Human nature as social order: A hundred years of psychometrics

Abstract

Science has traditionally been depicted as a disinterested pursuit of truth, based only on strict application of the experimental method. However, when one considers scientific episodes in a more detailed way, as human processes of understanding and acting upon the world, a number of constraints on science's cognitive development show their relevance—among them, social contexts, technical availabilities, and technological aims. The key role of social contexts in the methodological guidance of science and technology raises evaluatory questions concerning social control. These are the main lines of a critical approach to the philosophy of science briefly exposed and exemplified here through the study of a hundred years of psychometrics—namely, the period that broadly covers the second half of 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, focusing mainly on three key authors: F. Galton, A. Binet, and C. Spearman. The historical study concludes that the psychometric concept of intelligence (cornerstone of the scientific image of human nature) that emerges out of this period cannot be considered a hard scientific fact upon which to rationalize social order, for that concept itself is largely the result of the particular social commitments and technological hopes held by the main characters of this one hundred year period.