How is all this Republican overreach going to play out in November 2014?

[The_Trouvere]

Lots of people on Stormfront say that exact same thing. Funny that.

Again I ask, so what? What have I said that is not true?

Do you genuinely think your responses are good ones, or are you quietly aware that I am winning this exchange without trying hard?

Your insults do not compensate for the obvious fact that the races are not biologically equivalent.

If you went to the Ohio State University on an affirmative action program you did not deserve to get in, and you learned nothing of value. As likely as not you majored in black studies.

 

[KRCummings]

Again I ask, so what? What have I said that is not true?

Do you genuinely think your responses are good ones, or are you quietly aware that I am winning this exchange without trying hard?

Your insults do not compensate for the obvious fact that the races are not biologically equivalent.

If you went to the Ohio State University on an affirmative action program you did not deserve to get in, and you learned nothing of value. As likely as not you majored in black studies.

You and others here seem to have some weird obsession with "winning." Is every conversation you have a contest? That can't be healthy.
But then neither can such overt racism. Hard to believe you've gone this long without a major ass whoopin'.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Hard to believe you've gone this long without a major ass whoopin'.

For what? Telling the truth about you and your race?

Everybody here knows that what I say is true. Some are to polite to agree publicly.

 

[KRCummings]

For what? Telling the truth about you and your race?

Everybody here knows that what I say is true. Some are to polite to agree publicly.

This isn't Stormfront no matter what busybody thinks.

 

[KingOrfeo]

So what? What have I said that is not true?

That "the races are not biologically equivalent," and, worse, that this is an "obvious fact." In fact, there's no proof.

The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century.[1] There is no widely accepted formal definition of either race or intelligence in academia, nor is there agreement on IQ's validity as a gauge of intelligence.[2] Historically, claims that races differed in intelligence were used to justify colonialism, slavery, Social Darwinism, and eugenics. After losing favor in the post-war period, the idea of racial differences in intelligence was revived by Arthur Jensen in 1969 and drew public attention following the publication of The Bell Curve in 1994. Any discussion of a connection between race and intelligence involves studies from multiple disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, biology and sociology.

Differences in mean IQ scores between racial groups in the United States are well-documented and not subject to much dispute. The average IQ scores of Asian Americans are higher than those of White Americans, and the average IQ scores of White Americans are higher than those of African Americans.[3] Both environmental and genetic explanations have been advanced to account for these differences in IQ scores and group differences in educational achievement. Systemically disadvantaged minorities perform worse in education and on intelligence tests. Other environmental arguments include differences in health and nutrition (including lead exposure and iodine deficiency), educational quality, and test bias.

The American Psychological Association has said that while there are differences in average IQ between racial groups, there is no conclusive evidence for either environmental or genetic explanations for those differences.[4][5] The position of the American Anthropological Association is that variation in intelligence cannot be meaningfully explained by dividing a species into biologically defined races.[6] According to a 1996 statement from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, although heredity influences behavior in individuals, it does not affect the ability of a population to function in any social setting, all peoples "possess equal biological ability to assimilate any human culture," and "racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations."[7]

Now, if the superiority/inferiority you are thinking of is not intellectual but moral or emotional or behavioral -- there's even less evidence of that. In fact, there is no evidence of any innate, hereditary psychological differences of any kind between "racial" groups however defined.

See also:

Racialism is sometimes considered synonymous with racism, but often refers to frightening racial ideologies rather than mere run-of-the-mill bigotry. While racial prejudice is irrational, racialism attempts to rationalise it into a coherent doctrine. Examples of racialist governments include Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa. Examples of racialist pressure groups include the Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan.

Some forms of racialism are based on flawed interpretations of Christianity, and others on pseudoscience and flawed interpretations of science (particularly evolutionary biology). Sometimes, the term scientific racism is used to describe the latter. Diagrams showing the skull shapes and measurements of various races were used in racialist justifications for slavery during the 19th century, and appeared again in Nazi propaganda.

Most racialists believe in some sort of hierarchy of races, and since in most cases they are white supremacists, this usually puts the white, Caucasian, or "Aryan"[1] race firmly at the top. While all racialists are certainly racist, not all racists are necessarily racialist, although the more stupid ones may be an easy target for racialist propaganda.

