Customer Reviews

The Bell Curve Debate

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While the Bell Curve has stirred up a whirlwind of controversy, the Bell Curve Debate is actually the better of the two books. This book has great rebuttals by the likes Stephen Jay Gould, Howard Gardner, Carl Rowan and many more. It even includes some of the classic papers on these matters such "On Breeding Good Stock" by Karl Pearson. Given a choice between reading the Bell Curve or the Bell Curve Debate, the Bell Curve Debate is the clear choice.

It's hard to imagine a better or more balanced collection of essays on the topic of intelligence testing and _The Bell Curve_. The essays present various sides of the debate, featuring perspectives from psychologists, biologists, historians, and theorists. Especially illuminating were sections dealing with _TBC_'s authors' funding source, a clandestine eugenics think-tank in New York. Also, you can find some good pro-Bell Curve articles here, although the bias certainly seems to be in favour of con- (a relection, I believe, of the academic consensus_.

When I read/skimmed/read about The Bell Curve, which is some sort of book about intelligence, I felt a chill run down my spine (or maybe it was up--hard to tell). What if I was not intelligent? It is a fear shared by many in academia, who have come together to denounce the idea of intelligence in this wonderful book.

It's all well and good for scientists to say that various tests and measurements predict intelligence, but what do economists and journalists have to say? And why don't I ever score "well" on any of these "tests"? At last, The Bell Curve Debate answers this compelling quesion. I don't score well because the tests are wrong!

It turns out that the best way to find out whether someone is intelligent is just to ask him. If he is a university professor who studies dinosaurs, or Carl Rowan, he will definitely say "yes"! This is a valid contribution to my thoughts on intelligence, which I believe you will share. It also helped me stop thinking about why Africa has always been a backwards cesspool. Turns out it's just a hilarious coincidence!

P.S. Despite my praise of the book, I had to give it only two stars because none of the essays are written by Hollywood actors.

It is regrettable to see that this valuable work is now out of print. This book is mandatory reading for anyone desiring to delve deeper into this controversial subject matter. Russell Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman do a splendid job of bringing together authors with widely differing views on the "The Bell Curve." Irving Louis Horowitz, Stephen Jay Gould, and Christopher Hitchens are only among a few of the highly regarding thinkers contributing to this collection. The editors even included a couple of insightful pieces by Walter Lippmann written in 1922 taking to task scientists similar to Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. I particularly recommend the article by Hugh Pearson entitled "Breaking Ranks." Pearson, aptly argues that the anti-intellectualism embraced by many Afro-American males afraid of being perceived as race traitors, does much to explain the low I.Q. scores of this group.

There is, though, one major complaint I have with each and every writer that has tackled "The Bell Curve." Not one that I'm aware of has made reference to the great philosopher, Karl Popper. This fact flabbergasts me to no end. Karl Popper warned that scholars, at best, present tentative indications for their theories which may eventually be proven false. How can we forget that fully credentialled scientists, not perceived crack pots, encouraged the bleeding of patients only a few hundred years ago? Another area of study now discredited is phrenology. All students in their formative years must read the serious scholarship of those bygone days when such views were highly respected. It is, I dare say, a humbling experience. Scientists may earn our respect, but we should never consider them infallible.

The measuring of intelligence is hindered by its intrinsic nebulousness. Thus, the study of this phenomenon is not restricted to members of the hard sciences. The arrogant premise of Logical Positivism is found wanting. Poets, artists, philosophers, and other denizens of the often derided Liberal Arts will forevermore continue to have a seat at the table. Debates over the nature vs. nurture aspects of intelligence are doomed to take place until the end of time. Nobody will ever be able to claim they have exhausted this ultimate conundrum of human existence.

... .

Do you think Africans who have never seen pen and paper would know the answer to, "Who is Catherine the Great?" or maybe "What is the speed of light?", or "Who wrote Faust?", "What's the name of the first chapter of the Bible?" The Weis test used by the authors of the Bell Curve is full of questions like those (the ones I mentioned are from the older version of the test).

You have to be either a pseudo-intellectual or a racist not to realize that IQ and knowledge are two very different things. Yet, the author used a test that has several parts based purely on knowledge, testing no mental complexity at all. Everybody without formal education would score low on the Weis test and so will people with creative, atypical, critical thinking since there are many open ended questions with multiple right answers but only 1-2 options listed in the answer key.

The test is comprised of mostly verbal sections that are read out loud to the test taker. How do you administer a test with a large vocabulary uniformly among different ethnicity? Only somebody who speaks no languages fluently can find that acceptable since half of the comparison will be lost in translation. For example, many "sophisticated" English words are derived from Latin, so native speakers of Romance languages will find the vocabulary section very easy unlike everybody else. That's why Mensa has a non-cultural test with no verbal sections at all.

Oh, by the way, supposedly Jews have 15 pts higher IQ than Europeans. In case you are wondering, one of the authors is Jewish. I don't understand how somebody coming from an ethnicity that has been so humiliated and repressed in the past can write a book that uses scientifically flawed research to discriminate against others based on ethnicity. It's as if the victim has all of a sudden become the perpetrator.

This is a worthwhile collection of old and new articles dealing with the controversy over IQ.Both pro and con groups are well represented in the various selections.The best article is written by S J Gould.
It is interesting that practically none of the selections question the very basic methodological question concerning the data upon which IQ calculations are constructed-standardized,fill in the circle,multiple choice,pattern recognition tests.No one explains why such tests are relevant to the measurement of intelligence.Such tests appear to measure memorization,recall,and effective "drill and kill " tutoring.It would appear that this is what some academics mean by intelligence- how well a test taker can regurgitate past training in taking such tests.