One has to be exceedingly careful about the comment about an IQ disparity between people. It's much more accurate to say that the means of the two populations are different. Assumptions about individual people cannot be made using statistical differences between groups.

So, you can't use a statistical difference between the means to discriminate against someone. You also cannot use a statistical difference between the means of results to prove there was discrimination. (What is commonly done).

This is an incredibly hot button subject. There is a real world and a real answer. Whether we like it or not shouldn't matter -- but it matters a lot!

I've read it three times. Simply because one names an inconvenient fact does not make one a racist! Murray and Hernstein also made the point that there are hundreds of thousands of black people in this country with IQs greater than 130. They also emphasized that factors other than simply IQ matter, and made suggestions on how the difference might be partially ameliorated. And supposedly, northern Asians average IQs three points higher than average Caucasian scores. I should add that I think that cultural standards--or lack thereof--also contribute mightily to crime and unemployment, as well as other social ills. One other point: I've read a couple of other books on the subject, and many experts seem to agree that IQ is 40-60% genetic. I haven't heard any of them being called racists....

Charles Murray did in fact revisit "The Bell Curve" twenty years after its publication.

http://www.aei.org/publication/bell-c...

I believe he feels that subsequent science developments have reinforced his initial conclusions.

I expect he said nothing wrong that political correctness can't screw up.
Too much made of IQ. Whatever one's is, one goal should simply be to be as productive as possible and accept who you are. It is only the push for economic equality that makes it relevant as to who is at fault for what and who owes who based on genetic differences.

Let's get ethnic for a moment. Most everyone has grown up with kids who were always a few steps behind the other kids.Some may have been abused, or autistic, but there always seemed to be a "Nutsy Fagan" or "Moishe Pippik" in the crowds.Some of them remained the kid whose elevator never made it to the top, but what confounded both the geneticists and racists is that many of these persons just grew up to be like everyone else and even in some cases leaders in their field. I have an aquaintance that I've known since childhood. Looking back, I think he had what's currently described as ADHD. He barely made it through school,bout- long story short he went into business and became a leader in his field bringing his company up from virtually nothing to the 2nd largest globally. Personally, I think there is a genetic component. But it crosses all racial lines, just as there is a genetic component to physicality, or musical ability, or ability to express oneself. To be science - accurate it needs to be proven through scientific method, hence the Bell Curve, we all know the difference. The kid who played the piano by ear, the kid who could think in terms of math, the kid who could never tie his shoes.

Yes, I read it back in '95 during the first controversy just to see what all the fuss is about. I still have it in my library and, if I get the time, I may read it again. There is a tremendous amount of detail that I have since forgotten, but the gist regarding race (a small part of the book) was all races have morons and geniuses with a mean center of the bell that shifts a bit when race data are compared to each other. One of the indications of the data is there is a reasonably strong genetic component where parental IQ (high or low) will most likely get passed on to the next generation, apparently regardless of race. Knowing that, presumably interracial parents will also pass their IQ on to the next generation. As I recall, interestingly, the IQ of the mother is more likely to get passed than the IQ of the father. None of this is 100%, of course, because higher IQ parents can birth lower IQ children and vice versa.

Murray & Herrnstein were mainly messengers of a data set. Frying them politically out of hand because you don't like the data is... well... very low IQ. On the other hand, frying them because you have political power and wealth to gain may be pretty smart, if unethical.

In the end I think IQ is an important subset of the human gene pool, but it isn't the only one. "The Bell Curve" explores the apparent effect of IQ in human endeavor, but there are other bell curves of talents and abilities that are not studied between its covers. I figure most people who are protesting Murray at this time have never read the book and are really clueless of what it actually reports and discusses. There are "smart" charlatans at work here. I came to that same conclusion in '95.

