Talk:The Bell Curve

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I know this is a talk page, but a lot of these comments are very unprofessional. Criticize the books methods but don't use colloquialisms like "piece of crap" or call for the book to be banned. Those reflect personal opinions, not scholarly ones. Aaya35 (talk) 01:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Varied Opinions

I see two main groups of people in this talk page: those who add comments on top and those who add them on bottom. Har har har... but on a slightly more serious note, in the future can we all agree add new sections to the bottom? And I'd also like to echo what Aaya35 said on 25NOV07: Please try to set your emotions and opinions aside when writing on Wikipedia, even on the Talk pages. I don't believe you must have read TBC to have an opinion on the book, but please take extra care when commenting here if that's the case. Aron.Foster 07:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Book is a piece of crap at best

The research used in this book was not sound, valid, or accurate. When measuring race/ intelligence, the researchers DID NOT make an effort to try to study populations from similar economic backgrounds. Comparing poor under staffed, struggling schools with bad curriculums with wealthy, upper-middle class nurturing schools already slants research results. If poor children do not have school supplies or books, then how are they suppose to learn anything. And often times, poor schools (whether they are in predominantly white, black, hispanic or areas populated with non-English speaking immigrants) will have low performance rates because they have unqualified teachers and staff, and NO SCHOOOL books. How can anyone learn to read, to do math, etc. without the necessary materials! The only way to truly measure an ethnic/ racial groups intelligence is to have students ---of the same age, mental faculty (no learning disorders, or everyone has the same learning disabilities), and same opportunistic level (socio economic level--- not one group lives in a ghetto, barrio, or slum and another in the lap of luxury), same culture (if testing English speaking skills- everyone must be able to speak, read and comprehend English on a similar level.) and everyone is given the same teacher and curriculum. Then AND only then could a researcher say that with out a doubt, that the deviation of IQ scores was racially influenced. Then the reader, and researcher could be 99% sure that ethnic background and genetics plays a significant role in human intelligence. Yet, these precautions were NOT taken so this book is simply racist proganda boosted by fellow hatemongers who want to believe that they are inferior simply because of the color of their skin and their ancestral origins. This book stinks of past bigotry laced literature--- such as Linnaus race interpretations.

And on a second note, if race was responsible in deciding intelligence then wouldn't it be possible that because the United States is a melting pot, that many white people in the USA would have exceptionally low intelligence much like the non white people in this study?(Afterall, how many "white" people in the US are 100% white,in a country where African slavery was a major economic staple. I'm sure if at least 50% of white Americans looked back at their family tree, they would find an African ancestor in there somewhere. And if not African, then a Native American ancestor would be in someone's family tree. This is true not just with whites, but any ethnic group in the US who has been living in this country for over 100 years.) Anyhow, would it be accurate to say that a person with a Caucasian/ Northern European phenotype (but has mixed ancestry--- black ancestry, Native American ancestry, etc.) would automatically be dumber than a person who has completely European ancestry? When you think about it, the entire race and intelligence scheme perpetuated by the authors of The Bell Curve seems inaccurate and poorly researched.

In my opinion, this book is nothing more than a desperate attempt made by 2 losers to make themselves feel smarter and superior to other people. I choose to believe that nature and nurture play equal roles in human intelligence. Every ethnic group can have intelligent people and it has nothing to do with whether or not they have European blood, etc. People of African, Asian, American, Pacific Islander, and European descent can all be intelligent, functioning, and educated people if they have good role models, proper education, opportunity, and mental capabilities to learn and retain information.

It really surprises me that in this day and time, that The Bell Curve would have been published and not banned.

But if it was the authors'goals to make themselves out to be racist fools and half baked researchers, then BRAVO!

It is clear that you haven't read the Bell Curve, as you are completely misrepresenting its thesis. For instance, the Bell Curve made absolutely no assertion that blacks are automatically unintelligent. They claimed the opposite, in fact. If you want to read the book, then criticize it based on the facts, go ahead. But polemical, ignorant rants such as yours have no place on Wikipedia. (Serotrance (talk) 01:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC))


  • This entry is very interesting and goes well as a criticism. It is unfortunate, that no one sees that the Bell Curve does NOT give a good outline (or define) what is considered black, white, Asian, etc.

I do wonder about the argument saying whether different ancestral genes (African, Native American genes, etc.) were taken into consideration. I am certain that none of the people under study were 100% white. Maybe the Asian subjects were 100% Asian if they were children of recent immigrants. Since this book claims African genes and other non white genes would lead to lower scores, it should have been researched whether the subjects being studied were completely white. Or completely black for that matter. I do think this book is non scientific, very controversial and a product of the hype machine. If one was going to study populations, then they should have studied populations in Africa versus Northern European populations, versus East Asian populations. These populations would have probably had a 99% to 100% non mixed, homogenous genotype. To study the "melting pot" was a poorly thought out idea. And the above poster was right. I'm sure the argument has been messed with (since when I last read it, it had more valid points but its still good now). My message will probably be deleted, but the book did seem like some piece of eugenics literature (in favor of it of course, to imply genetic superiority and genetic inferiority), and it was like White Man's Burden, to say the least. But I'm sure the researchers and their fans will defend this unscientific, illogical, and unsound piece of literature until they are blue in the face. I support the above poster. And I would call the Bell Curve a PIECE OF UNSCIENTIFIC CRAP! That is my review of the book. And I am certain others DO agree because if they did not, people would not have rejected or protested this book so much. The Bell Curve is as logical as saying the world is flat and the moon is made of cheese.

by the way it is not scholarly to say something is factual if the experiment, or research is not sound. and freedom of speech!

--- Madge

Before I get into discussion on issues brought up by Madge I'd like to say that these posts rubbed me the wrong way. With that said, past experience has proven that's no reason why the discussion can't evolve into civil, thoughtful, and productive debate.

You raise many issues with TBC; for the sake of clarification I'm going to re-list them in my own words; please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.

  • The quality of the primary education facilities was not taken into account
There is only one place in TBC where it directly compares parents' Socio-Economic Status (SES) with intelligence: a table titled "A white mother's IQ dominates the importance of socioeconomic background in determining the child's IQ" (on page 231 of my paperback edition). I think we can all agree that parents' SES is a good predictor of the type of school their children attend, therefore there is a statistical trend for children of higher intelligence to be found in better schools. That is to say, it's not the better schools raising their IQ's but a statistical trend that puts more children with high IQ's into those schools. A lot of these arguments are addressed in Chapter 17: Raising Cognitive Ability.
  • The only way to measure the racial gap in intelligence is if you can hold mental disorders, SES, and school constant
I think we need to step back and agree on how we define intelligence. H&M use 'g', the general intelligence factor, and make many good arguments in favor of the concept. Many criticisms of the book focused on this. I encourage you to read the arguments for and against 'g' here, in the external links, and elsewhere if you haven't already. My summary: There is a strong correlation between scores of many different tests on an individual level. An example to illustrate: the nationwide average score for the SAT is about 1500 and for the ACT 20 (two tests designed to test college aptitude that coincidentally are good predictors of 'g'). However, if you had a large group of students who scored above 2200 on the SAT, the average ACT score of those students would be much higher than 20. Taking it one step further, H&M examined how 'g' related to issues beyond test-taking. Counter to your argument, there are statistically significant trends that can be determined from tests that are not normalized for mental disorders, SES, and school constant.
  • The concept of The American Melting Pot is itself at odds with H&M's conclusions
Many of those issues are being debated in Race and Intelligence, and I believe that based on the authors' definition of race the argument is moot anyways. There is a fallacy of division in your argument, too. Assuming, as the authors do, that the average intelligence of whites is above the average intelligence of blacks, one cannot say that a white individual is more intelligent than a black individual (therefore, one cannot say a white individual is more intelligent than an individual of mixed heritage). H&M make this quite clear multiple times throughout the book.
  • Both nature and nurture affect intelligence, and every race can have intelligent people
In addition to bringing up the fallacy if division, I'd like to quote from TBC page 278:

If the results from the NLSY apply to the total black population as of the 1990s, around 100,000 blacks fall into Class I of our five cognitive classes, with IQs of 125 or higher

  • In modern times we should ban, not publish, books that are racist and poorly researched like The Bell Curve
Hey, you said it. Not me. Have a look at Race and Intelligence: Utility of Research for more discussion.
  • Percentages of racial ancestry should have been included in H&M's analysis
That's an interesting concept for a future study, but that information wasn't available to H&M at the time. Again, I truly believe that the argument is moot with how the authors define race.
  • TBC was written to support the white supremacist movement and/or will be used in support of the white supremacist movement
That's an argument for another page: Race and Intelligence: Utility of Research

I don't intend to demean, but I think your opinion of The Bell Curve would be very different after you read the book. It's not about the racial difference in IQ so much as the importance of IQ in society. Aron.Foster 09:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Race categories not defined

I have one question to ask. Why didn't the researchers specify the racial groups? What was considered "WHite"? because that is cultural.

Some think of white as "people from Europe---Swedish, German, French, and the British Isles. But in other places like New York they consider Italian, Eastern Europeans, Jewish people, Irish and other ethnicities to be white. WHy didn't they define what white was? It's not enough to say light skinned because Jennifer Beal is black but could pass for white. So appearance alone could not have decided who was who?

I know in the Southern states, Italian is considered black, definitely not white. SOme dark skinned Mexicans are called black too. And what was black? Did they test African immigrants (Ethiopians, Somalians, West Africans, and SUb Saharans) versus African Americans (who are of african descent and brownish but not 100% African. Some do have Northern european ancestry, some american indian, and wouldn't that factor in? since murray and his partner were incharge of running things).

And who was Asian? Was it people from India, Japan, CHina, Vietnam? WHo? Which Asian population was under study?

And lastly, Hispanic? "Hispanic"? WHat does that include. Is is Mexicans,Purto Ricans? People from SOuth America? Because if SOuth AMericans were included then that's even more diverse. Brazilians are part black, Spanish, indigenous SOuth AMerican, etc. And Brazilians, and SOuth AMericans have a totally different genetic ancestry then Mexicans! Maybe this just needs clarifying. If anyone can address this, then please do. ANd answer all my questions. But if no one on wikipedia can clear this up, then yeah, the Bell curve does not measure what it alleges to measure. I am qualified.maybe i'll write a book on how the bell curve measures nothing except the authors' opinions because it did not outline the race categories! how can you compare/ contrast races if you don't even out line who is who!

