Implications from The Bell Curve

[ribozyme]

Any comments on this quote: “Success or failure in the American economy, and all that goes with it, are increasingly a matter of the genes that people inherit.” It is from page 91 of The Bell Curve I think.

I disliked the book are the questions of poverty and crime are not questions of social justice, but rather of genetics and biology.

I read the book, but I missed that quote, and I don’t have the book in front of me. I also remember quite clearly that the book stated that such recondite words such as “admire” are removed from textbooks and that programs to increase intelligence such as the abecadarian project and Head Start failed. The book strongly implies that human variation of intelligence is strongly determined by heredity.

One reason why I want embryo selection to be part of a government program is because in about four generations most people will have the ability to understand SO(10) when they about 15.

 

[ribozyme]

Now, have you actually read the book? While I practice what you practice as well (in terms of reading critics… and supporters… of various theories), I found it personally necessary to actually read the book.

Now that’s a good question! I did read the book, but while I was reading the book, I was rather irate and I did not focus on critically analyzing its methods and sources. Tersely, yes and no will aptly answer your question.

I did skip some parts, but some excerpts of the book are rather poignant such as the failure of social intervention to increase intelligence, and the penultimate chapter “The Way We are Heading” as it described a society of alienation. The opening chapter “The Emergence of the Cognitive Elite” disgusted me as I can discern Herrnstein and Murray’s condescending tone in that chapter. I did omit sections on employment and affirmative action though.

I have to admit I failed to absorb most of its material presented in The Bell Curve because I simply didn’t like the content and if one acknowledges the veracity of their thesis one has to abandon their quixotic dreams of an egalitarian society. So I did my best to simply forget it. It is easier to call Murray and Herrnstein invectives such as “racists” than actually addressing the material. I know the importance of reading the primary source material (I failed to do this when I read The Bell Curve) as accessing journal articles was integral to my previous interest: the origin of life. In contrast, that topic does not evoke such acerbic responses so I could delve into that topic without pursuing a political agenda. Don’t imply that I lack the reading comprehension skills necessary because I read scientific papers that have complex expositions and concepts when compared to the content of The Bell Curve. One such paper includes: nautilus.as.arizona.edu/ABMaterial/shapiro-%20rep%20second.pdf .

However, Linda Gottfredson’s papers (most notably “Why g Matters”) are regurgitations of the content of the book so I read those papers when I did not have access to that book. This caused my patina of denial to eventually crumble.

What convinced of the reality of group differences are the principles of evolutionary biology. For example: geocities.com/race_articles/lynn_race_diff.html .

This is also discussed in Race Differences in Intelligence which I am currently reading.

Hey Rib, I just checked out your profile:

Biography:
I am proud godless liberal
Religion:
No religion/ egalitarianism

I think there’s an agenda somewhere, but it is not in the Bell Curve per se.

Regarding my “agenda,” I was always skeptical of organized religion. I must add that I was initially opposed to the thesis of The Bell Curve and I believe humans ought to be equal (although this is empirically false). Personally, I prefer a society where everyone is treated with equal dignity and I believe that we have to invoke drastic measures to rectify and ameliorate human inequality such as embryo selection. However, embryo selection might exacerbate this inequalities as Lynn points out in Eugenics because it is rather unlikely that everyone will use embryo selection.

So many social problems that come about from the individual (out of wedlock childbirth, etc) come from people making bad choices. Certainly this is not at odds with our Christian belief. The study add to the knowledge that we have, and no study is the be-all end-all. Of course, I read everything with a critical eye, even the Bell Curve.

Other factors play a role, of course, such as a strong work ethic (which is something that I lack).

However, I promise to read Race Differences in Intelligence and if possible IQ and Global Inequality carefully.

 

[jman507]

Publishing papers in Nature and Science.

I’ll say this, what if Alan Guth’s intelligence was reduced by three standard deviation units when he was born. Do you think he would’ve postulated cosmic inflation if that happened? If that happened, would he be at MIT?

Do you think it might be possible for people to think themselves a success if they have not published papers in Nature and Science?

