Galton Prediction

¶ … Galton's prediction of what would happen if person took a standardized college exam twice. There are three references used for this paper. Galton created theories on what determined a person's mental capabilities. By examining the man, an idea can be formed of what his predictions would be concerning retaking a standardized college exam. The man, his theories and those who were influenced by him will be explored to warrant this prediction.

What Galton Would Predict Galton believed intelligence is inherited and people are predisposed to only achieving so much on test. Therefore, he would predict a person taking a standardize college entrance exam twice would have similar scores on each test. He would feel that no matter how many times the test was administered, the chance of having any significant improvement on the test would be doubtful due to the person's genetics. The Man and his Theory Sir Francis Galton was an English scientist and cousin of Charles Darwin.

He founded eugenics, which is the "study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding (http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/index.html)." Galton believed that talent is an inherited characteristic (unknown, 2002). Eugenics and Tests Galton devised eugenics and soon had a following in some circles of the scientific community. Fellow eugenicists eventually became interested in psychometrics which is the "psychological theory of mental measurement (Garland, 1996)." Psychometrics soon became used to develop standardized IQ tests.

Psychometricians who formed IQ test for preschoolers and the Army felt genetics determined a person's mental ability, and because of this, certain social and ethnic groups could only achieve what their mental abilities would allow and no more.

Eugenicists looked at the IQ test as an "objective and quantitative tool for measuring innate mental ability (Garland, 1996)." When the tests were administered to new immigrants at Ellis Island, eugencists found that "more than 80% of the Jewish, Hungarian, Polish, Italian and Russian immigrants were mentally defective, or feebleminded (Garland, 1996)." This lead eugenicists to theorize the defects were transmitted through genetics in a manner similar to the way a person's hair and eye color are determined.

In Society The Galton Society began monthly meetings in 1918 in New York to study new information on eugenics and similar ideas, and by 1923, the were more than 1,200 members in 29 states. One of the most famous members was J.H. Kellogg, the cereal giant from Michigan, who founded the Race Betterment Foundation. The.