And yeahn there's only one race,the human race. But when i use the word race, I am referring to ethnicities (the 5 major groups- African, Euro, American, Asian, and Aboriginies!) And where were the aborhigines? They are people too and were not included, how can you make a statement regarding ALL MEMBERS OF A PARTICULAR race and not include everyone, or say who is who?

If someone can answer all my stuff then, so be it!

burt'

Burt: lower down on this page is the same question: #Murray's definition of "race"?

If I didn't answer to your satisfaction there, from the introduction to Chapter 13: Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability, page 271 in my paperback:

We frequently use the word ethnic rather than race, because race is such a difficult concept to employ in the American context. What does it mean to be "black" in America, in racial terms, when the word black (or African-American) can be used for people whose ancestry is more European than African? How are we to classify a person whose parents hail from Panama but whose ancestry is predominantly African? Is he Latino? A black? The rule we follow here is to classify people according to the way they classify themselves. The studies of "blacks" or "Latinos" or "Asians" who live in America generally denote people who say they are black, Latino, or Asian—no more, no less.

As for why they didn't include every race from page 275:

In the text we focus on three major racial-ethnic groupings—whites, Ease Asians, and blacks—because they have dominated both the research and contentions regarding intelligence.

So be it. Aron.Foster 09:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misc.

I reworded the introductory paragraph a little. It seemed to be very biased against the book, and having just finished it last week I took away a very different conclusion.

Before: "Its central point is that the intelligent and their children (the "cognitive elite") are affluent due largely to an innate genetic and intellectual superiority to the non-intelligent. Also, the book argued that psychometric intelligence is inversely correlated with human misery. The book had the potential for offending the majority of the U.S. population in that it constitutes a defense of plutocracy and inequality due to race, and it became widely read and debated, especially Chapters 13 and 14, where the authors state that blacks and Hispanics have a lower mean intelligence than whites and Asians due to genetic factors."

That's not the point of the book at all. In fact, the authors argue that the parent/child relationship has less to do with affluence than intelligence. 'Intellectual superiority to the non-intelligent' is circular reasoning. I think 'human misery' is a bad summary of the characteristics they examine, which are listed later in the page. (unemployment, divorce, incarceration, etc.) The authors don't state 'blacks and hispanics have... due to genetic factors', they state that blacks and hispanics have a lower median intelligence, regardless of the genetics. They spend a few paragraphs discussing that whether or not it's genetic, the difference in intelligence still exists. Aron.foster 01:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I moved the information on The Bell Curve Debate to its own page. It is inappropriate to have publication data, a list of authors, and the like for a second book on a page devoted to a different book.

P.S. Please sign your comments. Godfrey Daniel 19:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

This is more an editorial than a conscientious review of the book. The review lacks a balanced review of the critics of the book; far more attention is devoted to taking the book at face value, and detailing proponents of the book's findings.

More experienced wikipedians may have more to say about this, but it seems to me that a book page on wikipedia must take a factual/analytical book at face value for parts of the article, since that is what summarizing and presenting a factual/analytical book is about, i.e. condensing the author's argument(s) into a form accessible to a wikipedia reader. Subsections of the article can then relate (at length, if necessary) criticisms etc. about the book. In a case as infamous as The Bell Curve, it certainly seems appropriate even to mention the controversy/criticisms (briefly!) in the article's introduction, since at this point one cannot separate the book from the controversy (and rightly so; Murray himself in the book asked multiple times to be challenged and welcomed other researchers/authors to comment on his presentation since that is how best to arrive at the truth.)

If the argument a book presents is never even accurately and faithfully paraphrased, then subsequent criticism of the book lacks validity.

DGGenuine 15:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I amended what the write-up said about Sowell's review. Sowell did not "attack" the book, as the write-up claimed. He offered some gentle criticisms but on the whole strongly recommended reading the book. I encourage people to actually read Sowell's review, which begins, "The Bell Curve is a very sober, very thorough, and very honest book." Hardly an "attack"! In fact, the people who he attacks are those who dogmatically criticise the book's findings, and those who dogmatically accept them.

AV./

I'm worried about this sentence in the Summary of Contents: "In the foreword of the book, the authors write that they fear readers will likely just skip to those portions of the book that contain the most reactionary content, rather than reading all of the text, which they feel is necessary to truly understand its message." -- surely no one would describe their own words as "reactionary"? Can someone who owns a copy check the foreword to see what it says?

Marsvin 15:38, 2005 Apr 24 (UTC)

I cannot presently check that quote, Marsvin, but keep in mind that the most recent edition of the book is from 1994, four years after the initial publication (only Charles Murray was still alive at that time.) The 1994 edition contains extra material, such as the foreword, I believe, which can in hindsight take into account the controversy the book created after its initial publication. I hope that helps explain why Murray could understandably use the word "reactionary": Charles Murray is being cognizant of the fact that his book goes against current (circa 1994) dogma that to say something like, "IQ exists and it has a significant inheritable component" is taboo. But I do agree with your concern, and I can't put words into the author's mouth, obviously.

DGGenuine 15:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The phrase "which profoundly influence the social structure and organization of work in modern industrial societies" is a direct quote from a book review. Should I

  1. remove the quoted text
  2. put quotation marks around it
  3. cite the quote's author

Ed Poor

Removed para:

Some people consider the book to be pseudoscience. Other researchers came to their defense, asking that attention be directed at the data, not the authors.

I have put back a mention of psudoscience - do a search on Google for 'bell curve pseudoscience' to find

  1. descriptions of the book as pseudoscience
  2. a defense of the book: "Right or wrong, The Bell Curve is hardly the compendium of neo-nazi pseudoscience some make it out to be" that confirms the fact that some people consider it to be pseudoscience

There is a link in the text, "Authors of The Bell Curve attacked," that links to a cite that does not really attack the authors of the Bell Curve. It is a cite that seems to present s a relatively neutral account of the issues, and itself provides links to a number of essays and links supportive of the Bell Curve. Far from providing balance to this article, this link only strengthens a pro-Bell Curve bias. I have no objection to a link to supporters of the book -- but such a link really should be balanced by a link to more criticisms of the book. This link does not serve that purpose. SR

Interestingly, searching for the text of the document linked as Scientists who agree with the conclusions of The Bell Curve, I find that the linked document has had the words BELL CURVE capitalised throughout to reinforce the idea that the named scientists support the Bell Curve book. The same document is cited on a Neo-Nazi website, www.stormfront.com, but it is notable that even they have not bothered to capitalise the words BELL CURVE. Renamed the link as 'alleged document' until a definitive source can be found.

Anome, I just read the lengthy interview in The Skeptic. It cites the WSJ statement by date and page number: December 13, 1994. "Mainstream Science on Intelligence." P. A-17. Is this sufficient evidence for the reference's authenticity? (Note that I am not asking whether you agree with those scientists or even whether you think those scientists represents the mainstream -- only whether you think that they really put their names to the WSJ statement.) -- Ed Poor, Monday, June 10, 2002

The second linked document Authors of The Bell Cruve attacked links to a page on the same website, which, as SR states, does not match its description, but is instead the author's page on 'Human differences'. I am therfore deleting it. Reason for deletion: false pretences.

-- The Anome

However, a public statement circulated by 52 internationally known scholars was published in The Wall Street Journal, 12/3/94, in support of some of the conclusions in "The Bell Curve".

I'm guessing this is in US date format, making it December 3? At a glance, it says March 12 to me, being British... -- Sam

I found a PDF of the Wall Street Journal page on Linda Gottfredson's web page. I hope that clears up any question of its authenticity.

I edited the discussion about the WSJ ad and the APA report. First, I moved the WSJ discussion before the APA report, since it was published in Dec. 1994 and the APA report was released in August of 1995 (and published in a Journal the following year.)

Second, I changed "are funded by The Pioneer Fund, an avowedly white-supremacist organization." to "which critics dismiss as racist and eugenicist." Since the Pioneer Fund denies it is "white supremacist", you cannot say it is "avowedly" so.


Third, I edited the

A special American Psychological Association task force set up to review the book concluded "The scientific basis of The Bell Curve is fraudulent."[1]

to

A special American Psychological Association task force set up to review the book issued a report assessing the science behind it.

The charactization "The scientific basis of The Bell Curve is fraudulent." is from Fairchild, who led one of four panel discussions at the APA convention, but was not a member of the task force. Neither the task force report nor the press release (both of which I linked to) say anything like that.

KH

I rewrote the summary of the books main points. I changed:

"The authors report that estimates from psychometricians of the heritability of intelligence range from 40% to 80%. They report that there exist significant differences in measured intelligence between various ethnic groups. They argue that a better public understanding of the nature of intelligence and its social correlates is necessary to guide future policy decisions in America.

Herrnstein and Murray set out to prove that American society has become highly meritocratic: that wealth and other social outcomes are being distributed increasingly on the basis of individual talents (especially intelligence) and decreasingly on the basis of social class. Thus they argue, to the extent that intelligence is not amenable to easy environmental control, but rather is substantially heritable, genetic variance is increasingly contributing to social and economic differences among individuals."

I reworded the 2 paragraphs to combine them and added a couple of points I thought should be included, then put it in list form. I changed it to:

"They argue that 1) intelligence exists and is accurately measureable across racial, language, and national boundaries, 2) intelligence is one of -- if not the most -- important correlative factor in economic, social, and success in general in America, and is becoming more important, 3) intelligence is largely to mostly (40% to 80%) genetically heritable, 4) there are racial and ethnic differences in IQ that cannot be sufficiently explained by environmental factors such as nutrition, social policy, or racism, 5) nobody has so far been able to manipulate IQ long term to any significant degree through changes in environmental factors, and in light of their failure such approaches are becoming less promising, and finally, 6) as a country we have been in denial of these facts, and in light of these findings a better public understanding of the nature of intelligence and its social correlates is necessary to guide future policy decisions in America."