The "original" skin color

Most forms of racialism view whatever their preferred skin color is as the "original" or "natural" skin color while other skin colors are viewed as aberrations, usually due to punishment by god or the result of devolution. Examples include:

* Curse of Ham, in which Noah's curse on Canaan is interpreted to have racial implications in which the cursed people had their skin "blackened."
* A similar concept can be found in the Book of Mormon.[2]
* Melanin theory and related ideas in Afrocentrism, in which black is the default skin color that other races have devolved from.
** A specific brand of this is peddled by groups like the Nation of Islam dials up the crazy to twelve and claims that white people were actually genetically engineered by a mad scientist named Yakub.

Modern anthropologists believe white skin came from black skin as people move to more northerly climates and substituted meat and fish with cereal grains. As people moved to more northerly climates darker skinned people were less able to absorb vitamin D and relied more on diet for this essential nutrient; when agriculture was introduced to northern climates and wheat became the main staple, vitamin D deficiency and related diseases like rickets became a problem. Lighter skinned people could absorb more vitamin D and had an evolutionary advantage.

"Scientific" racism

While racialist ideas had been circulated for countless years by philosophers both natural and folk, what is more commonly known as "scientific racism" or "raciology" didn't come about until the 18th century and only gained more widespread popularity in the mid-19th century. Early attempts at "scientific" definitions of race drew largely on Carl Linnaeus' Systema Naturae (1735), in which he posited five races: the Europeanus, the Africanus, the Americanus, the Asiaticus, and the Monstrosus (that last one was actually made up of mythical creatures).[3] The idea of a Great Chain of Being, with a linear model of creation, also influenced racialist ideologies. One of "scientific" racism's greatest hits in the 19th century was Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853), which was basically a work of racial historical determinism claiming that the "Aryans" were the supreme race and miscegenation led to civilizational decline.[4] Gobineau's writings greatly "inspired" the British Germanophile Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who wrote The Foundations of the 19th Century (1899), a massive anti-Semitic tome ascribing Europe's greatness to the Aryans (or Teutons).[5] This would later be heavily recycled by the Nazis. Incidentally, Chamberlain also rejected evolution and promoted the pseudo-astronomy of Hans Hörbiger. Another influence on the Nazis was Ernst Haeckel, who used Lamarckian views of evolution to defend racialism and nationalism.[6]

Darwin and racialism

Despite what the creationists and Social Darwinists would have you believe, the work of Charles Darwin did not promote racialism (as above, many raciological works were written before Darwin even published his own work and many of them, in fact, denied Darwinian evolution). Darwin, despite making occasional use of racist tropes in common currency at the time in his writing (e.g., use of the term "savages"), was fiercely progressive for his time. On the Origin of Species and the subsequent Descent of Man undermined many of the arguments made by racialists by demonstrating that humans were one species.[7] Darwin specifically argued that there were no clear delineations between the races and that they graduated into each other in Descent of Man. In his personal life, he was also a staunch abolitionist.[8][9]

It was, in fact, Herbert Spencer who coined the term "survival of the fittest" in his book Principles of Biology (notably it was published before On the Origin of Species), and (wrongly) applied evolutionary principles to sociology and politics (although his idea of evolution was closer to Lamarck's than Darwin's.[10] Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, coined the term "eugenics." It's also worth noting that the line of eugenicists spawned by Galton in Britain generally saw social class as more important than race.

Further, there is the persistent meme perpetuated by creationists that Darwin's works were used as justification for the eugenics programs of Nazi Germany. For a full debunking of this, see the article Hitler and evolution.

Racialism and pseudo-psychology in the US

Two of the most well-known proponents of "scientific" racism in the United States were Benjamin Rush and Samuel Cartwright. Rush was, rather interestingly, one of the Founding Fathers and an abolitionist. He believed that blacks suffered from a disease called "negritude," supposedly a form of leprosy, that could be "cured" and would result in turning their skin white. This led to his attempts to develop quack "cures" for "negritude." Cartwright coined two pseudo-psychological diagnoses that rationalized and justified slavery. The first he called "drapetomania," which was allegedly an illness causing slaves to run away from their masters. Conveniently for the slave masters, much of the "treatment" for this "illness" consisted of whipping. The second "diagnosis" was "dysaethesia aethiopica," or laziness. This was, according to Cartwright, also a physical illness that could be diagnosed through the appearance of lesions on the skin. No doubt this had nothing to do with the backbreaking manual labor and frequent whippings and beatings slaves endured.[11]

The head bone's connected to the...bigotry bone?

Racialists were also known for having big skull fetishes. The pseudoscience of phrenology was incorporated into racialist theories during the 19th century. The variant of phrenology known as "craniology" or "craniometry" became popular during this period. Craniology attempted to measure intelligence using the shape and size of the skull as a proxy. Craniology was used as a justification for all sorts of bigotry. Brits, for example, declared the Irish to be inferior to Anglo-Saxons based on skull measurements. It could also be called a form of "scientific" sexism as it was used to "prove" the superiority of men.[12] Surgeon and anthropologist Paul Broca conducted some of the most famous large-scale studies attempting to demonstrate the intellectual superiority of whites and men.[13] Herbert Spencer was also known as a promoter of these ideas in his psychological writings.

Craniology is, of course, made of multiple layers of wrong. In theory, it is already two steps removed from what it's attempting to measure, i.e., skull size (cranial capacity, in technical parlance) is used to approximate brain size which is in turn used to approximate "intelligence." Cranial capacity can, in fact, be used to measure brain size. However, more advanced bigots have generally moved on to direct measurements of brain size (thanks in large part to modern brain scanning technology), which is where the weak link in the chain really is. The problem here is that the size of the brain by itself is not a measure of intelligence. If this idea were taken to its logical conclusion, the world would likely be ruled by elephants or sperm whales. To use an example much more comparable to humans in brain structure, Neanderthals' brains were on average a bit larger than ours.[14] So much for the Neanderthal master race. What is much more important than absolute brain size includes factors such as cortical folding, neuronal organization, dendritic and synaptic connections, etc.[15]

Furthermore, the size and shape of the skull is itself not set in stone. As was demonstrated a hundred years ago by Franz Boas, people who are raised with a higher quality of life tend to have slightly larger and differently-shaped skulls than those who grew up in poverty, with little food and limited access to health care.[16] It was this research, showing that upbringing plays as much a role in skull size and shape as genetics does, that helped to discredit the "science" back in the early 20th century.

For good measure, and to demonstrate how utterly wrong craniological ideas are, assume that there is a single part of the brain responsible for intelligence and that its size magically corresponds exactly to intelligence levels (or, in other words, set the game up in the bigots' favor as much as possible). Because we know about the neuroplasticity of the brain, this still does not prove any kind of biological or genetic determinism tied to the size of this part of the brain as we don't know the direction of causality, i.e. is the person smart because the hypothetical "intelligence cortex" happens to be large or is that part of the brain large because the person happens to have learned well?

Race and intelligence (or, craniology redux)

A handful of researchers including figures such as J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen have continued to argue that certain races are just inherently dumb. While they still like their skull and brain size measurements, their arguments hinge more on invoking genetic determinism as an explanation for racial and ethnic group differences in IQ scores. In addition to the fact that race is incredibly ill-defined itself, IQ has many of its own problems. While there is general agreement on IQ as a useful measure, there is no consensus on a number of related issues, such as how strongly it correlates to general intelligence, how many aspects of intelligence it can measure, what the implications are sociologically speaking, etc.[17] Another problem with using IQ in this manner (besides the obvious) is the Flynn Effect, a phenomenon discovered by the psychologist James Flynn in which there has been a global rise in average IQ scores. In many cases, ethnic minorities have made the most rapid gains.[18][19]

Rushton, however, has put a new spin on the supposed racial hierarchy -- according to him, it should be organized thusly: "Mongoloid" > "Caucasoid" > "Negroid." This led anthropologist Jonathan Marks to remark:

First we must admire the apparent cranial expansion of Asians over the last half-century, when [earlier] researchers consistently reported their having smaller brains than whites. Obviously this implies the possibility of a comparable expansion in blacks. More likely, it implies the possibility of scientists finding just what they expect when the social and political stakes are high.[20]

 

[The_Trouvere]

This isn't Stormfront no matter what busybody thinks.