Good for Alan Guth. I’m assuming there are many contented people who have never wanted going to MIT, care about cosmic inflation, nor know of Alan Guth. But if that’s what Alan Guth wanted to do good for him.

 

[timotheos]

Hi Ribozyme! It’s good to see you here again!

That book made me afraid of having children.

I do not want them to fail in life; in order to guarantee their success; I will have to invoke embryo selection to ensure an auspicious future so they can secure positions of dignity and honor.

I hate to tell you this, but even if you could select embryos, and even if the selected embryos had all the “smart” genes, and even if these genes caused your children to have genius-level IQs, and even if their IQs lead to their securing of positions of dignity and honor…

… you would still not be truly happy.

Yes, I think you will continue to be bothered by unanswered questions of even greater importance.

Judging by your persistence in wrestling with this book, I also think you are the kind of person who will need to find this out for yourself, as the many replies here and in other threads do not seem to have much of an impact upon you. Good luck to you, and keep asking questions. When you are ready to consider God in your equation, God will be ready for you. Like it or not, God is very real. You can roll your eyes if you want, but there are some very smart people on this board, possibly former atheists, who can attest to this fact.

Peace to you, Tim

 

[Bobby_Jim]

Ribozyme, if your definition of success is a published paper in Science or Nature, I suggest you look through some back archives for papers retracted due to fraud. One cannot even entirely trust those paragons of scientific achievement. One can trust even less many books produced by publishing houses.

The longer I go on in the scientific enterprise, the more likely I am to believe that things published in *Science *and Nature are probably not true. Or at least, they’re only telling you about the one time the experiment worked, and not telling you about the 100 times that it didn’t.

 

[SeekerJen]

The longer I go on in the scientific enterprise, the more likely I am to believe that things published in *Science *and Nature are probably not true. Or at least, they’re only telling you about the one time the experiment worked, and not telling you about the 100 times that it didn’t.

Yup. That’s why in my lab, we don’t get excited about a result unless we can repeat it several times. Sure, it’s cheaper and easier to publish after you’ve gotten the experiment to work only once, but you run the risk of public humiliation and discrediting of your work if it’s discovered to be a fluke.

 

[anthony022071]

That book made me afraid of having children.

I do not want them to fail in life; in order to guarantee their success; I will have to invoke embryo selection to ensure an auspicious future so they can secure positions of dignity and honor.

The Bell Curve is such a pernicious book; it says we should focus on people’s intelligence, not their inalienable human dignity.

It really is a pernicuous book. Our inalienable human dignity is based upon the Word of God,who said “God created man in his own image” and commanded us “You shall love your neighbor as youself.” Books which entice people to
think along merely statistical or pragmatic lines are insiduously dangerous. They are filled with lesser “truths”,or mere facts,about human life and reality which tempt people to treat others in a manipulative,utilitarian,amoral,cynical manner. This kind of information,and what it implies,runs counter to and holds in contempt knowledge of God. So it must always be countered and held in contempt by the knowledge of what our Creator commanded us. Whose word should we hold ever before our eyes and act upon? the word of staticians,social and political scientists,psychologists,success gurus,or of God who said “God created man in his own image” and “You shall love our neighbor as yourself ?”

 

[ribozyme]

It really is a pernicuous book. Our inalienable human dignity is based upon the Word of God,who said “God created man in his own image” and commanded us “You shall love your neighbor as youself.” Books which entice people to
think along merely statistical or pragmatic lines are insiduously dangerous. They are filled with lesser “truths”,or mere facts,about human life and reality which tempt people to treat others in a manipulative,utilitarian,amoral,cynical manner. This kind of information,and what it implies,runs counter to and holds in contempt knowledge of God. So it must always be countered and held in contempt by the knowledge of what our Creator commanded us. Whose word should we hold ever before our eyes and act upon? the word of staticians,social and political scientists,psychologists,success gurus,or of God who said “God created man in his own image” and “You shall love our neighbor as yourself ?”

The Bell Curve didn’t directly say that, but that’s how I interpret it.

