Customer Reviews

Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined

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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.

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.

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.

What a load of absolute rubbish this book is. 200+ pages of words in attempt to deny that there be differences between racial groups. All the time, ignoring that they are attacking a book called the "Bell Curve". A bell curve distribution of any characteristic of any group means there is a spectrum of characteristics around the median. And that bell curves of different groups can and frequently do overlap. So, for example, if the median IQ of group A is higher than Group B, there can be members of group B with a higher IQ than members of Group A.

(Helpful? Not? Please vote, so I know someone is reading these :^) :: When the by-line for this book screamed at me, "...the first thoughtful and reasoned reading of The Bell Curve,..." my jaw dropped. I thought *I* had performed the first thoughtful and well-reasoned reading! Admittedly, The Bell Curve was a pretty drudgerous read, and it was fairly unapologetic about its no-frills approach. However, I've scarcely seen regression analysis explained any better for a layperson's understanding (Levitt's "Freakonomics" is a close contender, FYI), nor elaborated much better in harder texts. As for this "Measured Lies" fiasco:

I think prior reviewers have mentioned subsequent studies, even better than the original Bell Curve fodder, have shown and supported high correlation between heredity and IQ. They have also shown that much of heredity *can* be overcome through nurturing environment, and good education, given generally-assumed minimal aptitudes. In short, fairly dull people can be successful; brilliant people can be abject failures. For all the tripe/blather, we all understand these writers'/contributors' *need* to really hope against hope that the playing field is level. We all agree it would be wonderful if everyone had the same shot at all life has to offer. Sadly, it is not so; we all know it isn't so.

My parents and grandparents (all educators, elem & h.s.) all knew it too. They shepparded the kids through who struggled, as they had done with their parents years before. IQ is hereditary, and it's not politically incorrect to know this, especially with reams of corroborating data in support.

It was my dream to win Olympic gold medals! I have mostly my mother and father to blame for the dearth of Olympic Gold in my trophy case, b/c train as I might, I never broke 12 seconds in the 100M dash. I am short, and thin, and it just isn't fair that Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson (minus the steroids, of course, in Ben's case ... he was fast already anyway) naturally/genetically far exceed my abilities. It isn't fair. Measured Lies can no more wish away that reality, and the observable musculature of children and their parents than it can wish away the disparity between the mental horsepower we each have, also largely attributable to our parents. This book is scientifically weak, for which there is no excuse.

The Bell Curve rationale is the basis to justify many decisions in the social fields. Therefore, it is critical to examine what this reasoning is being built upon. This book is a step in this respect.

This book is a collection of essays written by authors who feel that intelligence is not correctly measured by IQ tests.This is especially evident when specific racial and ethnic minority groups are judged to have IQ's that are significantly lower than those of the white population.
Unfortunately,practically all of the authors miss a golden opportunity to question the basic data upon which the IQ tests are constructed and composed of- objective,fill in the circle,multiple choice pattern recognition tests.The basic question that should be emphasized is that no one has established the relevance,or connection of, multiple choice tests to intelligence.Multiple choice tests measure memorization,recall,and the mastery of the "tricks of the trade " taught by tutors to those individuals who can pay to have themselves and/or their children tutored.
Most of the authors needed to reemphasize the crucial points made by S J Gould in his The Mismeasure of Man ,concerning the resort to the use of two major fallacies underlying the arguments of those who believe that intelligence is a simple entity that can be exactly and precisely measured by a single unique number -the reification and quantitative fallacies.I would recommend that a potential book buyer purchase the book by Gould first.

The Bell Curve is not "exact science" but well researched observations. The Bell Curve findings are eye-opening and sad.

Unless the sub-cultures in America, mainly the blacks, get in step with mainstream America, the Bell Curve notion will continue to prove the observations made by the author of the The Bell Curve theory correct over and over again

It's a shame that the Bell Curve is considered racist by blacks.
The black's hatred of caucasians will always blind them to the steps that they need to take for them to share in the American Dream and contribute to American society rather than being lifelong liabilities to it.

offering an alternative view to the troubles in todays lower to middle class society...the analysis of IQ versus achievement, propogation, and economic status was enlightening and true. From our perspective it seems that the troubles in todays society is due to a lowering of intelligence by virtue of the vast majority of low intellect people supported by the welfare system.....Ignorance breeds ingnorance....