Now I cannot believe how this thread has started, I honestly thought people would be using proof to raise their arguments in this debate. Well let me begin the debate, and see if anyone can refute it.

The book The Bell Curve has the argument that certain ethnic/racial groups perform better than others in intelligence tests. It does not explain why we have these differences. But it does state that there are differences. The rank of the ethnic/racial groups are the following:
Asians having the highest IQs, followed by Whites, and many different other ethnic/racial groups before the last one being Blacks.

Now, with that being said the American Psychological Association (APA) asked the Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) to review the intelligence debate which came from the publication of The Bell Curve. And yes, this would be considered a peer review of the book submitted by Herrnstein and Murray. If you want to read their whole article, it is called Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns.

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Correlation/Intelligence.pdf

Now, here are the conclusion from the BSA from the APA from the article Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns:

1. Differences in genetic endowment contribute substantially to individual differences in (psychometric) intelligence, but the pathway by which genes produce their effects is still unknown. The impact of genetic differences appears to increase with age, but we do not know why.

2. Environmental factors also contribute substantially to the development of intelligence, but we do not clearly understand what those factors are or how they work. Attendance at school is certainly important, for example, but we do not know what aspects of schooling are critical.

3. The role of nutrition in intelligence remains obscure. Severe childhood malnutrition has clearly negative effects, but the hypothesis that particular "micro-nutrients" may affect intelligence in otherwise adequately-fed populations has not yet been convincingly demonstrated.

4. There are significant correlations between measures of information-processing speed and psychometric intelligence, but the overall pattern off these findings yields no easy theoretical interpretation.

5. Mean scores on intelligence tests are rising steadily. The have gone up a full standard deviation in the last 50 years or so, and the rate of gain may be increasing. No one is sure why these gains are happening or what they mean.

6. The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socioeconomic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential.

7. It is widely agreed that standardized tests do not sample all forms of intelligence. Obvious examples include creativity, wisdom, practical sense, and social sensitivity; there are surely others. Despite the importance of these abilities we know very little about them: how they develop, what factors influence that development, how they are related to more traditional measures.

So with these findings, it does not refute the main premise of what the book stated in regards to some ethnic/racial groups score higher in intelligence tests than others.

I am curious what people can show as proof to refute any of these points.

 

Honestly..the majority of sensible people don't care. It's a subject that is bound to cause trouble and offence..if not to all but to some, that aspect cannot be avoided.

But good luck with this..I suspect you are going to get an ass kicking from somone but don't say you weren't given ample warning.

Now over to you Distant Lover..this is right up your street.."The Master of Facts and Teller of Truths".. He's all yours..

 

Well for starters our self confessed expert on The Bell Curve hasn't read it even though he's forever sprouting that it's the be all and end all of why whitey's are more intelligent than black people.

There for it's a pointless debate when he uses the book to try and prove his flawed opinions on the matter.

 

That may be his first feeble excuse for joining those scumbags......what was his reason for trying for a second time

 

What was the reasoning behind producing the book, was it to enlighten people or just as a racist polemic, we all can understand why DL likes to quote passages from it, to reinforce his bigotry, now all he needs to make his world complete is a book that can "prove" that Arabs are sub-human and less than the Jews they surround.

 

The reasons for the difference are BIOLOGICAL?? Surely, you can't be serious...

 

DL, I do have to grant you this much: I have yet to read a compelling refutation of The Bell Curve's quantitative arguments.

That is not to say I concur with the conclusions drawn from those arguments. Then again, it must also be said that many of the "conclusions" are "drawn" not by Murray and Herrnstein themselves, but by the critics and detractors who used their book to pillory them.

Not unlike the grotesque misinterpretation of Nietzsche's superman in the service of fascism.

Out of curiosity, DL... answer or don't, but I am compelled to ask... what is your take on Larry Summers and the little tempest in a teapot that railroaded him out of Harvard? I ask because he was vilified by the female intelligentsia of Cambridge in much the same way, and for quite similar reasons, as Murray.

