Talk:Raymond Cattell

Overview Section
This article (as of the end of 2007) is still limited. I have expanded the introduction to provide a more complete overview of Cattell's work. I propose that the next sections needed now are (a) a biography, and (b) an explanation of Cattell's most important work. Actually, these might be multiple sections each. Anyone interested in collaborating on these, please contact me and post here. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, this article is unbalanced and incomplete. I think the biography subsections should be the Early Years and Later Years and the work section should include subsections on Multivariate Research, Personality, Intelligence, and Motivation.  I volunteer to work on these.  Do you or anyone else have any input before I do that? Cattellbiographer (talk) 20:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks to everyone for their input. See discussion of the new sections below.Cattellbiographer (talk)

I just noticed this Conflict of Interest banner up here, and it asks for people to comment. My comment is that I don't quite know why this banner is here. I'm guessing it refers to the recent edits by GJBoyle, given Barocca's criticisms and changes of GJBoyle's contributions. Then I see the administrative notice of Barocca's alleged hounding of GJBoyle. I will study this further.

Biography and Innovations Sections
I've revised the Innovations and Accomplishments section, to put the most important accomplishments first and provide explanations more readable to the layman. However, I mostly left alone the accomplishments relative to factor analysis (e.g. Scree Test, Procrustes, P-technique, Taxonome), they are difficult to put in simple terms. I plan more work here... or would someone else like to jump in? I'd like to put all of the factor analysis innovations under one bullet... but that makes for an awfully long bullet, yes? I also think we need a bullet on Cattell's work on Motivation. Comments?

We still need a section on biographical background, as well. Anyone want to help on this? I'm thinking that the ordering of sections in the article should be:
 * Overview (existing text at the top)
 * Innovations and Accomplishments
 * Biographical background (one or two sections?)
 * Sections on work (Multivariate Research, Personality, etc.)
 * The remaining sections of the article

Does this sound good? Or perhaps the biography should go before the Innovations and Accomplishments list? Comments? WikiRepairGuy (talk) 17:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've posted some biography sections. The Biographical Background Hawaii is brief. When I have more time I'll extend it. Meanwhile it might be merged with the Continental USA section. MetaMax (talk) 21:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This looks great, MetaMax! The article is now filled in nicely. I went ahead and merged the USA sections for now, I agree that the Hawaii bio is too brief to merit a section by itself. I also made a dozen minor edits.  There is still a little redundancy left with later text, e.g. about founding IPAT and SMEP, but these both seem important to mention in the bio.  It's a pain that the same reference appears multiple times in the footnotes when you need to cite a source in multiple places (e.g. Cattell's autobiography in Lindsey's book).  Can anyone tell me a way around this? WikiRepairGuy (talk) 04:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

"he was awarded a scholarship to study chemistry at the University of London, where he obtained a magna cum laude BSc at the age of 19" - this must be wrong since 'magna cum laude' has never been a part of UK degree categorization. Probably it means 'first class honours' but I do not know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.240.229.68 (talk) 12:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Scientific Orientation, Multivariate Research, Factor Analysis, Personality Sections
I've gone ahead and inserted 4 sections describing Cattell's work. We still need something on Ability and Motivation, if someone wants to work on those. My Factor Analysis section could also use more work, I haven't explained all of the factor analysis contributions that WikiRepairGuy mentions above. The Scientific Orientation section seemed important to include, because Cattell's application of scientific methods he learned from the physical sciences was an overall theme in his major contributions to psychology.

There is a long list of references from researchers around the world in the Personality section, validating the existence of 16 personality factors. Despite its length, this list seemed important to include because the extensive scientific validation of Cattell's personality factors is what distinguished his work. In contrast, other personality tests (including some still popular today, like the MMPI) were based on factors that were "invented" (by psychologists) rather than "discovered" (by factor analysis of data). Perhaps this long list of references should be moved the wikipedia article on the 16PF?

Suggestions welcomed. Please send me email and post here. Cattellbiographer (talk) 00:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Great work! I agree that the Scientific Orientation section is important. I also agree that the extensive validation of the 16PF work is important, but stylistically I don't like the 14 consecutive reference footnotes, so I've combined these into one, is that OK? These footnotes might better be moved into the wikipedia article on the 16 Personality Factors, when someone has time to work on that. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 07:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Political Criticism Section
I just happened to notice the statement in these notes that Bill Tucker "acknowledges Mehler as a source for his material" in a book published in 1994. Well, I'm Bill Tucker, and I can tell you with some certainty that I never met or spoke to Barry Mehler until 1997. Some years later, in connection with an entirely different book having nothing to do with Cattell, Barry was kind enough to give me access to the files of the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism, of which he is the director. But quite apart from the factual inaccuracy of the material in the note, I have no idea what it means to "acknowledge... Mehler as a source." For the book published in 2002, I did indeed cite documents from the ISAR files, but unless someone wishes to argue that Mehler has engaged in fabrication, the *document* is the source. To claim otherwise is to confuse the archivist with the archives. One other piece of information: My book length treatment of "The Cattell Controversy" will be published in 7 or 8 months. I'll be curious at that point whether you folks will still insist that there is no merit to the criticisms.Wmhtucker (talk) 03:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I see that you went ahead and deleted the comment about your acknowledgement. I deleted that whole sentence, now, since the reference to you is no longer relevant in the Mehler footnote.


 * I don’t believe Hitssquad intended to misrepresent you, or confused the archiver and archivist. I might have written the same thing given your later acknowledgment to Mehler for “opening his files and his home" to you, and the fact that both your quotes and his have been attacked as having the same kind of misrepresentations, taken out of context and interspersed with words that extrapolate or change the meaning of Cattell’s text.


 * I’m not saying I agree with Cattell’s political positions, and I know that you don’t, but I went through copies of his books myself and I have to agree, you have seriously distorted his words, apparently to strengthen your arguments. I believe you accomplish the opposite: it leaves all your arguments open to question.  I hope you get someone to review your new book and give feedback as the “devil's advocate” before you publish.  I’d be happy to do that, you can send me email via my wikipedia handle. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 16:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The folks at the Hoover Institution also opened its home and its files to me--does that make me a conservative? As my book will show, it's Cattell's supporters on the page you cite who have distorted the truth. And they're weenies: afforded the opportunity to debate the issues with me, they declined, insisting that I wasn't a fit opponent. BTW, many of the points made on the "Analysis of Accusations" page that is part of your citation are just silly. I am accused, for example, of having distorted the record when I mentioned Cattell's praise in 1937 for the sterilization policy and the "emphasis on racial improvement" adopted by the Third Reich, because, in fact, he had praised "Germany" and never mentioned the "Reich." Indeed, although the issues are trivial in comparison, the style of argument on this page reminds me of holocaust deniers, who claim to have found some minute error and then offer it as the linchpin of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. Here's a typical quote from Cattell--one of many similar observations--that is never addressed by his defenders, who prefer to focus on which term he used to denote the nation ruled by National Socialists:

"'Yet there are bound to be instances where interference is called for. There are bound to be leading groups and groups falling behind. There are bound to be cases where it is time to call a halt to a certain line of evolution.  In uncivilized ages that surgical operation of lopping off the backward branches of the tree of mankind was done violently and without an anesthetic.  The American Indians, the Maoris, the Negroes were driven with bloodshed from their lands, as blindly unconscious of the biological rationality of that destiny as were their oppressors."

"In such clearly established cases, where it is obvious that the races concerned cannot hope to catch up in innate capacity (and therefore in cultural capacity) to other groups, the leading nations may attempt to reduce the numbers of the backward people by birth control regulation, segregation, or humane sterilization. Repeopling, by more intelligent and alert peoples, of parts of the earth possessed by backward people is merely following the highest moral considerations when it is done with humane feeling for the happiness of the backward people then existing. Clearly the reverse process--i.e., the giving up of territory by an advanced people to a people with a lower standard of living and denser population--is highly undesirable.' ('Psychology and Social Progress,' p. 360)."

