Whatever one makes of the NLSY regressions, these regressions offer no meaningful empirical evidence on the dynamic of American society.

Amber Munday

To Goldberger and Manski, Herrnstein and Murray’s “treatment of genetics and race is akin to standing up in a crowded theater and shouting, ‘Let’s consider the possibility that there is a FIRE!'” (pp. 771). Goldberger and Manski assert that the “evidence” used in The Bell Curve to support a genetic basis for the racial difference in cognitive ability is questionable, at best. For example, their findings rely primarily on the 1904 work by Spearman on “general intelligence,” rather than one of the hundreds of more contemporary psychological works. Most contradictory, however, is a quote presented by Goldberger and Manski that is attributed to Charles Murray himself, the sentiment of which seems to be ignored in The Bell Curve: “[v]irtually every commentator on what it is like to grow up black in America. .. has reflected on the devastating effects of racism. The result can be immobilization of even the most able and ambitious” (pp. 771). No discussion of racism, however, is present in The Bell Curve.

Review Article: The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray
Arthur S. Goldberger and Charles F. Manski
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2729026

Anyhow I like the old quote format better, block quotes are stupid.

More seriously, she’s merely dutifully repeating the catechism that she’s been taught, namely that the notion of a “bell curve” with respect to IQ, time preference, or anything else plausibly related to social success, does not exist and cannot be allowed to exist. She certainly wouldn’t repeat such inanities if you brought up the bell curve with respect to, say, height. It’s only IQ that triggers the crimestop.