I believe this to be a smoother and a bit more complete summary of the authors' main arguments.

Comments? I know this is a controversial subject, so please keep in mind that what I did was not to state things I think are true, but to summarize what the AUTHORS think is true, so please don't attack the truth of the statements, only how accurately I represented the authors' viewpoints.

thanks! JaysonL2 19:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)JaysonL2

JaysonL2:

Your assessment of the authors' argument AS THEY PRESENT IT is completely in agreement with my reading. I just read this book this spring to see what all the controversy is about. I would very much like to see this page organize into a "What the authors say" and "what critics/supporters say" rather than the current jumble of the two. Only by clearly articulating both positions will the truth ever be found; and by confusing critical assessments of the book for the authors' own words, we just set back the process as other have to work to uncover the facts.

To throw out some pointers: (1) The authors explicitly state that they assume that there is such a thing as a general intelligence factor (G, or IQ) for all people and that it is a useful tool for predicting people's general ability to handle problems. This is stated at the beginning of the book and not dealt with for the rest of the book. The authors note alternative views such as Gardner's multiple intelligences, and they inform the reader that in this book they have assumed the truth of IQ. So one way to criticize the Bell Curve is to argue against a single number (i.e. IQ) being a useful indicatator of intelligence and/or performance. (2) The authors' strongest points come from a very careful and thorough statistical analysis of a very good data source, i.e. the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). BUT, their subsequent interpretation of those findings depends upon other research. So although it is a fact based upon very thorough research that American blacks perform less well than whites who perform less well than Asians on IQ tests, the interpretation of why this is depends upon non-NLSY research, and this is one area where the book should be analyzed (either to the strengthening or weakening of the authors' 1990 stance, whatever, just be factual!) (Note also that the authors' claim (on their academic honor, so to speak) that they had conducted a thorough review of the literature and found no significant research that contradicted the research they were using to interpret the results. (I'm not a sociologist, so I'm not really in any position to comment on the accuracy of that claim. Maybe someone knows whether Murray and Herrnstein did a fair search?) So maybe it is the case that CENTURIES of African slaves being denied FAMILY, religion, decency, respect, self-determination, self-organization, sexual independence, etc. etc. while they were enslaved in America and a subsequent century of racism against the color of their skin (Jim Crow laws, post 1963 job discrimination etc.) has caused blacks to underperform on IQ tests (rather than them having genetically low IQ.) I personally bet that that is the case, however is there any objective research on the subject? If the answer is "no", then there needs to be some, because otherwise actual racists (which I sincerely believe Murray and Herrnstein not to be, based upon the book) and those of us with no time to look into the facts will still be confused as to what is correct. There needs to be discussion of the facts and we need to get it out there.

DGGenuine 16:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving in content from Charles Murray

If you look at a recent version of the article on Charles Murray, you'll see that it's mostly a one-sided version of the dispute already going on here. I'm currently trying to move all of its content over to this article, which isn't trivial since most of it is very non-NPOV. I'm just giving people a heads-up to explain the sudden influx of opinions against The Bell Curve that I'll be adding to this article. -- Schaefer 23:33, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disregard that. I hadn't noticed that almost all of the questionable content had already been pasted here verbatim, and could thence be safely deleted from the other article. -- Schaefer 23:48, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

--24.118.77.253 01:29, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)== Shortening the response section == The responses section is getting rather long. While attribution is usually a good thing, I feel what's needed here is a more general overview of the common criticisms against The Bell Curve. Gould is by far the most prominent critic of this book so his views deserve more representation than the others, and more than he has now. Some of the quotes currently in the response section don't actually present or summarize arguments; they just throw around insults. Also, the book Guns, Germs and Steel gets a very lengthy treatment for a book that is not even a direct refutation of The Bell Curve and has an article we can wikilink to if the reader wants more information. These criticisms warrant mention, but not every book written to refute The Bell Curve needs to be quoted, especially since so many of them push the same messages ("IQ is not intelligence", "intelligence is not highly genetic", etc.). -- Schaefer 03:32, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

After reading the APA task force report I don't think that the summary here is accurate. For example, it seems to say that long-term malnutrition can have a major effect, while the summary here says it has little effect. I now it is tedious to read over this academic material, but I think that if we want to keep that section we need to review it. -Willmcw 09:17, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I did not write that malnutrition has little effect, only that there is little evidence to support claims that it affects intelligence, excepting the extreme cases of malnutrition (such as the experiment involving the Guatemalan children they mention). The Dutch study on 19-year-old males showed no evidence for malnutrition's detrimental effect on intelligence. The studies on supplying micro-nutrients to children at a young age are covered in both the APA task report and The Bell Curve, and they both agree that it has not been extensively researched. Frome the task report: "Although these results [regarding micronutrients] are encouraging, there has been no long-term follow-up of such gains." I don't have my copy of The Bell Curve in front of me at the moment, but as far as I can recall they were singing the same tune. I'll add some more information about this later today if I have time. -- Schaefer 12:26, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why is there a link to an article opposing this book which associates Determinism with racism? Determinism is completely unrelated to racism, apart from the way it relates to all behavior and all events in the universe. --24.118.77.253 01:29, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Syntactical problems

I am in the process of trying to make this article read more smoothly. Some of the syntax problems I can easily fix. Other fixes might better be done by the original author of such sentences as:

Psychologist Arthur Jensen has voiced similar complaints.

In context it is not clear whether Jensen's complaints go against Murray or against his detractors. P0M 22:43, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jensen was complaining that Gould misrepresented his (Jensen's) views. I've removed this line entirely, because what Jensen says about Gould doesn't have much to do with The Bell Curve and Jensen's views get fairly presented at the article for Gould's book. -- Schaefer 16:31, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A Signal characteristic of this book.

Nothing in the article makes mention of the very obvious "editorial" tone of the book. If you pick the book up and start reading it in the middle somewhere, as I did, you will very quickly note the constant subtext, which is that "you really ought to understand that blacks are inferior." The writing, in this respect, is very similar to the writing of Richard Nixon after his fall. There ought to be a way of measuring this kind of content. It is not as obvious as the usual propaganda technique, but once you've caught the flavor in one place it's difficult to miss it in some other place. P0M 22:51, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Subtext"? Isn't that a main argument of the book, that Blacks are on average less intelligent than Whites? The article doesn't need to accuse them of subtly, sneakily implying something that they come out and say with numbers and graphs. -- Schaefer 16:24, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

POM's comment is relevant because Murray has defended the book by saying that the only place race is discussed is in Chapter 13. Patrick and other reviewers note that the book is perfused with that discussion. [2]. More broadly, it is relevant because it addresses the question of scientific intent. A strong POV in a book of science is an indication of potential bias. Maybe User:Patrick0Moran can add a sentence or two on the writing style in order to mention the issue without drawing a POV conclusion. Patrick, be bold. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:08, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] Sigh! (dramatically). It's a sacrifice because in reading both Nixon and Murray (in this book at least) I get the feeling my hands used to get after gutting chickens. But I guess I can give it a try. P0M 23:18, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[POM:] If by "middle" you mean the middle of the only two of twenty-two chapters that deal with race. I disagree with your assessment of the "tone", as my interpretation is that the authors went out on a limb to say what others were afraid to BASED UPON CURRENTLY AVAILABLE EVIDENCE WHICH MAY CERTAINLY BE BIASED. The authors position regarding black/white performance can be paraphrased: currently available research indicates that, despite the societal taboo against admitting it, blacks underperform whites, and that this performance depends upon a significantly inheritable trait called IQ, and if we are wrong, please show us how. There are several ways to respond to the authors' position, such as to attack the idea of a general intelligence factor (IQ) or that currently available research in 1990 was all biased and that subsequent studies could show different interpretations. DGGenuine 16:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More smoke than fire

Out of 1620 words, from "summary of contents" to "miscellenqa", only 220 are about what the book says; the rest is criticism of the authors or their work.

If I have to go buy a copy of the book to find out what it really says, then what's the point of having an encyclopedia article on it at all? Uncle Ed July 6, 2005 03:16 (UTC)

Ed, if you can find a good outline of the book, I can fill in details. I read TBC when it first came out and I still have my copy. Check here for online resources. --Rikurzhen July 6, 2005 04:54 (UTC)
I've added to the summary. --Rikurzhen 02:11, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] factual error

Consider these two claims from the very same paragraph:

Charles Murray nor Richard Herrnstein had published any research on the topics discussed in the book in peer-reviewed journals before the publication, ... Although Herrnstein was a prominent psychologist ...

I am not 100% certain, but I am fairly sure that Herrnstein, a prominent psychologist, had written about extensively on many of the topics covered by the book. So I'm going to delete the suspect claim until it can be substantiated. --Rikurzhen 21:07, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

This information is not really accurate and acccurate in the same time.
He first published and "researched" about crimes and human nature in Journal of Criminal Justice, Business Horizons(both in 1986) and Journal of Social and Biological Systems in 1987. The nature of his research really picture what he was after, "proving" Blacks being less intelligent and more criminals, even if that wasn't really what he say, but indirectly implied. A year later, he derived this in the study of intelligence, he published another "peer reviewed abstract, "Design and Evaluation Issues in an Experiment on Teaching Thinking Skills" in American Psychologist. he even participated in the publication of the work Steven's handbook of experimental psychology
But a peer reviewed publication of what is in the work, was never published in a peer reviewed publication, the only real thing about the work in a peer reviewed journal, wasn't even written by him, but by William A. Reese, in the The Social Science Journal and was after the book.
In conclusion, while there are elements of the work in previous peer reviewed publication, the hearth of the study is entirly missing in peer reviewed publications. Fadix 16:13, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The article needs to be completely rewritten.

The Bell Curveis not taken as serious scholarship by anybody reputable. It is a racist tract that has been debunked over and over again, and it uses the same tired nonsense that was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to justify eugenics.

Whoever wrote this piece did it to deceive readers.

The book was a triumph of marketing over scholarship, but it's not considered anything remotely factual.