Cattell's writing is filled with such observations. Perhaps you could tell me whether the above quote is a "misrepresentation" or "taken out of context" or whether, in this case, I have "seriously distorted his words, apparently [what a weasel adverb] to strengthen [my] arguments."Wmhtucker (talk) 16:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with WikiRepairGuy here. I knew Raymond Cattell relatively well and I don’t think his beliefs were any different than those of half of the current Republican party.  It is important to note that the quotes you provide here, in addition to being taken completely out of the context in which they were written, also were written almost a century ago in the 1930s—a very, very different time and place.  If we burrow back to look at what was generally being written at that time, we would find that many of Cattell’s contemporaries and mentors (e.g. Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence, Friedrich Nietzsche, T.S. Elliot), were all writing very similar things.


 * Most of Cattell’s life’s work was aimed at trying to “level the playing field” for equal opportunity for all. Having grown up in limited economic circumstances, Cattell was the first and only person in his family to get a college education, and went to university entirely on scholarship.  Thus he was strongly aware of the pervasive class structure that controlled lives then.  His goal was to develop objective tests of abilities and personality so that the “best man” would be chosen for the job.  All around him he saw inequities--positions going to someone’s nephew or a friend-of-a-friend from their club, instead of to the most able candidate, regardless of race, religion, gender, or class.


 * In addition to leading to incompetence in high places, Cattell felt that this situation led to the waste of the vast amounts of natural talent that existed in uneducated and under-privileged people. He felt that education should be free for everyone to develop their natural abilities, which would benefit society in general.  I could find you many quotes in this area if I had a little more time.  But it just seems very odd to me that you are so preoccupied with dragging old, uncertain words out-of-context from the past from some unknown, mimeographed, newsletter with no existing copies, instead of  attacking the many clear and current racists and racist policies in the present world.  Surely you have better things to do with you time.  I just don't understand this....--PsychologistForJustice (talk) 05:27, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your support. However, Wmhtucker and I took this debate offline to my wikipedia user page, since this discussion doesn't directly relate to the wording of this wikipedia article, and it got somewhat lengthy.  Take a look there, we basically agreed to disagree. --WikiRepairGuy (talk) 18:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

To: PsychologistForJustice:

From beginning to end your post is grossly misinformed. Here are just a few examples:

1. Anyone familiar with the literature of the time knows that Cattell was considered an extremist by his colleagues in the British eugenics movement, including the people you name, who were concerned that his pronouncements would only alienate the public and harm the movement’s prospects. An inability to distinguish Cattell’s writings from their beliefs is like being unable to distinguish between Weatherman and the anti-war movement or David Duke and the conservative movement.

2. Through the 1970s and 1980s Cattell remained firm in his belief that the widespread use of the franchise constituted what he called “robbery…by the ballot box,” in which the less intelligent masses, by their sheer numbers, could override the wishes of the more competent members of the society, and he had specific proposals to rectify this injustice. One possibility suggested by Cattell (see "Beyondism: Religion from Science," p. 223) was some sort of “explicit weighting of the votes of individuals according to their intelligence, sanity, and education.” Another of his suggestions was to reduce the electorate to 60 to 75% of its present size by requiring a minimum IQ score, one that would probably disenfranchise the majority of American blacks. (see "Beyondism: Religion from Science" and "A New Morality from Science: Beyondism"). If this is really no different from “half of the current Republican party,” then we’re in worse shape than I thought.

3. Cattell was hardly “the first and only person in his family to get a college education.” Indeed, in his autobiographical remarks, he noted that there were 5 doctors on his mother’s side of the family; presumably, they were college educated. And the notion that he wanted the “best man” to get the job is risible and only suggests that you are unfamiliar with his work in both the 1930s and more recently. Here’s what he said in "Psychology and Social Progress": "“To treat alien individuals as if they belonged to the same race, simply because their intelligence is on the same high or low level, is a mistake, for constitutional differences of greater importance for practical life are being overlooked. An intelligent Italian peasant is not the equivalent of a moderately gifted Chinaman, neither could a less gifted Scot be replaced by an advanced member of the negro race.”" Though phrased less bluntly, this opnion on Cattell's part endured throughout his life. In 1972 now in his late 60s, in a passage extolling the virtues of keeping races separate from each other (A New Morality from Science, 410-411), he complained that the racial “homogenizers”—the people who really do believe in equal opportunity for all—-eschewed “fundamental scientific guiding principles” in favor of “humanistic rhetoric in which such whore phrases as ‘social justice and equality,’ ‘basic freedom’ and ‘human dignity’ continue to prostitute their beauty to every impostor.”

4. The newsletter—I presume you are referring to “The Beyondist” here—was created and edited by Cattell in the 1990s to perpetuate his thought. The fact that it may be generally "unknown" and "mimeographed" does not in any way vitiate its significance as an indication of Cattell’s thinking in the last few years of his life. Do you realize that much scholarly work is based on archival correspondence, which is unknown and often handwritten?

Finally, you are concerned with “attacking the many clear and current racists and racist policies in the present world.” Fine! So am I. However, I find that many of these groups seek respectability for their appalling beliefs by claiming Cattell’s imprimatur—which he was happy to provide, thus conferring the prominence of one of the 20th century’s most important research psychologists on a bunch of neo-Nazis. Thus, I share your concern, and if you knew more about Cattell’s ideology and his support for these racists, you might share mine. Bill Wmhtucker (talk) 21:16, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

This section became a wikipedia forum for Cattell's critics. I have to support Nectarflowed’s reversions of Tviund’s narrative and opinions (see below). Tviund, it sounds like you’re simply taking as fact the claims made by Cattell’s critics William H. Tucker and Barry Mehler. I urge you to read the references yourself and interpret in context. In any case, please don’t write contemptuous and derisive attacks in wikipedia just because you disagree with Cattell’s more controversial writings. If you are going to use words like "genocidal" and "Nazi", you need to support these with something Cattell actual said. I don't believe that is possible. The attacks on Cattell were never supported by the American Psychological Association or any other professional source; in fact psychologists demonstrated how Tucker and Mehler took Cattell quotes misleadingly out of context. Since Cattell’s early books are hard to find and hard to read, the average reader naively assumes that the quotations are representative. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Cattell egunetics and early racist ideas

I was shocked that this page on the controversial but important pshychologist had gone unnoticed so that there was no mention of his extreme genocidal nature. It follows from this page that he something of a Saint; to his family and and close collaborators maybe, but to all leading psys. today he is somewhat of an embarrassment when it comes to his political views. However scientific, psychology is a social science, and the nature/nurture debate is intimately connected with the atrocities of 20th century politics. Leaving out Cattells strong views on eugenetics is at least irresponsible, at worst a form of colonial and holocaust apologism so common among the extremist of neo-eugenetists. That man should have be brought to justice much earlier than the APA controversy, for his hate-speech and instigation to murder and genocide. But that's my personal view, shared by many others. In this Wiki article, howeverm a temperate but accurate quotes of his wievs are needed, and further sources of the of research into his race and genocide politics. His writing speak for themselves AND he wrote much more than only on factoranalysis, in fact many question that his contribution even there can be considered as innocent and unrelated to his ideas of 'final solutions'. I guess the first contributors to this article are sympatizer of Cattell, and even worse, eugenics - so I call for people putting up the gloves and watch the devolopment of this article.

I can’t see that Nectarfloweds total reversion of the changes is warranted without justification. The older version contained no information on Cattells political statements other than his official remarks after the APA affair. But if there is no reference to the nature of his ideas on race in earlier years you get the impression that he was the innocent victim of smearing campaign. One only has to look at what Cattell him self said. Also the older version contained POV and repetitive praise on how he brought 'rigorous' science to a soft psychology - This is a matter of philosophy of science, the demarcation problem in social sciences, which is itself a debatable issue, and could have been rephrased. My changes might need some editing but I call for the ‘principle of charity’ so people don’t go and delete it whole-sale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tviund (talk • contribs)
 * Hi Tviund. It's not other Wikipedians' job to make your essay conform reasonably to Wikipedia policy regarding neutral point of view, as well as formatting. In this case, that means represent your pov as a pov rather than the truth, and don't try to turn it into a moralistic narrative* or prioritize it over the other mainstream povs. Substituting 'notorious' for 'famous' is emblematic of that approach. Overall, keep in mind that he's still regarded as prominent for the work in his field that made him famous, and Mehler achieves his argument by omitting the other side of the debate. The principle of charity means represent the other side of the debate in its best form so that your argument can refute it fairly and the discussion can be progressive. The principle of humanity means regard people on the other side of the debate as also having humanity, rather than being malicious straw men.


