingly links scholars, no matter how remote, to a rogue’s gallery of
sinister culprits. If one recognizes biological race differences or the
plausible advances that eugenics offers mankind, Tucker concludes that one is
therefore complicit in genocidal mass murder.
The author fundamentally sees the world through a Marxist prism of
oppressed and oppressors; for Tucker the realm of human existence consists of
radical egalitarians, such as himself, or goose-stepping fascists hell-bent on
racial genocide. His career pursuit, put forth in three books published by the
University of Illinois Press, focuses on exposing race-realist scholars as
“extremists” affiliated with sordid political operatives in the fever swamps of
the far right.
To his credit, Tucker recognizes the importance of Cattell’s main body of
research in personality, intelligence, and factor analysis. Much of his
description of Cattell’s scientific work is largely favorable.
Nevertheless, Cattell is deservingly regarded as one of the most productive
research psychologists in the history of the discipline. A true generalist in a
field known for the extent of its fragmentation, he was one of the very few
social scientists to put forth a comprehensive theory of human behavior,
relating abilities, attitudes, motivations (drives), and personality traits to
each other, thus bringing together in a dynamic system the classic tripartite
categorization of mental activity into cognition, affection, and conation.
Perhaps unique among psychologists, he also made contributions to theory,
research, measurement, test development, and methodology; it is difficult to
think of anyone else with this breadth of accomplishment.
The real rub for Tucker is Cattell’s philosophical views set forth in two
complementary volumes, A New Morality from
Science: Beyondism (1972) and
Beyondism: Religion from Science (1987), and his outlook early in his
professional career, set forth in
Psychology and Social Progress (1933),
The Fight For Our National Intelligence (1937), and
Psychology and the Religious Quest
(1938).
Most of Cattell’s academic research centers on the application of objective
criteria (factor analysis) to identifying core personality and mental traits.
Another half-dozen books explore his ideas on forging scientific-derived values
from Darwinian natural selection, a systematic approach of applying objective
evolutionary principles to ethical and social problems (evolutionary-based
ethics) as well as articulating eugenic perspectives on society, differential
birthrates, culture, civilization, and national trends. Cattell’s blunt
assessments of the role of science in solving societal problems —his
scientific-based ethics of “Beyondism” — generated much of the opposition to his
receiving APA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cattell’s first few books reflect the thinking of the young scientist at an
early stage in his professional career. These writings also reflect the milieu
of the times for an academic traveling in progressive intellectual circles in
the early 1900s, namely an enthusiastic interest in Darwinian evolution,
eugenics and the scientific study of human behavior and social problems. The
ranks of the eugenics movement in England and the United States attracted a wide
range of prominent authors, statisticians, biologists, and social scientists
across the political spectrum — progressives and conservatives alike.
One of his major concerns (along with Sir Ronald Fisher, William McDougall,
Leonard Darwin and other leading eugenicists) was the dysgenic generational
decline of intelligence. In The Fight for
Our National Intelligence, Cattell investigated the relationship between
differential birthrates and falling IQ levels. His analysis of this trend was
based upon test results from selected English communities. Cattell warned of the
misplaced priorities of middle- to upper-class professionals in substituting
materialistic luxuries in place of childrearing. He viewed the problem of
differential birthrates — impoverished low IQ individuals having large,
unsustainable families at the expense of society just as high IQ professionals
were forgoing children — as undermining societal stability.
His critique of the cultural impact of the mass media, from his chapter “False
Beacons of Social Progress” in Psychology
and Social Progress, reveals an insightful grasp of journalists’
self-aggrandizing role as the ultimate arbiters of “truth” in modern
democracies. It reflects a thoughtful critique of the mass media that remains
just as valid nearly eight decades later.
On the face of things, the press is at once the most confident and the most
unsuitable claimant to the leadership of social thought. Beginning as a system
of news retailing, it has become a parvenu politician and social philosopher
with intellectual manners and powers, the pinchbeck qualities of which are
obvious at some time or other to the meanest reader.
To say that the press merely reflects public opinion is the greatest humbug. It
does to a considerable extent reflect the popular intelligence, the popular
taste for slipshod methods of reasoning and unembarrassed ignorance, but through
these contacts it endeavors to shape public opinion ruthlessly into forms which
are rarely sympathetic to the potential sentiments and will present in the
public. …
[A]nything in print appears to have the seal of mass approval behind it and
carries with it all the powerful herd suggestion which is infinitely stronger
than reasoned argument. For this reason the press renders a thousand times more
strong the crude herd opinion already present and so holds in vice-like
tentacles all attempts at enlightened action necessarily differing from the
average viewpoint….