 

And by the way, I should stress to everyone here that my last post is in the spirit of El Casanova's intent. (In other words, I am not "on DL's side.")

Also, I should mention that I sincerely hope Magpie is mistaken when she accuses DL of never having read the book!

 

Proof of The Bell Curve will consist of the discovery of genes that enable one to predict with a fair degree of accuracy the adult intelligence of a fetus. I am confident that those genes will be discovered, probably fairly soon, and that it will be possible to make accurate predictions from a tissue sample of a fetus or new born baby. It is already the case that many women have genetic testing of their fetuses when they are pregnant, and that that they have abortions if the test indicates genetic deficiencies.

Until then, the evidence is pretty overwhelming. Twin studies demonstrate that identical twins reared apart are much more similar in IQ scores than non related children reared in the same family. IQ scores are fairly constant throughout life. A child's IQ determined at the age of seven is a better prediction of adult earning than the incomes of the parents. No method has been discovered that significantly increases a person's IQ.

The U.S. military pioneered the use to IQ testing during World War I, and remains committed to it. Increasingly employers in the private sector are using it in order to make employment decisions. The last two jobs I had required me to pass three mental aptitude tests.

 

That is not sure at all. Differing IQ scores between the races are fairly constant throughout the world. If environment was that important there would be more variation.

 

If you want an "educated and intellectual discussion" over much of anything you will need to include posters other than richief, and you will need to disregard his flame attacks. Insults seem to be all that he has to contribute to any discussion of a controversial topic.

 

My presence on http://www.stormfront.org/forum/ should not set any more "bells ringing" than my presence on a pornographic website like forum.xnxx.com. I am here, despite the fact that I dislike the use of obscene words, and despite the fact that my tastes in erotica are fairly fastidious.

I joined Stormfront partially as a lark, and partially because I enjoy investigating different points of view. Most of those who post there seem to be better educated then most who post on XMXX. At the very least, they tend to better informed, and to have more skill with written English.

Although I expected to be banned from Stormfront I did not want to be banned for violating the Rules, so I studied them carefully, and found them to my liking. Obscene words and flaming are prohibited. This is strictly enforced. Posters are specifically advised to post comments as though their mothers would read them on the first page of The New York Times.

If the Rules had prohibited praising Jews and criticizing Adolf Hitler I would not have done so. The Rules did not prohibit either. I did both. That was why I was banned. My attitude about the Rules of an internet forum is that they should be clear, they should be enforced, and those who obey them should not be punished in any way. If the admin or admins feel the need to change the rules, the changes should be publicized before going into effect, and they should not be enforced retroactively.

The first week I was on Stromfront I decided to be prudent, so I limited my comments to contributions to a thread about Germanic myth and legend. My knowledge is fairly extensive, because I have read all of the surviving works.

The second week I decided to be more adventuresome, so I contributed to a thread on Charles Murray. The other posters thought Charles Murray was a splendid individual. I agreed, quoting from his essay, "Jewish Genius."

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/jewish-genius/

Then I contributed to a thread on Mein Kampf. I said that Hitler had a lot of insight on human nature, but that his criticisms of Jews in Mein Kampf were factually incorrect. To substantiate my argument I quoted a footnote from my edition of Mein Kampf. I also said that it was foolish for him to invade the Soviet Union before ending the war with Great Britain, and far more foolish for him to declare war on the United States when it seemed that the conquest of the Soviet Union would be difficult, and perhaps impossible.

Without warning I was temporarily suspended. I was told that they would think about what to do with me. Several days later I was told that I had been banned. The reason given was, "We decided." I was also told that I would not be allowed back.

Those who feel protective about blacks frequently try to suppress a public discussion of black crime, black illegitimacy, and black intellectual performance.