 * ("Even though Cattell did not recommend genocide as means of 'killing off' of a whole group of people...")


 * --Nectar 00:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I strongly concur with WikiRepairGuy and Nectarflowed. Mehler and his friend Tucker have been discredited in their attacks, they've twisted Cattell's quotes for their purposes.  Cattell is certainly not an "embarrassment" to most psychologists.  With the exception of readers of this wikipedia article, most psychologists only know him as a prolific contributor to personality and intelligence theory; they are not even aware of the political attacks.  Cattell's political writings are not even mentioned in existing biographies: they have not proven to be important nor even referenced, except by critics who used them for misrepresentation.  Cattellbiographer (talk)

My book on Cattell is now available from University of Illinois Press or Amazon: "The Cattell Controversy: Race, Science, and Ideology." BillWmhtucker (talk) 21:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I've added a reference to your new book at the beginning of this section, per my email to you, thanks.--WikiRepairGuy (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I looked at this article for the first time in quite a while and, dismayed that there is still no specific description, however brief, of Cattell’s socio-religious system at the core of the controversy, I have added one.

At the same time I hope it is not churlish of me to point out that the substance of this discussion does not quite match its sanctimony. After a condescending reminder of the meaning of the principle of charity—the application of which, in practice, seems to be expected only from Cattell’s critics—the comments dismissing the criticism not only eschew presentation of “the other side of the debate in its best form,” but in any form whatsoever. There is hardly a word about Cattell’s ideological writing, not a single reference or citation to any of these works, and no real indication that people here are really familiar with them. Instead, one reads that Cattell’s critics have “seriously distorted his words,” “twisted his quotes for their purposes,” engaged in “misrepresentation,” and "have been discredited," though the closest any of these claims comes to actually presenting any example or evidence is a link to a site that turns out to be part of the memorial created for Cattell by his closest friends. For the record, let me note that my friends will defend me too.

As part of the misrepresentation charge, in one case there is an exhortation for someone to “read the references yourself and interpret in context,” though, again, there is no citation to anything Cattell has written, which makes the advice difficult to follow.

So, for those who are truly interested in the system that Cattell promoted and the role he saw science playing in its implementation, here are the essential works, none of them mentioned so far anywhere in this discussion:

Psychology and Social Progress: Mankind and Destiny from the Standpoint of a Scientist (1933)

The Fight for Our National Intelligence (1937)

Psychology and the Religious Quest (1938)

“Ethics and the Social Sciences,” American Psychologist 6 (1948): 193-198

A New Morality from Science: Beyondism (1972)

Beyondism: Religion from Science (1987)

Let me add that in the 1987 book, published when he was 82 years old, Cattell begins by acknowledging the contributions to Beyondist thought by a number of “intellectual comrades,” a list that includes the two leaders of the attempt to overturn the Brown decision on the grounds that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites (R. Travis Osborne and Carleton Putnam) and the three most important English speaking neo-Nazi theorists in the second half of the 20th century (Roger Pearson, Revilo Oliver, and Wilmot Robertson).

I’m sorry, but declaring, for example, that “I knew Raymond Cattell relatively well” is not an acceptable substitute for having read these works and only leads to ludicrous claims, such as that Cattell wanted the “most able candidate” to be selected for a position “regardless of race.”  That observation is on the same terrain as assertions that the president is a Kenyan—no doubt heartfelt, genuinely believed, and utterly baseless in fact. Wmhtucker (talk) 04:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I was surprised to see the recent changes on the Raymond Cattell page. There are several things here that seem inaccurate to me.

I think of myself as someone who is reasonably familiar with Cattell's work. I have read his five-or-ten best-known books from cover-to-cover and I have not seen any reference to his religious or politic views. Thus, I believe it is not accurate to say that "throughout his career Cattell promoted a mixture of eugenics and theology."

In fact, in the 4 weeks since I noticed these changes, I have actually re-read Cattell's four main books to check on this, thinking that I might have missed something. And so now I can say firmly that there is nothing about politics or religion in these major books: Personality structure and measurement (1946); Personality and Motivation Structure and Measurement (1957); Handbook for the 16PF Questionnaire (1970); Personality and Mood by Questionnaire (1973). Overall, of the hundreds of psychology articles and books he wrote (see www.stthomas.ca/~jgillis/bib.htm), it must be a very small fraction of these that have anything to do with his politics or religion, if I have never come across them. Thus, it is not correct to say that "throughout his career Cattell promoted" these.

In addition, the statement about Cattel's goals is inaccurate. Throughout his work, Cattell repeatedly states (and at great length!) that his goal in his career was tomake psychology into an objective science, like the physical sciences where he had been originally trained. The subjects and nature of his long history of research show that his goal is to apply science to the understanding of human nature in order to promote human development, effectiveness, and equality. For example, in his earliest books (Preface to 1946), he states:

“Being an attempt to contribute toward a more complete scientific understanding of personality, this book is primarily of interest to serious students….It is hoped that it will be of value to practicing psychologists in guidance, education, and industrial and other personnel work; for it offers, in place of the unfounded and speculative factors on which "personality measurement" is now based, a set of factors well tested by research, thoroughly discussed and described, and incorporated in a sound theory of measurement."

Similarly, in the Preface to The Handbook for the 16PF he states: "In the personnel situation where a candidate for a position or a scholarship, etc., is being judged, the ethical issues turn largely on....whether we are going to be questioned by an amateur in an unreliable interview situation (biased by our accent, skin color, length of nose, or heaven knows what), or by the most accurate and unbiased objective tests that psychology can presently offer."

Let's try to keep this wikipedia article NPOV. I have seen your book about Cattell, and you are clearly not coming from a neutral point of view. It seems like this article already makes your issues with Cattell's work clear. Additional arguments belong in other sites and articles, not in wikipedia; readers can follow any links and references if they want to learn more about your viewpoint.


 * PsychologistForJustice (talk) 05:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I must admit to a bit of a chuckle at this new scholarly standard promulgated by Psychologist for Justice. It is no longer sufficient to cite evidence unless it comes from a book that she is willing to read; otherwise it doesn’t count. (BTW, Noam Chomsky too has a long list of influential works in his academic specialty, none of which mention his political opinions, but it would be bizarre to pretend that the latter don’t exist.) So fair warning to Psychologist for Justice: there are quotes below from books that you are determined to avoid. Continue at your own risk.

By the way, Psychologist for Justice writes “Let’s try to keep this Wikipedia article NPOV.” I agree; if you think my lone contribution to the article—a 3 sentence summary of Beyondism—is not NPOV, please say why. The reason you appear to give is based on a gross distortion. You write “it is not correct to say that ‘throughout his career Cattell promoted’”, when in fact what I wrote was “THEY NOTE that throughout his career Cattell promoted…”. I won’t patronize you by explaining in detail the difference between these two statements, but suffice it to say that your omission of the first two words produces a dramatic distortion of the original meaning. You also state that my book is “not coming from a neutral point of view.” Based on Cattell’s writing—including the works with which you are admittedly unfamiliar—I have attempted, with considerable documentation and extended quotations, to describe his ideology and its relation to his scientific work as accurately as I can. Rather than a vague and unanswerable charge about lack of neutrality, try picking a statement from the book and saying why it’s wrong.

So here are a few typical excerpts from Cattell’s ideological writing. These all have to do with his sociomoral system in general. For anyone interested, I can post lots of other quotes from his work on topics such as the need for rigid racial segregation or the harm done by interbreeding. In 1987 (Beyondism: Religion from Science, p. 202), for example, he was still declaring that crime and mental illness were to some degree caused by the parents’ differing ethnic backgrounds (a claim that an Obama supporter might view with chagrin). Please note that there are no ellipses in the following passages; nothing has been omitted. If these quotes are still unpersuasive concerning the nature of Cattell’s scientifically based religion, don’t hesitate to let me know. There are tons more.