Not according to the American Psychological Association [3] --Rikurzhen 20:52, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
The APA has not given "The Bell Curve" strong support. If there is some specific part of that webiste you'd like us to see please indicate it. Thanks, -Willmcw 22:26, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Willmwc, you'll find that the site I linked describes an APA report which is described in this article under the section "American Psychological Association task force report". --Rikurzhen 22:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
The APA supported some aspects of The Bell Curve, but not the central thesis, that there is a genetic element to intelligence. -Willmcw 23:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
So long as whomever comes along later knows the original commentor doesn't know what she's saying, I have no desire to keep talking about this article. But... re-read the report, and the paragraph in this article. It is unconversial that that the heritability of IQ is substiantial/high. --Rikurzhen 02:25, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

This one?

  • They stress that there is no definite evidence for the hypothesis that the black-white test score gap is a result of genetic differences between the groups, whereas Herrnstein and Murray argue that such a hypothesis is possible. Regarding genetic explanations for ethnic differences in intelligence, they conclude with the following statement: "At present, this question has no scientific answer."

Yes, I think that is a fair summary. -Willmcw 03:35, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

That's about causal explanations for ethnic differences. that there is a genetic element to intelligence is about individual differences within ethnicities. however, TBC offered no original evidence for either question. --Rikurzhen 05:14, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

"The Bell Curveis not taken as serious scholarship by anybody reputable. It is a racist tract that has been debunked over and over again, and it uses the same tired nonsense that was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to justify eugenics."

If they showed that the White IQ was lower than the Black IQ would you be spewing the same nonsense? Would it be racist? Probably not. 68.47.234.204 16:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC) zeitgeist

The article needs to be rewritten, if only to make it more precise and to get rid of the racist innuendo that surrounds it. One example: the article, as it stands, asserts that according to the APA report "there is no definitive evidence" that whatever gaps in IQ tests are a result of genetic factors (my emphasis). These are weasel words; they not-so-subtly imply that there is some evidence somewhere. Conclusion 6 of the APA report clearly states, regarding the "differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites":"there is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential" which is very different. There are many other such instances. I'll leave the rewrite to somebody else, but I am changing this paragraph.

zeitgeist: no one is denying that there is a difference in the mean black and white IQ scores. The issue is what this meana, and what causes this. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.242.140.166 (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cutting reference to Thomas Sowell's race

"Economist and conservative writer Thomas Sowell, who is black, criticized some aspects of the book ... But he nonetheless concluded that 'The Bell Curve is a very sober, very thorough, and very honest book.'" - Of the ten or twenty commentators mentioned in the article, only Sowell's race was mentioned. I'm therefore cutting this reference in the interest of balance. -- 03 November 2005

I think the relevance of that note pertains to that some criticize genetics and intelligence research (as well as other areas) for being composed of mostly white males, but the note shows stances on this issue don't need to divide along ethnic lines.--Nectar T 01:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
This seems to convey subtle racism - an assumption that black academics are unable to make decisions not based on their race, so that Sowell's conclusions is somehow more valid because unlike all other black people he can see facts beyond race. It strikes me as subtly racist. Guettarda 03:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
That's quite a leap! Something is not NPOV if it endorses a particular POV over another. I doubt anyone believes that Sowell is not black, so by NPOV it is fine. --Rikurzhen 03:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
If this were an article about affirmative action, his race would also be noteworthy -- Sowell is a critic of a.a. The Bell Curve covers similar groud, and so it seems appropriate and important information. --Rikurzhen 03:45, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
NPOV isn't simply about factual accuracy. It's about conveying things neutrally. Is Sowell's comment included because he is notable or because he is black? If it's included because of his notabiity, then his race isn't an issue. If it's included because he's the one token black who afreed with then book, then it shouldn't be there at all. The affirmative action argument is a poor comparison - affirmative action is something designed to specifically address issues related to women and minorities - AFAIK, The Bell Curve is not an explicitly racist tract. The affirmative action argument would only apply if the book was (near) universally accepted as anti-black. While it obviously is, it is not universally accepted as such, and to work under the premise that it is would violate NPOV. So specifing Sowell's race violates NPOV because it attempts to steer the reader's interpretation in a certain direction...to say "if even a black man can support it, it must be true". Guettarda 03:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I see what you're saying, but race and intelligence is as much a race topic as affirmative action and the WP article is categorized accordingly. If it's a common assumption that a topic is against a group, it's probably noteworthy if some defenders of the topic's legitimacy belong to that group.--Nectar T 04:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Is Sowell's comment included because he is notable or because he is black? Excluded middle? The answer is both. If being a member of a race impiles anything about a person's experiences, as it is purported to, then it is salient, as is the fact that Sowell is a heavyweight scholar. --Rikurzhen 04:39, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Should we identify the race of all cited authors? Might be interesting. -Willmcw 01:40, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you going to identify the Jewish authors as such? I don't think you want to -- I wouldn't recommend it. --Rikurzhen 03:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Because? -Willmcw 08:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
From your question, you obviously mean to point out that most of the authors are white, but in fact a number of them are ethnically Jewish (e.g. Gould, Kamin, Diamond, etc.) and disportionately they are critics of the book. So unless it's your aim to build the case of a Jewish bias against the book, I suggest we stick with just mentioning that Sowell's race. --Rikurzhen 08:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that either race is relevant or it isn't. To say that the race of one author is relevant, but the other races of the others are not seems arbitrary. -Willmcw 08:42, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[Restart indentation]

I think the reason for noting if any authors defending the topic's legitimacy are black, but not white, hispanic, or asian, is that it's a common assumption that this topic is against Blacks. Likewise, if an author defending Kevin MacDonald's theories were Jewish, that might be relevant to note.--Nectar T 10:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Scholarly criticism

http://www.sfu.ca/~wwwpsyb/issues/1996/winter/keenan.htm

  • The writing tone of the early chapters is perhaps best described as aggressive. For example, the authors claim early in the second chapter:
    IQ becomes more important as the job gets intellectually tougher. To be able to dig a ditch, you need a strong back, but not necessarily a high IQ score. To be a master carpenter, you need some higher degree of intelligence along with skill with your hands. To be a first- rate lawyer, you had better come from the upper end of the cognitive distribution. The same may be said for a handful of other occupations, such as accountants, engineers and architects, college teachers, dentists and physicians, mathematicians, and scientists (pp. 51).
  • Either by omission, or inclusion, the claims are in the least inflammatory and not backed by research. Consider the following paragraph from the third chapter:
    Almost anyone can become a ditch digger (if he has a strong enough back); anyone can become cabinetmakers (if they have good enough motor skills), but only few people from a fairly narrow range of cognitive ability can become lawyers. If lawyering pays more than cabinet making, what happens as the number of Lawyering jobs increase, as it has in America? (pp. 54).

Professor Keenan describes the book in disparaging terms:

  • aggressive
  • inflammatory
  • not backed by research

So how can we describe this criticism in the article? I don't think we can simply assume Keenan is correct: he seems to be giving his own evaluation or opinion of the book. Should his point of view be balanced somehow by another point of view? Or is the book's POV enough here?

Wikipedia's bar exam article mentions "several complicated essay questions that test knowledge of that state's law", while people in general describe ditch-digging as "mind-numbing". Is this a matter of common sense, or does it require rigorous research?

I'm wondering whether anyone has studied IQ vs. job success in the three kinds of jobs mentioned above: heavy manual labor, skilled labor, and professional work. Are there IQ/success correlates? Or correlates between job satisfaction and a certain range of IQ?

People want a smart lawyer, an experienced carpenter, and a hard-working ditch digger (when hiring one). Is this desire sensible, or just prejudice, or what? The answer to this would make fascinating reading.

What have other professors, scientists, sociologists - or for that matter, politicians and educators - said about job success and intellectual ability?

Are there any claims (besides Keenan's) that ditch-digging not intellectually challenging compared to passing the bar exam? Elabro 19:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

From the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" statement[4]: --Rikurzhen 19:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Practical Importance 1. IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any other single measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes. Its relation to the welfare and performance of individuals is very strong in some arenas in life (education, military training), moderate but robust in others (social competence), and modest but consistent in others (law-abidingness). Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of great practical and social importance. 2. A high IQ is an advantage in life because virtually all activities require some reasoning and decision-making. Conversely, a low IQ is often a disadvantage, especially in disorganized environments. Of course, a high IQ no more guarantees success than a low IQ guarantees failure in life. There are many exceptions, but the odds for success in our society greatly favor individuals with higher IQs. 3. The practical advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life settings become more complex (novel, ambiguous, changing, unpredictable, or multi-faceted). For example, a high IQ is generally necessary to perform well in highly complex or fluid jobs (the professions, management); it is a considerable advantage in moderately complex jobs (crafts, clerical and police work); but it provides less advantage in settings that require only routine decision making or simple problem solving (unskilled work). 4. Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor affecting performance in education, training, and highly complex jobs (no one claims they are), but intelligence is often the most important. When individuals have already been selected for high (or low) intelligence and so do not differ as much in IQ, as in graduate school (or special education), other influences on performance loom larger in comparison. 5. Certain personality traits, special talents, aptitudes, physical capabilities, experience, and the like are important (sometimes essential) for successful performance in many jobs, but they have narrower (or unknown) applicability or "transferability" across tasks and settings compared with general intelligence. Some scholars choose to refer to these other human traits as other "intelligences."

Also, a lengthy review article on the subject PDF. --Rikurzhen 19:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IQ

All those things contribute to a person's IQ?

[edit] Gould

Perhaps the most prominent critic of The Bell Curve was the late Stephen Jay Gould, who in 1996 released a revised and expanded edition of his 1981 work The Mismeasure of Man intended to refute many of The Bell Curve's claims regarding race and intelligence. Specifically, Gould argues that the current evidence showing heritability of IQ does not indicate a genetic origin to group differences in intelligence. Murray claims that Gould misstated his claims; for instance, Gould says Murray boils down intelligence to a single factor while Murray denies making such a claim.

Many of the book's claims? The current article mentions only one "claim", one which author Murray denies making.

