The Bell Curve Wars
Fraser, Steven, editor. The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America. 1995. New York: BasicBooks.
Jeffrey Rosen and Charles Lane, 'The Sources of The Bell Curve'
60 - Murray and Herrnstein also introduce readers to the work of J. Phillipe Ruston, a Canadian psychologist. Rushton has argued that Asians are more intelligent that Caucasians, have larger brains for their body size, smaller penises, lower sex drive, are less fertile, work harder, and are more readily socialized; and Caucasians have the same relationship to blacks. [. . .]
In a gratuitous two-page appendix, Murray and Herrnstein go out of their way to say that "Rushton's work is not that of a crackpot or a bigot." But in an interview with Rolling Stone, Rushton colloquially summarized his research agenda: "Even if you take things like athletic ability or sexuality--not to reinforce stereotypes--but it's atrade-off: more brain or more penis. You can't have everything." And in a 1986 article in Politics and Life Sciences, Rushton suggested that Nazi Germany's military prowess was connected to the purity of its gene pool, and warned that egalitarian ideas endangered "North European civilization."
Andrew Hacker, 'Caste, Crime, and Precocity'
97 - It will save time if I aver my full agreement with Howard Gardner, who reminds us that there are many kinds of intelligences. (The Bell Curve never explores the nuances of Gardner's position.) Indeed, there are many skills and aptitudes that do not even get this designation. We hardly ever speak of an "intelligent poet" Or an "intelligent sculptor" or, for that matter, an "intelligent chef." Nor do we often hear someone described as an "intelligent lover." Nor am I sure that we percieve a bootstrap entrepreneur as being an "intelligent businessman." (Some polished corporate types may win that appellation.) These and other talents tend to be regarded as intuitive traits, perhaps having their sources in the torso rather than the cerebrum.
Indeed, what is usually thought of as "intelligence" is more an academic concern than in the working world. To continue with an example just cited, men and women who have proved themselves in
98 - business are often suspicious of people who own more than one degree. This is why Adam Smith, the philosopher of a free economy, was an egalitarian in the matter of mental endowments. The people he saw bulding enterprises had seldom done well on schoolmasters' tests. In his view, even savants like himself were essentially like other people, save for a verbal veneer. [. . .]
The principle source for The Bell Curve's finding and conclusions is the National Longitidinal Survey of Youth, which has tracked a sample of Americans from the time they left high school through their middle thirties. As part of the project, its participants were given a series of questions taken from the Armed Forces Qualification Test. [. . .]
[. . .] What do these tests test? There is, of course, the issue of whether even supposedly simple questions can be culturally biased or favor a certain social stratum.
99 - While the aim may be to measure inborn aptitudes, all tests call for substantive amounts of acquired knowledge.
Moreover, high scores have a strong correlation with whether individuals were raised in a setting which habituated them to the kinds of mental processes the tests assess. [. . .] The very format of the test determines who will do well. Given that one must produce the answers at just about a one-a-minute rate, doing well demands that you have a matrix in your mind that mirrors the multiple-choice format. In part, this can be assisted through schooling. But some people also seem to possess an instinctive capacity for unsnarling these kinds of questions, indeed getting their gist in the first twenty seconds. This said, wan can grant that what is being tested are cer-
100 - tain modes of mental functioning. And what is being rated is the degree to which an individual has this one kind of intelligence.
Those who score well readily gain admission to colleges like Amherst and Stanford, from which they move on to Yale Law School and fellowships at Rockefeller University. These institutions require and reward this bookish form of intelligence, one better suited to seminar problem-solving rather than the rough-and-tumble of an unruly world. So I do not accept Murray and Herrnstein's forecast that a caste of high scorers will come to predominate in positions of power. On the whole, most such persons will peak during their academic years, or perhaps during an initial job they receive on the strength of test results. However, after that they will soon be surpassed by individuals who possess more applied forms of intelligence that are not revealed by tests taken while sitting at desks. People like George Patton, Lee Iacocca, and Newt Gingrich come to mind.
At best, The Bell Curve authors have identified not a generic meritocracy, but what could be called a testocracy: individuals possessed of a specialized skill which, on further examination, has little relation or relevance to most human endeavors.
John B. Judis, 'Hearts of Darkness'
126 - Murray has also denied that he approves of a society stratified according to intelligence, or simply IQ. In speeches, he has assured his fellow conservatives, many of whom fancy themselves to be populists, that he wants to curb the cognitive elite and "return control of daily life to the people who live it." But The Bell Curve is a brief for a society divided along exactly these lines. Murray deplores court rulings forbidding the use of IQ tests in hiring. He wants school funds shifted from the "disadvantaged" toward the "gifted." He wants a voucher program that will reward elite private schools. The result of these policies will be still greater segregation of society along the lines of income and of achievement in standardized tests.
Mickey Kaus, 'The "It-Matters-Little" Gambit'
130 - In Losing Ground, the 1984 book that made his name, Charles Murray pooh-poohed the role of race in America's social pathology. Instead, Murray blamed liberal welfare programs that trapped black and white alike in poverty. "Focusing on blacks cripples progress," he declared in a 1986 op-ed piece (entitled "Not a Matter of Race"),
But that was then. Now, it turns out, Murray indeed thinks blacks face problems because they "are different from everyone else," and they are different "because of inherent traits (as the racists argue)" or, at any rate, because of immutable traits.