 * The hatred and abhorrence which many people feel for the Jewish (and to some extent Mongolian) practice of living in other nations instead of forming an independent, self-sustained group of their own, comes from a deep intuitive feeling that somehow it is not “playing the game." Because our unbiologically-minded civilization cannot perceive or appreciate any intellectual causes for these feelings they are readily branded as “prejudice” by would-be intellectuals.
 * Psychology and Social Progress (1932, p. 70)


 * Most philosophers and politicians forget that the social principles which they advocate, e.g., freedom or slavery, dictatorship or democracy, monogamy or polygamy, have “truth” only in relation to some particular species of animal, to some particular biological sample of mankind and some actual distribution of, for example, mental capacity.
 * The Australian Blacks, whose mental capacity on tests is in the region of our dull- and feeble-minded group, not only started out with a culture in which even house building was unknown, but in spite of two hundred years’ exposure to suggestions of civilisation they have been unable to build up for themselves a level of civilised behavior which even the most reactionary European peoples would regard as sufficient or tolerable.
 * A race intermediate in mental capacity, the negro, has established a stable culture both in Africa and America, but it has contributed practically nothing to social progress and culture (except in rhythm, sensitiveness to which is revealed by tests to be constitutionally better in the negro than the European). All the social and religious notions which have been sedulously grafted upon the negro have been forcefully adapted by him, made more simple and crude and emotional.  I cite this example merely to shew [sic] that, even when the race is a constitutionally good-natured and lovable one, lower mental capacity means reaction, crudity and a social deadweight of conservatism.
 * The Fight for Our National Intelligence (1937, p. 56-57)


 * To put all humanity into one ship, as many who misunderstand the spirit of the brotherhood of man would have us do, would be a tragic mistake.  Not all the racial groups which embark on their own experimental course will arrive.  Complete failure, with the necessity of scrapping an entire racial or cultural experiment, may nevertheless be rare.  Nations furnished with keen eyes of social and biological research will recognize soon enough when they are obviously going into a cul-de-sac, as Japan did when she saw the advantages of western culture and realigned herself vigorously.  There may, on the other hand, be Abyssinias and Hawaiis, and races such as the negro which hardly seems to compensate for its lack of mental capacity by endearing qualities of humour and religiosity.  We need kindness and consideration for those branches of man which are doomed to wither: we are all due to become cast-off branches as the main stem singles itself out and soars upward.  Not by war, nor by harassing economic pressure, but by gradual restriction of births, and by life in adapted reserves and asylums, must the races which have served their turn be brought to euthanasia.
 * Psychology and the Religious Quest (1938, p. 94)


 * For the obvious first tenet of inter-group behavior, from the premise that revolutions rests primarily on inter-group natural selection, is that failing groups should either be allowed to go to the wall, or be radically re-constituted, possibly by outside intervention. By contrast, successful groups, by simple expansion or budding, should increase their power, influence and size of population.
 * A New Morality from Science: Beyondism (1972, p. 95)


 * Now the arresting conclusion from evolutionary law—and one difficult for many to digest—is that natural selection should be allowed and encouraged to act freely among groups. This is the primary law, and any later modification of it that we may discuss derives from secondary and lesser considerations.  Defective internal morality, failure to control birth rate, unwillingness to sacrifice luxuries to education, adherence to superstitutions, and many other deficiencies may cause a group to fail either in the struggle with another group or in the economic tussle with nature.  At that point external “charitable” support from other groups, or even their failure to expand as the defective group retracts, are immoral acts militating against evolution.  They are to be avoided in the interests of the highest inter-group morality.  For, by the basic laws of learning, such rewards merely reinforce the strength of the faulty community habit systems.  Or, if the defect is genetic, they postpone the reduction of genetic defect.
 * A New Morality from Science: Beyondism (1972, p. 178)


 * If the earth is not to be choked with the more primitive forerunners, a condition of the birth of the new is the disappearance of the old. However, it is part of that cooperativeness of competition that an emotional harmony with the total purpose should eliminate the barbarities and emotional misunderstandings which have constituted the brutality of expansion and contraction in past history.  Newer and more humane methods must prevail.
 * Unfortunately, whenever a question of relative reduction of a population is concerned, the word “genocide” is today being bandied about as a propaganda term. Nature constantly commits both homicide and genocide, and there is no question that both individuals and races are born to die.  But at what point voluntary euthanasia by individuals or genthanasia by groups becomes appropriate is a difficult question.  As regards animal species, we are today inclined, for aesthetic and scientific purposes, to make sanctuaries and reservations for species obviously headed for extinction, and still more extreme and scrupulous consideration is indicated before allowing a breed of humans—however maladapted—to become extinct.  But it is realistically questionable in both cases how much space the more vital species will continue to allow for museum “storage.”  The maintenance of the status quo cannot extend to making ninety-nine hundredths of the earth a living museum.  Clarity of discussion on these solemn issues of rise and fall in culture-racial groups would be aided if genocide were reserved for a literal killing off of all living members of a people, as in several instances of the Old Testament, and genthanasia for what has been called “phasing out,” in which a moribund culture is ended, by educational and birth control measures, without a single member dying before his time.
 * A New Morality from Science: Beyondism (1972, p. 220-221)

Wmhtucker (talk) 20:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

WmhTucker,

It doesn't seem to me that you are addressing the important points that PsychologistForJustice made:
 * In the Cattell article, you wrote that his socio-moral system was the motivation for his work on trait measurement. However, this is not true: there are many places where Cattell clearly states his motivation, just like the one in PsychologistForJustice provides above.  You must see that your statement is wrong or at least highly debatable.


 * You also stated that Cattell promoted a mixture of eugenics and theology "throughout his career", and PsychologistForJustic correctly points out that 95% of his lifetime publications dealt with his scientific work in psychology, nothing to do with his political or religious views. "Throughout his career" is misleading.

I also believe you're missing the point, arguing the semantics of the text "Tucker and Mehler note ...". You cannot "take note of" or notice something if it is not there. Your statement remains false (or at least debatable) and inappropriate for a wikipedia article.

There is another important problem in your edits to the article. You say that Cattell suggests social scientists should make judgments to determine which groups are best suited for evolutionary advance. I believe this, too, is false or debatable. Cattell does argue that social scientists, like economists or biologists, should provide objective information to help legislative bodies make better decisions, but he explicitly states that only nature can make decisions about which groups should survive. For example, in the 1987 Beyondism book (page 7) he says:


 * "With the second objection -- that we know what progress is and can accordingly abolish group natural selection -- Beyondism is in fundamental disagreement. We can peer ahead a little way ... but the wisest never could, and probably never will, be able to foresee the ultimate effect..."

--AnAcademic (talk) 05:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

To: An Academic:

To take your points in reverse order:

My thesaurus gives “state” as one of the possible synonyms for the verb “note,” and I meant it in this sense—it is undeniably something that I (and some others) state. However, your objection is duly noted (pun intended), and I will happily change the verb to “argue,” which I presume will not similarly exercise you. After all, you can’t label the section “Criticism and the APA Award” and then provide no idea of what the criticism is, even if you disagree with its validity. I should add two points: first, that before my recent change it was indeed the case that the article included no such description and on the discussion page there was even the claim that I had been “discredited,” though it was a mystery what I had said that merited such a characterization. And second, that it was not my primary intent to “criticize” Cattell—something I do only at the very end of a book—but rather to describe his ideology in detail and the neo-Nazi intellectual circles in which it has been so popular. I’m sorry, but “throughout his career” is accurate. The fact that Cattell does not mention his ideology in the bulk of his work, published in scientific journals and trade books, does not change his dedication to these principles. Linus Pauling was dedicated to the peace movement “throughout his career,” though his numerous articles in quantum chemistry and molecular biology make no mention of this fact. Nor, as I point out above, does Noam Chomsky mention the anti-imperialist principles, to which he has been dedicated for more than four decades, in his numerous articles on linguistics. Now you might certainly disagree with my assertion about the extent of Cattell’s dedication to his sociomoral system, but the fact that he omits any mention of it in publications where it would be inappropriate to begin with and no doubt rejected by editors is hardly a relevant piece of information.

Of course, Cattell was motivated by the desire “to make psychology into an objective science.” Not only do I not disagree, I make this point emphatically in my own writing. Indeed, it is only when psychology has attained this goal that it would be possible, from Cattell’s point of view, to take the next step—the ultimate purpose to which he thought an objective science of personality measurement should be put—and collect the kind of data on individuals and “racio-cultural” groups that could be used to make eugenic decisions. As he clearly stated in 1994 (see How Good is Your Country, p. 43), though science was not yet up to the task, he looked forward to the day when it would be possible to assess “individual worth,”—not just someone’s cognitive abilities, physical capacities, or temperament traits—but their basic value as human beings. And how do you think he wanted to decide what groups should be subjected to “genthanasia,” if not on the basis of scientific data?