But they did say that quote that is in my signature in* The Bell Curve*.

I’ll respond to the claim that IQ is correlated with happiness. Just look at this wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality

National IQ and happiness: r = 0.029 (very small, but I wonder what’s the p value for this extremely small correlation)
National IQ and life statisfaction: r = 0.033

If I remember correctly, Lynn dismisses the argument that we should increase intelligence to affect happiness in Eugenics.

 

[ribozyme]

I love that Mark Twain quote. It’s so true; one can tweak stats in many different ways, and just because it’s published doesn’t mean it’s true.

Ribozyme, if your definition of success is a published paper in Science or Nature, I suggest you look through some back archives for papers retracted due to fraud. One cannot even entirely trust those paragons of scientific achievement. One can trust even less many books produced by publishing houses.

FYI, I don’t know if you agree with the thesis of* Darwin’s Black Box*, but I will say that The Bell Curve was published by the same publisher (The Free Press). Also books by Jonathan Wells and Peter Duesberg (I am sure you think his ideas on AIDS are rather harmful for public welfare) are published by Regnery. I do not know if your response was directed against the content of books that discuss psychometric intelligence, race, and heredity as I mentioned I was reading Race Differences in Intelligence by Richard Lynn. I can say that Lynn’s work is not characterized by mendacity or duplicity. I do not think Lynn intentional manipulated his IQ data in that book.

For example, on page 103 of RDiI there is a table of Australian Aborigines IQ from 17 different studies. The range of the Ns (22-458), IQ (52-74), and date of study (1931-1999). The median IQ is 62, and Lynn adopts this as an estimate of their intelligence. One might object that these IQs are spurious and do not reflect their intelligence. However, Lynn invokes the results of Piagetian intelligence tests to show the IQ tests are a good reflection of their intelligence and that the IQ of 62 is valid.

"The method adopted by those who have examined the Piagetian intelligence of the Australian Aborigine children is to ascertain whether they reach the stages of cognitive development at the same ages as European children. These studies have generally examined the ages at which the Aboriginal children attain the concrete operational and formal operational stages of thinking. The concrete operational stage has most frequently been measured by tests of whether a child has acquired the concept of “conservation.” This is the understanding of the principle that the volume and weight of a substance remains the same (i.e., is “conserved”) when its shape changes. The standard test of this ability is to understand the principle of the conservation of quantity is that the tester pours water or some other substance (such as beads) from a glass tumbler into a long thin glass. The child is asked whether the amount of water or other substance remains the same. Young children typically believe that there is more water or other substance in the long thin glass, apparently focusing on its greater height and ignoring its lesser width. When children grasp that the volume remains the same whatever the shape of the container they have achieved understanding of the concept of conservation…

A study by Dasen (1973) produced similar results. He gave Piagetian conservation tasks to two samples of 55 and 90 Aboriginal children and adults in central Australia and to 80 white children in Canberra. All the Aboriginal children were attending the same schools. The white children had reached this stage at an average age of 8, while the Aboriginal children reached it at about the age of 15…Dasen (1973, p. 92) concluded that “a large proportion of Aborigines do not developed these concrete operational concepts at all, even as adults.” These results indicate that the Aborigines had an IQ of around 55."
(Lynn 2006: 105-107)

That’s something to think about when pipeting solutions… I do not have access to the primary sources though. But you must admit that no one will delve into all 620 papers Lynn uses for IQ data.

I can say this about Richard Lynn; he doesn’t say within the boundaries of his own discipline, psychology, but also explores subjects such as evolutionary biology (Race Differences in Intelligence), bioethics (Eugenics: A Reassessment), and economics (IQ and the Wealth of Nations). You may have noticed that I respect Richard Lynn while I reviled him before. Why? Although racial differences and within population differences in cognitive ability and cognitive ability deficits prevent people from succeeding in life are an inconvenient truth, Lynn gives me optimism that this will be rectified in the future via embryo selection. Such a program, of course, has to be long-term as a one standard deviation boost isn’t enough!! More generations of embryo selection are needed! I know of no other way to increase cognitive ability in such a dramatic fashion.