I read the book many years ago so my recollection might be a bit fuzzy. Suggesting that IQ is wholly or partially genetic makes perfect sense to me. It's why certain cultures survived and others did not. What happened to Mr. Murray and the host professor at Middlebury College is a clear signal to me that the gap between the haves and have-nots (created mostly by and exacerbated by a fundamentally flawed monetary policy) has become painfully obvious and the 99%-ers are getting ready to erupt in larger numbers than ever before in my lifetime. Mr. Murray points out in his most recent book, "Coming Apart" how education, marriage, etc... affects one's lot in life. He does this with expert research over a number of years. The fact that an unusual proportion of lower income producers might be a certain ethnicity doesn't make him a racist as much as it makes him a competent scientist.

...and, to continue, i have trained students from every culture and region of the world...there is a vast difference in how minds of individuals think based on the culture they are brought up in...but, again, they can adapt...to different culture and different mindsets...based on the average individual's ability...IQ just means faster or slower..not necessarily better...it gives the higher IQ a short term advantage...which can be a disadvantage, if the higher IQ relies on just the higher IQ to "get by"...

again, the "best" culture or civilization is the one that respects the "rights of the individual" and allows freedom to flourish...

Good thing Eric Hoffer is not around to speak at colleges. His observations would elicit more violent protests than those against Murray. If his work is without bias, then the left is shooting the messenger. With that in mind, watch the Mike Judge film Idiocracy. You should laugh but also may cry as you see the decline of society when only stupid (mainly white) people breed. Enjoy!

although i have not read "The Bell Curve", it deals with probability analysis and randomness...the better book to read would be "Against the Gods" by Bernstein.

IQ does not represent intelligence, just the potential ability to acquire information at a greater pace than the average person. Mozart was born "gifted" and creative. There are "elite" athletes. But the rise of civilization was due to the individuals of lesser abilities who were free to succeed.

With that said, i have been an instructor pilot in the Air Force and at American Airlines...and i teach others how to trade the stock market. I have come across many different types of individuals, how males learn vs females (i headed the program in 1975 to bring women into pilot training for the Air Force and the Navy).

What the bell curve is telling you is that the top 5% "gets it" and the bottom 5% never will...those of us inbetween can learn it if we apply ourselves. Our ability to learn trumps the potential.

I have had new traders simply look at a market chart and "get it". When i ask them to explain how...they can't. It just makes sense to them. They can be successful traders if they learn how to "systematize" what they are seeing...but they can bust out just like those who will never be successful traders.

Once again, i applaud Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden for their epistemology of individualism and their objective philosophy and understanding of the uniqueness of the individual in life and the potential for all us to better ourselves by being free to succeed, regardless of the potential we are born with...more importantly, we are born with the ability to succeed if we are left alone and not herded into groups.

No, but I saw an interview. The man is not a racist...that's just silly. However, I think he hasn't accounted for culture, language or mysticism's.

If an entire culture, like the jungles of Africa or South America; even islam...then daa...they will not have a whole lot of stored information nor a useful integration of that information. They could not compare to the civilized world...but most could adapt and increase their IQ's. Language, (reading and writing) and metaphors are very important here.
I am using the works of Julian Jaynes here and the notion that, for the most part, IQ is just a measure of stored information, and an ability to use that information to solve problems etc.

There is a Big difference between Compartmentalized information in the brain and integrated knowledge of the mind.
These differences really stand out in government as we observe it these days.

The flaw in Murray's proposition has always been the question of how to measure IQ to account for cultural differences. Lacking a reliably unbiased measurement system, I believe he erroneously attributed cultural influence on the results as genetic.

Supposed race difference in intelligence is as controversial as purported sexual preference determined by genetics. Each has proponents with radically different interpretations. Most blacks are offended at the idea they are claimed to be intellectually inferior, but there are a few who see this as another justification for welfare for their inherent disability. This is similar to the "gay gene" controversy, where some welcome the idea that the sexual preference is predetermined, and some fear the idea, as it might lead to discrimination and the abortion of fetuses the have the gene.