But I have a question for you, or Psychologist for Justice, or whoever else: Why do you suppose that Cattell has been the favorite scientist of the neo-Nazi intellectual set? Or that he cites the whole parade of their stars—Wilmot Robertson, Carleton Putnam, Roger Pearson, Revilo P. Oliver—as influences on his own thinking? Is this just a misunderstanding on their part of the scientist who, we are assured above, believed in individual rights. Or maybe—just maybe—you folks have missed something here. Wmhtucker (talk) 01:41, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

PsychologistForJustice and AnAcademic, I agree with your comments about the recent posting.

With the aim of helping correct some serious misconceptions regarding Cattell’s ideas about Beyondism, I have several things to add.

Firstly, Beyondism is conceptually entirely separate from eugenics. One can be a Beyondist and not support the use of eugenics. So to characterize Beyondism as "a mixture of eugenics and theology" is highly misleading. Beyondism is a "scientifically based ethical guidance system." This is the definition I used is my 1996 book about intelligence. I spent several weeks discussing the book with Dr. Cattell prior to publication, and he agreed with this definition.

Also, to state that Beyondism "would require 'racio-cultural groups' to be kept rigidly segregated" illustrates another important misunderstanding. Based upon 25 years of conversations with Cattell, and careful reading of his work, it is my firm belief that Beyondism does not require this at all. --MetaMax (talk) 03:09, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

MetaMax, thank you for your thoughtful, well-informed additions here. I have gone back to try to get the gist of this lengthy discussion, and I have to say that Tucker seems to have regularly made rather extreme statements here about Cattell that are neither accurate nor true. For example, Tucker says above "The notion that Cattell wanted the 'best man' to get the job is risible and only suggests that you are unfamiliar with his work."

This is not accurate. In my experience with Cattell, I found that he was strongly affected by his working class origins and the many set-backs in his and his friends' careers that resulted from his not being from “the right class of people.”  Cattell often talked about his motivation in creating objective measures of personality and ability as resulting from his desire to “level the playing field” and have funding, job selection, and awards go to those who objectively had the talent and ability—not those with the 'right connections.'  E.g. in 1970, Cattell wrote:


 * In the personnel situation where a candidate for a position or a scholarship, etc., is being judged, the ethical issues turn largely on....whether we are going to be questioned by an amateur in an unreliable interview situation (biased by our accent, skin color, length of nose, or heaven knows what), or by the most accurate and unbiased objective tests that psychology can presently offer.

Then Tucker again derides one of my comments, by stating that: "Cattell was hardly 'the first and only person in his family to get a college education.'  Indeed, in his autobiographical remarks, he noted that there were 5 doctors on his mother’s side of the family; presumably, they were college educated." I’m not sure where Tucker got this idea. I knew Cattell reasonably well, and am quite sure that no one in his family had a college education. Additionally, Cattell’s family could not contribute in any way to his educational costs, and he had to continually struggle to get scholarship money to survive each year, which resulted in his leaving his homeland and moving to America where there was better funding for research than in Europe.

More particularly, Tucker’s statement that "throughout his career Cattell promoted a mixture of eugenics and theology" is simply false. In his career, I never heard him speak of his political viewpoints. In his classes, seminars, professional conferences, workshops, and dinners that I attended, politics was not discussed; I never saw him 'promote' any political viewpoint in his professional career. This was what the phrase 'promoted throughout his career' means to most people. I'm wondering how many of Cattell's classes, seminars, and conferences Tucker actually attended…. If those of us who knew Catell during his career have not heard his political beliefs, how can Tucker state that Cattell promoted these viewpoints throughout this career”? It’s simply not true.

Also, Tucker’s comparison of Cattell to Noam Chomsky could not be more inaccurate or misleading. I happen to know Chomsky personally, and it is clear that a great part of his life has been dedicated to promoting his political beliefs, by writing many political books and articles, organizing demonstrations, giving political presentations almost constantly (his website lists his up-coming presentations), giving interviews on television and in newspapers, etc. about his political beliefs. Most people know more about Chomsky’s political views than they do about the content of his professional research in linguistics.

This comparison could not be more inaccurate about Cattell who spent 95% of his career writing on his scientific work, and did not give presentations, speeches or news articles, etc. about his political beliefs. I’m not saying that Cattell had NO political viewpoints or writings, just that they are very few and far between and irrelevant to his distinguished life’s work as a scientist. I wouldn’t spend my time seeking out his political views anymore than I would spent time seeking out the political views of Jean Piaget, Marie Curie, or Watson and Crick—although I'm sure they all must have had some.

These kinds of extreme, inaccurate statements by Tucker seem quite contrary to Wikipedia’s ground rules of Neutrality of Point of View. Tucker continues to make these statements and accusations again-and-again, ignoring the detailed refutations of his statements that have been published, showing that he has repeatedly taken Cattell’s quotes out of context and misrepresented his views. E. g., some of these can be found online at http://www.stu.ca/~jgillis/accusations.htm.

One of our most basic principles in a democracy is that we value people’s contributions and achievements regardless of whether we agree with their religious or political views. Tucker’s approach seems almost like the accusations made under McCarthyism: If Cattell’s name is used by far-right groups, then Cattell’s 60 years of psychological research must be tainted! If Tucker wants to make these extreme statements, he needs to do them some place other than Wikipedia. --PsychologistForJustice (talk) 23:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

My responses, first to MetaMax, then to Psychologist for Justice:

Metamax:

Quite apart from his books on the subject, which make clear his support for eugenics, if you read Cattell’s well known open-letter to the APA, written only months before he died, you will see that he mentions his promotion of “eugenics” four times. BTW, please post the details of your 1996 book—name, publisher. Unlike a number of the persons involved in this discussion, I am actually eager to read the work of people with whom I probably disagree.

Psychologist for Justice:

You’re not sure where I got the idea that there were 5 doctors on Cattell’s mother’s side. His personal history is described in two autobiographical chapters: “Travels in Psychological Hyperspace” in volume 2 of The Psychologists edited by T.S Krawiec (Oxford, 1974) and “Raymond B. Cattell” in volume 6 of A History of Psychology in Autobiography edited by G. Lindzey (Prentice-Hall, 1974). Cattell’s own account of his early years does not sound very much like the one you offer.

You still insist on omitting the first three words (“They argue that”) of my statement that “throughout his career…etc.” Naturally you can disagree with whether Cattell did indeed promote such views but not with the indisputable fact that it is an argument that I and others have made; obviously you don’t have to agree with the claim in order to acknowledge its existence. Or is it the case that you think no one reading the entry on Cattell should even be informed that this argument has been made? BTW, Cattell began work on his first book on this topic when he was only 18 and published his last book when he was 82 with lots of books and papers on the subject in between; I could send you a longer list than the one I posted above, but you’ve already made it clear that you have no intention of reading works that do not support your view. For me the number and 6-7 decade time-span of these publications is sufficient to conclude that he promoted these views “throughout his career,” but I understand your point; just as I changed “note” to “argue” in order to accommodate the objection expressed by “An Academic,” I will make a similar change to meet your concern, rewording it to read “adhered to a mixture of eugenics and theology throughout his life,” thus separating his beliefs from his career. After all, a person could adhere to a religious system—and Cattell calls his ideology a “religion”—his entire life and not mention it in the bulk of his scientific writing.

As I state above, I don’t see that my brief contribution to the article is not NPOV, prefaced as it is by the words you omit. Of course, my comments in the “Discussion” section have not been NPOV, no different from the comments of you and many others both before and after my presence on this site. Of course, since you mention Wiki’s ground rules, you might also wish to think about the principle of charity, which, as noted by a previous poster, means that you represent the other side of the debate in its best form so that your argument can refute it fairly. You claim that I have misrepresented Cattell’s views and offer a link to a website, whose first observation notes that I describe Cattell’s favorable comments in 1937 about policy in the "Third Reich," when in fact he referred to the nation then ruled by Hitler and National Socialists as “Germany,” not the Reich. This is your idea of misrepresentation? In any event all the supposed distortions come from a brief summary of Cattell’s ideological thought in a book published 17 years ago. As you know, I have now published a book devoted entirely to Cattell with lots of lengthy quotes. As I have suggested previously, I invite you to find one that has been taken out of context or otherwise misrepresented.

