12

Has Anyone Read "The Bell Curve?"

Posted by awebb 6 years, 11 months ago to Books
50 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

After hearing about students on multiple college campuses protesting Charles Murray for being a racist, I decided I needed to read his book The Bell Curve.

I just finished last night and am hoping there are a few Gulchers who have also read the book as I'd love to have a discussion.

Actually, while a discussion would be great, I'd love to be educated. My background is not in psychology or social science so The Bell Curve is the only book I've read on the origin of IQ.

If you've read The Bell Curve, do you think Murray is accurate in his assertions that:

- IQ is genetic (somewhere between 40 and 80%)
- There is an IQ disparity between people of different races (this is why he's being called a racist)

By the way, shouldn't liberals love Charles Murray? He's basically saying that your IQ is largely genetic which means you can't control it (or at least not the majority of it). This means if you're below average intelligence, it isn't your fault... instead of blaming an "unjust society" for high crime or high unemployment among minority groups, liberals could be blaming genetics using Murray's work as a guideline.


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP

All Comments Hide marked as read Mark all as read

  • Posted by Ben_C 6 years, 11 months ago
    I have not read the book but have some insight into its discussion. I support the premise that there is a genetic tendency for inherited intelligence. Smart people tend to have smart kids and the converse. There are ALWAYS exceptions. For the most part the current "social justice" movement is an effort to camouflage the hypothesis that the people most affected have lower IQ'a than the non-affected aka white middle class. Many years ago I got into a discussion with a close friend who was an elementary school principal in Ann Arbor, MI. She talked about some of the problem kids in her school and what her efforts were to resolve the issues. After several home visits her statement to me : "My God, it IS genetic" has stuck me with all these years. While this is N=1 political correctness will not allow this discussion or any relevant studies to explore this paradigm - sadly.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
      Thanks for weighing in anyway. Your right inline with what Murray demonstrates in the book. Using a variety of studies over the past 40-50 years, he shows that many social ills (ex. illegitimacy, crime, child neglect/abuse, etc.) are highly clustered at the lower end of the cognitive ability distribution (regardless of race). While the media would have you believe that these problems are evenly distributed among all individuals, it simply isn't true.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by Ed75 6 years, 11 months ago
        awebb, Your short summary of Murray is right on. Mr. Shipley is also right on the mark. In our politically correct world it is deemed appropriate to ignore science, in this case genetics, and espouse whatever you "feel" ought to be, and never resort to factual evidence. It took a lot of courage for Charles Murray to publish his book.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by 6 years, 11 months ago
          He published it in 1994... it would be interesting to see an updated version that reflects the past 23 years. My prediction is that the gap between those of the highest levels of cognitive ability and lowest levels has continued to widen in the past 2 decades.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 11 months ago
            We can all guess... I suggest that you consider the Flynn Effect. The general IQ is rising. As CircuitGuy and others pointed out, we have a more intense cognitive load. Just driving a car is a challenge and about 40,000 people per year fail the ultimate test.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 11 months ago
            " My prediction is that the gap between those of the highest levels of cognitive ability and lowest levels has continued to widen in the past 2 decades."
            This would be interesting. They key is the size of the group of cognitively impaired vs gifted rather than a "gap", right? I'm guessing the most intelligent person minus the most impaired person is constant, but we're interested in the the distribution. My wild guess is there are fewer people with severe cognitive impairment b/c modern jobs are more cognitively intensive, so people have an incentive to work on this area. OTOH, maybe technology and higher living standards allow impaired people to live longer and have more kids than they would have in the past. I agree with Ed75 that any study of only 23 years would pick up a lot of statistical noise.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by ewv 6 years, 11 months ago
            He was asked about this at Middlebury college in a private discussion recorded in a bunker -- after the students (and faculty) 'protestors' would not let him speak in the lecture hall.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmvHt...

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6EAS...

            In the private discussion he said that more is known now about different relevant individual genes than was known when he wrote the book in terms of a general genetic inheritance, and said that the additional knowledge would affect how he worded his conclusions but not the essence. He wasn't not 'racist' in any way.

            The private discussion in the bunker was between Charles Murray and a liberal professor who had worked in the Obama administration. She was hospitalized with a concussion after being attacked by some of the 'protestors' for talking to Murray. The chickens have come home to roost. https://www.facebook.com/allison.stan...

            You could watch the recording of the discussion in the bunker -- complete with 'protestors' banging on the doors trying to get in to assault them -- at http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/ar... -- except that the college has now blocked access to that, too.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 11 months ago
        That's all fine, but the fact is that crime statistics are weighted away from the higher income clusters. Cops in the suburbs let families deal with their own problems on theory that "these are good people" whereas cops in the inner city are "cracking down on crime." Child abuse and spousal abuse speak to the issue.

        Also, it matters what the crime is. The robbery of a liquor store in an urban neighborhood is typified: "typical" for the perpetrator's social context. However, when engineers, accountants, and lawyers at General Motors decided that settling claims in court by people who were harmed or killed was cheaper than fixing the production process, that, too, was "typical" crime -- but not called for it was.

        Crimes are the result of wrongful epistemology: blanking out, rather than focusing -- or genetics...
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 11 months ago
        "he shows that many social ills (ex. illegitimacy, crime, child neglect/abuse, etc.) are highly clustered at the lower end of the cognitive ability distribution (regardless of race)."
        All my anecdotal (non-scientific) experience indicates it is a cycle. Low cognitive ability --> bad choices --> poverty --> kids with low cognitive ability, and the cycle continues.

        Among very successful people, there's a higher rate of having a rough childhood. A few people rise out of the cycle of poverty and are actually stronger for it. Or maybe they had stronger genetics that made them rise out of it. My impression, though, is the bad childhood steels them. Most people do not escape the cycle.

        Once you're out of poverty, I suspect those genetic factors begin to predominate.

        "While the media would have you believe that these problems are evenly distributed among all individuals, it simply isn't true."
        I do not understand why the media would lie and say social problems are not correlated with cognitive ability. It would be an old and interesting result if we found an even distribution of social problems.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 6 years, 11 months ago
          ... right, otherwise they would not be "social problems." That said, I do point out that "crime knows no neighborhood." In other words, no place is special for bad (or good) behavior. There is as much crime in the country and suburbs as there is in the city. The specifics may be different. Typically, an engineer living in the suburbs does not rob the neighborhood liquor store. He commits other crimes, generally of greater magnitude.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  

FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo