"Empirically, 'The Bell Curve' is as solid as a rock."

[snousle]

I've started reading Charles Murray's Coming Apart, and this has led me to want to go back and read The Bell Curve for myself. At the time, I took it for granted that its critics were correct and the book was trash. But in this video clip, Murray uncategorically affirms what he wrote and doesn't feel inclined to retract anything.

I think that he could well be spot on in his analysis. Still, I think it shows bad judgment to publish ideas in a form that makes them overwhelmingly likely to be misinterpreted and abused. Even when that writing makes appropriate caveats and is even-handed with alternative perspectives. There are a few cases where truthfulness just isn't as important as politics. What I would ask is, why would The Bell Curve be considered useful? Even given the assumption that it's analytically sound, could its publication somehow lead to better decision making? A better society? If the answer is not a clear "yes" then maybe some books are better left unwritten.

Nevertheless, since it WAS written, I guess I might as well read it.

Comments

[mudcub.livejournal.com]

I'm bothered but the subtext if the thing - I'm asking myself why the book was written in the first place. Did they have an agenda?

For example, I could write a book showing that drug use is greater among gay men. That mental illness is greater. That we have a greater incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. And all of that would be true.

But you know causation is not correlation. The NIH notes that things like alcoholism are not caused by being gay, but by the social stigma and prejudice that LGBT people face (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2589133). Or, here's the APA discussing studies on mental heath, ending not by saying gay people are crazy, but that "the coming out process... helps mental health". (http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/newdata.aspx) See? A cold statistical study like the Bell Curve seems to point blame instead of explain, like the APA and NIH links do.

I guess my point is that there are good ways and bad ways to study a topic. If you were truly interesting in studying issues in black culture, you sure wouldn't do it the way Murray and Herrstein did. I'd recommend reading Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" or Fraser's "The Bell Curve Wars" for a more coherent picture.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

All it takes is a different environment to compare things with. Where I'm from doing drugs was considered a normal straight thing and gays were considered to not do them (and that was one of the things wrong with them.)