I joined Stormfront to see how long I would last. They banned me for praising the Jews. On Stormfront one cannot tell the truth about Jews. You think one should not be allowed to tell the truth about blacks.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I joined Stormfront to see how long I would last. They banned me for praising the Jews. On Stormfront one cannot tell the truth about Jews. You think one should not be allowed to tell the truth about blacks.

One may. You do not.

 

[The_Trouvere]

One may. You do not.

What have I said that is not true?

Most blacks are unable to perform and behave as well as most whites. Do I really need to document that assertion?

The Democratic defense of black interests destroyed the New Deal coalition and led to the Republican domination of the United States.

In the two generations since the civil rights legislation was passed blacks have largely substantiated the arguments of those who opposed the legislation before it was passed.

 

[KRCummings]

What have I said that is not true?

Most blacks are unable to perform and behave as well as most whites. Do I really need to document that assertion?

The Democratic defense of black interests destroyed the New Deal coalition and led to the Republican domination of the United States.

In the two generations since the civil rights legislation was passed blacks have largely substantiated the arguments of those who opposed the legislation before it was passed.

Don't mind me, I'm just quoting in case anyone has you on ignore.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Don't mind me, I'm just quoting in case anyone has you on ignore.

Those who have me on ignore don't like being told the truth, but they know what the truth is.

 

[KingOrfeo]

What have I said that is not true?

Most blacks are unable to perform and behave as well as most whites. Do I really need to document that assertion?

Yes, you do, and sufficiently to outweigh the cites in the articles linked in post #55 above.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Yes, you do, and sufficiently to outweigh the cites in the articles linked in post #55 above.

Usually I believe that the consensus of the experts is more likely to be right than wrong. That is one of the reasons I believe in man made global warming.

Unfortunately, it is dangerous to draw attention in a public arena to black deficiencies. As long as that is true the consensus on racial differences is coerced and cannot be trusted.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Usually I believe that the consensus of the experts is more likely to be right than wrong. That is one of the reasons I believe in man made global warming.

Unfortunately, it is dangerous to draw attention in a public arena to black deficiencies. As long as that is true the consensus on racial differences is coerced and cannot be trusted.

So, you not only got nuttin' on your side of the issue, but deny the possibility of reliable cites for the other side.

You lose.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Unfortunately, it is dangerous to draw attention in a public arena to black deficiencies.

How dangerous? Nothing bad happened to Murray or Hernstein. They just made money off their book.

 

[VaticanAssassin]

Where did Dan go?

I thought he was going to teach me about 401k's

 

[The_Trouvere]

How dangerous? Nothing bad happened to Murray or Hernstein. They just made money off their book.

Richard Herrnstein had tenure at Harvard.

In 1971 he had an article published in the Atlantic in which he anticipated arguments presented later with Charles Murray in The Bell Curve.

The Students for a Democratic Society, which as you know was the flag ship organization for the new left, held a convention at Harvard in the following spring with the expressed intention of getting Professor Herrnstein fired.

I don't think he had tenure yet, so this was threatening to his career.

In addition students would disrupt his classes.

At Berkeley Arthur Jensen, who also argued that the races are intrinsically unequal in native intelligence often received death sentences, and require the protection of the police.

Although Jean Philippe Rushton had tenure at the University of Western Ontario, efforts were made to get him fired. What he did was to document important differences between blacks, whites, and East Asians.

James Watson won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for his work discovering the chemical structure of DNA.

One would think Watson would know a thing or two about genetics. Unfortunately, when he said, " "[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really,"

he was forced to step down as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

John Derbyshire was fired from National Review for giving common sense advice on how to avoid being a victim of black crime.

When men this prominent are persecuted for telling the truth it has a chilling effect on what ought to be a candid and public discussion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Richard Herrnstein had tenure at Harvard.

In 1971 he had an article published in the Atlantic in which he anticipated arguments presented later with Charles Murray in The Bell Curve.

The Students for a Democratic Society, which as you know was the flag ship organization for the new left, held a convention at Harvard in the following spring with the expressed intention of getting Professor Herrnstein fired.

I don't think he had tenure yet, so this was threatening to his career.

In addition students would disrupt his classes.

At Berkeley Arthur Jensen, who also argued that the races are intrinsically unequal in native intelligence often received death sentences, and require the protection of the police.