I agree with your declaration that “One of our most basic principles in a democracy is that we value people’s contributions and achievements regardless of whether we agree with their religious or political views.” Indeed, my book on Cattell describes his contributions in some detail and acknowledges their importance—so much so that some researchers in the field have written me to complain that I have overstated his importance and that few of his conclusions have stood the test of time. I disagree with these people and have told them so.

You then go on to charge me with McCarthyism solely because, according to you, I note that Cattell’s name is used by far-right groups. Oh, please. These groups also cite Darwin in support of their beliefs, which can hardly be claimed to reflect badly on Darwin. The problem is that they and Cattell share a similar ideology. He acknowledges their ideas as compatible with his own, expresses his gratitude for the influence their ideas have had on the evolution of Beyondism, and graced the pages of their periodicals with his own contributions, thus lending his considerable scientific prestige to publications dedicated to keeping blacks in second-class status and blaming almost all of society’s problems on Jews.

One example worth a little more detail: In 1992, Wilmot Robertson, who considered Hitler’s defeat “shattering to Northern Europeans, both in Europe and America,” published The Ethnostate, a book that, citing Cattell’s work as its intellectual basis, proposed racial balkanization of the United States into a group of racially homogeneous small states as the only “sensible means of assuring white survival.” In the "Beyondist," the newsletter published by Cattell to promote his own sociomoral system, he called Robertson’s book “a very timely supplement to the argument of the Beyondist” and recommended that “every seriously thoughtful citizen should read and ponder” the work. It is hardly McCarthyism to point out Cattell’s support for these views as the organic outgrowth of his own thought.

One final point (again) about your claim that I make “accusations.” The intent of my work is to describe Cattell’s ideology—his “religious” system, in theory and in practice—and its relation to his science. I have never claimed that his ideology “taints” his scientific work, but rather that, as MetaMax points out in a post that you call “thoughtful and well-informed,” the former is derived from the latter. Knowing Cattell personally is not an appropriate substitute for familiarity with his substantial corpus of ideological writing. Nor will telling me that I shouldn’t be here suffice for dearth of knowledge about his thought. But I am thankful for progress. At least we haven’t heard again that Cattell’s beliefs are no different than half the current Republican Party.

Cheers, Bill Wmhtucker (talk) 05:40, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

WmhTucker: I read through the website you mention and also your book, and I have to agree with PsychologistForJustice and the site authors on the other issues. You complain that you are criticized for replacing the word "Germany" with "The Third Reich" in quoting Cattell, but, in fact, Cattell advocates eugenic policies of the U.S.A., Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Scandinavian countries in his book; I believe their point is that you summarize all of that by saying that Cattell praised the Third Reich's policies. That conveys a quite different impression. Likewise, in the wikipedia article you give a deceptively narrow summary of Beyondism, missing its main points about evolution of groups in nature, and making statements that are inaccurate or questionable about Cattell's position, as AnAcademic points out.--Tai Chi Fan (talk) 04:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Tai Chi Fan: From Psychology and the Religious Quest, published in 1938, two-three years after passage of the Nuremberg Laws separating Jews from the rest of the population in Germany and just about the time that Mussolini  began Italy's anti-Jewish campaign:


 * ...the Atlantic democracies are bewildered, envious, and hostile at the rise of Germany, Italy, and Japan, countries in which individuals have disciplined their indulgences as to a religious purpose.  These nationals fear the gods, even though they are partly false gods, in comparison with the vast numbers in our democracies lacking any super-personal aim.  Their rise should be welcomed by the religious man as reassuring evidence that in spite of modern wealth and ease, we shall not be allowed to sink into stagnation or adopt foolish practices in fatal detachment from the stream of evolution.

No mention of USA, Holland, Switzerland, etc. here--countries that, you are correct, Cattell did praise for their adoption of eugenic sterilization. But only the fascist countries, Germany in particular, were segregating ethnic groups, especially Jews. The Nuremberg Laws were exactly what Cattell had been calling a scientific necessity for years; it was the failure to segregate Jews that he considered one of those "foolish practices in fatal detachment from the stream of evolution," as exemplified in the following:


 * The hatred and abhorrence which many people feel for the Jewish (and to some extent Mongolian) practice of living in other nations instead of forming an independent, self-sustained group of their own, comes from a deep intuitive feeling that somehow it is not “playing the game." (Psychology and Social Progress).


 * Whenever a nation has been forcibly put together from differing races, we find a social life unnecessarily disjointed, weak, and feverish. There are thousands of misunderstandings, produced by individuals working for different goals in different ways and at different speeds.  Think of the English in Ireland.  Examine more closely the contacts of English and Welsh in business, politics, and education.  Think of the Jews anywhere. (Psychology and the Religious Quest)

You also state that, in discussing Beyondism, I have made "statements that are inaccurate or questionable about Cattell's position." It is difficult for me to respond unless you provide an example. What specifically have I stated that is inaccurate?

BillWmhtucker (talk) 16:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

WmhTucker, I believe Tai Chi Fan already answered your question by saying "as AnAcademic points out". You did not respond to AnAcademic's counter-evidence to your statement on Cattell's motivation nor counter-evidence to your statement that Cattell wanted social scientists to "determine which [groups] should be left behind". PsychologistForJustice contests your wording on the same points. I will reword your edits to the article on those points, while retaining a neutral summary of Beyondism, as a compromise. I hope that works for you, I understand your desire to include an explanation of Beyondism. We can try to reach consensus here on better sentences if you feel it necessary. I think we need to stick to agreed facts in wikipedia and let readers reach their own conclusions on the arguments that both sides have presented elsewhere. Thanks, WikiRepairGuy (talk) 17:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

To WRG:

First I have done a little rewording of my own, especially concerning your use of "phase out," which strikes me as somewhat bizarre in the active voice. Failing groups don't "phase out" in Cattell's system; they are "phased out" by others--the successful groups who are then supposed to "increase their power, influence, and size of population" as a consequence. However, I do appreciate your constructive attempt to reach an accommodation here.

Then concerning the comments on these two other issues. Regarding Cattell's motivation, as I have previously pointed out, the fact that he desired to "make psychology into an objective science" is not at all inconsistent with my contention that this was merely the first step toward a more ambitious social project. In his chapter in volume 6 of A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Cattell is quite clear on this point. It was, he wrote, his first exposure to the thinking of Francis Galton that confirmed Cattell's decision to change from chemistry and physics to psychology as "a means of contributing more fundamental solutions to social problems along with the intellectually esthetic [sic] fascination of pursuing a science." He goes on to elaborate that he wanted to "bring social scientific research to remedy some of the irrationalities of politics and to arrest what seemed to me and many to be degenerative, e.g., dysgenic, trends in social life." That is, Cattell was motivated to change from the hard sciences to psychology after learning of the work of the founder of eugenics, so that he could apply the results of research in psychology to reversing dysgenic trends. In "Travels in Psychological Hyperspace," another autobiographical chapter in volume 2 of The Psychologists, Cattell states that he would have stayed with chemistry and physics, had it not been for his "concern for social progress." A reading of Psychology and Social Progress should settle exactly how he thought that concern should be satisfied and the role of science in satisfying it. I leave to you how to evaluate the strange fact that there are people here who have read neither this book nor the rest of Cattell's ideological oeuvre and refuse to do so, even while insisting that I'm all wrong.

On the second issue, whether Cattell wanted scientists to determine which groups should be left behind: First of all, just because the quotation offered by AnAcademic mentions "natural selection," it hardly supports his claim that "Cattell explicitly states only nature can make decisions about which groups should survive." The whole point and origin of the concept of eugenics was to exert human control over the process of "natural selection." Indeed, your own addition to the article of Cattell's support for phasing out groups indicates his desire for human intervention into the process of selection. The question is how does it become clear that a group should be slated for "genthanasia," and Cattell's writing is full of recommendations for some sort of international federated research organization, which would supply the data on which this decision would be based. At one point he even suggested a "world federal government" that would facilitate creation of "a central clearing house in which records of the success of various social and genetic experiments [i.e., Cattell's "racio-cultural groups"] could be more sensitively compared than is possible today and the information more rapidly distributed to guide all participants in the cooperative competition ("The Scientific Ethics of 'Beyond,'" Journal of Social Issues, 1950)." He persisted in this same theme throughout his writing on Beyondism. In the 1987 book, for example--the same work that AnAcademic cites; the trick is to read beyond p.7--Cattell called for a social science that could "measure the signs of health or sickness of a society so that a graduated 'probable survival index' can be assigned to each society." Such an index would thus eliminate "the need to wait on complete collapse as the 'criterion'" (p.91). And once scientific research had determined that a society was heading for collapse, the necessary steps--i.e., genthanasia-- could then be taken.

