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(1984). Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 53:286-293

The Mismeasure of Man: By Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D. New York/London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981. 352 pp.

Martin A. Silverman and Ilene Silverman

This is a book that should be read by every psychoanalyst. Since it is not on a directly psychoanalytic topic, however, it is likely to escape the analytic attention it deserves. This is unfortunate, because its contents are startling and important, both in general and because of the attacks that have been leveled against psychoanalytic theory and practice by those who view statistical measurement as the only means of obtaining scientifically credible conclusions.

There is an old saw that there are three kinds of lies—big lies, small lies, and statistics. Stephen Jay Gould, who teaches paleontology and evolutionary biology at Harvard, has addressed himself to the third kind of lie. The book is about the deceptive use of statistics to provide seemingly authoritative, "scientific" justification for the promulgation of views that actually derive from prejudice, cultural bias, and personal interest. It might very well have been subtitled "Honesty and Dishonesty in Science and

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