I love Jews, Judaism, and Israel. I feel no need to suppress criticism of these, because such criticisms are easy to refute.

Jews, or to be more specific, Ashkenazic Jews are the single most superior racial group in the world. Although Jews are about one percent of the world's population they have one roughly one fifth of the Nobel Prizes.

If there was credible evidence that Jewish businessmen tend to be less scrupulous than Gentile businessmen, that Jewish money lenders tend to charge higher interest rates, that Jewish landlords are more prone to raise rents, and so on I would know about. I do not know about it, because credible evidence does not exist.

Although I expected to be banned from Stromfront, I thought it might be possible to defend Jews from the attacks against them on that forum. Unfortunately, it was not.

 

DNA can put a guilty person in jail or free one wrongfully convicted. It reveals parenthood to the uncertain. But in all the differences we use to prove this or that, it is all found in only 1 % of DNA. Human beings are 99% the same. Chimpanzees enjoy a larger diversity in sharing only 97% of their DNA. The apparent differences come from general family grouping that over time became white, yellow, red, brown and black. A plethora of beauty.

 

Oh do shut up, your definition of flaming is anything posted that you disagree with.

 

I don't have to accuse doggo of not having read The Bell Curve as he done that all by himself in a past post....

Oh and by the way Clarise....she me is a he...

 

When I defend The Bell Curve I use that as short hand for defending that genre of books and essays. An essay that can be read in one sitting from one's computer screen is "RACE, EVOLUTION, AND BEHAVIOR: A Life History Perspective," by Professor J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario.

The essay can be found here:

http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/Race_Evolution_Behavior.pdf

Professor Rushton's essay is less concerned with individual IQ differences, than is The Bell Curve. The major focus of his essay is how on the matters of intelligence, crime, and sexual behavior blacks tend to be at one extreme, Orientals at the other, and whites in between, although whites are closer than Orientals. He is careful to point out that he is discussing average difference, and that there is considerable overlap.

"Race, Evolution, and Behavior" seems to have been written before recent DNA research that indicates that everyone who is not 100 percent African Negro is descended from a fairly recent and limited migration form Africa that happened fifty thousand to seventy thousand years ago. This is called the "out of Africa," theory.

I say this because Professor Rushton attributes the differences between the races to the fact that for tens of thousands of years whites and Orientals have evolved in climates that are colder than those found in Africa. The problem with this reasoning is that Neanderthals lived for several hundreds of thousands of years in Europe during several ice ages, and remains of their camp sites indicate that they were much less intelligent than any existing race of humans. They did not practice trade, for example, and do not seem to have been able to plan for the future.

Otherwise, I consider Professor Rushton's essay to be convincing.

An explanation of recent human evolution that I have found to be more convincing is The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by professors Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, of the University of Utah.

The website for The 10,000 Year Explosion can be found here:

http://the10000yearexplosion.com/

The basic argument of The 10,000 Year Explosion, and one that I find convincing, is that agriculture and civilization exert different population pressures than hunting and gathering, so the longer a race has practiced both the more intelligent and law abiding most of its members are likely to be.

Agriculture began in the Near East 10,000 years ago. Civilization began there 5,000 years ago. From there both spread to Europe and Africa. Both developed independently in the Orient, and in the New World among the American Indians.

Because agriculture and civilization began in China later than in the Near East, one might expect Orientals to have lower IQs on the average than whites, and higher crime rates. As we know, they tend to be more intelligent and law abiding than whites. The 10,000 Year Explosion does not explain why. Nevertheless, I find the book fascinating and convincing.

 

The longitudinal surveys of Murray, Herrnstein have not been credibly refuted. After all, they are statistically sound and falsifiable, yet also have been corroborated over the years.

Yet Murray's detractors read too much into those studies. As do his supporters, and those who endeavor to misinterpret and misattribute his work to serve their own theses.