My background is not in psych either. But I do like something I've read about design and context of intelligence testing...
If you take an individual from an indigenous jungle tribe and test with a standard western IQ test, they would likely have low score. If you take any modern western individual, and put into a jungle alone, they would likely not survive well. That does not mean either one is "inferior" to the other, its about context.

I am skeptical. I think the book says that Ashkenazi Jews have the highest IQ and this is somehow set. If that is the case, how come the brightest people in the world were Greek in 200 BC? And how come the Chinese were probably the smartest in the 1300s and the Italians in the 1400 and the british in the 1600-1800 and the people from the US in the 1900s?

I haven not read the book, but I have a few comments on your summary/questions.

- Is 40%-80% of IQ genetic?
It rings true for me. My suspicion is if a child is abused or neglected, it could have a huge impact. Once you provide for them and don't abuse them, the genetic components begin to take over. So you get a lot of benefit not abusing kids but not much further benefit from giving them the very best education, environment, etc.

- Is there an IQ disparity according to race?
I suspect there may be but the correlation is not large enough to be useful. If you take a bunch of arbitrary traits (e.g. height, body dimension ratios, etc) and compare them with performance on various tests (e.g. IQ test), you can find some correlations. Suppose we find that short people are better at math and tall people are better at remembering faces. The correlation won't be strong enough to consider only short candidates when hiring for a mathematical job.

Does the book address the merits of the IQ test itself? Performance on the test itself is a useless ability. We're interested in it to the extent it reveals something scientific or correlates with other things such as ability to run a business, ability to reason, etc.

"shouldn't liberals love Charles Murray?"
Even more today than when I first heard about the book 20 years ago, it seems like people approach scientific questions starting with their desired answer.

Many lines of hominids with differences in size, appearance, and abilities coexisted on earth. It wasn't a simple march of evolution as grade-school posters about evolution suggest. All modern homo sapiens appear to have a common ancestry, but what we find out that the last common ancestor was before anatomically modern humans appear? Maybe the races predate anatomical modernity and have different abilities on average because of it. That would be very exciting. As a scientifically-minded person, I don't get what's in it for liberals and conservatives. I understand it if they're getting paid to write commentary saying society is unjust/just, the races are the same/different, or just anything to fire people up emotionally so they watch the ads. Most people are not getting paid that way, so I don't get what's in it for them. Reasonable disinterested people should only want the truth.

Yes, I read the book some years ago, and I was impressed with the original research, and I accepted the findings -- broadly. I then read The Mismeasure of Man by Ashley Montague which refuted The Bell Curve; and, again, I was impressed, and accepted the findings broadly.

There is no such thing as "race." What we call "race" is just culture. It is true that gene pools exist. Preparing a lecture to middle schoolers on crime scene investigation - my degrees are in criminology - I was digging into blood grouping. (What most people call blood "typing".) I do not have the details here now, but a hospital in the UK was doing some survey for some other reason and getting people to come in off the street for lab samples. It turned out that group of neighbors showed up and as a secondary consequence of the research, it turned out that apparently these people had some protein that no else ever had. They were all from the same village in India. My maternal grandfather was Hungarian. When one of my grand-nephews was born, the doctor asked "So who's Hungarian?" The kid had "Mongolian spots" two purple birthmarks at the end of his back. My brother and I do not. His son does not. My brother married a girl whose parents were northern (Swedish and "English" whatever that means); and the baby's mother's parents were Jewish (whatever) and Puerto Rican (New Yorkers both). And then... after five generations of mixing, two dots... Fascinating...

But IQ? No.

You can breed people to be smart or stupid - tall or short, fat or thin, dark or light ...

But our modern society demands far more intelligence from the least of us than any hunter-gatherer could have needed. And even so, I accept Carl Sagan's opinion that the so-called "primitive" people had and have more need to be true scientists because their lives are so precarious that they cannot afford ignorance: they know what they need to, and are not confused about the facts. We have the luxury of mistaken theories about economics, politics, and racing high performance automobiles. Both broad claims are true. It depends on context.

If African-Americans have lower IQs than White people, it is only because (1) A-As are denied opportunities and (2) IQ tests are culturally biased.