The average newspaper editor feels himself at liberty to contradict an authority
in any field whatsoever. In a few minutes he will write a leading article
refuting a book representing the work of a lifetime. But he is equal to even
more than that. He will venture to put thousands of our democratic rulers — our
electorate — hopelessly astray in any subject which he fancies himself at the
moment to be an authority.
Cattell’s early work reflects the insights of an astute observer of national and
cultural trends, one who can easily bore through the fog of pseudo-intellectual
discourse. An objective reading of his early work indicates that the young
psychologist could cut to the quick of any fallacy, slipshod argument, or
popular fad.
A significant aspect of Tucker’s critique is Cattell’s alleged affiliations with
so-called unsavory individuals on the “far-right.” He describes Dr. Roger
Pearson, an editor and publisher of academic journals and monographs and author
of several books, including an entry-level college textbook,
Introduction to Anthropology (Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1974), as an “extremist.” Marginal individuals, however
remotely affiliated with Cattell, feature in Tucker’s muckraking narrative as
sinister rogues one goose-step removed from Josef Mengele. It is a classic
guilt-by-association tactic used by contemporary leftists to discredit the ideas
of any prominent scholar who rejects their egalitarian multiracialism. (This
guilt-by-association tactic, casting aspersions on one individual vis-à-vis the
character of others, no matter how distant the affiliations or acquaintances,
was vociferously denounced and labeled as “McCarthyism” when directed at
leftists.) Cattell’s intellectual company of Pearson, classicist scholar Revilo
Oliver, and airline executive, author, and segregationist Carleton Putnam,
according to Tucker, “provided additional reason for concern.”
Much of Tucker’s opposition to Cattell’s eugenic perspectives rests on popular
fallacies of eugenics. Implicit in Tucker’s critique is the notion that eugenics
is grounded on “ideology” and “politics” (hence the ultimate aim of eugenics is
the elimination of oppressed racial minorities) rather than firm scientific
principles. Left-wing critics of eugenics often argue that it is scientifically
baseless. Richard Lynn’s monumental Eugenics: A Reassessment demolishes this argument outright.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins rejects this implicit assertion in his
recent book, The Greatest Show on Earth:
Political opposition to eugenic breeding of humans sometimes spills over into
the almost certainly false assertion that it is impossible. Not only is it
immoral, you may hear it said, it wouldn’t work. Unfortunately, to say something
is morally wrong, or politically undesirable, is not to say it wouldn’t work. I
have no doubt that, if you set your mind to it and had enough time and political
power, you could breed a race of superior body-builders, or high-jumpers, or
shot-putters; pearl fishers, sumo wrestlers, or sprinters; or (I suspect,
although now with less confidence because there are no animal precedents)
superior musicians, poets, mathematicians or wine-tasters. The reason I am
confident about selective breeding for athletic prowess is that the qualities
needed are so similar to those that demonstrably work in the breeding of
racehorses and carthorses, of greyhounds and sledge dogs. The reason I am still
pretty confident about the practical feasibility (though not the moral or
political desirability) of selective breeding for mental or otherwise uniquely
human traits is that there are so few examples where an attempt at selective
breeding in animals has ever failed, even for traits that might have been
thought surprising.
In an interview for The Eugenics Bulletin,
published in 1984, Cattell offered his views on eugenics, social problems,
progress in social science research, welfare policies, religious and cultural
diversity in the U.S., “Beyondism,” IQ, and a variety of other issues. He was
specifically asked about the matter of race from the eugenicists’ perspective,
TEB: Many eugenicists feel it's best to be noncommittal on the race question,
since it's not our major concern. What do you think?
CATTELL: I agree that the only reasonable thing is to be noncommittal on the
race question — that's not the central issue, and it would be a great mistake to
be sidetracked into all the emotional upsets that go on in discussions of racial
differences. We should be quite careful to dissociate eugenics from it —
eugenics' real concern should be with individual differences.
Any fair consideration of Cattell’s writings would reveal very little on the
subject of race. The subject is rarely indexed in his core scientific books, if
mentioned at all. In his books on philosophy, ethics, religion, and social
problems, where Cattell mentions race, his views are far from “extreme.” One
rare exception of expanded reflection on the subject is his chapter on “Nation
and Race: Their Significance” in
Psychology and Social Progress. Even here Cattell’s writing largely echoes
the scientific milieu of its day. He recognizes race and racial differences as
biological realities, but also goes out of his way to stress that any discussion
of race should not be based on “a question of superiority and inferiority of
races.” For a book published in 1933, one ironically could classify
Psychology and Social Progress as
projecting progressive ideas of the early twentieth century: religious
skepticism, eugenics, birth control and the problem of dysgenic birth-rates,
cultural decline, war and peace, nationalism, education, class divisions of rich
and poor, etc.