The notion that the genetic superiority of Ashkenazic Jews can be measured by their share of Nobel Prizes begs several questions. First, what is superiority? (Douglas Adams would be laughing now!)

Second, since when is intelligence a criterion for winning a Nobel Prize for Peace, or for Economics? Literature? Please. The Nobel Prize for Literature is a history, writ large, of laurel wreathes for politically correct activism. (Some of my favorite writers- Achebe, Paz, Marquez, Neruda- happen to be Nobel winners. But they would have been my favorites, with or without the laurels.) Physics? Okay. We'll give them Physics. I guess. Let's face it: the Nobel is a more effective measure of intelligence in the hard sciences than in the humanities.

But back to Murray and Herrnstein. Distant Lover anticipates that we will soon see the delineation of prenatally identifiable genomic markers for cognitive ability, and he believes that this breakthrough will vindicate all of the racist baggage that bigots have unfairly heaped upon Charles Murray (since, after all, Murray himself is not a racist).

I think DL is recklessly optimistic with this prediction.

Recent studies support accumulating evidence that IQ is not static. That it rises and falls with experience and cognitive training. That we can raise our IQ's by shutting off the television and using our brains. (Certainly places such as this are no better than television and possibly much worse, for those who wish to advance themselves.)

Below is the opening of a popular piece, but it is well supported by rapidly accumulating science, and the sources are easy to find, for anyone who might be interested.

November 29, 2011, WSJ

Ways to Inflate Your IQ Your Intelligence Level Can Fluctuate, Studies Show; Battling the Post-Vacation Dip


Many people think of IQ as a genetic trait, like brown eyes or short legs: You're born with it and you're stuck with it. Now, a growing body of research is showing that a person's IQ can rise—and even fall—over the years.

Scores can change gradually or quickly, after as little as a few weeks of cognitive training, research shows. The increases are usually so incremental that they're not immediately perceptible to individuals, and the intelligence-boosting effects of cognitive training can fade after a few months.

In the latest study, 33 British students were given IQ tests and brain scans at ages 12 to 16 and again about four years later by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London; 9% of the students showed a significant change of 15 points or more in IQ scores.

On a scale where 90 to 110 is considered average, one student's IQ rose 21 points to 128 from 107, lifting the student from the 68th percentile to the 97th compared with others the same age, says Cathy Price, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the center and co-author of the study, published last month in Nature. Another student's score skidded out of the "high average" category, to 96 from 114.


__________________

Me again.

I am convinced that attempts to use Murray/Herrnstein to support notions of racial superiority are misguided. One of the early conclusions of The Bell Curve- that Asians are intrinsically smarter than most other races- is refuted by remarkable differences in other vectors, such as cultural homogeneity, parenting, and inculcation.

Ashkenazic Jews are no smarter than Nigerian blacks. I've picked that one out of the hat, because several brilliant Nigerian authors, poets, and playwrights come immediately to mind- Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo. Brilliant Jewish writers? Huh. Let me see. Odd. I'm drawing a blank at the moment. Martin Buber is a brilliant philosopher, and also a brilliant poet. Most of the Jewish Nobel Prize laureates who come to mind hail from the hard sciences. Were they born to be physicists? Einstein, for instance? Doubtful. His secondary level instructors dismissed him as a dullard.

Anecdotal. I know. I am having fun now. I guess the point is that I just don't buy it, and I wish all the racists would just leave poor Charles Murray alone, just like I wish all the Cambridge, Massachusetts feminazis would leave poor Larry Summers alone.

 

Wow.

Sorry!!!!! I make no secret of the fact that I do not visit profiles, and tend to identify people solely by their avatars. You have a particularly pretty one, Sir.

 

What's all the fuss about Gaussian Distributions anyway? It's just a useful mathematical tool in statistics and physics.

 

(chuckles) Exactly.

How are you, Jazz Man? Am I holding my own, and doing so civilly? I doubt this will be put to rest, but El Casanova's intentions are good.