The Mismeasure of Man
E436725
The Mismeasure of Man is a influential 1981 book by paleontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould that critiques the scientific validity and social consequences of intelligence testing and biological determinism.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Mismeasure of Man canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4396175 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Mismeasure of Man Context triple: [Stephen Jay Gould, notableWork, The Mismeasure of Man]
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A.
Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race
Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race is a landmark 1942 book by anthropologist Ashley Montagu that argues race is a social myth rather than a biological reality and critiques racism using scientific evidence.
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B.
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
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C.
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee is a popular science book by Jared Diamond that explores human evolution and behavior by comparing Homo sapiens to our closest primate relatives.
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D.
On the Making of Man
On the Making of Man is a theological and philosophical treatise by Gregory of Nyssa that explores the creation, nature, and purpose of humanity within a Christian framework.
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E.
De generis humani varietate nativa
De generis humani varietate nativa is an influential 18th-century anthropological treatise by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach that helped establish early scientific racial classification.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Mismeasure of Man Target entity description: The Mismeasure of Man is a influential 1981 book by paleontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould that critiques the scientific validity and social consequences of intelligence testing and biological determinism.
-
A.
Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race
Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race is a landmark 1942 book by anthropologist Ashley Montagu that argues race is a social myth rather than a biological reality and critiques racism using scientific evidence.
-
B.
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
-
C.
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee is a popular science book by Jared Diamond that explores human evolution and behavior by comparing Homo sapiens to our closest primate relatives.
-
D.
On the Making of Man
On the Making of Man is a theological and philosophical treatise by Gregory of Nyssa that explores the creation, nature, and purpose of humanity within a Christian framework.
-
E.
De generis humani varietate nativa
De generis humani varietate nativa is an influential 18th-century anthropological treatise by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach that helped establish early scientific racial classification.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (52)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ science book ⓘ |
| aimsTo |
demonstrate biases in measurement of human intelligence
ⓘ
show social consequences of intelligence testing ⓘ |
| argues |
data can be unconsciously biased by researchers
ⓘ
intelligence is not a single, fixed, measurable entity ⓘ scientific methods can be distorted by social prejudice ⓘ |
| author | Stephen Jay Gould NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| awarded | National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| awardYear | 1982 ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criticizes |
biological determinism
ⓘ
biological explanations of social inequality ⓘ eugenics ⓘ factor analysis-based IQ theories ⓘ general intelligence (g) as a single measure ⓘ hereditarian theories of intelligence ⓘ ranking of human groups by intelligence ⓘ scientific racism ⓘ |
| critiquesWorkOf |
Alfred Binet
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Arthur Jensen NERFINISHED ⓘ Cyril Burt NERFINISHED ⓘ Francis Galton NERFINISHED ⓘ Hans Eysenck NERFINISHED ⓘ Lewis Terman NERFINISHED ⓘ Samuel George Morton NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre |
history of science
ⓘ
popular science ⓘ scientific criticism ⓘ |
| hasEdition | 1996 revised and expanded edition ⓘ |
| influencedField |
bioethics
ⓘ
history of psychology ⓘ science studies ⓘ sociology of knowledge ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
IQ tests
ⓘ
biological determinism ⓘ craniometry ⓘ history of intelligence research ⓘ intelligence testing ⓘ psychometrics ⓘ scientific racism ⓘ |
| notableFor |
critique of the concept of innate intelligence
ⓘ
historical analysis of craniometry ⓘ popularizing critiques of IQ testing ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1981 ⓘ |
| publisher | W. W. Norton & Company NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| revisedEditionAddsCritiqueOf |
Hernnstein and Murray's arguments on IQ and social structure
ⓘ
The Bell Curve NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| revisedEditionYear | 1996 ⓘ |
| structure | collection of historical case studies and theoretical analysis ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Mismeasure of Man Description of subject: The Mismeasure of Man is a influential 1981 book by paleontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould that critiques the scientific validity and social consequences of intelligence testing and biological determinism.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.