Let's revise it along the following lines:

  • Gould attributes to Murray the claim that XYZ.
  • Murray denies saying XYZ.

It would be even more interesting if we could truthfully say:

  • Gould and Murray both agree that the XYZ claim is not supported by the current evidence.
  • Yet Gould, like many other critics of the book, says that Murray argued in favor of XYZ in the book.

Instead of saying that "Gould refutes many claims" of the book, it might be better to say that Gould and Murray were at odds over what the book's position was on 2 points:

  1. whether heritability of IQ indicates a genetic origin to group differences in intelligence.
  2. whether intelligence can be boiled down to a single factor
  • Gould says that Murray made both claims, and that both claims are false.
  • Murray says that the book does not make these claims

Have any of the contributors to this article actually read the book? That would help us to determine whether Murray actually did write what Gould said he wrote. --Uncle Ed 22:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK Gould never gets on target with respect to those two questions, and AFAIK he never revised his criticisms to allow us to make that kind of update. --Rikurzhen 01:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I was going to recommend this book review by Gould as a possible source of enlightenment, but it's actually very confused. Maybe you can make something of it. --Rikurzhen 19:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I read the entire New Yorker book review, as you suggested. I used it to update Stephen Jay Gould and The Mismeasure of Man to reflect the following:
  • Gould disagrees with some outdated ideas about intelligence:
  • Murray (along with modern mainstream science) also disagrees with those outdated ideas.
  • Gould fails to recognize that Murray actually agrees with him that these outdated ideas are incorrect, or unsupported by modern research.
It seems they disagree only on social policy. --Uncle Ed 20:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Murray may not understand he claimed intelligence is based on a single thing, but the theory of intelligence underlying all of the research used to support TBC's argument is. Thus, his comment either reflects ignorance or deceitfulness, but not reality. (JCWhanger)

[edit] Sowell's retort to critics who misquote the book

Black author Thomas Sowell wrote:

The notion that "genes are destiny" is one found among some of the more shrill critics, but not in The Bell Curve itself. [5]

I'm sorry that I've scattered my comments about what Gould thinks the book says into 3 different article-and-talk pairs. Perhaps someone could help me consolidate all this.

And could someone PLEASE find the quote from the book that Gould is referring to, when he claims that the book calls race differences "immutable"? --Uncle Ed 19:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where Gould and Murray actually agree

I'd like to put the following in the article:

Gould and Murray have substantially the same position on the mutability of intelligence.

  • The introduction to The Bell Curve states: "IQ scores are stable, although not perfectly so, over much of a person's life ... For example, some people's scores change a lot . . ." (p. 23).
  • Murray and Herrnstein "... credit the establishment of universal education with having major effects on intelligence (pp. 396-97, 589-592); similarly with adoption at birth (pp. 411-13)."
  • "Limitless possibilities for improving intelligence environmentally wait to be uncovered by science.... In principle, intelligence can be raised environmentally to unknown limits" p. 390). [6]

If Gould wants to claim that the authors of The Bell Curve believe that intelligence is immutable, our Wikipedia article should mention Gould's claim. But it should also include Murray's denial of that claim. Uncle Ed 20:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expert opinion

This article does not accurately represent what the Bell Curve represents for the scientific community, particularly the top psychological scientists in the U.S.: Although it was a best-seller and continues to be a popular book among lay readers, the concensus of the scientific community is that this book's scientific quality is not extraordinary, and further, its basic premises and conclusions are far from being confirmed by empirical data. The APA statement on this book concludes:

"In a field where so many issues are unresolved and so many questions unanswered, the confident tone that has characterized most of the debate on these topics is clearly out of place. The study of intelligence does not need politicized assertions and recriminations; it needs self-restraint, reflection, and a great deal more research."

This statement clearly is not in favor or against the book itself, or its topic, etc. It's a call for research. The Bell Curve's popularity does not come from being popular among scientists, but from the media, non-scientist academics, and a minority of psychologists.

Carlos Calderon

Arizona State University, May 19, 2006

The APA report, the criticisms of the report, and a survey of expert opinion are discussed at Race_and_intelligence#Expert_opinion.--Nectar 05:15, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
(That section should be summarized in this article if it's not already.)--Nectar 05:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

-- Thanks you Carlos, but the various writers of this article keep deleting and altering any content that doesn't support the Bell Curve position. Its a racist article, because it is designed to (subtly, they hope), promote a racist idealogy. It is offensive to a lot of people, because they're taking something noble like science and trying to use this as a tool for discrimination. They will delete your comment soon enough (and mine). I've been monitoring this article and it seems impossible to fight them, because they're so bent on trying to distort the facts and promote their agenda with pseudoscience. An article which sited this wikipedia article, http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/freedom-of-speech-takes-a-fall/2005/08/05/1123125902973.html, actually said that the APA report "supported" the Bell Curve theory, which is of course absurd. These are the kind of misapprensions these authors of this article are trying to create, while trying to appear unbiased at the same time. But thank you for trying, the more people to try to fight this, the better. Most remain silent.

This article's APA report section is appropriate, and the Sydney Morning Herald's interpretation conflicts with your characterization.--Nectar 21:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good article?

This strikes me as very good article, especially given its controversial topic. Any moves to make it a Good Article?--Chris 13:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some things the writers ignore

I admit, I find it possible that there are some differences in terms of cognition, intelligence, personality, and psychology among ethnic groups. But I can confirm for a fact that many of the articles on race and intelligence on wikipedia are HEAVILY biased in favor of people who believe there are differences. It's amazing. It's so ironic, because I've seen numerous people claiming there to be intense jewish bias on wikipedia, yet I see this. Here's several links some people here LOVE to ignore: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-bellcurvescience.htm http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-IQpredicts.htm http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-intervention.htm http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-inferiorIQ.htm http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-IQgapgenetic.htm http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-15point.htm

The first link shows how much junk science was in the bell curve and how the APA completely denounced it. This article intentionally mismanages what the APA says and only picks parts that support and vaguely support a genetic component. Even the human genome project denoucned it, something the article ignores.

The second link shows how IQ is only one of many factors that determine a person's intelligence, and how the authors of The Bell Curve ignored this and made their own narrow interpretations.

The third link shows how social intervention from programs like Head Start DO raise IQ during childhood, how Hernstein and Murray made their own conclusions about intelligence's heritability when it was pure speculation, and how they ignore the possibility of Head Start programs being continuted long and raising intelligence. Not to mention how they ignore a number of other parts.

The fourth link shows how american blacks aren't the first ethnic group to score lowly on IQ tests, how it seems prevalent regardless of race.

The fifth link shows how the authors of The Bell Curve took one flawed study that suggested a genetic component and ignores 6 others that suggested heavy environmental components.

The sixth link shows how the authors intentionally mismanaged data and were extremelly selective about the gap between blacks and whites, where they took scores from tests completelly unrelated to each other and a black average from a decade or more earlier. These articles were written in 95 or 96, and show how it's research goes in accordance with the Flynn Effect and real findings.

I admit though, The Mismeasure of Man was a hysterical, crudely constructed attack on IQ tests and such in general. But the article only takes the worst of the criticism and ignores every thing else. I'm gonna re-write this article, this is amazing.

WOW. I can't believe this. I had read the Sydney Morning Herarld's article before, but I didn't realize it was directly sourcing THIS page. I may be sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but its so obvious that the articles on race and intelligence are manipulated, heavily manipulated, by racists and such. It's blatant, considering how the main article on race and intelligence is built on the crank science of The Pioneer Fund and The Bell Curve. I'll add more later. I can't believe Wikipedia has allowed this to go on for so long.

And another thing- although I myself believe Gould's book to be trash as well, the article on it probably follows the same pattern with this one. I wouldn't be surprised if that article was manipulated the same way this one was.

kangas' site is not a reliable source: it's a partisan self-publication which happens to be demonstrably misreporting. see this analysis by a former WP editor for some of the misreporting. you'll want to consult the original sources directly. see, for example:

--Rikurzhen 00:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't make exscuses. Kangas DIRECTLY lists quotes from the APA Task Force's report while the one here doesn't even do so. I really don't know much about Kangas, but I doubt someone like him would have gone far enough to fabricate quotes. The fact that the quotes he lists driectly contradicts what the original writers included is telling me something. Did you read Kangas' other links? The fact that the original writers of this article also ignored The Human Genome Project's criticisms and focused mostly on Gould's poorly constructed criticisms says alot.

Kangas is an unreliable source. All you have to do is read the originals. I provided the links. It's that simple. --Rikurzhen

I apologize for my outburst. I read the links and I saw how Kangas' article on the scientific basis of The Bell Curve being fradulent was biased as well. But his other links still stand, especially the one that showed how 6 different tests on blacks and whites showed a strong environmental component as well. Not to mention that it's still idiotic how so many people still think blacks score 85 on IQ tests.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060805/fob6.asp

Please remember that the one so many quote is from The Bell Curve, which is already 12 years old, and although Kangas was wrong to quote Halford in saying that army test doesn't correlate with IQ, this link still stands, which comes from actual scientists. But feel free to revert some of my edits, although like I said, many of Kangas' criticisms still stand and The Human Genome Project's criticisms should not be ignored.

Not to mention that despite the Black/White IQ gap diverging, whites made their own gains: http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/dickens/20060619_IQ.pdf

see race and intelligence --Rikurzhen 02:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know, I was only pointing out those links because they were involved here. I find it dubious that the Race and Intelligence article doesn't include some of Kangas' unbiased findings, along with the current black/white IQ gap and The Human Genome Project's research.

flynn's paper: i'm waiting for the publication in october. there's at least one (probably 2) conflicting publications that are coming out on the topic of the size of the BW gap around that time. (what human genome project research? i'm a geneticist, so i'm curious.) --Rikurzhen 02:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
fyi -- the bell curve article has to remain restricted to discussing the book specifically, and general questions about race and intelligence should be described there. --Rikurzhen 02:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

First off, Kangas cites a letter written by the Human Genome Project. Here's the source: 11. Lori B. Andrews, Dorothy Nelkin and endorsing members of the Human Genome Project, "The Bell Curve: A Statement," letter to the editor, Science, January 5, 1996.

