Science is not always “self-correcting” : fact–value conflation and the study of intelligence

Nathan COFNAS

doi:10.1007/s10699-015-9421-3

Science is not always “self-correcting” : fact–value conflation and the study of intelligence

Nathan COFNAS

Department of Philosophy

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Some prominent scientists and philosophers have stated openly that moral and political considerations should influence whether we accept or promulgate scientific theories. This widespread view has significantly influenced the development, and public perception, of intelligence research. Theories related to group differences in intelligence are often rejected a priori on explicitly moral grounds. Thus the idea, frequently expressed by commentators on science, that science is “self-correcting”—that hypotheses are simply abandoned when they are undermined by empirical evidence—may not be correct in all contexts. In this paper, documentation spanning from the early 1970s to the present is collected, which reveals the influence of scientists’ moral and political commitments on the study of intelligence. It is suggested that misrepresenting findings in science to achieve desirable social goals will ultimately harm both science and society.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	477-492
Number of pages	16
Journal	Foundations of Science
Volume	21
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-015-9421-3
Publication status	Published - Aug 2016

Funding

Prior to his controversial 1969 article on race differences in intelligence, Jensen received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a fellowship at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. After 1969 he received no honor from any major psychological organization in the United States, despite having written a number of “citation classics” (Gottfredson , 160–161). Not only has he written citation classics, but his once-controversial emphasis on general intelligence spawned what all intelligence researchers acknowledge was an enormously fruitful research program. Due in part to his work, Sternberg and Kaufman (, 235) report that “[i]t is now as well an established fact as exists in psychology that correlates with many forms of human behavior and their outcomes (see, e.g., Hunt ; Jensen ; Mackintosh).” By contrast, Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has never been empirically supported, and the assumptions behind it have been undermined by findings in cognitive science. Kaufman et al. () put it rather bluntly:

Keywords

Epistemology
Fact–value distinction
Intelligence research
Science and morality

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10.1007/s10699-015-9421-3

Cite this

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Science is not always “self-correcting” : fact–value conflation and the study of intelligence

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Keywords

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