BTW, Cattell considered the possibility that UNESCO might play the role he envisioned for this international research organization but rejected it because UNESCO was "still burdened by early 'social work' values, e.g., on free food distribution and other acts that need revision by Beyondist principles." Get it? Feeding starving people is immoral according to Beyondism, because it helps to perpetuate the genetic defect that caused a group to face starvation.

Cheers, Bill

PS: Still waiting for Metamax to post the details of his 1996 book. Is there some reason he cites the work and then won't even provide the title? Wmhtucker (talk) 00:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

To Tai Chi Fan, Psychologist for Justice and others:

In the discussion on this page I have been accused a number of times now of distorting Cattell's comments on Germany under National Socialism, so I thought it would be useful to present the instances that I know of in which he commented on that country's policies or on Nazi intellectuals in his writing between the Machtergreifung and the beginning of the war.

-In The Fight for Our National Intelligence (1937) Cattell makes two references to Germany. In the first (p. 88-89) he refers to "oligarchic Germany where the community boldly acts upon the wisdom of the biologist and the medical man and where eugenic laws are put into operation." No other country is named in this passage. This quote, of course, is never discussed or even mentioned by those who claim I have distorted Cattell's work.

In the second (p. 140-41) here's the full quote:
 * The coming of eugenic competition between nations is certain in the near future. Attention to quantity of population is the infancy of an idea which will grow till it becomes a jealous care of quality.  It is a safe generalisation that at present a dysgenic trend exists in all civilised countries of the European pattern.  Which will  gain the great advantage of being the first to pull out of the decline?  Germany has the credit of being the first to adopt sterilisation together with a positive emphasis on racial improvement.  The Scandinavian countries, Holland and Switzerland are equally advanced in their practice of sterilisation and their consciousness of the need for maintaining and improving inherited qualities.  Actually the U.S.A. seems to have been the first country in which sterilisation has been legalised...

In my 1994 book I quoted only the sentence on Germany on the grounds that it's the only instance in which Cattell mentions "racial improvement," and I interpreted this comment as reflecting his approval of the Nuremberg Laws separating Jews from the rest of the German population. Despite his praise for their sterilization laws, none of the other countries had adopted such a policy. You'll notice that the people who claim I have distorted Cattell's writing by omitting these other countries always mention only sterilization and never "racial improvement."

Cattell also comments on Germany as part of the three axis countries in a passage from Psychology and the Religious Quest quoted in response to Tai Chi Fan above.

And finally as authorities on Jewish traits Cattell cites a number of Nazi academics whose work provided the intellectual justification for National Socialist policies. One of these writers--Hans F.K. Guenther--was cited by many eugenicists at the time and so perhaps is not particularly instructive. But another was Mathilde Ludendorff, whose observations on the religious differences between Jews and Germans he quoted at length in the original German (her work was never translated) in Psychology and Social Progress. The wife of General Erich Ludendorff, Mathilde described, in the passage quoted by Cattell with obvious approval, how the Jews humiliate themselves groveling in the dust before their God while the Germans, who sense God within themselves, worship with pride, courage and confidence. To the extent that she was known at the time, Mathilde was considered a crank who thought--I kid you not--that Hitler was not sufficiently anti-Semitic and who sought to promote an even more irrational, radical variant of Nazi ideology. (See Kurt Tauber's authoritative overview of German nationalism, Beyond Eagle and Swastika.)

In any event you can decide for yourselves who has actually distorted Cattell's comments on Germany under National Socialism.

Cheers, Bill Wmhtucker (talk) 00:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Wmhtucker,

I won't object to your rewording of "phase out", and although I agree with points made by PsychologistForJustice, MetaMax, TaiChiFan, and AnAcademic, I don't have time to jump into that debate right now. But I do object to your rewording of "countries, races, cultures, and other groups" as simply "racio-cultural groups". Cattell maintained his theory applies to all groups. Can we change that back, please?

I also believe the burden lies with you to provide proof, not with AnAcademic to conclusively prove the contrary, when you add statements to the article about Cattell's motivations. Cattell's general desire to help with social problems does not prove that his work in trait measurement was motivated by Beyondism. Cattell simply does not say that, in any writings I have seen or you have cited. As we discussed on my talk page back in 2008, I appreciate your goals but I think you sometimes jump to conclusions.

Thanks, WikiRepairGuy (talk) 05:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you are all handling this the wrong way. Nobody needs to provide proof for anything in Wikipedia - they need to verify claims by providing reliable sources. In this case Dr. Tucker and other scholars have published quite extensive criticisms of Cattell in peer reviewed academic venues. This criticism must be included in the article along with some of the opinions by Cattell's supporters in so far as they have been published in equally academically relevant venues. Wikipedia should not attempt to arbitrate who is in the right and who is not - we merely provide the relevant and notable views published by authorities. The above thread is basically one big violation of WP:NOTFORUM. Please discuss the details of Cattell's biography elsewhere, and stick to improving the article along the lines of wikipedia policy here.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In keeping with Maunus's reminder I shall not post a reply to WRG's comment above except to say that I used the term "ratio-cultural" groups because it was Cattell's preference in his 1987 book (see, in particular, chapter 6).

