Word: herrnsteins
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With the publication of their new book, The Bell Curve, Charles Murray '65, a fellow at a prominent conservative think tank, and the late Richard Herrnstein, Pierce professor of psychology, have added a new dimension to the current conversations on race and intelligence...
Murray and Herrnstein write, "It is now beyond much technical dispute that there is such a thing as a general factor of cognitive ability on which human beings differ and that this general factor is measured reasonably by a variety of standardized tests, best of all IQ [Intelligence Quotient] tests." The authors document the disparity between mean Black and mean white IQ scores--a fact easily proved by experimentation. And on the strength of the above-cited assumption, they allege that Blacks have less intrinsic aptitude or ability...
...tests sets this work apart from others which seek only to compare different races' attainments. According to Murray and Herrnstein, the Intelligence Quotient measures people's "cognitive ability," in a word, smarts. The authors attempt to interpret something we all know--that some racial groups are more academically and socioeconomically successful than others--as a sign that some racial groups are dumber than others. In short, a theory of inequality rooted in environmental differences (which can be changed) is replaced with one rooted in genetics...
Labor Secretary Robert Reich accepts Murray and Herrnstein's expectation that a technological society will give its highest pay to people who have mastered its complex tasks but rejects their scenario of a genetically determined class structure. "There is a great deal of experimental data showing that education and training have significant effects on future earnings," says Reich. "I'm afraid ((their ideas)) will give solace to those in our society who are looking for every excuse to do less and less for those who are less fortunate...
...policy implications that Murray and Herrnstein arrive at can be hard to fathom, even if one accepts that improving IQ is as difficult as they say it is. Why not redouble attempts to bring the lagging populations, white and black, closer to the norm? Murray acknowledges that IQ may be more malleable than he supposes. But he holds that a workable strategy for intervention, especially by the bumptious instrument of government, is simply not there. And his philosophical conservatism predisposes him to look first for solutions that don't involve government at all. So The Bell Curve suggests ending welfare...