March 4, 2017

"But critics said that [Charles] Murray shouldn't be treated simply [as] a person with whom they had differing political views."

"Many noted that he is classified as a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which sums him up this way: 'Charles Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has become one of the most influential social scientists in America, using racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.'"

From "Shouting Down a Lecture/Middlebury students chant and shout to prevent Charles Murray from speaking. He later is led to a private location, where a discussion with a professor is livestreamed. After the event some attack car carrying Murray and a professor," at Inside Higher Education.

The quoted argument is not — I hope it's obvious! — something I agree with. It's a terrible argument, the same kind of argument that has been used to justify throwing out professional journalism principles to disrupt the Trump administration: The person we're out to get is not normal, therefore we get to be abnormal.

The delusion that your principles remain intact is laughable.

151 comments:

David Begley said...

Can someone come up with a proper description for the Southern Poverty Law Center? Nutty? Whacked out?

damikesc said...

So that's two assaults caused by the SPLC. Perhaps it's time for them to be dealt with.

Sebastian said...

"The delusion that your principles remains intact is laughable." Sorry, they are not "deluded," they have no "principles," certainly not the ones you appear to ascribe to them, and they could not care less about whether they are "intact," as if petty-bourgeois moral integrity is a value or something. They pursue power by any means necessary. They will use any argument as a temporary tool. They will vilify or shout down or beat up anyone they can.

paminwi said...

SPLC: a new hate group. They have become laughable. Why media continues to use them as source reliable source shows you how far the media itself has fallen.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I will avoid the obvious "what principles?!" retort.
It is important to note that this kind of thing is OK to the kind of people who obsess over microaggressions. The Left applauds thus kind of thing. The mainstream Media isn't giving the violent attack part much coverage. Surprise.
The same people who complain about "normalizing Trump" are super happy to normalize political violence.
I am sure it will all end well.

Michael K said...

I was at Dartmouth when "The Bell Curve" came out. Several friends knew I was reading it and asked to borrow it when I finished. They did not want to be seen in The Dartmouth Bookstore buying a copy. At least Amazon has solved that problem.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

...to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.

Is he wrong?

( I'm not arguing that he is right. I just don't trust the intellectual integrity of the people shouting him down. )

Martha said...

And yet these Middlebury students admitted they have not read —let alone studied—any of Murray's books.
They wallow in their ignorance blindly following progressive dictates.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Two assaults? Don't forget the guy who went in to commit mass murder against people in a Family Research Council office (the guy who brought Chick Fil-a sandwiches, remember) did so based on an SPLC declaration that FRC was anti-gay.
But hey, a group affiliated with Sarah Palin used registration marks on a map of politicians and later crazy person Jared Loughtner murdered some people, so the Media waa right to blame the Right for that. Sure.

Bill Harshaw said...

"Coming Apart" and "Hillbilly Elegy" form an interesting duo.

Wince said...

Look at the SPLC war chest (net assets), From Charity Navigator:

REVENUE
Total Contributions $44,968,003
Program Service Revenue $257,244
Total Primary Revenue $45,225,247
Other Revenue $9,042,644
TOTAL REVENUE $54,267,891

EXPENSES
Program Expenses $29,520,112
Administrative Expenses $6,069,263
Fundraising Expenses $9,782,466
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES $45,371,841

Excess (or Deficit) for the year $8,896,050

Net Assets $315,353,067

Net Assets: The difference between a charity's assets and its liabilities. Although charities do not exist to make money, they do work to build and maintain reasonable reserves of net assets. Growing its net assets helps a charity outpace inflation and sustain future program activities.

David Begley said...

EDH:

Thanks for that. CEO probably paid $2m. Better pay than POTUS!

Michael The Magnificent said...

Most African-Americans are birthed and raised by a Democrat, taught by a teacher who is most likely a Democrat, in schools administered by those most likely to be Democrats, in cities run by Democrats.

And it's all Charles Murray's fault for pointing out African-Americans lack of intellectual achievement?

Derek Kite said...

These people are on an old old well trodden path that leads to the justification of genocide.

Their only principle is 'how can I justify the evil I perpetrate and consider myself virtuous'. Again an old old path.

mockturtle said...

I'm not familiar with Mr. Murray but the quote from the SPLC is not from him but is their own concoction. But I wonder how the SPLC defines pseudoscience. And white nationalist. I'm both white and a nationalist. Does that make me one? I am decidedly not a racist. I agree with paminwi: The SPLC is a hate group and should be treated as such.

bagoh20 said...

"Is he wrong?"

Yea, isn't that the first thing to consider? Where is the counter argument? Where is the evidence. Wouldn't proving him wrong be most effective. Why is that not even attempted? Why is it offensive to even consider such a possibility? This is all metabullshitdistractionmasterbation. Inquiring minds want to know if it's true. If it was true, it would give greater moral persuasion to public policy of special accommodation. People deserve help if they got a raw deal by birth that hampers their potential and opportunity.

Amadeus 48 said...

SPLC= lefty propaganda machine with large assets and no accountability.

James Pawlak said...

The "Southern Poverty Law Center" is a racist hate group.

traditionalguy said...

This is a subset of book burning...called author burning.It errupts at one end of the Bell Curve, but I forget which end. Maybe the Nazi one, or better yet the Heresy Inquisitions authorized by Roman Catholics.

If he is that bad a thinker, then they could easily defeat him in an argument. But that presumes they have read his book, and they all refuse to read it, or even to allow anyone else to think about what it says.

MarkJ said...

Three primary missions of SPLC:

1. Fundraising.
2. Justifying its own existence.
3. Did I already mention fundraising?

rhhardin said...

Whether it's true matters in public policy when you have outcome-based determinations of discrimination.

To make its mattering disappear, get rid of that. Base discrimination on discrimination.

Do not take for granted that different outcomes means discrimination.

Drago said...

Charles Murray is clearly a white supremacist as his research clearly shows that Asians have the highest IQ.

This is precisely the sort of claim a real white supremacist would make! They are devious that way, don't you know?

#LeftyLogic

Amadeus 48 said...

It would be a good idea to read The Bell Curve and Coming Apart. They offer cogent analyses of some of the social pathologies that we see every day. Coming Apart deals with white people only.

Humperdink said...

Following in a long line of deliberately naming a miss-naming a lefty organization. (See Planned Parenthood ...... parenthood?)

Where is the Ministry of Truth when you need it? Cough.

Kevin said...

"The obvious, I discovered, is not what needs no proof, but what people do not want to prove." -- Russell Ackoff

Laslo Spatula said...

Alan Allen, College Student with a SJW Girlfriend...

So Jezzy tells me she is going to a speech on campus by a fascist right-wing racist, and I say "Why would you go to that?" Right when I said it I knew it was a stupid question: I know better by now. She was going to protest, to make her voice heard, and she wanted me to come along to witness her Passion....

I hate going to those kinds of things, no matter the politics, but I knew if I didn't go she'd cold-shoulder me for days and there would be no blow-jobs. Of course, the idea of fascism really affects her willingness to give blow-jobs too, so basically I wouldn't be getting any for a while, no matter what I did...

We go to the speech, but before the guy can even speak Jezzy is standing up with all the other protesters, shouting and chanting slogans. I admit it: I feel embarrassed when they start the slogans -- just because something rhymes doesn't make it an Important Statement: still, if you tell her I said this I will deny it...

Well, they call off the speech because of the protest, and some guy in the audience mutters to Jezzy "So much for Free Speech." Oh shit. Now Jezzy starts ranting about how Free Speech is how the White Patriarchy keeps the people oppressed, and then she tells the guy that he's lucky "my boyfriend doesn't punch you in your fucking mouth..."

The guy looks at me, and I'm wondering how I all of a sudden am dragged into this: I don't want to hit anybody, and I certainly don't want to get hit. But Jezzy is expecting me to stand up for her, which seems odd coming from a Feminist, but I stopped trying to make sense of this stuff a long time ago...

Luckily, the guy just shrugs and walks away, but it can never be THAT easy: Jezzy yells after him "That's right! Walk away, you Little Fascist Bitch!" So now the guy comes back and tells me I need to keep my bitch in line, or there WILL be a fight. Great. If I hit the guy I WILL probably get a blow-job, but all of this is just so fucked-up...

The guy takes a step closer to me when Jezzy hits him with Pepper Spray. You know, I really like Jezzy, but I wish we could do without the Politics and Drama -- although, without that, I'm not sure what is left of Jezzy other than being a Hot Chick who gives great blow-jobs every now and then...

Afterwards, Jezzy leaves for drinks with her protest buddies; I have a Science Exam in the morning, and I need to study. I just hope she doesn't give any of those guys blow-jobs while they're celebrating their Victory Over Fascism...

I am Laslo.

traditionalguy said...

SPLC is long since become a gang that hunts down easy targets and blackmails them.