Bill Wmhtucker (talk) 18:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, let's discontinue this thread. And just to clarify, we're in agreement that no "proof" is needed when expressing one side's opinion.  But in this case, we were dealing with an unqualified statement of fact, and there is disagreement among the wikipedia authors about what can be extrapolated from Cattell's statements of motivation.  In this case, I believe we need to stick to what he literally said. Anyway, it's no longer an issue, because the statement in question has been removed.  Thanks, WikiRepairGuy (talk) 23:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Scientific orientation
The whole first paragraph of this section needs a serious rewrite for NPOV and WP:OPED.Autarch (talk) 16:21, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Have removed said paragraph and adjusted first sentence of second paragraph to take that into account. That said, there could be more done with it, such as expanding it and documenting any connections with his political views.Autarch (talk) 12:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I see what you mean about the tone of the wording. I will do some work on this too, and see if I can improve it. --PsychologistForJustice (talk) 21:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing
I have posted a bibliography of  Intelligence Citations for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research and to suggest new sources to me by comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources and referencing
I see User:Gjboyle has been by far the most active editor on this article recently. Now is a good time to discuss among all the other editors watching this page what sources to rely on here and how to handle inline citations to specific facts about the life and work of Raymond Cattell. I know of two biographical works, one an encyclopedia article and one a book, that are reliable sources per Wikipedia guidelines for this article. I am sure there are some other sources. It's a good idea, I think, to reach a consensus here about citation style and the degree of inline referencing (generally "good" articles and "featured" articles have inline references for all major factual assertions) so that the article is easy to check for future readers and editors. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:50, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Good question, WeijiBaikeBianji. For me, I think that too many inline references is distracting in this article.  I agree with Gjboyle removing extra references to the same source, especially in the same section, in response to the input he got.  And I see that you have not only reverted Gjboyle's removal of extra references, but you've also reverted some other edits he made.  I'm not sure what the proper Wikipedia protocol is here, but could we put Gjboyle's edits back until we decide on a better way to deal with extra references?  Incidentally, there are other biographical references on Cattell, such as Cattell's autobiography in G. Lindsey (Ed.), A history of psychology in autobiography, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1973, the biography on Prof Gillis's web site on Cattell (first reference in External Links), and Cattell's autobiography The Voyage of a Laboratory, in Multivariate Behavioral Research 19 (1984).  BTW, I notice that some of the external links are broken, I can try to fix these and add additional biographical references. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 21:48, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for mentioning other sources for Raymond Cattell's life here, which is helpful for improving the article. I have been looking for sources too. The most active editor here is new, and works about a sentence at a time for each edit, which makes for a complicated edit history after a while. I suggested to him when he visited my user talk page that there are various approaches for detailed inline references for specific page numbers in specific sources, including one approach that I have documented, following the example of another editor. There are some other possible approaches. For the moment, I think is safer to leave source citations in place near each edited sentence as the article edits proceed and we reach a consensus about how to make the article reader friendly for readers who don't follow footnotes but also for readers who do. Thanks for your constructive comments. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:41, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Controversial statements about living persons must be sourced to reliable sources
I was wondering when the ongoing editing of this article was going to get to the criticisms of the late Raymond Cattell brought up at the time of his nomination for the special APA award. Previous discussion on this article talk page reveals, of course, that Beyondism in particular and Cattell's role in placing writings in Mankind Quarterly and other dodgy publications has drawn criticism from many of the late Professor Cattell's fellow psychologists. Cattell's still living former students and colleagues, in turn, have expressed the opinion that Cattell's contributions to psychological research are so major that those activities are but a small part of his biography. This dispute about how to describe Cattell's career began years before I began editing Wikipedia. I have tried generally to follow the history of psychology from the point of view of a variety of writers on that topic during years of personal research. It happens that I am an owner of several of the standard textbooks on the history of psychology and have circulated others from academic libraries over the last few years. When I began editing Wikipedia articles in 2010, I gradually discovered (among many other sources I learned about here) William Tucker's books on the history of psychology, and I now own own all of those. In resolving editing issues like this, we had best turn to what Wikipedia content guidelines define as reliable sources. Note particularly that by that guideline "Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable." A personal website of someone who disagrees with (for example) Barry Mehler is not an acceptable source for how well Barry Mehler has written about Cattell. (By contrast, Barry Mehler's own website, which the ISAR website really is, is acceptable as a source about Mehler's views under the exception "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as: the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources." (We would have to check particular statements by Mehler cited to the ISAR website to make sure they meet all the requirements for use on Wikipedia on a statement-by-statement, case-by-case basis.) William Tucker's three books are all professionally edited and published by a university press (and all have many favorable reviews from other academics, as I have checked) and are generally good sources for any issue they treat. They may not be the last word on particular topics, but criticism of Tucker (a living person) is only admissible on Wikipedia if it comes from an edited, published source, because the Wikipedia policy on biographical statements about living persons explicitly says, "Never use self-published sources – including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets – as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below). 'Self-published blogs' in this context refers to personal and group blogs." As I say, I have checked carefully for professionally edited, published reviews of and responses to Tucker's various writings. They are generally quite favorable, and I have downloaded nearly an exhaustive collection of those reviews and comments over the last few years. If the assertion of other Wikipedians here is that Tucker's writings about Cattell are incorrect or unbalanced, they will have to find a professionally edited, published source that says so to put such a statement in this Wikipedia article, per Wikipedia policy. That's not only a good idea, that is the editorial rule here. I just deleted some material from the article that I think runs afoul of the policy and content guidelines applicable to statements about living persons and use of self-published sources (personal websites) and I thought I should explain to everyone else here what I was doing. Oh, and because this issue has come up repeatedly on this article talk page, I should explain that I am entirely free of conflict of interest on this topic, as I am not a former student or colleague of any psychology professor or researcher, living or dead. I am a close personal friend of one psychologist (and thus I voluntarily refrain from editing the Wikipedia article about him) and am a casual acquaintance of many psychologists with whom I have participated in graduate seminar "journal club" discussions for six school years (since before I began editing Wikipedia) as an alumnus of a university with a strong research program in psychology, but I don't have any personal dogs in this fight. I think other Wikipedians participating in this discussion would do well to declare their degree of personal acquaintance with the professors and authors being described or cited in this article--I have none. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:13, 8 July 2015 (UTC)


 * As part of an ongoing project of improving the article, I suggest that we all dig into a variety of the most carefully edited, professionally published recent sources on the life and work of Raymond Cattell and the influence of his ideas on current theory and practice in psychology. I also think it will be helpful to thoroughly cite the late professor Cattell's own writings. I have been gathering sources, and I will post the sources I find with full citations here.










 * Enjoy your reading. See everyone on the wiki as further article edits proceed. Oh, yes, and I still think it would be very helpful for other editors who desire to edit this article to declare their degree of personal association with professor Cattell, in accord with the Conflict of interest behavioral guideline. I have no conflict of interest in editing articles related to Cattell's life and work. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 20:46, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Re: Reliable Sources
To WeijiBaikeBianji,

You state that: "That professor is entitled to express his personal opinions on his personal webpage. But to be cited in Wikipedia, a statement about a living person must be cited to reliable sources, and self-published personal webpages are not reliable sources." The fact is that "that professor" (Cattell's Official Biographer) does not host the official Cattell website. It is hosted and published online by St. Thomas University, Canada. "The Analysis of Accusations" published on that website is absolutely verifiable by reading the original sources as I have now taken the time to do myself and the misrepresentations that have been highlighted are factually correct. St. Thomas University is a reputable institution of higher education and the official Cattell website hosted by St. Thomas University is indeed a "reliable" source. Therefore you are not entitled to remove the statements from the Raymond Cattell article re Cattell's academic colleagues (many of whom are/were distinguished professors in major universities): "Cattell's former colleagues assert that, although some of Cattell's views are indeed controversial, Tucker and Mehler have exaggerated and misrepresented his views by taking quotes out of context, by inserting derogatory words between quotes, and by referring back to outdated writings from almost a century ago.[78]"  Where does integrity and truth sit with Wikipedia??? Gjboyle (talk) 14:31, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the website is a reliable source for the opinion of its own author - it should however be given explicit attribution in the text, if included. Both critiques and defenses of Cattell are relevant for the article and should be included based on reliable sources. Critiques of his critics are not necessarily relevant - and should only be included with attention to BLP policies and to the policy on due weight. We should not give the St. Thomas University, with its close relation to Cattell, John Gillis undue weight and his arguments should not be presented as definitive rebuttals of the many notable critiques. It is a wise suggestion not to include critiques of third persons based on website sources, due to the BLP concerns voiced by WijiBaikeBianji.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:35, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Tucker himself cites Gillis' biography at the St. Thomas university site.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:29, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about? In my readings I cannot see where Cattell had anything to do with St. Thomas University at all. He was a British and American psychologist. He taught at prestigious US universities: Columbia, Clark, Harvard, and Illinois, before going to University of Hawaii in his retirement years. He was never associated with any Canadian universities as far as I can see. Gjboyle (talk) 23:41, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You are right. And Gillis ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:29, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * After carefully and objectively considering this issue, I am in support of both Maunus and WeijiBaikeBianji. I suggest, with all due respect, that you read the various articles that these experienced editors have advised you to read, before making any further edits. Thank you.Baroccas (talk) 05:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I have edited the sentence in question and attributed it directly to Gillis which in my view solves any problem with it.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:29, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your effort Maunus seems like a good solution.Baroccas (talk) 14:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of Conflict of Interest
I just noticed this Conflict of Interest banner up here, and it asks for people to comment. My comment is that I don't quite know why this banner is here. I'm guessing it refers to the recent edits by GJBoyle, given Barocca's criticisms and changes of GJBoyle's contributions. Then I see the administrative notice of Baroccas's alleged hounding of GJBoyle. I will study this further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tai Chi Fan (talk • contribs) 21:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I've read through GJBoyle's edits and saw nothing that seemed biased to me or not supported by published references. In fact, I would say that GJBoyle has made more improvements to this article than anyone else has in years. Can anyone tell me why I should not remove the Conflict of Interest notice? (I can see that someone else has removed it twice and Baroccas has reinserted it.Tai Chi Fan (talk) 01:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I'll give this a try, too, and see if I find anything that looks inappropriate, biased, or unsupported here. I agree that people have been hounding GJBoyle, who has been very helpful, overall, it seems to me. I'm not sure how soon I can get this done, but I will have some time tomorrow to start. Chunda&#39;sLemon (talk) 05:23, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, I have been reading this article and it's references, line-by-line, for the last couple months. I do not see any evidence of bias here. Does anyone know why that banner was put up in the first place? This Boyle person seems to have made some real contributions to the article with access to various information sources, especially European, that no one else has found, and the references all seem to check out. I appreciate GJBoyle's perseverance in improving this article.Chunda&#39;sLemon (talk) 08:30, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that GJBoyle has made great improvements to the article. That COI notice didn't belong here.  And thanks for the improvements you've made. WikiRepairGuy (talk) 03:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)