The problem is that Kangas doesn't mention what magazine they wrote too, but Kangas didn't fabricate that one, despite picking out a horribly biased member of the APA.

And what are these two conflicting reports? Flynn and Dickens wrote a reply and refutation to a number of criticisms raised, mainly from, you guessed it, Rushton and Jensen: http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/dickens/20060619_response.pdf

Second of all, this is Flynn we're talking about. His results in these things have been verified many times over. No reason to believe his math is flawed in this particular analyses. I apologize for not keeping this disscusion on Race and Intelligence, but the disscusion on that page grows every day, and it's much easier to communicate here.

The existence of the Flynn Effect is well confirmed (it's nature is still unknown), but the magnitude of the BW gap has been the subject of a number of conflicting reports since 2005. It's too early to report on Flynn's latest data -- we don't have Jensen's reply. I'm also told that a paper by yet another author is coming about. Looking more broadly, Conor Dolan (2004, etc) has made a case that only a statistical technique called MGCFA can answer questions about the size and nature of the BW gap, but Flynn does not use that in his latest paper. --Rikurzhen 03:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


I found three papers with similar titles --Rikurzhen 03:24, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

1: Allen A, Anderson B, Andrews L, Beckwith J, Bowman J, Cook-Deegan R, Cox D, Duster T, Eisenberg R, Fine B, Holtzman N, King P, Kitcher P, McInerney J, McKusick V, Mulvihill J, Murray J, Murray R, Murray T, Nelkin D, Rapp R, Saxton M, Wexler N. The Bell Curve: statement by the NIH-DOE Joint Working Group on the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Human Genome Research. Am J Hum Genet. 1996 Aug;59(2):487-8. No abstract available. PMID 8755944

2: NIH-DOE Working Group on Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI). Statement: The Bell Curve. J Med Ethics. 1996 Jun;22(3):190. No abstract available. PMID 11644850

3: Andrews LB, Nelkin D. The bell curve: a statement. Science. 1996 Jan 5;271(5245):13-4. No abstract available. PMID 8539585

Well you're gonna have trouble finding something that was a LETTER to an actual MAGAZINE put online. Once again, I find it inane to believe that Kangas fabricated an entire quote and letter, despite how he quoted someone from the APA that's horrendously biased.

Oops, I didn't even notice where my own link to Science Magazine went. It's an actual magazine, so maybe you should look for a 96 issue or contact someone from The Human Genome Project.

[edit] Needs a revision

Considering how much of the recent criticism revisions come from Kangas' site, I think part of this needs to be revised. But keep the part about the Human Genome Project.

i've reverted the changes. on the "human genome project" section: this represents the opinions of two authors, not the HPG. as such, it is not of importance enough to warrant its own section. more importantly, quoting large blocks of text is not allowed -- its a copyright violation. overall, the responses section is growing quite long, and the addition of Andrews and Nelkin's (1996) opinions would not add much. --Rikurzhen 03:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confirmations of their theories

So far this article had focused more on criticisms than anything else. By adding this section on "Confirmations …" that illustrates how the authors’ theories turned out right in many instances, I hope to improve the overall balance of the article. This section does not represent original research, as it entailed simply observing SAT data readily available on the Internet (with appropriate links embedded in the text) or reference to other researchers also supported with links that make all statements readily verifiable. Sympa 21:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Without passing judgment on the validity of your facts, this section does not belong in this article. The first portion of the section does represent original research, as your observations, synthesis, and analysis of the public SAT data was not previously published. The other sections do not actually support the authors' theories, because SAT math data is not comparable to IQ testing or its analogs. The idea behind a "valid" IQ test is that it measures solely cognitive capacity without relying on prior knowledge or other education. The SAT, both verbal and math, inherently violates that precept, as the verbal section is admittedly culturally biased and the math tests skills and knowledge taught in schools, giving unfair advantage to more privileged students. As such, I am removing this section. Decidedly so
Your claim about this being OR may be right but the claim about IQ not testing learned material is not (e.g., vocabulary is a good measure of g). The SAT-M is a good measure of g[7] according to Frey and Detterman (2004), although not as good as the AFQT used in The Bell Curve. --Rikurzhen 22:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to intrude on this discussion, But a few points 1. Single "g" driven models of intelligence are not the only possible ways of understanding intelligence, and in part drive much of the "heat" in these discussions. 2. Surely much of the criticism of using IQ as a measure of "g" is that it incorporates learned components (i.e not measuring ability, but measuring an outcome of ability and other factors). 3. As I understand the issues, the use of the AFQT is one of the key issues with the whole bell cureve debate 4. There really does need to be a better portrayal of some of the key objections to this study - ie the statistical and methodological issues. The current reading seems to suggest there was little wrong with the design and instruments used, when in fact there are some very significant issues with (e.g.) the treatment of environmental varibles - objections that are not comprehneisvely dealt with by Murray's responses to Heckman and others. I would suggest that an expert presents these issues with much more prominence than the more "racial politics" driven commentray that currently dominates the article. Thanks.57.66.51.74 11:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
You should contribute to the article on these points. P0M 23:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factual Accuracy...only white supremeist sources saying its true

This article is not factually accurate. the scientific and sociological community has vastly condemmed this book. The sources in this article used to validate his findings are white supremist sites. Needs to be completely written. It looks like the KKK or Neo-Nazis took over this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.81.229.178 (talk) 21:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

Everyone is willing to say that blacks are better at sports like basketball, so where is the fairness there?

[edit] Article needs to be either deleted or completely rewritten

Among other problems, the facts are completely wrong, misstated, or in some cases...completely made up. Sources cited are either (1) from White Supremisist sites or other invalid sites or (2) the wrong sources. For example, one portion of this article deals with how the book was WELL-recieved. Its cites a sources that says exactly the opposite. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.81.229.178 (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC).

I agree, but we must fight fire with fire: do you have any sources to counter these ideas? futurebird 04:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You are just offended by the truth, or have you considered the possibility that it might be true. Does that mean that every black has a low IO, NO it does not. In the same way it certainly doesn't that all whites are smart, NO. By the way, if it was white supremacists were behind this, why do East Asians "take the cake" if you will, for highest average IQs.

[edit] Recent WRN edits

  • Please don't remove the disputed tag. There are still significant disputes.
  • The pseudo-science cat is perfectly reasonable, especially given the verifiable citations which make that link for us. (191 hits on google scholar, 29 hits on JSTOR, 547 in SAGE Journals)
  • Just as important to note consensus statements against the controversial claims of the book - not to mention the low response rate for those who did finally sign on with Gottfredson. APA statement hardly supportive of TBC's controversial claims.
  • APA quote refuting any direct evidence for the genetic hypothesis much more significant than originally chosen quote

--JereKrischel 17:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


  • per WP:CAT - categories are exclusive, not inclusive based on NPOV, see my edit summaries. Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category
  • sources?
  • NPOV, sources?

--W.R.N. 17:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  • See scholar.google.com, jstor, and sage journal hits for self-evidence
  • See discussion of consensus claims on other r&i pages
  • Please suggest an alternative to the competing quotes - same criticism valid for your proposal.
--JereKrischel 18:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • self-evident and uncontroversial -- so remove the cat tag
  • no, no, cite them right here and if appropriate add them to the article
  • there's no need to remove the quote, my edit included both of them, but it's the editorializing about "significant" that is an NPOV violation, if someone called it "significant" then it should be attributed and cited, but not editorialized --W.R.N. 18:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • What constitutes as evidence for you as self-evident and uncontroversial? It seems that even proponents of TBC can agree that it is often seen as pseudoscience, to their consternation. Not sure what standard you're asserting here, seems quite self-evident and uncontroversial.
  • Bringing a R&I debate about consensus statements, what they really say, whether they are really consensus, etc, isn't appropriate for a book article. Getting into detail that could overwhelm everything else.
  • I'll adjust "significant" and simply attribute it. Fair compromise.
--JereKrischel 18:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
It has to be non-controverial. It's not non-controverisal. --W.R.N. 22:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with a "disputed" tag. It doesn't mean the book is wrong. It only means that Wikipedia contributors need to fix something in the article. --Uncle Ed 21:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Claim of "scientific consensus" against the book

Cut:

Georgetown University Distinguished Professor of Health Studies Craig T. Ramey said "Within the sophisticated research community, the opinion has been virtually unanimous that The Bell Curve was a primitive, oversimplistic and flawed analysis."

This is not a criticism per se, but a claim of scientific consensus against the book. We need to say where Ramey gets this unanimity from, considering that the article says elsewhere that mainstream psychology supported the book's findings. --Uncle Ed 21:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Mainstream psychology certainly didn’t support the books findings and if this article gives out this impression then there needs to be made a clarification. - anon

[edit] Removed text

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis in their book Schooling in Capitalist America provide one of the more fundamental challanges of Herrnstein's research by citing two graphs showing the relationship between the socio-economic status of parents and children. The first graph plots all persons reagrdless of IQ, while the second graph shows only persons whose IQ is at the national average. The two graphs are vitually identical and appear to indicate that the economic chances of people (at least those with averaege IQ's) are far more a matter of class background than IQ.


I agree that this needs is hard to understand, if someone can post a link to the study, I'd be happy to make and image that would help better explain this idea. futurebird 04:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


............................................................. Reply:

There is no online verson of this book. Basically the argument is that if you take individuals of average IQ (same IQ for all), plotting their "socio-economic decile" (their social background) on the x-axis and their chances of rising to the top 25 percent of society (or 20% - not sure) on the y-axis poor kids will have a very low chance and rich kids will have a very high chance. Now if economic success was primarily a function of IQ, equal IQ would mean equal chances. Well, the exact opposite is the case: if instead of "equally smart" people we plotted all people regardless of IQ we would get a graph that is virtually identical, i.e. showing the same intergenerational inequalities.

So in one graph people all have the same IQ, in the next people have different IQs - the inequalities between them remain basically the same, primarily determined by the social background.