Southerners are always easy targets for threatening accusations of racism to raise funds from Yankees suffering a total perception bias.

It is easy to do in a climate that presumes you are guilty until proven innocent. That SPLS's offer to slime you or to approve you for a fee is hard to resist in that climate.

Bruce Hayden said...

The thing that I find interesting about Murray is that his biggest crime was that short stretch in the Bell Curve that mentioned the unmentionable - that Blacks, on average, had measurable IQs roughly one standard deviation below the mean (and that Ashkenazi Jews scored the same above - the selective breeding for that being very possibly the cause of that ethnic group experiencing unique genetic maladies (thanks to Dr. K for that link)). That put him beyond the pale - mentioning the unmentionable, regardless of the truth behind it. You can quibble about the meaning of IQ (and the authors discuss the concept to great length), but, given the state of the art, Blacks in this country apparently score notably below the mean in whatever is being tested in IQ tests.

The other interesting part of this is that because Murray, and esp. that book, are so far beyond the pale, very few on the left have actually read the entire (very big) book, and most have just repeated what they have been told by others - that he is a racist, sexist, misogynist, etc. (I think that the sexist part is because they also note that, while the means between the two sexes are the same, the standard deviation for males is greater, resulting in more geniuses, and more on the low end - I have always wondered if that came from having only 1 X chromosome, instead of 2 for females). And, of course, if you actually do read the entire book, you find that the controversial part is only several pages long. (Ok, I will also admit that I was happy to find that the average IQ of MDs or PhDs was no higher than that of the average JD).

Jersey Fled said...

I didn't know non-profits were allowed to accumulate "excesses" aka profits.

Time for the IRS to investigate their status.

Richard said...

REVENUE
Total Contributions $44,968,003
Program Service Revenue $257,244
Total Primary Revenue $45,225,247
Other Revenue $9,042,644
TOTAL REVENUE $54,267,891

EXPENSES
Program Expenses $29,520,112
Administrative Expenses $6,069,263
Fundraising Expenses $9,782,466
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES $45,371,841

Excess (or Deficit) for the year $8,896,050

Net Assets $315,353,067



There ain't no poverty in that law center.

Unknown said...

Last time I looked there were an awful lot of wealthy African-Americans who would be classified as middle-class. Ditto Latinos and Hispanics. One of the wealthiest men in the World - Carlos Slim - is Mexican.

Outside of the White Christian world, there are more Chinese billionaires than the US. India is catching up pretty sharply.

We could talk about the academic and scientific achievements of Black, Brown and Yellow people but let's not go there because it will put a lot of Trumpies to shame.

And, that is the real issue - Black, Brown and Yellow people are eating the White person's breakfast and soon lunch and dinner.

Robert Cook said...

"...isn't that the first thing to consider? Where is the counter argument? Where is the evidence. Wouldn't proving him wrong be most effective."

The question is: Has he met the burden incumbent upon him to prove his argument correct?

Drago said...

Bruce Hayden: "(I think that the sexist part is because they also note that, while the means between the two sexes are the same, the standard deviation for males is greater, resulting in more geniuses, and more on the low end - I have always wondered if that came from having only 1 X chromosome, instead of 2 for females)"

Murray's work led to the "layperson" predictive observation that if you walk into any room with quite a few men and women, it was highly likely that the "smartest" person in the room would be a male but also that the "least smart" person in the room would also be a male with the females clustered more closely together.

Of course, for this, Murray needs to be imprisoned and re-educated in as loving and "tolerant" a manner as the State can provide.

mockturtle said...

The question is: Has he met the burden incumbent upon him to prove his argument correct?

Cookie, are you implying that, if he had, there would be no protest?

Jason said...

The SPLC also defined the American College of Pediatricians as a "hate group."

Why? Because they think it's a bad idea to give sex changes to children.

Obadiah said...

Here's the thing I find baffling about this kind of debate. It is very likely that many of these folks who want to silence Murray are atheists, or at least functional atheists, and worship at the altar of science. They deride Murray's work as "pseudoscience" because they don't like the results.

As Americans we get our bedrock assumptions from the Declaration: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." As a religious person, I am perfectly comfortable with that statement and find it to be profoundly true, even "self-evident".

But if we throw away all a priori assumptions about equality based on a Creator, then what is the basis for assuming that all men are "created" equal? It seems to me that equality would be an empirical question, an hypothesis to be tested with data. That is exactly the service that Murray has performed, and he finds significant differences between human groups based on their ancestral origins in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Or is it that "all men are created equal" is a free-floating statement of value not moored to any foundation of fact? So this statement is protected from scientific inquiry, and anyone who even questions it is guilty of pseudoscience? Who says?

It is perfectly fair to question Murray's data or his methods as happens in all science. But having read some of his work it certainly does not look like it is visibly biased or "pseudoscience". He writes at some length about how uncomfortable he is with his own conclusions and the implications of his work.

"All men are created equal" is a statement of faith based on a Creator who intended good things for mankind, at least up until that unfortunate episode with Eve and the fruit tree. I'm good with that, as long as we follow the logic to where it leads.

Owen said...

The surface game is played with counters called racism and sexism and hate speech. It is played through useful idiots and front groups that come and go.

The real game is power, absolute and unaccountable power.

I just read Edmund Wilson's "To The Finland Station," which is a magnificent study of Marxism from Diderot through to Lenin's seizure of control with the Bolsheviks in 1917. The play of ideas is complex and important but the *real* story IMHO is how an exceptional talent like Lenin will be formed in the crucible of historical forces, and will obliterate every principle and every value to achieve its ends.

We are watching the Progs reveal themselves.

Wince said...

Definitely read Murray's An open letter to the Virginia Tech community.

Excerpts:

Since [VT] President Sands has just published an open letter making a serious allegation against me, it seems appropriate to respond. The allegation: “Dr. Murray is well known for his controversial and largely discredited work linking measures of intelligence to heredity, and specifically to race and ethnicity — a flawed socioeconomic theory that has been used by some to justify fascism, racism and eugenics.”

...I should begin by pointing out that the topic of the The Bell Curve was not race, but, as the book’s subtitle says, “Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.” Our thesis was that over the last half of the 20th century, American society has become cognitively stratified. At the beginning of the penultimate chapter, Herrnstein and I summarized our message:

"Predicting the course of society is chancy, but certain tendencies seem strong enough to worry about:

- An increasingly isolated cognitive elite.
- A merging of the cognitive elite with the affluent.
- A deteriorating quality of life for people at the bottom end of the cognitive distribution.

Unchecked, these trends will lead the U.S. toward something resembling a caste society, with the underclass mired ever more firmly at the bottom and the cognitive elite ever more firmly anchored at the top, restructuring the rules of society so that it becomes harder and harder for them to lose. [p. 509]."

It is obvious that these conclusions have not been discredited in the twenty-two years since they were written. They may be more accurately described as prescient.

...It is in that context that I came to the end of President Sands’s indictment, accusing me of promulgating “a flawed socioeconomic theory that has been used by some to justify fascism, racism and eugenics.” At that point, President Sands went beyond the kind of statement that merely reflects his unfamiliarity with The Bell Curve and/or psychometrics. He engaged in intellectual McCarthyism.

Drago said...

Robert Cook: "The question is: Has he met the burden incumbent upon him to prove his argument correct?"

Murray is about 547 Light years further ahead in meeting his burden than the AGW crowd.

But the SJW/Marxist/Totalitarian left (all redundant) is in full blown Lysenko/book burning-mode and only certain politicallya acceptable "sciencey" thoughts are allowed.

Which should make it a "paradise" for a guy like Cookie.

TWW said...

“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door...Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Francisco D said...

"The Bell Curve" is extraordinarily well researched, largely because there is a ton of data from the Organizational Psychology literature on cognitive testing. That research has been largely abandoned because it is politically incorrect. It is also well researched because John Herrnstein is a Ph.D. psychologist from Harvard (now deceased) and Charles Murray is a Ph.D. political scientist from MIT. They are truly scholars.

If you are interested in similar work, read Frank Schmidt and John Hunter as well as Paul Sackett (who was on my dissertation committee). They can be found in scholarly journals.

I wonder how many protesting students have actually read the book. My sense is that all this fascist unrest on college campuses is instigated by far left-wing professors and community organizers. using gullible and largely ignorant students.

Chuck said...

I can't believe that reporters still use the tag line, "_________ is classified as a white supremacist by the Southern Poverty Law Center."

I read the comments on that Chronicle page. There are some funny ones. I like the ones that observed that, uh, Murray's writings actually noted that Asians and some Jews had been found to have higher IQ's by group. Some "white supremacist!"

But more seriously, there were one or two commenters who -- astonishingly -- had actually read "The Bell Curve." And were thereby in a position to say that Murray doesn't, and hasn't ever, subscribed to any theory of "supremacy" of any sort.

