THE RAISING OF INTELLIGENCE: A Selected History of Attempts to Raise Retarded Intelligence Herman H. Spitz Edward R. Johnstone Training and Research Center, Borden town, NJ With a chapter by Ellis B. Page Duke University LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 1986 Hillsdale, New Jersey London Copyright ° 1986 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 365 Broadway Hillsdale, New Jersey 07642 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spitz, Herman H. The raising of intelligence. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Intellect —History. 2. Mentally handicapped- intellectual levels. 3. Mentally handicapped —Education. 4. Nature and nuture. I. Title. BF431.S637 1986 616.85'8806 86-11681 ISBN 0-89859-836-2 Printed in the United States of America 10 98765432 1 For Ruth, Debra, and Kenneth Acknowledgment I am grateful to Mrs. Patricia Conlow, who not only typed and retyped this manuscript, but did so graciously, unruffled by my many idiosyncracies. Old Man. Alack, sir, he is mad. Gloucester. ’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind. W. Shakespeare King Lear-Act IV, Scene 1 Introduction In 1962 a little-known chemist, Nikolai Fedyakin, working in a small techno­ logical institute in an isolated region of Russia, produced from ordinary water a fluid that had some extraordinary properties (my discussion of this incident is drawn from Franks’s [1981] fascinating book, Poly water). While studying liquids sealed in very narrow glass capillaries, Fedyakin discovered that after a few days a small amount of liquid separated from the rest of the liquid, and over a period of about a month this secondary column of liquid grew to about 1.5 mm in length. This new liquid had a higher density than the presumably pure liquid from which it had spontaneously separated, and it had other remarkable properties as well. After Fedyakin had published his finding we hear little more about him. A well-known Russian scientist, Boris V. Deryagin, took over Fedyakin’s work and published a number of additional experiments describing this remarkable new anomalous water, or polywater (a polymerized form of water), which was said to be a new and more stable form of water; for even when removed from the capillary tube, polywater continued to exhibit its peculiar properties and somehow must have retained its unusual molecular structure. It did not boil at 100°C, solidification did not occur until -30°C, and the solid that did form was not ice. One possibility that was repeatedly raised was that impurities—from the glass capillary, for example—modified the composition of the water and consequently this was not a new form of water at all. But Deryagin and others were extremely careful and dismissed the idea that the results were due to impurities. From 1962 to 1966 Deryagin and his colleagues published 10 papers, refining their methods and using quartz capillary tubes to assure the water’s purity. 1 2 1. INTRODUCTION When in 1966 Deryagin presented his findings to international societies, scientists outside the Soviet Union began to show greater interest, and additional mysterious results were reported. One scientist called the find­ ings the most important physical-chemical discovery of the century, and many agreed. A letter published in the prestigious British Journal Nature helped to spread the word, and by 1968 the mass media had been infected, first in Germany, then in Great Britain and the United States. The structure of this new form of water was heatedly debated. Confirming experiments indicated that the spectra of anomalous water were different than those of ordinary water. The U.S. Office of Naval Research, sensing an important area of research (think of the military applications), contrib­ uted financial support, and many scientists shifted their line of research in order to study polywater, frequently with support from various federal granting agencies. In 1969, a publication in Science, the American equiva­ lent of Nature, confirmed the existence of this newly found substance, and spectroscopic analysis gave no evidence for any contamination from the capillary tubes or by oils or greases. Heated debate and increased activity ensued, and the Western press hastened to claim American priority for this revolutionary discovery. A warning was published in Nature that polywater was extremely dangerous because once it is dispersed in the soil it will be too late; the more stable poly water will grow at the expense of ordinary water. In time, all water will be converted into polywater! This in spite of the fact that by 1969 a great deal of effort had managed to produce only a few millionths of a gram. Nevertheless, the popular press underscored the dangers, and entire scientific meetings were given over to the subJect. Elaborate theories were introduced to explain the structure of polywater. The publication list was substantial. From 1962 to 1974, in the United States alone there were 115 research publications and 112 popular articles, comments, and reviews, and there were 285 polywater-related publications in other countries. The peak years were 1969 to 1972, with a precipitous decline after that. Inevitably, the truth won out. In late 1969, in an article in Nature, the suggestion was again raised that polywater was nothing more than water contaminated by soluble components of the glass or quartz capillaries despite the great care taken to keep the water pure. Because there were never more than a few micrograms of polywater available it was very difficult to analyze, but a 1970 paper in Science reported that polywater contained a number of inorganic substances, including 20- to 60% sodium, as well as potassium, chloride, sulfate, and traces of other elements. An international conference on polywater was called in 1970, for by now almost every issue of Science and Nature contained something about polywater. At the conference, Deryagin maintained that careless work accounted for the presence of contaminants, but many scientists who had INTRODUCTION 3 defended the existence of polywater began to recant. In 1973, Deryagin finally agreed that the strange properties of anomalous water were due to impurities rather than to polymeric water molecules. This curious episode encapsulates a number of interesting features of the scientific enterprise. For one thing, the logical impossibility of polywater was periodically pointed out by skeptics, but this did not deter workers from devoting a great deal of time to the subJect. And why should it have? How often in the history of science has logic failed? Who wants to join the company of embarrassed scoffers of the past? What is logical about the earth being a round, rotating sphere revolving around the sun, or about humans evolving from another species, or about light being composed of many different colors, to mention Just a few laughable theories? On the other hand, truth will usually find its way if the scientific method is followed, and this too is illustrated by the polywater episode. There is in science a self-correcting mechanism consisting of constant probing and questioning and, where possible, the repetition of experiments. Invalidat­ ing the existence of polywater took no more than a decade because the battlefield was a confined one, the questions asked were precise and answerable, and the measuring instrument relatively refined. Furthermore, the obJect of study—the variable being manipulated—was quite specific. Consequently, a resolution was inevitable. As we move away from these conditions the possibility of accurate, repeatable measurement quickly diminishes and it becomes immensely more difficult to verify or invalidate the many claims that are made. Consider the situation in the social sciences, and particularly in psychology. The obJect of study is hugely complex, the farthest thing from water in a test tube. Even within the field of psychology there is a range of preciseness. The measurement of some sensory processes by psychophysical methods is fairly accurate and has produced some lawful formulations. But as we go from very basic sensory measurements to more diffuse concepts such as learning and thinking, the precision and reliability of the measurement declines. Placed in this context, it must be obvious that the scientific investigation of human intelligence is filled with hazards. The definition of intelligence itself is a source of debate. Many people are dissatisfied with intelligence tests, raising in particular the question of bias. These problems do not, and should not, deter us from studying intelligence, for—despite disagreements on its definition—no one can doubt that people differ in the degree to which they exhibit intelligent behavior. In fact there is a general consensus among experts, which is similar to the consensus among laypersons, about what types of behavior are characteristic of various kinds of intelligence (Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, & Bernstein, 1981). Whatever intelligence is, and regardless of the degree to which intelli­ gence tests measure it, the history of psychology is peppered with attempts 4 1. INTRODUCTION to improve it. The bulk of these attempts have been made in the field of mental retardation, for mental retardation is by definition a syndrome characterized by low intelligence and poor adaptability. Mental retardation has been defined by the American Association on Mental Deficiency as “Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing con­ currently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and manifested during the developmental period” (Grossman, 1983, p. 1). On the Wechsler Intelli­ gence Scales mild retardation is encompassed by IQs of 55 to 69, and on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale by IQs of 52 to 67. Educators use a slightly different IQ range and terminology, in which individuals having IQs of from 50 to 75 are referred to as “educable mentally retarded” (Taylor, 1980).