Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined [Paperback]

Prof. Joe L. Kincheloe (Editor), Aaron Gresson (Editor), Shirley R. Steinberg (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312172281 | ISBN-13: 978-0312172282 | Publication Date: March 15, 1997

In Measures Lies, the first thoughtful and reasoned reading of The Bell Curve, the editors have assembled a group of the most well-respected educators and social theorists writing today to provide responses to Hernstein and Murray's racial and intellectual agenda.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this volume, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, authors of the notorious The Bell Curve (Free Pr., 1994), are once again accused of specious methodology in their rationalization of a ("hoodoo") social science position that claims to validate an immutable genetic connection among low achievement, poverty, violent crime affecting an entire class of people (primarily African American), and I.Q. scores. The 44 contributors span a broad range of affiliation and focus. Similar to but more strident than those found in The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America (LJ 4/15/94), these abundantly referenced essays criticize the validity of Herrnstein and Murray's thesis for use of questionable assumptions, reliance on racist scholars, rejection of contradictory evidence, and equation of correlation with cause. Part a product of an increasingly conservative society, part authors' bias, The Bell Curve is seen by the essayists as a seriously flawed, dangerous rearticulation of white supremacist/racist/class ideology. This thoughtful, readable anthology is highly recommended for academics, policy makers, and the general public.?Suzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Measured Lies more than measures up, presenting a sound refutation of the faulty hype, and hidden political agenda that made The Bell Curve a media phenomenon." --Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (March 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312172281
• ISBN-13: 978-0312172282
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,621,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Time has not been kind to "Measured Lies", May 3, 2006

By 

Graham H. Seibert (Kiev, Ukraine) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined (Paperback)

Since its publication a number of important books have been written substantiating the Bell Curve hypothesis. The most direct arguments are given in "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" and "Race Differences in Intelligence," and "The g Factor." Authors who pussyfoot around the factor of race in the heritability of intelligence, but whose work generally supports the thesis, are "The Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells, "World on Fire" by Amy Chua, and at the pinnacle, "The Blank Slate" by Stephen Pinker.

There is a marked difference in the tone of "Measured Lies" from these others. "Lies" is strident; the others have the measured calm of scientific works. While the others project scientific objectivity, "Lies" is insistently moralistically.

The argument does belong in the realm of morality. Lies' authors find it "hurtful" and "unutterable" even to discuss the possibility that there are differences among the average abilities of different races. On the other hand, observing the vast difference in the accomplishments of different races, not only in the U.S. but between and within countries throughout the world, a great many observers have come to one of two moral conclusions:
1) Certain peoples do not achieve because they are morally deficient: lazy, given to drugs, oversexed or whatever, or,
2) "Hegemonists" such as European nations or Caucausian people systematically and immorally frustrate the aspirations of other peoples through subtle racism.

Either way it is a blame game. And profoundly immoral, if the blame is not deserved.

The gauntlet is down. There are so many scientific, statistical studies supporting the hypothesis that there are systematic differences in group abilities that egalitarianists must fight fire with fire. It is time to come up with some valid science to refute these claims, or gulp and accept the findings.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out loud bad..., November 28, 2007

By 

K. Mills (Jackson, WY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined (Paperback)

After reading The Bell Curve, I continued with a bunch of supplemental material including the few papers I could find rebutting it. Finally, I got around to Measured Lies, which I'd hoped would be a comprehensive summary of the holes in TBC's theories.

I have to say that I was stunned at how unashamedly awful this book is. It is in no way a scientific rebuttal of the methods or conclusions of TBC, but more of a venomous (yet oddly kooky) political diatribe, brimming with misrepresentations, errors and outright lies.

From the flap copy: "TBC enraged readers with its controversial racial and intellectual agenda, which suggested that certain groups of children are genetically unable to learn because of their race and are therefore unworthy of...educational attention and financial resources"

This is simply not true. H&M said that black people (not children specifically) have lower average IQs than white people--nothing more, nothing less. The authors said nothing at all about them being unable to learn or that they are unworthy of educational resources.


On page 1, after a somewhat incongruous diatribe about Bush (HW) and the Gulf War, we find this: "For the past three decades, [it] has become...fashionable to...say [that] perhaps the poor and aged should be terminated; women ought to be replaced with life-like replicas fashioned by Disneyland engineers; children cost more than they are worth; Blacks are really sub-human and dangerous after all; the Indians better stop bellyaching or they'll get their butts whipped again."

Is this guy dropping acid? That's a serious question because I had a similar hallucination about Disney replicas replacing women in college. There may have been Indians, too. I can't recall exactly...

From page 5: "H&M distance themselves from charges...that TBC is primarily about race. Earnest House...writes that...43 percent explicitly concerns comparisons of black, Latino and white intelligence.

This is a preview of the scientific rigor you can expect in this book. H&M are, of course, correct in saying that the book is not primarily about race as confirmed by House's own rather silly calculation.

Also from page 5: "TBC is hard at work justifying the genetic arguments which support the contention that Whites are innately superior."

Nonsense. TBC clearly and repeatedly states that Asians are innately superior.

Here's a particularly good one from page 7: "Trapped by its own adulation of empirically-produced, objective facts, the culture of objectivity fails to acknowledge the historical and social context that gave birth to it."

Don't you hate it when a perfectly good theory is ruined by a bunch of empirically-produced, objective facts?

The conclusions of TBC may well be overturned by science someday. But for that to happen, the opponents of H&M's theories are going to have to actually produce some science. I've searched high and low and, with the exception of Flynn and Sowell, I can find virtually no coherent attempts to refute TBC's findings.

Science needs to be actively researched, verifiable, and able to predict what we see in the real world. As near as I can tell, the Culturalists fail in all these areas, putting them dangerously close in methodology to the proponents of Intelligent Design.

Currently, our approach to fixing the very real problems suffered by African-Americans isn't based on any coherent theory at all. The Culturalists, who create policy, ignore not only the ideas of Hereditarians like H&M, but their own theories as well. How, for instance, do Head Start-type programs address the Culturalist view of the causes of African-American underperformance--namely the "history of slavery" and "subtle racism?"

H&M's point seems to be that current and past policies have done very little to help African-Americans and, in light of that, we need to develop programs that will be more effective. This, while perhaps a bit naïve, is hard to dispute.

72 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Little Substance, May 20, 2001

By 

Alan L Seals - See all my reviews

This review is from: Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined (Paperback)

When I read the Bell Curve in 1994 and again this year, I found it convincing, though I don't consider myself a racist. I was looking forward to hearing the "other side" of the debate, and this book provided one of the first opportunities. But I was truly dissapointed.

I did start out biased in that I didn't expect to be convinced. But I expected the contributing writers (or at least some of them) to provide some scientific evidence behind their claims. Yet precious little is there.

Don't get me wrong, it is well written, eliquent, and entertaining, it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. For one thing, so many of the writers clearly didn't even read the Bell Curve. They use ideology instead of science in a desperately vain attempt to make their point.

That point?

Most could guess before reading that all contributing writers feel that it is in fact environment and socioeconomic factors are the main (or only) things that contribute to who we become. They do not give an inch on their traditionally liberal views that all or nearly all the differences in behavior in blacks, whites, and other races are the result of society. Genes play no role in their world.

We must open our eyes. The Bell Curve is not correct on everything. But the genie is out of the bottle. There is just too much evidence in so many scientific fields to support the main thesis of the Bell Curve.