It’s almost like poverty is a huge enviormental stressor

‘could play music by ear’ and ‘feeble minded’ are not phrases I would ever expect to hear in the same sentence jfc

Being unwanted and kicked to the curb would make it hard to get along with others and to pay attention in class.

She gets taken from her mother and life to be dumped into an institution... them expecting her to be a model student is the moronic thing.

Dorothy L. Sayers was once asked to speak to the Eugenics Socety on the subject of "Should Genius Marry?"  She replied: "As the subject is unlikely to concern any of your members, there would be no point."

One cannot help but wonder if Goddard's bellendedness was an inherited trait or a learned behavior.

Even the woman he studied was able to man a sewing machine and have a productive life.   His claim that less intelligent people's would always be a burden to society was wrong.  Her ability to write short stories shows even better he had not tested her intelligence correctly.  She was creative and intelligent but didn't fit in the standard educational model in which they were schooling her in.

"Deborah" was clearly just a neglected child, possibly with ADHD, who grew up to be extremely skilled apparently. But let's not focus on all of the psychology of neglected children growing into skilled adults. Nah, made-up and contradictory pseudo-science about suppressing "undesirables" is much more profitable.

She reminds me of my mom. My mom is of average intelligence but has spent her entire life being labeled as “dumb” because she’s dyslexic. She recently told me, at age 51, that she believes she has ADHD as well. She isn’t great at math but she is talented with sewing, cake decorating, cooking, and painting. Academics don’t determine intelligence or potential and it breaks my heart to see her and people like her treated as less than.

Might I just say, that Deborah looks delightful, and if she mastered woodworking, sewing and writing short stories, she would probably be overqualified to be a top influencer today.

To be fair to Alfred Binet, his test was meant to identify children likely to encounter learning difficulty, in order to give them the support they needed to keep up with their peers and complete their education without hiccups.
It was never meant to be a tool of exclusion or segregation.

I love how he essentially, albeit unintentionally, prefaces his own book by saying 'This is a book made by idiots, for idiots'

Native American women were tricked into or otherwise fraudulently compelled to undergo sterilization until the mid-70s

So it has nothing to do with the fact that Martin Sr abandoned one woman and child, and not the other? Aaah no, it has absolutely nothing to do with poverty and an unstable home life.

How horrible. I'm amazed anyone could come to the conclusion that the illegitimate child of a tavernmaid and the legitimate children with two parents weren't raised with environmental differences ( nutrition, education, influences and opportunities, for example). I think Dr Goddard was the feeble minded one.
I work caring for people with developmental disabilities...sure, a few of them are here for genetic reasons, but more are here due to some illness or accident sustained in early infancy or childhood.  Sterilzation would not have prevented them .

As someone good at intelligence tests, what they mostly show you is that someone is good at intelligence tests.

6:34 playing music BY EAR at the age of TWELVE is IMPRESSIVE today. i’ve been studying music for 12 years and it still takes me a bit of time to figure out chords and notes by ear !

Poverty.  The hatred for poor people just never goes away, does it?

I tested hundreds of kids working as a Speech Pathologist. I always told parents that the results were how a child did on a given day and can vary. You are always looking for a range of skills and behavior. That range is quite expansive. For a child to qualify for Sp. Ed. help you need to be more than two standard deviations or about 30% below the average. If we would eliminate poverty, identify and monitor families needing additional support and provide universal preschool we could prevent many of the children who are delayed due to lack of stimulation, erratic structure and traumatic home life. By not helping these children, we cause them to struggle unnecessarily as adults.

26:10 who wouldn’t display a bad temper when institutionalised for learning disabilities which either don’t exist or if they do, are mild enough that you could absolutely be independent.