Jeffrey Rosen and Charles Lane, 'The Sources of The Bell Curve'
60 - Murray and Herrnstein also introduce readers to the work of J. Phillipe Ruston, a Canadian psychologist. Rushton has argued that Asians are more intelligent that Caucasians, have larger brains for their body size, smaller penises, lower sex drive, are less fertile, work harder, and are more readily socialized; and Caucasians have the same relationship to blacks. [. . .]
In a gratuitous two-page appendix, Murray and Herrnstein go out of their way to say that "Rushton's work is not that of a crackpot or a bigot." But in an interview with Rolling Stone, Rushton colloquially summarized his research agenda: "Even if you take things like athletic ability or sexuality--not to reinforce stereotypes--but it's atrade-off: more brain or more penis. You can't have everything." And in a 1986 article in Politics and Life Sciences, Rushton suggested that Nazi Germany's military prowess was connected to the purity of its gene pool, and warned that egalitarian ideas endangered "North European civilization."
Andrew Hacker, 'Caste, Crime, and Precocity'
97 - It will save time if I aver my full agreement with Howard Gardner, who reminds us that there are many kinds of intelligences. (The Bell Curve never explores the nuances of Gardner's position.) Indeed, there are many skills and aptitudes that do not even get this designation. We hardly ever speak of an "intelligent poet" Or an "intelligent sculptor" or, for that matter, an "intelligent chef." Nor do we often hear someone described as an "intelligent lover." Nor am I sure that we percieve a bootstrap entrepreneur as being an "intelligent businessman." (Some polished corporate types may win that appellation.) These and other talents tend to be regarded as intuitive traits, perhaps having their sources in the torso rather than the cerebrum.
Indeed, what is usually thought of as "intelligence" is more an academic concern than in the working world. To continue with an example just cited, men and women who have proved themselves in
98 - business are often suspicious of people who own more than one degree. This is why Adam Smith, the philosopher of a free economy, was an egalitarian in the matter of mental endowments. The people he saw bulding enterprises had seldom done well on schoolmasters' tests. In his view, even savants like himself were essentially like other people, save for a verbal veneer. [. . .]
The principle source for The Bell Curve's finding and conclusions is the National Longitidinal Survey of Youth, which has tracked a sample of Americans from the time they left high school through their middle thirties. As part of the project, its participants were given a series of questions taken from the Armed Forces Qualification Test. [. . .]
[. . .] What do these tests test? There is, of course, the issue of whether even supposedly simple questions can be culturally biased or favor a certain social stratum.
99 - While the aim may be to measure inborn aptitudes, all tests call for substantive amounts of acquired knowledge.
Moreover, high scores have a strong correlation with whether individuals were raised in a setting which habituated them to the kinds of mental processes the tests assess. [. . .] The very format of the test determines who will do well. Given that one must produce the answers at just about a one-a-minute rate, doing well demands that you have a matrix in your mind that mirrors the multiple-choice format. In part, this can be assisted through schooling. But some people also seem to possess an instinctive capacity for unsnarling these kinds of questions, indeed getting their gist in the first twenty seconds. This said, wan can grant that what is being tested are cer-
100 - tain modes of mental functioning. And what is being rated is the degree to which an individual has this one kind of intelligence.
Those who score well readily gain admission to colleges like Amherst and Stanford, from which they move on to Yale Law School and fellowships at Rockefeller University. These institutions require and reward this bookish form of intelligence, one better suited to seminar problem-solving rather than the rough-and-tumble of an unruly world. So I do not accept Murray and Herrnstein's forecast that a caste of high scorers will come to predominate in positions of power. On the whole, most such persons will peak during their academic years, or perhaps during an initial job they receive on the strength of test results. However, after that they will soon be surpassed by individuals who possess more applied forms of intelligence that are not revealed by tests taken while sitting at desks. People like George Patton, Lee Iacocca, and Newt Gingrich come to mind.
At best, The Bell Curve authors have identified not a generic meritocracy, but what could be called a testocracy: individuals possessed of a specialized skill which, on further examination, has little relation or relevance to most human endeavors.
John B. Judis, 'Hearts of Darkness'
126 - Murray has also denied that he approves of a society stratified according to intelligence, or simply IQ. In speeches, he has assured his fellow conservatives, many of whom fancy themselves to be populists, that he wants to curb the cognitive elite and "return control of daily life to the people who live it." But The Bell Curve is a brief for a society divided along exactly these lines. Murray deplores court rulings forbidding the use of IQ tests in hiring. He wants school funds shifted from the "disadvantaged" toward the "gifted." He wants a voucher program that will reward elite private schools. The result of these policies will be still greater segregation of society along the lines of income and of achievement in standardized tests.
Mickey Kaus, 'The "It-Matters-Little" Gambit'
130 - In Losing Ground, the 1984 book that made his name, Charles Murray pooh-poohed the role of race in America's social pathology. Instead, Murray blamed liberal welfare programs that trapped black and white alike in poverty. "Focusing on blacks cripples progress," he declared in a 1986 op-ed piece (entitled "Not a Matter of Race"),
because explanations of the special problems facing blacks nearly all begin with the assumption that blacks are different from everyone else, whether because of racism (as the apologists argue) or because of inherent traits (as the racists argue).
But that was then. Now, it turns out, Murray indeed thinks blacks face problems because they "are different from everyone else," and they are different "because of inherent traits (as the racists argue)" or, at any rate, because of immutable traits.
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