Even if it were true that Irish-Americans have lower IQs than Japanese-Americans, it would say nothing about individuals.

Individualism is within the nature of the universe. The size of the molecule and the existence of isotopes suggest that within your own body no two hemoglobin molecules are identical.

(I just saw this, having been away for a couple of days.)

I read the book ,many years ago as part of a psychology class. I found it interesting, well researched, but had a bit of issue with the clumping races together, even though in general, the results bore out the author's comments. It trouble me that the white race is decreasing in IQ in the past few years. Current IQ data shows the Hispanic IQ slightly even though mos of them attended US schools! I have seen results that show a child starting school actually decreased in intelligence the longer than ar in US schools.
I want to read the follow up book, which does address the white IQ. I do not see the book as racist, but merely scientific. We hasve to factor in the reversion to the mean, as well, which says to genius parents will not create a necessarily higher IQ offspring. Chelsea Clinton has a lower IQ than Bill or Hillary.
The one take away I get, as to the importance of IQ, is that IQ has to be at a certain level before true critical thinking skills come into play. Below that level, which Obama was, they are not a driving force in decision making. That is important as to how world decisions are made. I don't think IQ is necessarily owned by the college educated, as I have known some very high IQ plumbers and truck drivers, with excellent thinking skills.Schools are not our friend when it comes to IQ. Talking with children early and encouraging discussion seems to be a factor in critical thinking and IQ enhancement as they enter school.

KevinSchwinkendorft's comment reminded me think distribution is every bit as important as the mean. Also the distribution of IQs probably is not Gaussian (i.e. a "bell" curve). It could happen that they have the same mean, but they're distributed such that extremes are much more frequent in one group. In this case the top geniuses (outliers) would be mostly from one group, making meetings of geniuses wrongly appear really racist.

This reminds me that there has to a point to looking at groups. We could waste time doing analyses of whether random physical traits (e.g. detached earlobes) is correlated to random abilities (e.g. ability to recognize faces), and it would just be indulging a fetish for grouping people unless the answer might lead to meaningful scientific understanding.

Yes I read it years ago when it was first published (1994) and had a chance to talk to Murray a few years later at Freedom Fest about it. It disturbed him that many people missed the whole point. Sounds like nothing has changed :-(

There are no races in our species. Race is a social construct based on self identification (OK) or others identification of you (not OK).

There is no genetic test for race, just ancestry regional likelihood that is not certain.

The book simply expresses Murray's views. It's largely useless data. There is no more importance than that. I see no proof for anything he says but in fact quite the opposite. That's my view.

Yes, when it first came out in 1994. I still have it in my library. However, I don't remember enough specifics to comment.

"In the United States today, most claims regarding differences between ethnic ‘populations’ in relationship to IQ test performance are based on statistically derived data that relate to scholastic aptitude tests (e.g. Flynn, 2006). With this in mind, and acknowledging the superior educational attainment of African blacks in the United States (and elsewhere) it can thus be argued, because of their superior educational attainment levels, that they must also surmount far more in number and more difficult scholastic aptitude tests, in general, which in turn would require higher level IQs (see Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999). As whites on average do not, or are unable to attain the same levels of academic achievement within these (their own!) academic institutional frameworks, they must also by the racialist thinking employed by some, possess significantly lower cogitative indices on the group level (e.g. Jensen, 1980; Gottfredson, 1986, 1998). In fact, attainment differences of these ‘grand’ magnitudes would suggest that American whites, in particular, are at a significant intellectual handicap when matched against immigrants of black African, East Indian, and East Asian descent. Incidentally, most American whites themselves are the children or grandchildren of “self-selected,” voluntary immigrants from Europe (Ogbu and Simons, 1998), and thus these trends can not be said to result from immigrant selectivity." -- and much more here:
https://www.africaresource.com/sci-te...

Alex, Donway has done much research on this and I believe articles that might be in here. Let me bring him into the conversation.
k