Although Jean Philippe Rushton had tenure at the University of Western Ontario, efforts were made to get him fired. What he did was to document important differences between blacks, whites, and East Asians.

James Watson won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for his work discovering the chemical structure of DNA.

One would think Watson would know a thing or two about genetics. Unfortunately, when he said, " "[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really,"

he was forced to step down as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

John Derbyshire was fired from National Review for giving common sense advice on how to avoid being a victim of black crime.

When men this prominent are persecuted for telling the truth it has a chilling effect on what ought to be a candid and public discussion.

What you illustrate with your examples is how the world is ALWAYS. Folks do not take kindly to new world orders that re-arrange the furniture. Fully 90% of any task involves convincing people what youre doing is not pure craziness.

I tossed my copy of THE BELL CURVE in the garbage when it became obvious that its authors have a low opinion of everyone but Harvard grads. How silly is that! Harvard is Americas lunatic asylum.

 

[Sean]

Is the moron Trousers still touting Charles Murray as if he hasn't been debunked a zillion times by everyone that's looked at the data?

 

[Sean]

BTW, James Watson may have won a Nobel, but everything that's come out of his mouth for the last few years has been fucking insane.

 

[The_Trouvere]

Is the moron Trousers still touting Charles Murray as if he hasn't been debunked a zillion times by everyone that's looked at the data?

How has he ever been debunked? Just because a lot of people shout insults at him does not mean that what he said is not true. The failure of No Child Left Behind gives fresh and very public evidence that what he says is true.

Look at this chart for SAT scores. The gap between whites and blacks has been growing since 1986-87.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171

Where is the evidence that the Negro race is not intrinsically inferior on the average to the white race?

 

[The_Trouvere]

BTW, James Watson may have won a Nobel, but everything that's come out of his mouth for the last few years has been fucking insane.

Just because you don't like it does not mean it is not true.

What he said about African blacks very clearly is true. Just look at the mess they have made of their countries since they became independent.

 

[KingOrfeo]

How has he ever been debunked?

Variously.

Criticisms

The validity of IQ and general intelligence, g

One part of the criticism of The Bell Curve focused on the validity of IQ and g. William J. Matthews and Stephen Jay Gould (1994) listed four basic assumptions of The Bell Curve. According to Gould, if any of these premises are false, then their entire argument disintegrates (Gould, 1994).[11]
1.Intelligence must be reducible to a single number.
2.Intelligence must be capable of rank ordering people in a linear order.
3.Intelligence must be primarily genetically based.
4.Intelligence must be essentially immutable.

Similarly, anthropologist C. Loring Brace in a review wrote that The Bell Curve made six basic assumptions at the beginning of the book. He argued that there are faults in every one of these assumptions.[12]
1.Human Cognitive ability is a single general entity, depictable as a single number.
2.Cognitive ability has a heritability of between 40 and 80 percent and is therefore primarily genetically based.
3.IQ is essentially immutable, fixed over the course of a life span.
4.IQ tests measure how "smart" or "intelligent" people are and are capable of rank ordering people in a linear order.
5.IQ tests can measure this accurately.
6.IQ tests are not biased with regard to race, ethnic group or socioeconomic status.

Relationship between IQ and outcomes

The Nobel Memorial Prize winning economist James Heckman writes that two assumptions made in the book are questionable: that g accounts for correlation across test scores and performance in society, and that g cannot be manipulated. Heckman writes that a reanalysis of the evidence used in The Bell Curve contradicts this story. The factors that explain wages receive different weights than the factors that explain test scores. More than g is required to explain either. Other factors besides g contribute to social performance, and they can be manipulated.[13] Murray argued that this was a straw man and that the book does not argue that g or IQ are totally immutable or the only factors affecting outcomes.[14]

Michael Hout of the University of California, Berkeley, along with five colleagues, recalculated the effect of socioeconomic status, using the same variables as The Bell Curve, but weighting them differently. They found that if IQ scores are corrected, as Herrnstein and Murray did, to eliminate the effect of education, the ability of IQ to predict poverty can be made to look dramatically overstated, by as much as 61 percent for whites and 74 percent for blacks. In other words, according to Hout et al., Herrnstein and Murray's finding, that IQ predicts poverty much better than socioeconomic status does, is substantially a result of the way they handled the statistics.[15]