Source: Bowles, Gintis; Schooling in Capitalist America (1976 basic books) http://www.santafe.edu/~bowles/ - see this site for their brief summary "Scooling in Capitalist America Revisited"

In their words: "We used the then available statistical data to demonstrate that the U.S. fell far short of the goal of equal economic opportunity and that genetic inheritance of cognitive skill B as measured on standard tests B explains at most a very small part of the high degree of intergenerational persistence of affluence and poverty within families." ......................

This must be one of the more devastating arguments against the "Bell Curve", I think. Defenders of the Bell Curve and many of its liberal critics simply assume that IQ is a basic determinant of "economic success", but there appears to be little evidence for such an assumption.

Best, M.L.

That is a good point ML. IQ is a determinant of economic sucess to the extent that you probably need to have an IQ above about 70 in order to live independently and make cogent decisions. In other words, if classed as "retarded" it can mean individuals are less like to be "economically successful". I think having an "average IQ" i.e. in the range of 80-110 does not mean that people will be less economically successful than those with above average IQs.

I would argue that those graphs support the findings in TBC. H&M argue that economic success is affected by IQ and parent's Socio-economic status (SES), but that IQ has a greater effect. If that is true, then a graph of parent's SES versus chance of rising to the top 25% SES would show a strong correlation. Obviously, if you examine a group of people with a specific IQ, that group's SES would also be affected by their parent's SES. I believe that their words as quoted above are partly incorrect: "the U.S. [did fall] short of the goal of equal economic opportunity", but based on the graphs cited above they do not prove "cognitive skill... explains at most a very small part... of affluence". Instead of comparing a graph of SES and parent's SES for all IQ's with one of SES and parent's SES for a specific IQ, H&M compare the SES/parent's SES graph with an SES/IQ graph to reach their conclusions.
I think having an "average IQ" i.e. in the range of 80-110 does not mean that people will be less economically successful than those with above average IQs.
Having an average IQ doesn't mean that a person will be less economically successful than a person with an above average IQ. However, a group of people with average intelligence is statistically likely to be less successful than a group of people with above average intelligence. Aron.Foster 00:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mainstream Science on Intelligence

Was not framed as a direct response to the bell curve. Nor did it cover the most controversial aspects of the book. To suggest that those who signed this statement "supported" the book is incorrect.

Fifty-two professors, including researchers in the study of intelligence and related fields, signed a statement titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence"[8] supporting virtually all of the scientific views reported in The Bell Curve. The statement was written by psychometrics researcher Linda Gottfredson and published in The Wall Street Journal in 1994 and later in the journal Intelligence[9]. Some of the signers had previously made similar claims about race and intelligence and had been cited as sources in the book.


futurebird 03:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

FB, you must not have read the statement itself. The opening prologue says that the paper is directly made in response to TBC, and multiple sources confirm that it does in fact corroborate the scientific findings reported in TBC. (Since the publication of "The BELL CURVE," many commentators have offered opinions about human intelligence that misstate current scientific evidence. Some conclusions dismissed in the media as discredited are actually firmly supported.) --W.R.N. 06:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Murray's definition of "race"?

How did Murray define "race?" Strangely, that question doesn't seem to be addressed in this article. Please supply. P0M 02:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If I recall correctly from my reading of the book in 2002, he used the terminology of craniofacial anthropometry, i.e. Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, as his descriptors for the races present in America, although he excludes Hispanics from the white/Caucasoid category on most (? can't remember for sure) things. I'll note that those terms are largely outdated now and I'm surprised in retrospect by his choice to use terms that originate with a very specific science like skull measurement. This doesn't really answer your question as to how Murray/Herrnstein defined and define race, since I'm 99% sure they didn't mean to use terms like Negroid and Mongoloid in their narrow scientific meaning. Rather my 5-year-old impression is that they intended "race" to be self-explanatory, in the vein of saying, "Everyone knows the difference between a white man, black man, and Asian man." Kazandim 13:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid are not outdated terms. Hispanics are not considered Caucasoid because they are a hybrid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.168.246.79 (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Once I find my copy of the book I'll get the exact quote, but H&M use a very simple method of determining someone's race: they use the race with which they identify themselves, i.e. someone's Asian according to H&M if they check the 'Asian' box in the ethnicity section of the exam/study. Aron.Foster 00:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Outstanding problems/issues with the article

I'd like to open an active discussion on the problems present in the article as it now stands. My initial reading tells me what while the article is currently of an acceptable level of quality, it has the following issues:

1. The end of the article focuses on Murray's response to his criticisms, but does so largely by pasting in multiple tables with only a cursory explication of their intent. Would the article be better served by talking about Murray's responses in slightly more detail and eliminating the charts entirely. They seem bulky and out-of-place as part of a subsection of "Responses", while the two charts in the main article are reasonably well-placed.

2. The section about disputes of the book addresses many of the books detractors individually, and also notes the widespread antagonism among those who believe the book had a racist agenda. As noted though, some people feel like the book has a racially-charged undertone throughout all the chapters which is an indication of bias. Is there a review of the book that says this in so many words? Also, a professor from Arizona has expressed on this talk page that the scientific community in the field feels like the book's tone (especially the confident portrayal by the authors of their results) is out of place and that the book was hasty, so to speak, in a field where more research is needed before such conclusions should be safely drawn. Is there a place that validates his claim of scientific consensus on this matter, and can it be cited?

3. Having skimmed the talk page I see that there are ongoing disputes about NPOV (as there will always be given an article that has such controversial subject matter.) Of those, are there still offending sentences? I'd like to be vigilant about searching for such places, because just one can mar an article and it's credibility. What are some things people have noticed? Does the article suffer from a NPOV problem in overall tone or construction? I know that some have claimed an NPOV problem because the majority of the article is devoted to discussing criticism of the book, but I think that the article at the same time portrays the book in a pretty positive tone -- not to mention the fact that a lot of the books "notability" comes from the controversy surrounding it, and therefore from the responses and criticisms to it.

4. I also note that many of the quotes in the section on criticisms of the book lack sources, notably the first few of professors and others who have condemned the book. Also, the initial paragraph of the Responses section discusses the book receiving good reviews by a number of major media outlets. The only source cited, though, is a blistering attack by FAIR (the article is called "Racism Resurgent") on the book and its alledged agenda . I would much rather cite the links to individual articles and link the FAIR article on its own merits, rather than as a summary page for positive articles with which FAIR clearly disagrees.

Any other thoughts on this? I'd like to be able to submit this article (at some point in the medium-distance future) as an excellent article and a candidate for featuring, but I think a lot of work needs to be done yet -- both major hammering and minor tweaking. Kazandim 14:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


Also, a professor from Arizona has expressed on this talk page that the scientific community in the field feels like the book's tone (especially the confident portrayal by the authors of their results) is out of place and that the book was hasty, so to speak, in a field where more research is needed before such conclusions should be safely drawn. Is there a place that validates his claim of scientific consensus on this matter, and can it be cited?
Never read another book where the author had a smug, matter-of-fact tone regarding a controversial issue? I envy you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.168.246.79 (talk) 19:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No, they don't argue for a genetic interpretation of racial gaps.

As has been pointed out before on this thread by Aron.foster, "The authors don't state 'blacks and hispanics have... due to genetic factors', they state that blacks and hispanics have a lower median intelligence, regardless of the genetics." I would like to discourage Wikipedians from editing this article without having read the book, in order to avoid making mistakes like claiming that Herrnstein & Murray argue that racial IQ gaps are genetic. They make no such argument, as anyone who reads chapters 13 and 14 should be able to see. Harkenbane 17:55, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

They admitted that it was a possibility, despite mountains of evidence for other causes. This is why they are often described as racist.: because they still consider it a legitimate open question. futurebird 18:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
There is evidence on both sides of the argument, and the ad hominem argument that "they're racists" should be avoided. Herrnstein and Murray do ask an excellent question when they discuss the genetic issue: Why do we care? It's generally accepted that intelligence is partially heritable and that there is a difference in intelligence between the races. If you found out today that intelligence was/wasn't genetic, what would it change? They claim current programs attempting to improve intelligence have failed. A (lack of) genetic link wouldn't change that. If there is a genetic component, it's not as if humanity will abandon all reason and begin a racist killing spree or the Holocaust anew. Aron.foster 05:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

If there is a genetic component, it's not as if humanity will abandon all reason and begin a racist killing spree or the Holocaust anew.

I don't know about that, considering the fact that arguments about the inferiority of black people were originally made (historically) to justify slavery, unequal treatment and subjugation, it is hard to say how such arguments would be used. In fact, the policy changes they suggest amount to having lower expectations for people based on race and class due to the apparent immutability of their intelligence. futurebird 12:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on what would happen if the genetic component is discovered. I believe in the inherent evilness and idiocy of humanity, and we're going to find an excuse to kill each other regardless. The utility of research on race and intelligence is a continuing debate.
I'm very curious as to how you interpreted their policy recommendations. Ending a welfare state that encourages dysgenics, ending IQ-boosting programs that have proven ineffective, and exploring the problem of intellectual stratification seem rational to me, and far from what you claim of encouraging intellectual and social class disparity. Aron.Foster 00:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

a genetic explanation, or more specifically, the merest hint of a genetic explanation, is a huge boost to the conservative agenda. these people are beyond hope, so the argument goes - thus we need not feel any guilt, or even concern ourselves, with their current social conditions. and the more general thesis, if one takes murray's word, if accepted, allows this attitude to be applied to all disadvantaged areas of society regardless of race. problems of inequality become irrelevant, as does much social welfare. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.242.140.166 (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

It's actually the opposite. If people are genetically destined to be poor, then the government can't use incentives to get them to try harder and be richer, and might as well put them on welfare. The logical flaw in your argument is when you say "these people are beyond hope...thus we need not feel any guilt." This assumes that conservatives are heartless and don't care about people's suffering. A genetic explanation for wealth would have lots of implications, but your scenario isn't one of them. MrVibrating (talk) 02:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I worry a lot about the "everyone's an idiot but me and everyone I know" argument that is so often brought up in debates on the Race/Intelligence issue. Time and again, I am amazed how firmly people believe that only they (and everyone they know) can understand that a genetic component of intelligence wouldn't change anything about how we should treat each other. I believe we've reached a point in society where it's generally accepted that by being human, one is entitled to certain rights. Although there are benefits for doing more than just existing (get a job -> money, don't commit crime -> not being in jail, raise a family -> raise a family), people who argue against the existence of basic human rights are shunned, almost without exception. We're free to argue on the definition of human and on what those rights entail, but I cannot conceive a political or social change that will result in all people below a certain intelligence having their freedom of speech revoked. Ironically, H&M argue your (87.242.140.166's) point. In Chapter 21: The Way We Are Headed, page 509, they predict

  • An increasingly isolated cognitive elite.
  • A merging of the cognitive elite with the affluent.
  • A deteriorating quality of the life for people at the bottom end of the cognitive ability distribution.