Remember that the current Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, a pediatric neurosurgeon and author named Dr. Benjamin Carson, was once featured on the SPLC's "extremist watch list." Before being removed and receiving an apology from the SPLC.

damikesc said...

...to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.

Is he wrong?


He didn't even remotely argue that in his book. He wasn't wrong since he didn't make the claim in the first place. The writer never read the book.

Two assaults? Don't forget the guy who went in to commit mass murder against people in a Family Research Council office (the guy who brought Chick Fil-a sandwiches, remember) did so based on an SPLC declaration that FRC was anti-gay.

That was the second one I was aware of. Perhaps there's more. But SPLC has been guilty of causing more hate crimes than the KKK as of late.

Charles Murray is clearly a white supremacist as his research clearly shows that Asians have the highest IQ.

Asians and Jews, if memory serves. And he never even claimed superiority. Plus he had that whole Peace Corps thing he did for years, which seems odd for a white nationalist to do, but hey, YMMV.

Last time I looked there were an awful lot of wealthy African-Americans who would be classified as middle-class. Ditto Latinos and Hispanics. One of the wealthiest men in the World - Carlos Slim - is Mexican.

Outside of the White Christian world, there are more Chinese billionaires than the US. India is catching up pretty sharply.

We could talk about the academic and scientific achievements of Black, Brown and Yellow people but let's not go there because it will put a lot of Trumpies to shame.

And, that is the real issue - Black, Brown and Yellow people are eating the White person's breakfast and soon lunch and dinner.


Can you spend a moment and attempt to make a relevant point? Your word soup here doesn't qualify as gibberish.

Ah, you didn't read his book, did you?

The question is: Has he met the burden incumbent upon him to prove his argument correct?

He provides more evidence of his claims than environmentalists do of global warming.

Cookie, are you implying that, if he had, there would be no protest?

To add to that, even if he WAS correct, given that NONE of the protestors read the book at all, would it even matter?

mockturtle said...

The whole IQ average is meaningless, anyway, because there are geniuses and morons in all races. And, as I understand it, there are some traits in all races that are--on average--superior to those of other races. Blacks have better visuo-spatial ability on average, for instance. As IQ tests are designed by white people, there is bound to be some bias toward what we value most.

To shut down any discussion is clearly from fear that there may be truth that some may not want to hear.

damikesc said...

But more seriously, there were one or two commenters who -- astonishingly -- had actually read "The Bell Curve." And were thereby in a position to say that Murray doesn't, and hasn't ever, subscribed to any theory of "supremacy" of any sort.

In fact, if memory serves, he and his co-author felt the stratification of America on the basis of "intellect" was a really bad thing. It's not a good thing to use intellect as the sole basis of leadership.

To put it in a pop culture paradigm, Spock was WAY smarter than Kirk. But he would've been a shit leader when compared to Kirk. Because intellect alone is really overrated.

Remember that the current Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, a pediatric neurosurgeon and author named Dr. Benjamin Carson, was once featured on the SPLC's "extremist watch list." Before being removed and receiving an apology from the SPLC.

How has the IRS never looked at this group? Or Congress? They've gotten a professor assaulted and a guard shot over their rhetoric. If Palin was "Responsible" for Giffords' shooting, where does the SPLC stand?

That the Left has no problem basically calling Dr Carson an idiot belies any of their professed claims of respect for diversity.

damikesc said...

The whole IQ average is meaningless, anyway, because there are geniuses and morons in all races. And, as I understand it, there are some traits in all races that are--on average--superior to those of other races. Blacks have better visuo-spatial ability on average, for instance. As IQ tests are designed by white people, there is bound to be some bias toward what we value most.

I actually dispute that a bit as all tests seem to have the same racial results. And I cannot think of any cultural norms that benefit Asians and whites and restrict blacks and Hispanics in all situations. It's a culture thing more than anything else, IMO.

As far as men and women, the smartest man is smarter, on average, than the smartest woman and the dumbest man is, on average, dumber than the dumbest woman. I don't get why protestors find this so disconcerting.

damikesc said...

At this point, until college protestors are kicked out of school for their actions, it is a sign of tacit approval by administrators. And college funding should be tied to a respect for free speech and colleges that do not support it should lose ALL funding until they do respect it.

No grants, no student loans, no federal monies whatsoever will generate quick changes. Except that GOPe members will always oppose actions that are needed like this.

William said...

I don't especially care that Jews or Asians score higher on IQ tests than me. Most people give my intelligence, such as it is, a fair hearing. That's why I don't care. I suppose the life experience of blacks is different and that is why this is such an inflammatory topic for them. I have some sympathy, but acting stupidly is not the proper way to combat the stereotype that blacks are stupid.

Gahrie said...

Can someone come up with a proper description for the Southern Poverty Law Center? Nutty? Whacked out?

Leftwing activist?

Paco Wové said...

"There ain't no poverty in that law center."

Think of all the Southern Poverty they could alleviate, if they wanted to.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I was at Dartmouth when "The Bell Curve" came out

@ Michael K

I have only read or heard of snippets of the book and am skeptical of any reviews of it because the reviewer's have such obvious political biases and because I haven't read it to judge with my own eyes and brain. So.....I have ordered it from Amazon. Not because I am afraid of being seen buying it, but because there are zero book stores anywhere near me.

As a former Anthropology/Archaeology major...(in my ancient days in college) who took many physical anthro classes and other courses that were hard-science based (not sociologically biased), when the book came out I was interested. The idea that there may be a genetic component to intelligence seemed quite logical. After all there is a genetic component to each and every physical aspect of our being. Some people are built to be better/or worse: runners, swimmers, upper body strength, pain tolerance, heat or cold adaptability.

Why wouldn't the brain capability also not be partially or even completely determined by genetic components? Some people are just better at math or languages. Others are more 'artistic' and so on and so on.

However. Just like the athelete with the built in ability to run, if you don't exercise that capability, don't have the opportunity to use the track or are discouraged by your society or family to run, that DNA potential is lost. You are out run by someone who has less potential but has better opportunity and practiced more than you did.

The brain is the same as any other body part. You exercise it. Learn by using. If you have opportunity in schools and the right encouragement you can move yourself to the right-handed side of the Bell Curve...... as much as your potential will allow.

Unlike the smarmy mythical idea promoted by many. All men and women are NOT born equal. in potential or physical form.

Deal with it.

Tommy Duncan said...

'Charles Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has become one of the most influential social scientists in America, using racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.'

I guess these folks think it is best to avoid reading an author's book before forming an opinion. No one who has read (and understood) "The Bell Curve" could possibly make the statement above.

Gahrie said...

Yea, isn't that the first thing to consider? Where is the counter argument? Where is the evidence. Wouldn't proving him wrong be most effective. Why is that not even attempted?

Because deep down, they believe what they falsely attribute to him.

Robert Cook said...

"Cookie, are you implying that, if he had, there would be no protest?"

No, not at all. Of course there will be protest. I'm just responding to the comment that, rather that protest, others should prove Murray wrong. However, he is making the provocative claim. Rather than it being the obligation of others to prove him wrong, he is obliged to prove his claim is true. Has he? Do others in the field accept his findings? Is there a consensus opinion as to whether his conclusions are valid or invalid?

I do not, of course, think it serves any good purpose for those espousing controversial, provocative, divisive or offensive opinions to be shouted down or chased out of speaking engagements, and such behavior reflects badly on those who engage in it. In fact, the more any particular such argument gains sways with the public, the more urgent it is for it to be carefully examined, debated, and refuted with reason, to the degree it can be.

Laslo Spatula said...

Alan Allen, College Student with a SJW Girlfriend...

So Jezzy just finished reading a new book on White Male Oppression In the Transgender World, and of course she now wants me to read it too, so we can 'discuss' it...

I try to tell her I have my hands full with my Science and Math textbooks, but she tells me that Science and Math are Racist, so I agree to read the book to keep her happy -- when she's happy I have a chance to get blow-jobs......

Well, I read the book, and expect that I just have to agree with what she says, but then she starts quizzing me about it: I mean, I 'read' it, but I didn't really READ it, you know...?

I try to answer her questions, but she is DISAPPOINTED IN ME: I obviously did not take it seriously. It is SERIOUS SHIT, she tells me, I need to take this shit SERIOUSLY. Which basically means I'm not getting any blow-job in the near future...

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up with her: she was so fun that one night when she was drunk. I'd probably be better off dating a girl in the same studies I am, but Hot Chicks are hard to come by in Math and the Sciences: Jezzy would no doubt say that this is because of White Patriarchy, so maybe my lack of finding a Hot Math and Science Girl IS me being oppressed...

Meanwhile, my grades have started to slip a little. I'm not worried, though: Jezzy is leaving for the weekend to join a Woman's March in the City, so I'll have time to actually study...

I am Laslo.

Gahrie said...

And, that is the real issue - Black, Brown and Yellow people are eating the White person's breakfast and soon lunch and dinner.

