Word: herrnsteins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Herrnstein also shows callous lack of sympathy for poor people. While he proclaims himself to be "a liberal or left of that," he refers to poverty in such glib terms as "poor and unattractive surroundings." It seems almost out of place to remember that maybe better surroundings like trees and parks would be nice; yet poverty means unemployment, rats, disease, and, in his field, brain damage to infants born to mothers malnourished during pregnancy...
...Herrnstein's thesis rests on the underlying premise that a meritocracy based on intelligence is a social good. His syllogism points to-society's discrimination in favor of people with high I.Q.'s (and if one replaces the word "race" for "mental abilities" in the syllogism, one easily sees how society also discriminates racially). Herrnstein never questions the fundamental problems of discrimination or social stratification because of this I.Q. bias...
Given all these considerations, a final look at the fallacy behind Herrnstein's syllogism is in order. The second part says that success requires mental abilities. To support this idea early in the article he presents 1945 data by T.W. and M.S. Harell published in "Educational and Psychological Measurement" which correlates status of occupation to the average I.Q. of those in that occupation. For example, the highest job status on the list is the accountant who has an average I.Q. of 128.1, while teamsters are the lowest on job status with an average I.Q. of 87.7. From this, Herrnstein concludes...
...vast majority of cases, this conclusion is erroneous. Herrnstein begs the important questions in presenting the data primarily in terms of average I.Q. He vastly underplays the importance of differences within each occupation. He notes only incidentally that one truck driver registered an I.Q. of 149, and a P.R. man who supposedly needs an I.Q. of around 126 had only 100. According to well-accepted statistics of the Harvard Center for Educational Policy Research (CEPR), I.Q. explains only 17 per cent in occupational differences...
Harvard social scientists have a proclivity for lending ideological support to reactionary policies. Should Herrnstein be fired for shoddy work with politically explosive implications? Perhaps, but then what about other Harvard professors who are equally if not more guilty? His I.Q. article deserves a political response since he wrote politically. His ideas should be discredited. But Harvard scholars have rallied to his defense using again the old smoke-screen of "academic freedom." Even if professors within the walls of the "academic community" met their moral responsibility and criticized Herrnstein, would those who read the Atlantic last September ever hear about...