CalPundit is also too fair to the Bell Curve. The book contained more than just deliberately shoddy science - which should be warning bells enough - it also was an explicitly racist tract by intent and design. Every time I refer disparagingly to the Bell Curve some true believer expects me to write a 50,000 word critique of the book to justify my opinion of it. Frankly, it's as if every time I spoke disparagingly of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion someone expected me to write a 50,000 word critique of it. The Bell Curve has been "Fisked" by researchers in every field, and it is not, as Charles Murtaugh suggested, being part of a herd mentality to have concluded that it is, to a great degree, a load of explicitly racist crap. Glenn Loury rightly abandoned his old pals after their enthusiastic embrace and promotion of those twin books of pornography for closet racists - The Bell Curve and The End of Racism.
But, the more academic criticisms rightly largely focus on the methodology and validity of the conclusions, and they often ignore the fact that the book also drips with racism throughout, even aside from the disingenuousness of the research. Digby wrote this awhile back, before he had his own blog, and it's worth recycling now:
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It’s true that the authors argued with wide eyed innocence that the book merely said that there are individual and group differences in intelligence and that these differences seriously influence the organization of work in modern industrial societies and that unfortunately they are pretty darned immutable, but golly gosh kerwillikers, that doesn't mean we all can't get along.
Nothing wrong with that, right? It’s just a little reminder that each individual should be judged on their own merits, and that's a good thing.
Unfortunately, the book also said some pretty strange things, even if you accept that IQ is the best indicator of future success and that IQ is immutable, which Herrnstein and Murray do, and even if you use their thoroughly discredited logistic regression analysis that assumes no IQ socioeconomic status interaction (when in fact, IQ and SES are highly intercorrelated) concluding that low IQ causes poverty. In other words, even if you take their completely flawed and discredited analysis at face value, when you get into the book (written btw for the lay reader -- no peer review) it isn't hard to see the real agenda.
In spite of all their studied concern about the “cognitive elite” and the danger to our society of all the smart people conspiring to keep out the odd and unusual smart poor person, we find that what they are really worried about is a supposed downward pressure on the distribution of IQ in the United States, which they call “dysgenic” pressure. They believe that blacks are experiencing much more severe dysgenic pressures than whites and speculate that part of the problem may be differences in reproductive strategies among the races. They blithely mention in passing a theory that blacks have the largest genitals and the highest frequency of sexual intercourse among the three major races but reserve judgment on whether that is relevant, saying that only time will tell.
(Who can really say what effects those huge black dicks have on those lil’ chocolate gals? It’s possible that once they set eyes one of those monsters they just can’t control themselves and those inferior genes just keep on gittin passed down. Better keep them large genitals away from the white wimmin!)
They also conclude that Latino immigration is putting downward pressure on the distribution of American national intelligence. They conclude, "Putting the pieces together--higher fertility and a faster generational cycle among the less intelligent and an immigrant population that is probably somewhat below the native-born average--the case is strong that something worth worrying about is happening to the cognitive capital of the country"
Oh lordy. Those wetbacks are bringing us down.
The authors believe that low birth weight and high infant mortality are probably caused by "prenatal negligence" on the part of stupid poor women rather than inadequate availability of medical care. They also trot out some unpublished research the relation between crime and low IQ, and between civility and high IQ. (I guess this shows which side of the bell curve the average dittohead falls on.)
They argue that America's “current fertility policy” subsidizes births among stupid poor women (most of whom happen to be black and latino) and, therefore, for the good of the country, welfare should be eliminated and policies should be put in place to lower the birth rate amongst these groups.
They also believe that our immigration policy is a danger to society because it assumes an indifference to the individual characteristics of immigrant groups.
But, they believe fervently in individualism. They say it over and over again. Once you deal with the birth rate of the oversexed blacks and close the borders to the dumb Mexicans that is.
And BTW: neither author ever conducted or published any research in scientific journals (which are subject to peer review) on the genetic basis of IQ and poverty in his entire career.
Good researchers, liberal and otherwise, do plenty of work looking at racial differences in achievement. There's plenty of work looking at the role of parental characteristics, as well as environmental factors, and the degree of their influence on various outcomes. Liberals don't shy away from these subjects, they just shy away of people who play the little rhetorical game of focusing on intelligence, and the implied immutability, as well as people for whom The Bell Curve is a starting place for this discussion. There is intrinsic racism in both of these, so if liberals shy away from this conversation it's simply because they're shying away from bigots. Even some of their detractors fell for this rhetorical game, praising them for their 'bravery' for broaching these 'sensitive issues.' These issues aren't sensitive, they're needlessly and deliberately insensitive in the way that they're being addressed, and the assumptions implicit in them.