Where?

Gahrie said...

The question is: Has he met the burden incumbent upon him to prove his argument correct?

He has stated a thesis and backed it up with research. What other burden does he bear?

rhhardin said...

I don't have anything to do with it, but IQ test researchers know all the criticisms and presumably correct for them. They're interested in genetics not culture.

How I'd get rid of culture - ask question that test culture proficiency as well.

Find the correlation of culture proficiency with IQ from the IQ eustions.

Subtract culture out.

(So there would he questions which, if you get them right, lower your IQ score.)

Presumably they've thought harder and have a better way, but this is a way of thinking how you'd design an IQ test that is not susceptible to the culture criticism.

Robert Cook said...

"As far as men and women, the smartest man is smarter, on average, than the smartest woman and the dumbest man is, on average, dumber than the dumbest woman."

Has this bit of datum been verified?

Paco Wové said...

"However, he is making the provocative claim. ... he is obliged to prove his claim is true. Has he? Do others in the field accept his findings? Is there a consensus opinion as to whether his conclusions are valid or invalid?"

How would, say, Galileo have fared under these criteria of worthiness? Your recommendations would cement orthodoxy and the views of the most powerful.

Gahrie said...

But if we throw away all a priori assumptions about equality based on a Creator, then what is the basis for assuming that all men are "created" equal?

The equality mentioned is political equality.

traditionalguy said...

Bell curves are true, but they are not the controlling factor.Ethnic Egyptians are smarter than the rest of the world's people. But a lot of good that does them. The near morons called Arabs rule over them. And the Mongolians were once the best of mounted calvary warriors for 400 years until someone built semiautomatic rifles followed by automatic rifles, after which The Charge of the Light Brigade became just a mass suicide.

All hail to John M. Browning's IQ.

Gahrie said...

As IQ tests are designed by white people, there is bound to be some bias toward what we value most.

Then why do Asians and Jews score highest?

Why are the results similar worldwide?

buwaya said...

A lot more work has been done on these matters since "Bell Curve", especially in identifying genes that are linked to intelligence. There are a couple of important papers every year, and this in a field that is - unpopular. There is no way to avoid that conclusion any longer. A well funded program of study would, I think, clarify the whole question rather quickly, and in only one way.

More, and not mentioned by Murray, is that there has not been an educational method, intervention, or process that can close the US racial group "gaps" in educational achievement, and thats with seventy years of extremely well funded attempts. Educational outcomes I think are more relevant and significant than IQ tests.

The US educational system I think has been corrupted by the crippling requirement to solve an insoluble problem, insoluble because it is so poorly understood. And its misunderstood because its politically impossible to acknowledge the truth. Because it is both imperative and impossible the result is a retreat into fantasy.

This corrupts because at every level, from K to 12, through the universities, to all levels of the profession of education, they have to pretend that the truth isnt. This forces the lowering of standards to maintain the pretense, as also the destruction of tracking which cripples the development of talent. All is sacrificed to the impossible goal of fixing the "gaps".

Brent said...

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate group, plain and sim0le. There's a reason the American Bar Association --- hardly a conservative group --- does not officially associate with them anymoee.

CRUCIFIXION: why can't we bring back CRUCIFIXION? Whether it happens by law engorcement ifr concerned citizens in the law or out, get just a few of the protestor/thugs that hurt the speaker up on a cross naked like in Roman Empire times and the out-of-comtrol mobs will pretty much take care of themselves overnight.

roesch/voltaire said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Cook said...

"He has stated a thesis and backed it up with research. What other burden does he bear?"

Did his research truly back up his thesis? Have others in the field examined his thesis and research? What do they make of it?

I haven't read the book, though I remember the controversy at the time it was published. A commenter above posted an excerpt from a comment by Murray in which he states it was never their thesis that IQ had a genetic component. Was his argument about the effect of social group and environment on IQ? (Is IQ even a real thing, or just a label we give to certain types of test results? Is IQ fixed, or does it fluctuate in individuals over time? If it is social group and environment that affects IQ, can one's IQ increase if one moves to a different environment and social group? Is IQ positively or negatively responsive to one's own habits and behaviors, as is a person's physical fitness? Does IQ pertain to one's whole intellectual capacity, or is IQ particular to different forms of intellectual capacity, such that a person's IQ may be higher or lower depending on what is being tested?)

I do think these questions are interesting and should be discussed.

buwaya said...

Murray & Herrnstein were backed up by the intelligence research/psychometric community of the day, among other things in a rather famous letter to the WSJ. The data used and the conclusions drawn were uncontroversial in the field.

The objections and controversy were due to the book being directed to the public, outside the field.

If anyone cares, lots of educational achievement data (an excellent proxy for IQ) is publicly available on the internet, for instance from NAEP, and you can draw many of the same conclusions from that that make Murray so controversial. Or rather, they are impossible to miss.

Complaints about Murray are somewhat like piling on someone for claiming the sun sets in the west, just because it is taboo to say so.

Owen said...

Buwaya: have you read "Mismatch" by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr.? It gets at an aspect of this distorted agenda.

Birches said...

I haven't read The Bell Curve, but Coming Apart is fantastic. If he is a hack, why did NPR use his book to make their "Do You Live in a Bubble?" Quiz?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Mockturtle at 9:51

The whole IQ average is meaningless, anyway, because there are geniuses and morons in all races. And, as I understand it, there are some traits in all races that are--on average--superior to those of other races. Blacks have better visuo-spatial ability on average, for instance. As IQ tests are designed by white people, there is bound to be some bias toward what we value most.

Exactly. What we value! How to measure "intelligence" when intelligence can be so very subjective from one culture and one era to another. Yes. It is pretty obvious when someone is a moron, or so decidedly mentally handicapped as to be at best marginally functional in the society in which they live....so we (meaning I) am not discussing that end of the bell curve. As well many extreme geniuses are also not necessarily functional either despite their genius traits.

What we value as being intelligent in our current society may be perceived as not so smart in others. It also varies as to what segment of society you are in as to what is seen as intelligent or smart or valuable. Do you live in Palo Alto? surrounded by academics and silcion valley programing types? Do you live in Podunk Iowa and can't read but are a whiz at repairing John Deere tractors?

I once knew a guy who could barely read above a 3rd grade level. He would flunk any IQ test. He was one of the most intuitive, mechanical and mathematically gifted people I have ever known. Even though he could do the "numbers", the measurements etc....he couldn't put the information on paper or solve a basic algebra equation...on paper. Was he dumb? not at all. Would be be on the left side of the Bell Curve. YOU BET. Was he the only guy people wanted to do repairs on their equipment. HELL YES.

So. What is "intelligence" really?

Gahrie said...

More, and not mentioned by Murray, is that there has not been an educational method, intervention, or process that can close the US racial group "gaps" in educational achievement, and thats with seventy years of extremely well funded attempts.

This is true. Which is why Affirmative Action was created, to "overcome" what cannot be fixed.

they have to pretend that the truth isnt. This forces the lowering of standards to maintain the pretense, as also the destruction of tracking which cripples the development of talent. All is sacrificed to the impossible goal of fixing the "gaps".

Tracking, which has been proven to work, is literally unmentionable in education today.

roesch/voltaire said...


Yes all folks are not born equal in terms of genetic dispositions, some for instance have inherited a trait for breast cancer putting them at a medical disadvantage, but inheriting a high or low IQ potential does not put one at a disadvantage for becoming a decent human being, which is important for all. Further, my IQ test can vary as much as 25 pts on any give day, year that I have taken them ( more than a standard deviation).So? That said, Charles Murray, and I have read a number of his essays, should be debated about his evidence and what conclusions he reaches.

Anonymous said...

mockturtle: The whole IQ average is meaningless, anyway, because there are geniuses and morons in all races.

It isn't meaningless. The dogma that group differences in outcome must be the result of remediable social factors, and absolutely cannot have any biological basis (or even cultural explanations that doesn't involve blaming whitey), has enormous consequences.

Huge amounts of real resources are expended, and real, disruptive, and often downright tyrannical social engineering programs enacted, on the premise that "disparate impact" is always the result of "discrimination", "privilege", or whatever social phlogiston happens to be the fashionable explanation for unequal outcomes -- never the result of the characteristics of the under-represented group itself.

Nobody anywhere is pushing a theory that "all X are smarter than all Y". That's a straw-man the goon left uses to shut down debate and research.

buwaya said...

Robert,

Yes, yes, yes, etc. There is a tremendous lot of material out there. And you should read the book. It is very, very thorough, citing everything relevant, and no-one has complained about the actual data. Though it is not itself the whole field of study, it is an excellent overview for the layman of the whole thing, as it was 20 years ago.

Gahrie said...

Did his research truly back up his thesis?

Yes..as does everyone else's. That's the dirty little secret everyone is afraid to mention.

.

Owen said...