Tucker repeatedly portrays Cattell as some racially consumed fascist ideologue,
noting
In fact, despite his personal charm, Cattell’s ideological thought — from his
evolutionary ethics in the 1930s to its refinements as Beyondism four decades
later —was essentially an intellectual justification for the form of fascism
adopted by Nazi Germany and most pricelessly encapsulated by the phrase
“totalitarian tribalism.”
This is simply Tucker’s way of projecting his own distorted views when
describing what Cattell really
believed, as if the psychologist was telegraphing his true sentiments in code to
his fellow racialist comrades! It is the mindset of conspiracy mongers and “true
believers” of multiracialism.
What Cattell actually stated about race, based on a passage in his first “Beyondism”
volume, not only contradicts Tucker’s selective and distorted interpretation but
frames egalitarian ethical assumptions of “racism” in perspective,
In accordance with good dictionary practice we may define a racist as
one who asserts the superiority of his own race or people, without
perception of the inherent impossibility, in our ignorance, of making such a
value assertion. But both contra-suggestibility and the departures from
objectivity due to the pleasure principle have developed a sect equally
prejudiced in the opposite direction.
These bigoted individuals may be called
ignoracists because in recent years they have totally refused to consider
the scientific possibility that races may show statistically significant
differences. An open and enquiring mind must accept the possibility
that observed differences of culturo-racial groups could be as significant in
inherited components of, for example, mental capacity and temperament as in the
historically acquired cultural features. Both racism and ignoracism are extreme
and dangerous fallacies equally unable to lead to happy and realistic solutions
of our problems. Beyondism calls for a more mature attitude than exists in
either. It demands as a first act of respect the reality principle that human
beings recognize equally the cultural and genetic origins of individual and
group differences, and build an ethics of progress on that basis. [emphasis in
original]
In a Chicago Tribune article on the
decision to postpone the Lifetime Achievement Award, when asked about his
self-described “Beyondism” perspective, Cattell said that "important policy
decisions should be based on scientific information and knowledge rather than
prejudice, superstition or political pressure."
John Horn summarizes Cattell’s Beyondist views in his obituary published in
The American Psychologist,
Cattell’s writings on [Beyondism] are particularly revealing of his drive and
character. In these works, as in his books of the 1930s, Cattell argued that
morality should be based on science. Beyondism symbolized the idea that humans
cannot know what will be required for continuance of their species in the
future. Therefore, they should strive to live in accordance with evolutionary
principles that maximize the chances of a survival of a species. They should
encourage great variety —individual differences — among themselves, so that
environmental stresses that might wipe out a homogeneous group would eliminate
only some individuals, not all. To this Darwinian principle of survival of
individuals, Cattell added the idea of survival of societies: Survival will
accrue to societies that can adapt under changing conditions. There should be
great variety in societies. Diverse groups should be left alone to pursue their
own programs for building the “best” society. No group should dictate to any
other, but with that proviso, no group need aid the survival of any other group.
As to the point about pressure to conform to the group, psychology professor and
IQ author Robert Sternberg defended the work of prominent psychologists whom he
often disagreed with, such as Arthur Jensen and Raymond Cattell, for defying
conformity and pursuing productive independent careers. As an open-minded
liberal, Sternberg argued that society has benefited from innovations of
maverick geniuses. For Tucker and his ideological ilk (Barry Mehler, Abe Foxman,
Andrew Winston, Mark Potok, Heidi Beirich, and others) maverick intellects who
go against the grain of multiracial egalitarianism should not be recognized for
an otherwise productive career as a respected pioneer.
Tucker and other Marxists pseudo-intellectuals have taken it upon themselves to
serve as ideological filters — establishing subjective standards for deciphering
which individuals are worth honoring and which are worth shunning. His
denunciation of Cattell’s work, on the grounds that an “antisocial” and
“destructive” ideology influenced his views, is chutzpah with a capital “C”.
Ideology, not scientific inquiry nor
integrity, fuels Tucker’s anti-Cattellian screed. The difference is that
Tucker’s fundamental ideology when extended to logical extremes (totalitarian
Bolshevism) is ultimately more deadly than the evolutionary ethics of Cattell’s
“Beyondism.”
For a thorough refutation of Tucker’s previous writings on Cattell, visit John Gillis’s website.
Wikipedia offers a more balanced description of Cattell’s career.
The full interview with Cattell in the Eugenics Bulletin is here.
The Cattell family maintains a website in his honor that includes documents on the APA Lifetime Achievement Award, Cattell's respoonse, etc. See here.
The Indiana University psychology website on Cattell's contribution to IQ research is reasonably balanced.
Kevin Lamb (email him), a freelance writer, is a former library assistant
for
Newsweek,
managing editor of
Human Events,
and assistant editor of the
Evans-Novak Political Report.
He is the managing editor of
The Social Contract.
Permanent link: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Lamb-Cattell.html
