It is now 25 years old.
Christopher Brand, American Renaissance, March 2005 12 Comments
The publication of The Bell Curve (TBC) in 1994 by economist Charles Murray and psychologist Richard Herrnstein was one of the more dramatic events in 20th century differential psychology. Only the physical assaults by leftists on IQ researchers Hans Eysenck and Arthur Jensen around 1980 compare with it—and perhaps the Sunday Times’s 1976 allegations that Sir Cyril Burt cooked his twin data to exaggerate the heritability of IQ.
At first, I thought things would go well for TBC. The book demonstrated enormous scholarship, and was written clearly and without racial animosity..........I was wrong. Quickly, TBC’s defense of the importance of IQ (and to some extent of genes) ran into what one observer called “a barrage of scathing critiques and ad hominem attacks on the book’s authors,” ..............Although it forced its way onto academic reference lists, TBC had emphatically not turned the tide. If an educator or politician has ever admitted he was positively influenced by the book, I have yet to hear of it.
It may be permissible to joke in letters to the editor about “new excesses of political correctness,” but no one in the political or media mainstream will mention the problem of the black American average IQ of 85, let alone the black IQ in sub-Saharan Africa of about 70............TBC has stood up well to criticism. Liberals blamed the authors for relying on race realists like Richard Lynn and Philippe Rushton. Yet, around 2000, both those scholars produced high-quality new evidence for the devastatingly low black IQ, implying that this is what largely explains the enduring poverty of sub-Saharan Africa.
At the same time, the much-touted and anticipated narrowing of the black/white gap has simply not occurred.............French postmodernism has been a particularly slippery opponent. Its genius is to have made its arguments impervious to evidence. Science and historical scholarship have no more status than literary texts, and can thus only be “critically” analyzed for oppressive bias towards the underclass and precious minorities. The facts themselves do not matter. This approach brings out the worst of the French mind (loving clever-sounding phrases) and the German mind (venerating authority) while ignoring evidence (preferred by Anglo-Saxons)................To Read More, Much More........
At first, I thought things would go well for TBC. The book demonstrated enormous scholarship, and was written clearly and without racial animosity..........I was wrong. Quickly, TBC’s defense of the importance of IQ (and to some extent of genes) ran into what one observer called “a barrage of scathing critiques and ad hominem attacks on the book’s authors,” ..............Although it forced its way onto academic reference lists, TBC had emphatically not turned the tide. If an educator or politician has ever admitted he was positively influenced by the book, I have yet to hear of it.
It may be permissible to joke in letters to the editor about “new excesses of political correctness,” but no one in the political or media mainstream will mention the problem of the black American average IQ of 85, let alone the black IQ in sub-Saharan Africa of about 70............TBC has stood up well to criticism. Liberals blamed the authors for relying on race realists like Richard Lynn and Philippe Rushton. Yet, around 2000, both those scholars produced high-quality new evidence for the devastatingly low black IQ, implying that this is what largely explains the enduring poverty of sub-Saharan Africa.
At the same time, the much-touted and anticipated narrowing of the black/white gap has simply not occurred.............French postmodernism has been a particularly slippery opponent. Its genius is to have made its arguments impervious to evidence. Science and historical scholarship have no more status than literary texts, and can thus only be “critically” analyzed for oppressive bias towards the underclass and precious minorities. The facts themselves do not matter. This approach brings out the worst of the French mind (loving clever-sounding phrases) and the German mind (venerating authority) while ignoring evidence (preferred by Anglo-Saxons)................To Read More, Much More........
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