 

[ribozyme]

Oh well, I went probably went way too far investigating heredity and intelligence. Maybe I would be better off if I didn’t know this. I wonder if I should stop for the benefit of my sanity.

Now I am focused with using embryo selection to improve the human condition. Even some of the people at IIDB (by no means pro-life) disagree with such ideas.

However, you are correct when you question some these statistics. One should note that “Adjustments for Flynn effects have been made in all the figures for IQs presented for the populations in subsequent chapters. Where tests have been used for which the magnitude of the secular increase is not known, an increase of 3 IQ points per decade has been assumed.” pg. 6

I’m going to sleep…

 

[DL82]

The implications of the Bell Curve can be read in one of two ways:

1. As a critique of human intelligence, certain races and classes of people - that individuals need to use gene selection or eugenics in order to ensure that they gain a more favourable share of society’s resources.
2. As a critique of society itself, that American society has created a rigid class structure that is biased against certain groups, and has fabricated a measure, IQ, which is based on certain nature/nurture characteristics that are beyond the individual’s control, to justify these inequalities.

Because our faith treats persons as being more fundamental than political structures, if it’s a choice between changing the natural person that God has created and changing the imperfect political and economic distributions that fallen man has created, I know which one I’m going to choose!

The Bell Curve tells us that the American Dream is an illusion, that the deck is already stacked long before we’ve had any chance to influence our lives by our own effort. By creating this intermediary between parental poverty and future poverty, and calling it IQ, America’s governmental/business/educational institutions can pretend that it isn’t simply a case of poor parents = poor chances = poor future, but that’s exactly what it is. IQ is a social construct that explains how this happens, though it doesn’t justify WHY it happens. This is the thing that should concern us when we read this kind of research, not the genetics issue.

 

[ribozyme]

The implications of the Bell Curve can be read in one of two ways:

1. As a critique of human intelligence, certain races and classes of people - that individuals need to use gene selection or eugenics in order to ensure that they gain a more favourable share of society’s resources.
2. As a critique of society itself, that American society has created a rigid class structure that is biased against certain groups, and has fabricated a measure, IQ, which is based on certain nature/nurture characteristics that are beyond the individual’s control, to justify these inequalities.

Because our faith treats persons as being more fundamental than political structures, if it’s a choice between changing the natural person that God has created and changing the imperfect political and economic distributions that fallen man has created, I know which one I’m going to choose!

The Bell Curve tells us that the American Dream is an illusion, that the deck is already stacked long before we’ve had any chance to influence our lives by our own effort. By creating this intermediary between parental poverty and future poverty, and calling it IQ, America’s governmental/business/educational institutions can pretend that it isn’t simply a case of poor parents = poor chances = poor future, but that’s exactly what it is. IQ is a social construct that explains how this happens, though it doesn’t justify WHY it happens. This is the thing that should concern us when we read this kind of research, not the genetics issue.

I thank you for your thoughtful and pithy analysis. That’s the best summary of The Bell Curve I’ve read! I do think the book argues that American meritocratic society recapitulates a hereditary aristocracy. The quote in my signature is apt summary of Herrnstein and Murray’s perspective.

As you have noticed I pick the former: “if it’s a choice between changing the natural person that God has created and changing the imperfect political and economic distributions that fallen man has created”.

To me IQ is a symbol of slavery and control. This figure illustrates that:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/34/Two_Curve_Bell_with_Jobs.jpg/420px-

The new eugenics of embryo selection will manumit us from IQ and that is why I advocate it with fervid passion! But even if we reconstruct the American economy to allow low IQ individuals to succeed, it would not render them capable of “gathering and inferring own information”

My goals with eugenics are very ambitious. I do not plan to eliminate poverty, instead, I think it would be interesting if every teenager would have the ability to understand SO(10).