In August 1995, at the National Bureau of Economic Research economist Sanders Korenman and Harvard University sociologist Christopher Winship found certain errors in Herrnstein's methodology. Korenman and Winship concluded:"... there is evidence of substantial bias due to measurement error in their estimates of the effects of parents' socioeconomic status. In addition, Herrnstein and Murray's measure of parental socioeconomic status (SES) fails to capture the effects of important elements of family background (such as single-parent family structure at age 14). As a result, their analysis gives an exaggerated impression of the importance of IQ relative to parents' SES, and relative to family background more generally. Estimates based on a variety of methods, including analyses of siblings, suggest that parental family background is at least as important, and may be more important than IQ in determining socioeconomic success in adulthood."[16]

One early critical book was The Bell Curve Debate.

In the book Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve, a group of social scientists and statisticians analyzes the genetics-intelligence link, the concept of intelligence, the malleability of intelligence and the effects of education, the relationship between cognitive ability, wages and meritocracy, pathways to racial and ethnic inequalities in health, and the question of public policy. This work argues that much of the public response was polemic, and failed to analyze the details of the science and validity of the statistical arguments underlying the book's conclusions.[17]

William J. Matthews writes that part of The Bell Curve's analysis is based on the AFQT "which is not an IQ test but designed to predict performance of certain criterion variables".[18] Heckman observed that the AFQT was designed only to predict success in military training schools and that most of these tests appear to be achievement tests rather than ability tests, measuring factual knowledge and not pure ability. He continues:

Ironically, the authors delete from their composite AFQT score a timed test of numerical operations because it is not highly correlated with the other tests. Yet it is well known that in the data they use, this subtest is the single best predictor of earnings of all the AFQT test components. The fact that many of the subtests are only weakly correlated with each other, and that the best predictor of earnings is only weakly correlated with their "g-loaded" score, only heightens doubts that a single-ability model is a satisfactory description of human intelligence. It also drives home the point that the "g-loading" so strongly emphasized by Murray and Herrnstein measures only agreement among tests—not predictive power for socioeconomic outcomes. By the same token, one could also argue that the authors have biased their empirical analysis against the conclusions they obtain by disregarding the test with the greatest predictive power.[13][19]

Janet Currie and Duncan Thomas presented evidence suggesting AFQT scores are likely better markers for family background than "intelligence" in a 1999 Study.

Herrnstein and Murray report that conditional on maternal "intelligence" (AFQT scores), child test scores are little affected by variations in socio-economic status. Using the same data, we demonstrate their finding is very fragile.[20]

Charles R. Tittle and Thomas Rotolo found that the more that written, IQ-like examinations are used as screening devices for occupational access, the stronger the relationship between IQ and income. Thus, rather than higher IQ leading to status attainment because it indicates skills needed in a modern society, IQ may reflect the same test-taking abilities used in artificial screening devices by which status groups protect their domains.[21]

Min-Hsiung Huang and Robert M. Hauser write that Herrnstein and Murray provide scant evidence of growth in cognitive sorting. Using data from the General Social Survey, they tested each of these hypotheses using a short verbal ability test which was administered to about 12,500 American adults between 1974 and 1994; the results provided no support for any of the trend hypotheses advanced by Herrnstein and Murray. One chart in The Bell Curve purports to show that people with IQs above 120 have become "rapidly more concentrated" in high-IQ occupations since 1940. But Robert Hauser and his colleague Min-Hsiung Huang retested the data and came up with estimates that fell "well below those of Herrnstein and Murray." They add that the data, properly used, "do not tell us anything except that selected, highly educated occupation groups have grown rapidly since 1940."[22]

In 1972, Noam Chomsky questioned Herrnstein's idea that society was developing towards a meritocracy. Chomsky criticized the assumptions that people only seek occupations based on material gain. He argued that Herrnstein would not want to become a baker or lumberjack even if he could earn more money that way. He also criticized that assumption that such a society would be fair with pay based on value of contributions. He argued that because there are already unjust great inequalities, people will often be paid, not for valuable contributions to society, but to preserve such inequalities.[23]

In 1995, Chomsky directly criticized the book and its assumptions on IQ. He takes issue with the idea that IQ is 60% heritable saying, the "statement is meaningless" since heritability doesn't have to be genetic. He gives the example of women wearing earrings:

To borrow an example from Ned Block, "some years ago when only women wore earrings, the heritability of having an earring was high because differences in whether a person had an earring was due to a chromosomal difference, XX vs. XY." No one has yet suggested that wearing earrings, or ties, is "in our genes," an inescapable fate that environment cannot influence, "dooming the liberal notion."[24]

He goes on to say there is almost no evidence of a genetic link, and greater evidence that environmental issues are what determine IQ differences.

