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A review by ajmarquis
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Charles Murray, Richard J. Herrnstein
1.0
This book is just the n-word with many extra steps.
I'd read texts that directly or tangentially respond to The Bell Curve but not the book itself until now. It was, somehow, worse in quality than I imagined.
When I see a poorly constructed or misleading argument I try not to judge whether the work was shoddy or it was written in bad faith. That's very difficult to do here because much of the book seems elaborately constructed to mislead. It's frankly ridiculous the way the authors, for example, weave between the scientific and colloquial definitions of heritability to overexaggerate a possible genetic factor to cognitive ability. There are many other issues which other authors have enumerated.
The science is bad and even were it true the authors' deeply conservative policy recommendations wouldn't follow as conclusions from them. All the steps in the argument and the connective tissue between them are full of nonsense.
Even if you were the book's target audience I couldn't recommend it. If you bring any of these arguments into a space where anybody knows anything or has any critical thinking will dunk on you.
I'd read texts that directly or tangentially respond to The Bell Curve but not the book itself until now. It was, somehow, worse in quality than I imagined.
When I see a poorly constructed or misleading argument I try not to judge whether the work was shoddy or it was written in bad faith. That's very difficult to do here because much of the book seems elaborately constructed to mislead. It's frankly ridiculous the way the authors, for example, weave between the scientific and colloquial definitions of heritability to overexaggerate a possible genetic factor to cognitive ability. There are many other issues which other authors have enumerated.
The science is bad and even were it true the authors' deeply conservative policy recommendations wouldn't follow as conclusions from them. All the steps in the argument and the connective tissue between them are full of nonsense.
Even if you were the book's target audience I couldn't recommend it. If you bring any of these arguments into a space where anybody knows anything or has any critical thinking will dunk on you.