Talk:Richard Herrnstein

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

The matching law has been modified to deal with more cases where it is not a good fit.

130.17.62.242 21:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)florkle 4-24-2007

[edit] Two problems

Two problems:

1. "While the very idea of innate racial differences in intellectual abilities cannot be dismissed out of hand..." At some level this is true, but it's worth noting that a.) the subspecies concept has been largely abandoned and b.) many anthropologists see "race" as a social construct, and find it more appropriate to talk about populations or clines.

2. "..some of the attempted refutations of The Bell Curve were politically motivated..." This sentence doesn't need to be there. One could just as justifiably say that the writing of The Bell Curve was itself politically motivated. This sentence also implies that a refutation cannot be both correct and politically motivated, which isn't true, or that some opponents of The Bell Curve were motivated *entirely* by politics, which can't be proven.

If the some version of the sentence must stay, it would be better to revise it to read, "...some of the attempted refutations of The Bell Curve were *arguably* politically motivated." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.65.134.51 (talk • contribs)

At some level this is true, but it's worth noting that a.) the subspecies concept has been largely abandoned and

Perhaps in PC circles...

Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that race can be determined by blood or hair samples, or even through anthropometric means by the analysis of a skeleton.

many anthropologists see "race" as a social construct, and find it more appropriate to talk about populations or clines.

Indeed, often times it is more appropriate to use such neutral and ambiguous terms (see "political oversensitivity").

This sentence doesn't need to be there. One could just as justifiably say that the writing of The Bell Curve was itself politically motivated.

LOL

Although Stephen J. Gould's "refutation" of The Bell Curve (i.e. "The Mismeasure of Man") received acclaimed reviews in the popular media, the Scientific community did not embrace Gould's work, faulting it for being inherently political in its premise, and rarely scientifically credible.

All this, however, is in striking contrast to the evaluation of his work by fellow-scientists, most of whom regarded him as a lightweight and even a charlatan. Professor Maynard Smith, a leading evolutionary biologist, has written that others in the field “tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as hardly to be worth bothering with.” Speaking for psychologists, Chris Brand has written that Gould’s Mismeasure of Man is “a masterpiece of deception;” and Professor Philippe Rushton has written of Gould’s “career of relentless special pleading.” Even anthropologists Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari, who uncritically accept many of Gould’s distortions, have written that his writings “invariably have a not-so-hidden political agenda.” Professor Steve Jones, an evolutionary biologist who largely agrees with Gould on intelligence and race, has said that “scientifically, he was a failure.”

http://www.amren.com/0207issue/0207issue.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.112.228 (talk • contribs)

Which is an ultra-right wing site and doesn't give a reference for this. What Steve Jones did actually say - and it wasn't about the Bell Curve or race, was ""He gave a salutary kick to the slumbering giant of evolution," says evolutionary biologist Steve Jones, of University College London. "He turned out to be wrong, but he was magnificently wrong."

Jones compares him to the explorer Christopher Columbus: "Columbus set out to find India, but found the New World. If that is failure then give me failure any day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DougWeller (talk • contribs)

By contrast, "The Bell Curve" was laregely considered scientifically valid by adademia, yet was ostricized by society at large. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.112.228 (talk • contribs)

Before taking the bit below too seriously, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Bell_Curve —Preceding unsigned comment added by DougWeller (talk • contribs)

Mainstream Science on Intelligence

This public statement, signed by 52 internationally known scholars, was active on the information highway early in 1995 following several rather heated and negative responses to Herrnstein & Murray's The Bell Curve. It was first published in The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, December 13, 1994. An alphabetical listing of the scholars and their home institutions are given at the end of the statement...

The following professors -- all experts in intelligence and allied fields -- have signed this statement:

Richard D. Arvey, University of Minnesota

Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., University of Minnesota

John B. Carroll, Un. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Raymond B. Cattell, University of Hawaii

David B. Cohen, University of Texas at Austin

Rene V. Dawis, University of Minnesota

Douglas K. Detterman, Case Western Reserve Un.

Marvin Dunnette, University of Minnesota

Hans Eysenck, University of London

Jack Feldman, Georgia Institute of Technology

Edwin A. Fleishman, George Mason University

Grover C. Gilmore, Case Western Reserve University

Robert A. Gordon, Johns Hopkins University

Linda S. Gottfredson, University of Delaware

Robert L. Greene, Case Western Reserve University

Richard J.Haier, University of Callifornia at Irvine

Garrett Hardin, University of California at Berkeley

Robert Hogan, University of Tulsa

Joseph M. Horn, University of Texas at Austin

Lloyd G. Humphreys, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

John E. Hunter, Michigan State University

Seymour W. Itzkoff, Smith College

Douglas N. Jackson, Un. of Western Ontario

James J. Jenkins, University of South Florida

Arthur R. Jensen, University of California at Berkeley

Alan S. Kaufman, University of Alabama

Nadeen L. Kaufman, California School of Professional Psychology at San Diego

Timothy Z. Keith, Alfred University

Nadine Lambert, University of California at Berkeley

John C. Loehlin, University of Texas at Austin

David Lubinski, Iowa State University

David T. Lykken, University of Minnesota

Richard Lynn, University of Ulster at Coleraine

Paul E. Meehl, University of Minnesota

R. Travis Osborne, University of Georgia

Robert Perloff, University of Pittsburgh

Robert Plomin, Institute of Psychiatry, London

Cecil R. Reynolds, Texas A & M University

David C. Rowe, University of Arizona

J. Philippe Rushton, Un. of Western Ontario

Vincent Sarich, University of California at Berkeley

Sandra Scarr, University of Virginia

Frank L. Schmidt, University of Iowa

Lyle F. Schoenfeldt, Texas A & M University

James C. Sharf, George Washington University

Herman Spitz, former director E.R. Johnstone Training and Research Center, Bordentown, N.J.

Julian C. Stanley, Johns Hopkins University

Del Thiessen, University of Texas at Austin

Lee A. Thompson, Case Western Reserve University

Robert M. Thorndike, Western Washington Un.

Philip Anthony Vernon, Un. of Western Ontario

Lee Willerman, University of Texas at Austin

http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wsj_main.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.112.228 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Birth/death

Birth here, death in Murray's obit in National Review, Vol. 46, 10-10-1994, pp 22. Jokestress 08:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solid Research

The Bell Curve was the product of sound thinking and exhaustive research. The fact that many "intellectuals" couldn't understand it or lacked the courage to accept it does nothing to diminish it's contribution. Furthermore, the majority of genuine, able scholars has long since acknowledged the accuracy of its conclusions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manxtime (talk • contribs) 05:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)