Race and intelligence

See also: History of the race and intelligence controversy

One part of the controversy concerned the parts of the book which dealt with racial group differences on IQ and the consequences of this. The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ differences are genetic, and they did indeed write in chapter 13: "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences." The introduction to the chapter more cautiously states, "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved."

Economist Thomas Sowell criticized the book's conclusions about race and the malleability of IQ, writing:[25]

When European immigrant groups in the United States scored below the national average on mental tests, they scored lowest on the abstract parts of those tests. So did white mountaineer children in the United States tested back in the early 1930s... Strangely, Herrnstein and Murray refer to "folklore" that "Jews and other immigrant groups were thought to be below average in intelligence." It was neither folklore nor anything as subjective as thoughts. It was based on hard data, as hard as any data in The Bell Curve. These groups repeatedly tested below average on the mental tests of the World War I era, both in the army and in civilian life. For Jews, it is clear that later tests showed radically different results—during an era when there was very little intermarriage to change the genetic makeup of American Jews.

Rushton (1997) as well as Cochran et al. (2005) have argued that also the early testing does in fact support a high average Jewish IQ.[26][27]

Columnist Bob Herbert, writing for The New York Times, described the book as "a scabrous piece of racial pornography masquerading as serious scholarship." "Mr. Murray can protest all he wants," wrote Herbert; "his book is just a genteel way of calling somebody a nigger."[28]

One prominent critic of The Bell Curve was the late Stephen Jay Gould, who in 1996 released a revised and expanded edition of his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man intended to more directly refute many of The Bell Curve's claims regarding race and intelligence. Specifically, Gould argued that the then-current evidence showing heritability of IQ did not indicate a genetic origin to group differences in intelligence. This book has in turn been criticized.[29][30]

Melvin Konner, professor of anthropology and associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Emory University, called Bell Curve a "deliberate assault on efforts to improve the school performance of African-Americans":

This book presented strong evidence that genes play a role in intelligence but linked it to the unsupported claim that genes explain the small but consistent black-white difference in IQ. The juxtaposition of good argument with a bad one seemed politically motivated, and persuasive refutations soon appeared. Actually, African-Americans have excelled in virtually every enriched environment they have been placed in, most of which they were previously barred from, and this in only the first decade or two of improved but still not equal opportunity. It is likely that the real curves for the two races will one day be superimposable on each other, but this may require decades of change and different environments for different people. Claims about genetic potential are meaningless except in light of this requirement.[31]

Noam Chomsky in 1972, in an earlier debate with Herrnstein, argued that even if there is a correlation between race and intelligence, this would have no "social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category … In a non-racist society, the category of race would be of no greater significance [than height].[23]

In 1995, Chomsky criticized the book's accusations about race, saying that there is little evidence that IQ is genetic but that it is influenced by the environment. He goes on to criticize the notion that Blacks and people with lower IQs having more children is even a problem and criticized solutions the authors propose to stop it:

There's an easy solution to the problem: simply bring here millions of peasants driven from the countryside in China ...and radically reduce Browne's income...while Black mothers are placed in Manhattan high rises and granted every advantage. Then the Asian influx will raise the IQ level; and as serious inquiry demonstrates, the fertility rate of Blacks is very likely to drop while that of the children of the journalistic elite, Harvard psychology professors, and associates of the American Enterprise Institute will rapidly rise. The problem is solved;[24]

Rutledge M. Dennis suggests that through soundbites of works like Jensen's famous study on the achievement gap, and Herrnstein and Murray's book The Bell Curve, the media "paints a picture of Blacks and other people of color as collective biological illiterates—as not only intellectually unfit but evil and criminal as well," thus providing, he says "the logic and justification for those who would further disenfranchise and exclude racial and ethnic minorities."[32]