I don't agree with them on this point. As an uber-conservative, I feel very little guilt and concern for the poor. As cold as that sounds, please understand that I'm uneased by the thought that I should feel guilt for enjoying the success I earned because there exist those who are less successful. Yep, I had a good upbringing and was blessed with above average smarts, but most of where I am today is because of hard work, and people of any race and any intelligence can do that. Now, I don't want to do away with all government assistance for the disadvantaged; on the contrary, I understand that a high quality of life for the lowest rung of society can produce a better society. I just believe that the raising of that rung should be (strongly) tempered with the knowledge that the higher it is, the stronger its draw. Aron.Foster (talk) 01:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] poor education in US

the education system in the US is pretty poor. I went to high school in the US from Africa. I was an average student in Africa. When I went to the US I had to do tests to see where I should fit in academically and I was two years ahead of the yanks - they thought I was a genius. the US education system seems to have declined over the last century which explains the narrowing of vocab gap (as in the wikipedia article) while the social situation of blacks has improved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.101.122.132 (talk) 04:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quotation re: Herrnstein and Murray opposing welfare

The Policy recommendations section contains the statement that "Herrnstein and Murray recommended the elimination of welfare programs," followed by a quotation from the book that doesn't support that statement. The quotation criticizes policies that subsidize births among poor women ("extensive network of cash and services for low-income women who have babies"), and I don't see anything in the quotation that opposes welfare policies in general. Either the quotation or the introductory sentence needs to be change. Herrnstein and Murray may oppose welfare in general, but the quotation given doesn't support that. MrVibrating 07:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess you could change it to something like "social welfare for pregnant women and women with children." I reverted you because the wording "women who have babies" sounds odd and I just thought you were trolling or something... (sorry)
I see your point so can we compromise and agree on some normal-sounding wording and conveys the idea? futurebird 13:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. First, let me emphasize that my edit regards the relationship between the sentence and the quotation. I'm not taking a stand on what the authors or the book says, just what that particular quotation says, so if they actually oppose welfare in general, feel free to keep that statement followed by a quotation that backs that up.
I think you misread my edit, which said "...encourage poor women to have babies," not "women who have babies" (although the latter phrase appears in the quotation itself). The point I was trying to make is that the quotation shows they oppose policies that encourage poor women to have babies. The quotation doesn't show that they oppose welfare in general for pregant women/women with children, just welfare that encourages them to have babies. The phrase "social welfare for pregnant women and women with children" is closer, but it still conveys too broad a point.
How about "welfare policies that encourage poor women to have babies children"? MrVibrating 18:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to go ahead and change the sentence to what I posted directly above this. It seems the reverts were caused by a misunderstanding. MrVibrating 09:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I just realized that "have babies/children" is ambiguous--it could refer to giving birth or just to having children in their care. I'm going to change it to something unambiguous. MrVibrating 09:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] comment

I want to take this article in good faith, by which I mean, it is an opportunity to explore in a sophisticated way a complex and highly controversial debate. I see that some editors are going to great pains to ensure that the book itself is represented accurately and that is laudible. My concern is this: the criticisms of the book are painted with too broad a set of strokes. I see that the notes and bibliography cite The Bell Curve Wars and The Bell Curve Debate - these are two books that provide a range of critiques of TBC, many of which go beyond "it is racist" or "it is stupid" to more nuanced discussions of how Americans think about race, the intersection of social and life sciences, the intersection of academic research and public policy, and so on. I see this article as an opportunity to explore all these issues. Doing so would mean moving beyond an approach favored by many people - that there are two sides to an issue - to see that there may be hundreds or thousands of sides, and sometimes the most interesting sides are not "it is right" or "it is wrong." It has been a very long time since I looked at those books myself and I do not have them (or cannot find them0 so I am not the right person to start incorporating more material into this article. But i would like to suggest to more active editors (1) to think of other ways to structure this article besides position/criticisms/response to criticisms and (2) to take seriously the claim, made by many defenders of the book when it was first reviewed in the popular press (e.g. NYT), that its value was to "open up debate." My point is that the debate that it opened up - if indeed we are to take this claim seriously, and believe that this was an important debate - must go far beyond "Blacks are/are not less intelligent than Whites" and "IQ is/is not inherited." I am sorry my memory is vague but I do recall that the best essays in The Bell Curve Wars and The Bell Curve Debate raised much more interesting questions. So what if we really were to take seriously the claim that much of the value of the book was to open up this debate? Right now, I am sorry to say, the article does not reflect that. But couldn't it? Slrubenstein | Talk 06:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sampling Bias?

I was listening to a story on the radio the other day and it was mentioned again about the differences between whites, blacks, and asians. It occurs to me that all of this testing has been done in the USA, has it not? Doesn't it stand to reason that Chinese Americans might have vastly different results as a group than would Chinese from the countryside in China? Same might go for Kenyans vs African Americans. I was just wondering if any of the editors of this article were aware of a secondary source of such cricitism on the sampling bias in this book, as I think it would add interest to the article. Sandwich Eater (talk) 19:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The Bell Curve used the American NLSY and AFQT for much of it's analysis, yes. Have a look at Race_and_intelligence#Research for a more worldly perspective. For the race/intelligence issue, I agree how that worldly perspective is required, but this book is written from an American perspective for Americans. As such, I don't think including data on how native Africans (arguably) score lower on intelligence tests than their African-American bretherin will do much to improve the article. Aron.Foster (talk) 00:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Charles Murray's response to the APA report

This would be germane in an article about the APA report, but I say it is WP:UNDUE in an article about the Bell Curve.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The response by one of the authors of The Bell Curve to an investigative report about that book is certainly germane to this article. --Jagz (talk) 14:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
The response is about the APA report, is a criticism of the APA report and thus is not germane to the article on the book itself, no more than comments or criticisms about Murray's political leanings would be germane to this book, although they may add some background info. The info needs to be curtailed somewhere.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion of author's response to investigative report

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Should the following response by one of the authors of The Bell Curve to the APA investigative report about that book be included in this article as shown here [10]?

"Charles Murray responded to the APA report:

Actually, there is no direct evidence at all, just a wide variety of indirect evidence, almost all of which the task force chose to ignore."


[edit] Comments by editors of article

  • Yes, it is reasonable to include the author's response to the APA investigative report in this article. --Jagz (talk) 16:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • No this comment is given without the context of a full analysis of the APA response, and as such, would if it belongs anywhere, belong in the article about the APA response, and not here. Also, citing one of the very few dissenting critics of the APA response adds WP:UNDUE weight to the opinion of a very small minority.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:02, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
There is not now, nor I doubt will ever exist, a permanent article on the APA investigative report, and one reason is because it is covered in this article. The quote is from Charles Murray, one of the two authors of the book. --Jagz (talk) 21:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
[11] There is one such article.--Ramdrake (talk) 02:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments by outsiders

  • No. Reading through the entire section, this quote feels ambiguous and out-of-place for the following reasons
  1. "there is no direct evidence at all" - it is unclear whether this phrase refers to a specific point in the APA report, to the report as a whole, or is meant as a backhanded reference to the original Bell Curve theory.
  2. there is no discussion of the rational the APA task forced used to analyze the work; even the footnote (which lists an assortment of factors the APA supposedly did not consider) does not state why the APA should or shouldn't have considered them.
  3. the sudden comment from murray at the end of a discussion of the APA task force report sounds almost defensive
I will add that I feel this entire section has a pro-Murray/Herrnstein slant, in that it primarily states points of agreement between the Bell Curve and the APA report, and on the single point of difference it cites (the genetic question) it goes out of its way to minimize the APA report's position. is that intentional?--Ludwigs2 (talk) 01:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes. It's useful and fair to include someone's defense against criticism. I think it should clarify that he's talking about race, since it's a little vague. Life.temp (talk) 10:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes. However, you should try to flesh it out to present the context and the subtlety of the issue. ImpIn | (t - c) 10:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] my response to the critisism

I presented a statement of fact, explaining why the change was made. That is hardly OR or editorializing. Quote got it wrong, and made it look dishonest. I could have gone on to explain the errors on the tests. Just another non-expert trying to disprove those who are. Saros136 (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Then, find a cited, reliable source which makes the criticism and the section can go back in. Just applying Wikipedia policy.--Ramdrake (talk) 09:30, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
The explanation is from the Bell Curve. I provided it to clarify things. Saros136 (talk) 07:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Did you actually read it? Then why suppress it?

I'm really disappointed that so many people have offered so many "opinions" about this work and yet seem so unfamiliar with it. Madge for example, makes a highly emotional assertion that the authors compared deprived minorities with advantaged whites in an effort to arrive at some desired conclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Few people really seem to understand WHAT the Bell Curve was about. Race and demographics were peripheral. The "controversy" this work has caused does more to reveal the ossification and fear governing American scholarship than any work of modern times. Few of its critics even appear to have read it. Ironic that a work which did so much to advocate help for the "cognitively disadvantaged" should be so feared and hated by that very group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manxtime (talk • contribs) 06:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

My favorite chapter is the last, A Place for Everyone. It is what the book is all about. Their fear is that the information economy will create a cognitive elite that dominates, and low mental ability is increasingly a handicap. The latter will be left out-unless things change. The book ends ...of all the rewards we can confer on each other, the most precious is a place as a valued fellow citizen. Saros136 (talk) 07:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)