Robert Cook: "...Rather than it being the obligation of others to prove him wrong, he is obliged to prove his claim is true..."

I don't think that's how science works. First, there is no conclusive proof of anything. There are just the currently surviving hypotheses that explain the observations and offer testable predictions. Proponents of a new hypothesis can offer weak or no evidence to support it, in which case it won't sell, and the proponents just look foolish and are given less or no attention in future.

What most serious scientists try to do is make their best case, showing their data and explaining their methods, and inviting others to critique and improve it. They beg their strongest rivals to try to break the hypothesis.

The onus is not on the proponent to "prove" the hypothesis, so much as it is on the rest of the community to attempt to DISprove it.

IMHO.

Sebastian said...

So, are they gonna take on Fryer and Levitt next?

"On tests of intelligence, Blacks systematically score worse than Whites. Some have
argued that genetic differences across races account for the gap. Using a newly available
nationally representative data set that includes a test of mental function for children aged
eight to twelve months, we find only minor racial differences in test outcomes (0.06
standard deviation units in the raw data) between Blacks and Whites that disappear with
the inclusion of a limited set of controls. Relative to Whites, children of all other races
lose ground by age two. We confirm similar patterns in another large, but not nationally
representative data set. A calibration exercise demonstrates that the observed patterns are
broadly consistent with large racial differences in environmental factors that grow in
importance as children age. Our findings are not consistent with the simplest models of
large genetic differences across races in intelligence, although we cannot rule out the
possibility that intelligence has multiple dimensions and racial differences are present
only in those dimensions that emerge later in life."

Robert Cook said...

"How would, say, Galileo have fared under these criteria of worthiness? Your recommendations would cement orthodoxy and the views of the most powerful."

I agree that there is orthodoxy in science as there is in religious doctrine, and heretical scientists will have a hard time of it, even if their theses are valid. However, over time, if an idea or thesis is not transparently specious from the start, others will contribute their own proofs for or against it, and, in time, what was once heresy becomes merely controversial, then debated, then, finally, either successfully refuted or proven correct.

mockturtle said...

Angel-Dyne, I certainly don't disagree with you. And this Onion piece is one of my favorite take-offs on the ridiculous social-educational theorists: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit? Panelists discuss the many ways in which our educational system caters to students who try, care, are awake.

Gahrie said...

However, over time, if an idea or thesis is not transparently specious from the start, others will contribute their own proofs for or against it, and, in time, what was once heresy becomes merely controversial, then debated, then, finally, either successfully refuted or proven correct.

Which is why the Left is so desperately committed to shutting up and shutting down those they disagree with rather than engaging them...they know they will lose a fair debate.

Laslo Spatula said...

Alan Allen, College Student with a SJW Girlfriend...

So Jezzy comes back from the Women's March in the City, and she is high on the adrenaline of The Political Statement. I'm not sure what the women actually accomplished, but she tells me that Accomplishment is Fascist, and not as Important as Empowerment. See, this is why I like Math: I don't have to worry about a number's politics or feelings -- four knows it is four, and even when it calls itself Two Squared it is still right...

I can't say this to her, of course: she has brought with her a new friend she met at the March, and they are reliving the moments on Social Media. The friend is Hot, but sadly I don't think I can do near enough convincing Oppression Dialogue to get this to turn into a Threesome...

Jezzy tells me Amanda is going to spend the night, and could I sleep on the couch, so they can share the bed and talk into the night. Right. It is obvious Amanda is a lesbian, and her fingers are going to be straying towards my girlfriend's breasts and vagina in an Empowered Way: now, maybe if I could WATCH...

Anyway, I let them have the bed: it gives me some time to catch up on my studies. By the way, it has been eleven days since my last blow-job from Jezzy. Eleven is TOO MANY: THAT is Math...

I am Laslo.

William said...

A high IQ can help you in school and in certain careers. Then there's the rest of life. How many IQ points would you be willing to shave for a durable back, sexual magnetism, a happy childhood, robust health et al.......Life is the ultimate IQ test, and lots of very bright people flunk it.

buwaya said...

Sebastian,

There are several genetic studies that have identified genes linked with IQ that show differences expressed later in life.
I would link a couple, but unable to do so at the moment.
There are a huge number of genetically determined physical traits that are expressed later in life.

In education its become clear that "the gap" can be closed, significantly, using certain teaching methods and curricula, from grades K-5. But that fades away quickly and even for the same cohort that had its "gap" reduced in K-5, the 12th grade "gap" is as big as ever.

Sebastian said...

"So. What is "intelligence" really?" Well, it is a subject studied by hundreds of researchers, with pretty clear measures and massive data accumulated, and all common objections and misconceptions thoroughly addressed in the scholarly literature.

Try Ian Deary's work. His papers are a bit technical, but his "public" scholarship is very clear. You can find "Ten quite interesting things about intelligence test scores" on YouTube.

Anonymous said...

Robert Cook: The question is: Has he met the burden incumbent upon him to prove his argument correct?

The standard for being allowed to discuss ideas in public should be no higher for Charles Murray than for anybody else who's allowed to speak and publish unhindered by the intellectual mutaween. To this day right-thinking academics apply no standards of proof at all to bullshitting "blank slaters" or any number of vaporing social "scientists".

I don't think "you have to shut up and not ever discuss your ideas in public until after you've proved that your ideas are correct" is a rule to which any self-respecting intellectual community adheres. (If high standards of scientific rigor were a prerequisite to speaking in public, every academic who ever said "science has proven that there's no such thing as race" would have to remain forever silent in public.)

mockturtle said...

Using a newly available
nationally representative data set that includes a test of mental function for children aged
eight to twelve months, we find only minor racial differences in test outcomes (0.06
standard deviation units in the raw data) between Blacks and Whites that disappear with
the inclusion of a limited set of controls.


Yes, it was found that children 8-12 months old gave more or less the same answers on the standard Stanford-Binet. It was found that penguins scored equally well with humans.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Francisco D said...
"The Bell Curve" is extraordinarily well researched, largely because there is a ton of data from the Organizational Psychology literature on cognitive testing. That research has been largely abandoned because it is politically incorrect."

Yes. The Left becomes very anti-science when science doesn't produce the results they would like.

I read "The Bell Curve" when it first came out and I've read many articles by Murray and he is certainly not arguing for racially based eugenics or anything close to it. A point he is always stressing, and one that is pushed by the "Dirty Jobs" guy Mike Rowe as well, is that we are in fact wasting the potential of millions of young people by insisting that everyone must go to college and by devaluing trade schools. That has served neither individuals nor higher education very well.

On Tucker Carlson last night, after the segment showing the howling, vicious little leftist savages screaming at Murray at Bennington, he had a segment featuring an engaging young man from Praxis, an organization that puts college age kids through a 9 month apprenticeship, training them to be entrepreneurs. Now, obviously not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, one has to be very driven to succeed, but as I listened to him, I thought that Praxis might be creating more far more value than the entire Liberal Arts Department of Bennington College - and at a total cost of $14,000 as compared to the $65,000 a year Bennington charges. What sane employer would want to hire any of those little fascists?

http://discoverpraxis.com/

One reason (among others) that college is so damnably expensive is that parents feel they have no choice but to pony up and send the kid off to Indoctrination U or else he'll or she be flipping burgers for a living. If more viable alternatives are created, people will think twice about the wisdom of sending their children off to a place which will land them in serious debt while making them less capable of dealing with the real world.

Anonymous said...

mockturtle @10:50 AM:

Lol.

We laugh, but there are people out there whose views are hardly distinguishable from that Onion piece. (E.g., expecting your employees to be show up for work on time is "white supremacist".)

Anonymous said...

The "principles" of people like this always remain intact until they either wake up to reality or die in the illusion. There is nothing quite so terrible as self-righteousness that is unchecked by any outside authority.

mockturtle said...

but she tells me that Accomplishment is Fascist, and not as Important as Empowerment.

Oh, Laslo! You have explained so much with such concision!

Fernandinande said...

David Begley said...
Can someone come up with a proper description for the Southern Poverty Law Center? Nutty? Whacked out?


Sheeit, that's easy: SPLC is a libelous hate scam.

mockturtle said...
The whole IQ average is meaningless, anyway, because there are geniuses and morons in all races.


That's true, but it doesn't make it meaningless because progressives incorrectly blame the differential outcomes on white racism, leading to an endless parade of useless programs addressing the false cause, especially in education. Also "geniuses" get exponentially rarer with the exponent proportional to the difference in the mean.

As IQ tests are designed by white people, there is bound to be some bias toward what we value most.

No, they check: dumb people of each race miss the same questions with the same frequency.

Anyway - truly wretched fake WaPo article on this assault, but read the comments: very few people are falling for the MSM/progressive propaganda.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"We laugh, but there are people out there whose views are hardly distinguishable from that Onion piece. (E.g., expecting your employees to be show up for work on time is "white supremacist".)"

