Born July 11, 1851 in Nice, France, Alfred was an only child.  His mother, an artist, raised him by herself after a divorce from his father, a physician.

He started studying medicine, but decided to study psychology on his own -- being independently wealthy left him free to do what he pleased!  He worked with the psychiatrist Charcot at La Salpetriere, where he studied hypnosis.

In 1891, he moved to Paris to study at the physiological-psychology lab at the Sorbonne, where he developed a variety of research interests, especially, of course, involving individual differences.  In 1899, he and his graduate student, Theodore Simon (1873-1961) were commissioned by the French government to study retardation in the French schools, and to create a test to differentiate normal from retarded children.

After marriage, he began studying his own two daughters and testing them with Piaget-like tasks and other tests.  This led to the publication of The Experimental Study of Intelligence in 1903.

In 1905, Binet and Simon came out with the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence, the first test permitting graduated, direct testing of intelligence.  They expanded the test to normal children in 1908, and to adults in 1911.

Binet believed intelligence to be complex, with many factors, and not to be a simple, single entity.  He didn’t like the use of a single number as developed by William Stern in 1911 -- the intelligence quotient or IQ.  He also believed that, though genetics may set upper limits on intelligence, most of us have plenty of room for improvement with the right kind of education.

He cautioned that his tests should be used with restraint:  Even a child two years behind his age level may later prove to be brighter than most!  He was afraid that IQ would prejudice teachers and parents, and that people would tend to view it as fixed and prematurely give up on kids who score low early on.

He suggested something he called mental orthopedics:  Exercises in attention and thought that could help disadvantaged children “learn how to learn.”  He died in 1911, a man way ahead of his time, and wiser than most!

Binet’s fears were well founded.  For example, Charles Spearman (1863-1945) introduced the idea that “general intelligence” (g) was real, unitary, and inherited.

Worse were the antics of Henry Goddard (1866-1957).  He translated the Binet Simon test into English.  He studied a family in New Jersey he named the Kallikaks.  Some were normal, but quite a few were “feebleminded” (Goddard’s term).  He traced their genealogy to support the heredity position.  Because he believed that there was a close connection between feeblemindedness and criminality, he recommended that states institute programs of sterilization of the feebleminded.  20 states passed such laws.

Goddard also tested immigrants, at the request of the Immigration Service.  His testers found 40 to 50% of immigrants feebleminded, and they were immediately deported.  He also cited particular countries as being more feebleminded than others!  Keep in mind that these immigrants rarely spoke much English and were tested during the grueling process of passing through the bureaucracy of Ellis Island after a long ocean voyage in miserable conditions!

Eugenics -- a term coined by Galton -- is the policy of intentionally breeding human beings according to some standard, and the sterilization of those that do not meet those standards.  It became an institutionalized reality in 1907, when the Indiana legislature passed a law that made sterilization of "defectives" possible.  A federal Eugenics Record Office was established in Cold Spring Harbor, and their lawyers designed law in 1914 that was promoted as models for the entire country.

Virginia adopted such a law in 1924.  Emma Buck, her daughter Carrie and infant granddaughter Vivian, were judged to be feebleminded, and their case (Buck vs Bell) was taken before the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court, under Oliver Wendell Holmes, came down in support of the sterilization laws.  Holmes stated:

"It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Although scientists disputed the reasoning behind the sterilization laws, 33 states adopted them, and some 65,000 American citizens were sterilized.  The Nazis based their eugenics laws on the American ones and sterilized 350,000.  Eugenics gradually became unpopular as the horrors of Nazi Germany became public, and gradually ended in the 1940's.  The Supreme Court has yet to reverse its opinion on the matter, however.

People reading about eugenics and the sterilization laws often think that this is a great example of how immoral scientists can be.  In reality, the laws were based on biblical passages which say that "like comes from like," the very same passages used today by creationists.

© Copyright 2000 by Dr. C. George Boeree