Critic Charles Lane pointed out that 17 of the researchers whose work is referenced by the book have also contributed to Mankind Quarterly, a journal of anthropology founded in 1960 in Edinburgh, which has been viewed as supporting the theory of the genetic superiority of the whites.[33]

In his book The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America, Steven Fraser writes that "by scrutinizing the footnotes and bibliography in The Bell Curve, readers can more easily recognize the project for what it is: a chilly synthesis of the work of disreputable race theorists and eccentric eugenicists".[34]

Since the book provided statistical data supporting the assertion that blacks were, on average, less intelligent than whites, some people have feared that The Bell Curve could be used by extremists to justify genocide and hate crimes.[35][36] Much of the work referenced by the Bell Curve was funded by the Pioneer Fund, which aims to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences, and has been accused of promoting scientific racism.[37][38][39]

Evolutionary biologist Joseph L. Graves described The Bell Curve as an example of racist science, containing all the types of errors in the application of scientific method that have characterized the history of scientific racism:
1.claims that are not supported by the data given
2.errors in calculation that invariably support the hypothesis
3.no mention of data that contradicts the hypothesis
4.no mention of theories and data that conflict with core assumptions
5.bold policy recommendations that are consistent with those advocated by racists.[40]

Where is the evidence that the Negro race is not intrinsically inferior on the average to the white race?

Now, now, no switching around the burden of proof.

You fail genetics, biology, sociology, and forensic debate forever.

 

[InJest]

It seems the Republicans are dealing with being shut out of the WH by (1) at the federal level, playing the party-of-no role and (2) meanwhile, in any states they control, barreling forward-and-rightward at full-retard speed with guns blazing to enact probably ALEC-crafted new abortion restrictions, cutbacks in public services and benefits, anti-labor-union legislation, voter-ID laws, anti-gay marriage resolutions, meaningless 10th-Amendment or "nullification" resolutions, etc., etc. North Carolina's legislature in particular appears to have gone completely off the rails and provoked a backlash of "Moral Monday" protests. And what Scott Walker has done in and to Wisconsin these past three years . . .

In policy terms it may be that they are just doing what they believe in. But in electoral terms, this all makes sense only as a grand national Hail-Mary play: Betting that their RW base's positive reaction to all of this will outweigh any anti-Pub backlash at the polls in November 2014. And there will be backlash.

Will they win that bet or lose it, I wonder?

You crack me up! "Overreach" LOL

 

[KingOrfeo]

You crack me up! "Overreach" LOL

This abortion measure in Texas, the one Davis filibustered and which they called another special session to pass, is really not very popular in Texas, all news reports agree. That is overreach. And if they're not overreaching in NC, why the "Moral Monday" protests?

 

[The_Trouvere]

Variously.

Now, now, no switching around the burden of proof.

You fail genetics, biology, sociology, and forensic debate forever.

That's pretty good. I can copy and paste too. I seldom do, however. On the rare occasions that I do I attribute my sources. You did not.

I greatly prefer to compose my own arguments, using the internet only to document factual assertions.

Stephen J. Gould has been discovered to have lied when claiming to disprove research Samuel George Morton did on different brain sizes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_George_Morton

He no longer deserves to be taken seriously as an honest authority on the subject of innate inequality.

Gould used Darwin as a stick to beat Protestant Fundamentalists, whom he disliked. Nevertheless he ignored the Darwinian implications of books like The Bell Curve.

Darwin explicitly denied innate individual and racial equality with statements like: "The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in men of the same race, not to mention the greater differences between the men of distinct races, is so notorious that not a word need here be said."

Intelligence testing was pioneered by the U.S. military during World War I. It has endured and spread because it has passed the test of time. Increasingly employers test prospective applicants.

I have already pointed out that the obvious, graphic, and public failure of No Child Left Behind provides fresh evidence of assertions made in The Bell Curve. I have also pointed out that there are effective sanctions against publicly agreeing with books like The Bell Curve. Until those sanctions are lifted it cannot be said that there is an honest debate on this issue and that the statements of presumed authorities can be trusted.