If I were an employer, there are certain resumes that would end up in the trash can immediately - like the resume of any grad with a major ending in "Studies."

Francisco D said...

Cookie,

Let me answer some of the questions you posed or implied.

1. Men and women have different bell curves when it comes to cognitive test scores. Men are far more represented at the two extremes - genius and cognitively impaired (i.e., mentally retarded) than women. That is well established.

2. Cognitive ability (IQ) is a social construct. Anyone can come up with an alternative to the current crop of tests (e.g., Robert Williams' BITCH test). The question is, what does the measured construct predict? If you read Murray, Hunter and Schmidt, you will find that our accepted cognitive tests (IQ as well as SAT, GRE, etc.) are the best single predictors of a number of variables relating to job and academic success. The BITCH test predicted nothing. Of course, we use multiple predictors to increase predictability.

3. IQ is about as fixed as any human trait. I have tested several hundred adults (for disability and other things) years after they had been tested as children. Scores vary minimally, but the categorization does not.

Fernandinande said...

Dust Bunny Queen said...
I once knew a guy who could barely read above a 3rd grade level. He would flunk any IQ test. He was one of the most intuitive, mechanical and mathematically gifted people I have ever known.


That's a nice anecdote, but it probably just means the guy had some kind of brain damage.

Anonymous said...

exiledonmainstreet: One reason (among others) that college is so damnably expensive is that parents feel they have no choice but to pony up and send the kid off to Indoctrination U or else he'll or she be flipping burgers for a living. If more viable alternatives are created, people will think twice about the wisdom of sending their children off to a place which will land them in serious debt while making them less capable of dealing with the real world.

Yes yes yes. The power of the academic-industrial-credentialing aka debt-enslaving complex has to be broken.

On the pessimistic side, middle-class Americans should have organized and revolted against this system a long time ago. Now we have an entrenched racket that is going to be all the harder to reform.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Cook - read the book. You can't convingly criticize it, if you haven't read it. And, as I pointed out above, most of those who criticize it, haven't read it, or some may have read parts of it, but not cover to cover. Maybe because they are/were academics, or maybe anticipating the firestorm that the book would ignite, the book is heavily footnoted. the way to convincingly criticize the book is to point at primary references that come to different conclusions. Or, point out that you get there from here with the data they cite.

"As far as men and women, the smartest man is smarter, on average, than the smartest woman and the dumbest man is, on average, dumber than the dumbest woman."

"Has this bit of datum been verified?"

No - because it isn't quite accurate. What has been shown in studies is that measured IQ for a population falls on a bell curve (a "normal" distribution), which has a mean and a standard deviation. The IQ mean, pollution wide, has been normed for a mean of 100. Males and females have essentially the same mean IQ, but the standard deviation for the male bell curve/normal distribution is larger, which means that the tail on both sides of the mean is longer. Thus, out of a large enough population, you will most likely find more male geniuses and more male retards. But, because of the way statistics and probability work, you can't say that the smartest man will be smarter than the smartest woman, but, rather, that it is likely. Maybe very likely, but not certain.

Sebastian said...

@buwaya: I don't disagree at all. My implicit point was that the large racial gaps in IQ are standard stuff, and that even one of the most subtle environmentalist reinterpretations can't rule out genetic "pathways."

Anonymous said...

mockturtle: Yes, it was found that children 8-12 months old gave more or less the same answers on the standard Stanford-Binet. It was found that penguins scored equally well with humans.

I bet crows and other corvids would kick their butts, though.

boycat said...

Here's an article from 2014 with an interview with Murray, in which The Bell Curve is discussed with the benefit of 20 year's hindsight: ‘The Bell Curve’ 20 years later: A Q&A with Charles Murray.

Murray's ideas were and are both prescient and clearly a threat the the existing order.

n.n said...

The SPLC is a cover-up and projection of [class] diversity, including institutional racism, sexism, and other judgment/discrimination of individuals by the "color of their skin". Perhaps they had a legitimate role once, but their role in progressing institutional [class] diversity is unmistakable.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

A correction to my 10:56 post: I mistakenly identified the school as Bennington when it fact it was Middlebury. I think I had Bennington on the brain because of some recent idiocy I had read about there, but when it comes to idiocy you can find plentiful examples on just about every college campus in the country.

n.n said...

Inference, innuendo, and bigotry are established principles of the Pro-Choice Church in science, journalism, and civil and human rights.

Robert Cook said...

"@Cook - read the book. You can't convingly criticize it, if you haven't read it."

I haven't attempted and do not purport to criticize it.

Sebastian said...

Ulric Neisser"s 1996 APA report is still worth reading, at least for the state of the art as of 1996. Its critique of Herrnstein and Murray is mild at most--certainly not fodder for wild accusations and overt violence by the looney left of 2017. The SPLC commentary is simply malicious slander.

rcocean said...

95% of "The bell curve" was NOT about Race. Nor did Murray/Hernstein claim IQ was all based on genetics.

That's what his liberals critics claimed.

You can always identify a Liberal Dumbshit by how he talks about "The Bell Curve". 99% of them never read the book.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

That's a nice anecdote, but it probably just means the guy had some kind of brain damage.

Assume much?

Re: my story of the guy who couldn't read but was a mechanical 'genius'

Actually, it means that he was raised in a backwater area of Appalachia (in the 1930's) and didn't go to school beyond 5th grade because there was no point. He went to work instead. He was raised by people who also didn't go to school beyond age 12. Imagine what could have been if he had been exposed to a better education and didn't have to become a bread winner at that age.

As in the Bell Curve thesis (as I understand it until I read the book in its entirety), environment and class structure have big influence.

Bruce Hayden said...

The problem is that IQ, while merely a construct, does seem to measure a societally useful attribute - for one thing, the ability to handle, understand, and even enjoy, complexity. One of the things that seems to worry Murray is the rise of a cognitive elite, since the great mixing starting in WW II. More and more, this cognitive elite grow up together, go to college together, get married to each other, socialize and work with each other, etc. (And hence why Middleberry can charge over $60k a year to attend - which, to some extent is the cost of entry into the club). More and more money and powe goes to this cognitive elite every year.

Someone pointed out last week (or so) that 100 years ago, that this country was predominantly rural, and most everyone knew how most of the technology they dealt with worked. Now, that is far from the case - there are few who understand how their computers or phones truly work, how jets fly, etc. I could, as far as computers go, having studied and worked in the area for most of the last half century (give me transistors and enough time, and I could probably give you a functioning computer, including the software). But, I am sitting in McDonalds in Walmart right now, and probably the only one in the entire store who could. For most, it is just magic.

Scary thing for me is that the cognitive elite have gotten control over the govt, esp at the federal level. Part of the love and understanding of complexity is the rapidly increasing complexity of the legal framework under which we live. Much of the cognitive elite are just fine with this, being the ones who understand it the best, and the ones best able to benefit from it.

And, as I started this, measured IQ correlates strongly with the ability to handle complexity. Other abilities are also important, but this one seems to be becoming more and more important to success in this world.

Owen said...

Angel-Dyne: your response to "exiledonmainstreet" was exactly what I was going to say. Monopolies always produce shitty overpriced goods and services, and higher education today is effectively a monopoly (air a cartel where there the members compete ineffectually). We need trade apprenticeships, vocational tracks, young entrepreneur programs, you name it.

Mostly we need to stop the virtue-signaling that the Elites use to show how very superior and special they are, and therefore how very unworthy the blue-collar people are. That condescension is poison, and is all the more toxic for being unacknowledged. The Elites don't even know they're doing it.

In "Coming Apart" and subsequent stuff, Murray got at this problem of the Bubble --epistemic closure, a ghetto of the anointed-- and it is huge.

It is how you get Trump.

IMHO.

Gahrie said...

If IQ tests were useless and didn't matter...no one would care about them.

Fernandinande said...

Dust Bunny Queen said...
"That's a nice anecdote, but it probably just means the guy had some kind of brain damage.
Assume much?


Nope. Your anecdote described an extremely atypical person.

Actually, it means that he was raised in a backwater area of Appalachia (in the 1930's) and didn't go to school beyond 5th grade because there was no point.

If he was smart he wouldn't "flunk any IQ test" (and of course, you don't really know that he would) since many are completely non-verbal; as far as that goes, if he was smart he'd do well on any IQ test because they don't measure education. And if he was smart he'd be able to read and write quite well despite not going beyond 5th grade.

As in the Bell Curve thesis (as I understand it until I read the book in its entirety), environment and class structure have big influence.

IIRC, the book didn't address that issue much, but it turns out that an environment has to be abusively terrible - raised in a dark closet - to have much influence on mental ability; in the west (US, Europe, etc) differences in adult intelligence are almost entirely genetic because nearly everybody has a "good-enough" environment including people raised in the "inner city" or in Appalachian backwaters because they're not diseased, starved, burdened with parasites or raised in a closet.