 

[Sheeniac]

The Bell Curve tells us that the American Dream is an illusion, that the deck is already stacked long before we’ve had any chance to influence our lives by our own effort. By creating this intermediary between parental poverty and future poverty, and calling it IQ, America’s governmental/business/educational institutions can pretend that it isn’t simply a case of poor parents = poor chances = poor future, but that’s exactly what it is. IQ is a social construct that explains how this happens, though it doesn’t justify WHY it happens. This is the thing that should concern us when we read this kind of research, not the genetics issue.

Have we read the same book?

This truly is a round-about argument against Protestantism what with all of these interpretations flying about.

I can safely say that I disagree with every single sentence quoted above. My first reaction is to ask what you know about IQ - how you would describe it to someone in relatively straightforward English.

 

[ribozyme]

Have we read the same book?

This truly is a round-about argument against Protestantism what with all of these interpretations flying about.

I can safely say that I disagree with every single sentence quoted above. My first reaction is to ask what you know about IQ - how you would describe it to someone in relatively straightforward English.

The Bell Curve argues that the American Dream is an illusion…

It argues our future is determined in our genes. Surely those who are born with the good genes and high IQs will succeed if they are diligent, but those who are not endowed with certain aptitudes would never thrive even if they have a decent work ethic.

But if intelligence (whether measured by IQ tests or some other definition) does not contribute to socioeconomic success, I do think we should still enhance it as it will help in our pursuit of knowledge.

 

[anthony022071]

Oh well, I went probably went way too far investigating heredity and intelligence. Maybe I would be better off if I didn’t know this. I wonder if I should stop for the benefit of my sanity.

Now I am focused with using embryo selection to improve the human condition. Even some of the people at IIDB (by no means pro-life) disagree with such ideas.

However, you are correct when you question some these statistics. One should note that “Adjustments for Flynn effects have been made in all the figures for IQs presented for the populations in subsequent chapters. Where tests have been used for which the magnitude of the secular increase is not known, an increase of 3 IQ points per decade has been assumed.” pg. 6

I’m going to sleep…

Stop for the benefit of your morality. That kind of information should be avoided like the plague. The poor and weak and suffering are especially sacrosanct,since God clearly
sympathizes and identifies with them. God became a man who was poor,vulnerable,and suffered greatly.The attempt to eliminate poverty and suffering from human life is misguided,and the attempt to do it by eliminating those who are prone to poverty and suffering is monstrous.

 

[ribozyme]

Stop for the benefit of your morality. That kind of information should be avoided like the plague. The poor and weak and suffering are especially sacrosanct,since God clearly
sympathizes and identifies with them. God became a man who was poor,vulnerable,and suffered greatly.The attempt to eliminate poverty and suffering from human life is misguided,and the attempt to do it by eliminating those who are prone to poverty and suffering is monstrous.

So should I abstain from anything written by Richard Lynn and Linda Gottfredson? Do you regard Richard Lynn as evil?

My goals with eugenics are very ambitious. I do not plan to eliminate poverty, instead, I think it would be interesting if every teenager would have the ability to understand SO(10).

I meant to say that eliminating poverty would be a desirable side effect of increasing intelligence, but we should ultimately do it to pursue knowledge.

 

[jman507]

I meant to say that eliminating poverty would be a desirable side effect of increasing intelligence, but we should ultimately do it to pursue knowledge.

I don’t think it’d eliminate poverty. Actually upon thinking about it, I don’t think there is enough resources to really put it fully into practice. And the worse side effect everyone will want to write an article for Nature that you could have real problems when it come to trying to get someone to print and deliver it. There will be a lot of envy for those who did not have an article selected.

 

[ribozyme]

I don’t think it’d eliminate poverty. Actually upon thinking about it, I don’t think there is enough resources to really put it fully into practice. And the worse side effect everyone will want to write an article for Nature that you could have real problems when it come to trying to get someone to print and deliver it. There will be a lot of envy for those who did not have an article selected.

They’re other journals though… as long as people do not have to publish in journals such as* Mankind Quarterly*.

 

[jman507]

They’re other journals though… as long as people do not have to publish in journals such as* Mankind Quarterly*.

Any ideas on how you can manage to mold the genitics to avoid that?