“The comments on value-free psychology are so vague as to have no teeth. I wish Sternberg had delivered on whatever point he was trying to make by pointing to some actual examples of how my values (or their lack) have led me to ‘comparisons that should not be made’ or inferences predicated on untrue assumptions. The ‘value-free’ psychology I would advocate is not free of scientific values, or humanistic moral values, or the value of social responsibility, but I do decry the infestation of psychology, or any science, by political and social ideologies. Ideological contamination of psychological research can only make suspect the claim of psychology to scientific status.”

Source: Differential Psychology: Towards Consensus (1987), p. 448

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Arthur Jensen 11
professor of educational psychology 1923–2012

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