Fernandinande said...

mockturtle said...
"Using a newly available ..."
Yes, it was found that children 8-12 months old gave more or less the same answers on the standard Stanford-Binet. It was found that penguins scored equally well with humans.


You might actually be correct! A two-day old lizard is smarter than a two-day old human, and a six-month old dog is smarter than a six-month old human; the same might apply to penguins.

ALP said...

RE: IQ tests.

I worked for non profits serving the developmentally disabled for nearly 10 years. In order to ascertain if an individual qualifies as disabled, and can receive services, a series of tests are conducted, one of them the IQ test. Some people were tested more than once to get a good idea of intellectual functioning because they were "high functioning" or borderline, and their parents were keen to get them into services rather than have them take their chances in the world as a "dull normal" (an IQ classification I have seen in Psych evals). Test results seem to vary, at least in this population, enough to pony up the $ for repeated tests to get the results they want. Since this experience, I have come to see any IQ figure as "the score that person got on that day". Is the test taker in a good mood? Higher score. Feeling shitty and insecure? Lower score.

People put too much emphasis on it. I've been around some pretty low IQ people who have said some pretty profound things and have shown incredible capacity for compassion.

mockturtle said...

Exiled claims: If I were an employer, there are certain resumes that would end up in the trash can immediately - like the resume of any grad with a major ending in "Studies."

Yep! I would also be interested to know whether the applicant had ever engaged in any actual 'work', e.g., summer job, babysitting, fast-food, anything at all that demanded responsibility.

mockturtle said...

Fernandinande responds: You might actually be correct! A two-day old lizard is smarter than a two-day old human, and a six-month old dog is smarter than a six-month old human; the same might apply to penguins.

I don't doubt that but how would they respond on the Stanford-Binet?

Feeble though it was, I was making a sarcastic joke on the idea that the preceding post propounded, that there is intellectual equality between races in 6-8-month old babies but that they diverge later.

mockturtle said...

I don't actually know what my IQ is. Years ago I received an engraved invitation to join MENSA, which I ignored, figuring that I'd possibly be the dumbest member at any given event.;-D Of course, someone has to be....

Paco Wové said...

I like how "white nationalist" has become the latest class enemy du jour for the left. "Kulak" rolls off the tongue better, though.

Anonymous said...

ALP: Test results seem to vary, at least in this population, enough to pony up the $ for repeated tests to get the results they want. Since this experience, I have come to see any IQ figure as "the score that person got on that day". Is the test taker in a good mood? Higher score. Feeling shitty and insecure? Lower score.

Yes, this population, where people were, as you explain, trying to get into or out of a "high functioning disabled" or "dull normal" range. But you never saw somebody who scored an 70 come in later and score at 100, or 115, or 130, did you? No, I bet they scored within a predicted range.

People put too much emphasis on it. I've been around some pretty low IQ people who have said some pretty profound things and have shown incredible capacity for compassion.

Who are these "IQ" absolutists" who insist that all human worth is in an IQ score? Aside from the (very) occasional sociopathic asshole on the internet who wants to believe that, I never meet these people. Yet, apparently, they're all over the place, since there's always at least a few people in every thread dealing with IQ who feel the need to point out that they know people with low IQs who have fine human qualities, or talents that aren't measured by IQ tests. As if there were people around who were insisting that they were worthless vermin because they had low IQs.

Jaysus, people. The fact is that IQ tests do predict life outcomes pretty well. Mean group differences appear even when socioeconomic and educational variables are controlled. They are not just arbitrary bullshit that "don't test anything but the ability to do well on an IQ test". That someone acknowledges that IQ tests measure things that do matter (like whether someone has the chops to be an electrical engineer, or navigate everyday life without help) tells you nothing about what that person thinks about human worth. And really, if you think about it, it's pretty damned insulting, the things you're assuming and implying here.

jaed said...

Can someone come up with a proper description for the Southern Poverty Law Center? Nutty? Whacked out?

I like "the wealthy, controversial Southern Poverty Law Center". It has the advantage of being objectively true, as well as the slightly whiplash-inducing contrast between "wealthy" and "poverty".

Bilwick said...

Even if Murray were a member of the KKK, that (unless you caught him burning a cross on someone's lawn or some aggressive act), no one would have the right to disrupt his talk or beat him up. But in any event the Bell Curve argument, even if absolutely proven correct, is not a license for segregation. And for me it's ultimately irrelevant sice I have to deal with individuals, not groups. While a Maxine Waters is certainly dumber than, say, the average REASON writer or reader, a Thomas Sowell or a Walter Williams is scads smarter than, say, Robert Cook.

So if I decide "All of this group is stupider than this other group" where does that get me? Nowhere. I'm Caucasian and am not at all bothered by the fact that Asians consistently score higher than Caucasians or other ethnic groups.

Anonymous said...

DBQ: I once knew a guy who could barely read above a 3rd grade level. He would flunk any IQ test.

If he was as gifted as you say, he probably wouldn't. There are non-verbal IQ tests. People are always adducing really smart guys they know who they're sure would fail IQ tests. That's not the same thing as knowing really smart guys who did fail IQ tests.

It probably happens, sometime, somewhere. I wouldn't bet on it, though.

Abdul Abulbul Amir said...

SPLC is a hate group. Who cares what they say?

ccscientist said...

My belief is that culture has a lot to do with the IQ gap for blacks. Black family life is simplified, with little time spent talking to or reading to children. Some poor whites share this culture and their children also don't score well. It is also taboo to say the culture is to blame because culture is one's identity and we can't say black culture (even gang-banger, shoot em up culture) has any issues at all. It is their right and it is wonderful. In the higher grades, there is a stigma for black boys to study (acting white they say) but less stigma for the girls--guess who does better in school, is more likely to learn proper English, and who goes to college much more, the girls!! This is why throwing money at schools is useless.

Anonymous said...

William Chadwick: So if I decide "All of this group is stupider than this other group" where does that get me?

But nobody ever decides that or argues that. Nobody anywhere argues that individuals should be evaluated by their group mean. It's the eternal indestructible straw man of every IQ discussion.

Bilwick said...

"But nobody ever decides that or argues that. Nobody anywhere argues that individuals should be evaluated by their group mean. It's the eternal indestructible straw man of every IQ discussion."

That wasn't my point, but thanks for reading.

Anonymous said...

Unknown: My belief is that culture has a lot to do with the IQ gap for blacks. Black family life is simplified, with little time spent talking to or reading to children. Some poor whites share this culture and their children also don't score well.

The mean SAT score of the poorest whites (<$20,000 family income) is higher than the mean score of all but the wealthiest blacks (>$200,000 family income). The mean IQ score of black children adopted by whites is at the black mean; the mean IQ score of Asian children adopted by whites is at the Asian mean.

This isn't proof that "it's totally genetic" or that there isn't something "cultural" going on. But a lot of people do seem to think that nobody ever thought about, or controlled for, things like SEC or environment when comparing scores, and this is untrue.

Michael K said...

And, as I started this, measured IQ correlates strongly with the ability to handle complexity. Other abilities are also important, but this one seems to be becoming more and more important to success in this world.

This is why I think we are creating a Mandarin class in this country. The problem is that IQ and complexity is mostly about test taking.

When I was young and in school, I was very very good at test taking,.

When I was a medical student, we took the first step of the National Board Exams, now called USMLE. It had six parts, each on a different subject. The Pharmacology section had a whole page of questions on the Veratrim Alkaloids, an obsolete type of drug class that had some use in cardiac disease. They were not very important, even then. The Pharmacology professor told us to read the section on them in the book but gave no lectures.

Naturally, I had not read the section and had no idea what they did or how they did it.

I finished the exam and then went back and analyzed the questions, which in those days were mostly multiple choice. I was able to compare A,B,C answers to A and D answers and so forth. I completed the section that way, knowing nothing about the drug class.

After the exam, I went home and found I had gotten every answer correct.

The trouble with a Mandarin class is that test taking may not be that useful in the real world.

Every 100 years or so, the Mongols come and kick the shit out of the Mandarins.

We are about due.

gspencer said...

The Bell Curve & Coming Apart,

= Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities in an intellectual setting,

Michael K said...

This isn't proof that "it's totally genetic" or that there isn't something "cultural" going on.

Murray's concern, and I think it is valid, is that high IQ people are mating and the genetics is working to make a Mandarin class.

He is also concerned that the lowest IQ blacks are mating and making a lower mean but we can't talk about that. Higher IQ blacks have smaller families. Low IQ black males may have 20 "baby mamas."

A nice experiment of nature is going on as we speak (type).

High IQ career women are placing their children in the hands of low IQ nannies to raise. Maybe we'll see that culture has something to do with it but it will take many years to see.

gadfly said...

Ann - you are wrong. How could anyone not believe the Southern Poverty Law Center!

