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I haven't read it either, but even just a quick look at Wikipedia shows the other responders don't know what they're talking about: > According to Herrnstein a

by Izkata 4y ago

I haven't read it either, but even just a quick look at Wikipedia shows the other responders don't know what they're talking about: > According to Herrnstein and Murray, the high heritability of IQ within races does not necessarily mean that the cause of differences between races is genetic. On the other hand, they discuss lines of evidence that have been used to support the thesis that the black-white gap is at least partly genetic, such as Spearman's hypothesis. They also discuss possible environmental explanations of the gap, such as the observed generational increases in IQ, for which they coin the term Flynn effect. At the close of this discussion, they write: > > If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Part_III._The_National_Context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Part_III._The_N... The part I find especially amusing is how often the Flynn effect is used to refute The Bell Curve, even though the term "Flynn effect" comes from The Bell Curve.

runarberg 4y ago
There are many ways to refute The Bell Curve. In addition to the Flynn effect, the science in it are plain bad, the policy proposals they enlist don’t necessarily follow their scientifically flawed results, it repeatedly cites a disgraced eugenicist as source, it was never peer reviewed etc. At this point, nothing in this book should be accepted as nothing more than a poor attempt at scientific racism. Let alone should anyone take any sort of scientific consensus. Other than the fact that it was wrong. This YouTube video[1] does a fair job of summarizing the bulk of what is wrong with this book. But IMO very fact that the book is an apologia for eugenicists should be enough of a critique, you shouldn’t need any more. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo PS. Regarding the naming of the Flynn effect: > Flynn stated that, if asked, he would have named the effect after Read D. Tuddenham who "was the first to present convincing evidence of massive gains on mental tests using a nationwide sample" in a 1948 article
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The reason they discuss (and name) the Flynn effect, is because it is one of the most obvious objections to their claims. Either IQs are going up (and racial gaps closing) on a non evolutionary timescale due to environmental changes that should be studied and encouraged by government policy or IQs are not a good measure of genetic intelligence. Their policy preferences are for the government not to intervene to improve IQ scores or close racial gaps. But they also want to make radical policy based on IQ because it's such an important measure.
- Izkata 4y ago
  > Either IQs are going up (and racial gaps closing) on a non evolutionary timescale due to environmental changes that should be studied and encouraged by government policy or IQs are not a good measure of genetic intelligence. Or 3) they're going up at the same rate, so gaps aren't closing. That's what I've always understood to be happening.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    I think even the Bell Curve admitted that the numbers showed the gap closing, so your 3 is therefore a relatively extreme position for the specific case discussed, but certainly a valid permutation.
    - Izkata 4y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907168/ Scrolling down to the graphs that have all sorts of breakdowns, it looks like in general it hasn't been converging. The third group, which breaks down by race/age, looks like a mixture of noisy sameness and diverging.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        They address this: > For example, Hauser (1998) and Grissmer et al (1998) documented convergence of the race difference in data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Until the current study, this finding could be explained by a differential Flynn Effect in which minority scores increased at a steeper rate. However, we found no interaction in our data; the three different race categories each showed substantial FE’s, but they also tracked closely to the same consistent increase. So again, they accept the gap is closing, but their result suggests this is not due to a differential Flynn effect, but to something else.

by Izkata 4y ago

runarberg 4y ago

There are many ways to refute The Bell Curve. In addition to the Flynn effect, the science in it are plain bad, the policy proposals they enlist don’t necessarily follow their scientifically flawed results, it repeatedly cites a disgraced eugenicist as source, it was never peer reviewed etc. At this point, nothing in this book should be accepted as nothing more than a poor attempt at scientific racism. Let alone should anyone take any sort of scientific consensus. Other than the fact that it was wrong. This YouTube video[1] does a fair job of summarizing the bulk of what is wrong with this book. But IMO very fact that the book is an apologia for eugenicists should be enough of a critique, you shouldn’t need any more. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo PS. Regarding the naming of the Flynn effect: > Flynn stated that, if asked, he would have named the effect after Read D. Tuddenham who "was the first to present convincing evidence of massive gains on mental tests using a nationwide sample" in a 1948 article

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The reason they discuss (and name) the Flynn effect, is because it is one of the most obvious objections to their claims. Either IQs are going up (and racial gaps closing) on a non evolutionary timescale due to environmental changes that should be studied and encouraged by government policy or IQs are not a good measure of genetic intelligence. Their policy preferences are for the government not to intervene to improve IQ scores or close racial gaps. But they also want to make radical policy based on IQ because it's such an important measure.

Izkata 4y ago
> Either IQs are going up (and racial gaps closing) on a non evolutionary timescale due to environmental changes that should be studied and encouraged by government policy or IQs are not a good measure of genetic intelligence. Or 3) they're going up at the same rate, so gaps aren't closing. That's what I've always understood to be happening.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I think even the Bell Curve admitted that the numbers showed the gap closing, so your 3 is therefore a relatively extreme position for the specific case discussed, but certainly a valid permutation.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907168/ Scrolling down to the graphs that have all sorts of breakdowns, it looks like in general it hasn't been converging. The third group, which breaks down by race/age, looks like a mixture of noisy sameness and diverging.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      They address this: > For example, Hauser (1998) and Grissmer et al (1998) documented convergence of the race difference in data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Until the current study, this finding could be explained by a differential Flynn Effect in which minority scores increased at a steeper rate. However, we found no interaction in our data; the three different race categories each showed substantial FE’s, but they also tracked closely to the same consistent increase. So again, they accept the gap is closing, but their result suggests this is not due to a differential Flynn effect, but to something else.