The history of the study of human mental ability is an example of the dialectic in social science between those who interpret data within the framework of existing social inequities and those who look for perspectives that might eventually dissolve inequities. The dedication of Henry Herbert Goddard to a belief in the scientific proof of…

Several common assumptions about human intelligence are challenged in this paper. The "bucket" theory of intelligence describes intelligence as a stable psychological characteristic which affects learning, and which, when accurately measured, predicts an individual's learning capacity. The authors reject the idea that people who have…