The Southern Poverty Law Center logically classified the organization White Lives Matter as a hate group, but judiciously refused to apply the same classification to Black Lives Matter!!

Anonymous said...

William Chadwick to me: "But nobody ever decides that or argues that. Nobody anywhere argues that individuals should be evaluated by their group mean. It's the eternal indestructible straw man of every IQ discussion."

That wasn't my point, but thanks for reading.


OK, then I missed your point. But I assumed that if you assert and elaborate on the point that there is great variance in any given group regardless of mean, and you will therefore evaluate people individually, not according to group mean, then you must think that there are people out there who don't know (or believe) the former, and don't do the latter.

Likewise, if you invoke a hypothetical self positing a belief that "[a]ll of this group is stupider than this other group", then one assumes that you think that there are people out there who do think that way, and need to be responded to.

Otherwise, what and whom are you addressing?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

DBQ: I once knew a guy who could barely read above a 3rd grade level. He would flunk any IQ test.

If he was as gifted as you say, he probably wouldn't. There are non-verbal IQ tests.

I should have been more specific, I suppose. I mean that if he were given the standard written IQ test, or something like the PSAT or SAT, he would have not been able to take the test successfully. Because...he...could...not...read....well. When he had any sort of legal, insurance, medical or other documents he would ask me or others to read out loud and explain terminology that he wasn't familiar with.

Non verbal testing would probably be good....IF he had the patience for it, and didn't tell the tester to eff off. He had the don't give a shit attitude as in the Onion satire piece :-)

Anonymous said...

DBQ: I should have been more specific, I suppose. I mean that if he were given the standard written IQ test, or something like the PSAT or SAT, he would have not been able to take the test successfully.

True. The old SATs (not the new ones) were good proxies for IQ, but literacy was still necessary!

Non verbal testing would probably be good....IF he had the patience for it, and didn't tell the tester to eff off. He had the don't give a shit attitude as in the Onion satire piece :-)

Lol. More evidence of his superior intellect.

Gospace said...

Chess is the only widespread purely mind based competition where records are kept and can be compared. This is the top 100 list of everyone. This is the top 100 women. The #1 woman is tied for 93 on the overall list. She's the only woman there. The top rated black chess player I can find is Maurice Ashley, with a 2440. Enough to place in 6th place on the women's list. The top rated black women I can find is Rochelle Ballantyne. her 1957 doesn't place her in the top 100 women, yet she has appeared in magazines and talk shows and is held up as a shining example to all. Her rating is 1957. I played at a little below that level in high school. I was, and am, a nobody in the world of chess. A classmate of mine played, and currently plays, above that level. He was, and is, a nobody in the world of chess. I think it's fair to refer to her accomplishments as the bigotry of low expectations. She's a great black woman chess player, but overall, she's a mediocrity. She's making the best of her fame.

Go is also mental, and records are kept, but is largely regional. This is the list of top Go players. The firs woman shows up at 76. The first American at 273. The first non-Asian isn't on this list of 875 people.

So what's the point here? Well, here you have contests of pure brainpower. Blacks, about 20% of the world, don't show up as competitors in any meaningful sense. There is no written test, IQ, MCAT, LSAT, SAT, ACT, ASVAB, GCT/ARI, none, in which blacks perform up to the level of whites and Asians. And it turns out it's not possible to design such tests. I read long ago there have been attempts in Africa to design tests for civil servants where blacks will do better. All to naught. In fact, given that Africans in Africa can be identified by tribe, turns out there are tribes that do better then other tribes, and no designed test can eliminate the difference.

Now the question- Is that difference genetic or cultural? (Or nutritional?) I think, despite evidence otherwise, that the overall answer to that is Yes. And that we. as a nation, shouldn't demand equal outcomes, but as stated in out founding documents, equal opportunity. Even doing our best to uplift minorities, we haven't been able to achieve equal outcome. It's time to stop pretending we can achieve it.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"High IQ career women are placing their children in the hands of low IQ nannies to raise."

Maybe that explains why Chelsea Clinton and Caroline Kennedy sound dumber than stumps.

Michael K said...

"Africans in Africa can be identified by tribe, turns out there are tribes that do better then other tribes"

The Ibos, who now call themselves "Igbo" are well know for skill in mathematics and many are quite successful in the financial industry. They are the same tribe that suffered in the Nigerian Civil War, as the residents of Biafra. They lost a war with the northern tribes that have become largely Muslim in recent times.

The Civil War was about oil revenue and the fact the Ibo were dominant in government after the British left.

There is often talk of the superiority of "Nigerians" in the financial industry but they are all Igbos.

Gospace said...

As to "he's not book smart, but he's a great mechanic", I've had the unfortunate experience of having to deal with more then one of them in my life. One of them had been assigned to rebuilding a small compressor, as in about the size of a breadbox. I walked past him as he got to the point where the piston came out. Walked by 15 minutes late, he was still struggling to get the piston out, a less then one minute task. I asked "You having trouble with that?" His reply, "Well, you're so damn smart, YOU DO IT!", and he stepped back from the workbench. I walked over, flipped open the tech manual sitting next to the compressor, flipped to the disassembly page, stuck my hands on the piston, and without looking the compressor, just the book, pushed, pulled, and turned as the directed, and 30 seconds later handed the piston to him. And said, "I have no idea how to take the piston out. That's why we have the book and gave it to you." And went on my way. He didn't like me after that. But then, he didn't like me before that. I have a dozen other similar stories. As long as the "he's not book smart, but he's a great mechanic" mechanic is working on something he's worked on before, and working on a problem he's seen before, and on something that somewhere along the way someone showed him how to do, he's a great mechanic. Set him to a task on a different type of machinery, and he's completely lost, good only as an assistant. And he's going to be a surly assistant, because he's a great mechanic, and everyone but you recognizes it. Give him a problem he's never seen before, on equipment he's worked on before, and he'll throw parts at it until it works. Won't troubleshoot, that requires some book learning. But if he throws enough parts at it, it'll eventually work.

Francisco D said...

The current standard for IQ testing is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale -Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV).

Indices look at verbal and non-verbal skills (Processing Speed, Perceptual Reasoning, Verbal Comprehension, Working Memory and Full Scale IQ). Not being able to read or having a very poor education will affect Verbal Reasoning and to a lesser extent, Working Memory. It will not affect Perceptual Reasoning or Processing Speed.

David Wechsler started IQ testing in WWI. His people have continued it in an empirically driven manner. It measures much more than reading ability or test taking ability.

Big Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Big Mike said...

Anyone who currently works, or who has ever worked even for as little as a single day, for the SPLC needs to be put on a terrorist watch list and never taken off.

mockturtle said...

Every 100 years or so, the Mongols come and kick the shit out of the Mandarins.

Very well said, Michael! :-D Yes, civilization goes through states of construction and deconstruction---of necessity. Elites marrying elites doesn't always work so well, either. Look at the Royal Family.

mockturtle said...

Michael K states: High IQ career women are placing their children in the hands of low IQ nannies to raise. Maybe we'll see that culture has something to do with it but it will take many years to see.

Winston Churchill was raised by his nurse almost entirely until he was eight and then sent to boarding school which was run by sadistic tyrants. Some might argue, but I think his British/American heritage was a good one. Excellence will out but you need some fresh blood in it.

glenn said...

The only principle a lot of Leftis I know have is " You have too much. It's not fair. Give me some"

Brad said...

Citing the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source automatically disqualifies the person citing same as 'serious.'

Jupiter said...

'Charles Murray, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has become one of the most influential social scientists in America, using racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.'


Huh. So that's what it takes to become influential in American social science. Who knew?

Gahrie said...

using racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women, and the poor.'

Wouldn't that make him a Progressive..like Margaret Sanger and her ilk?

Comanche Voter said...

Whatever etthical integrity the Southern Poverty Law Center may have had wayback in the wayback has long since vanished.

Martin said...

As I read the statement from alumni, the one thing that stood out is that they do not require the ability to think logically in order to get a degree from Middlebury.

GRW3 said...

I checked out the ideas of The Bell Curve. What struck me was not the magnitude median difference. What struck me was the difference didn't come close to explaining the differences in outcomes. That may be Murray's biggest sin, exposing the fact that, as a group, African Americans are way underperforming their potential. That suggests external suppression and, since most live under Democrat/liberal control, that indicts the elite, the Sanger class racists. (The bubba class racists don't have that kind of power.)

mockturtle said...

GRW3, I get your point and agree. Underperformance by blacks and Hispanics has more to do with cultural, moral issues than with IQ. Some gang-bangers are extremely bright and maybe they perform well in their careers of professional drug dealers but realizing one's potential in prison is difficult. A girl with two or three babies before the age of 20 is not likely to realize her potential, either. Bottom line: IQ does not equal wisdom or sound judgment.

mockturtle said...

Of course, one cannot rule out genetic influence in cultural behavior, either.