The Bell Curve Wars: Race,
Intelligence, and the Future of
America (A New Republic Book) by
Steven Fraser
The Other Side Reacts
Setting the record straight on various aspects of the debate, a group of
intellectuals--including Stephen Jay Gould, Howard Gardner, and Martin
Peretz--dismantle the alleged scientific foundations and criticize
conclusions of The Bell Curve. Reprint. $20,000 ad/promo.
Personal Review: The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and
the Future of America (A New Republic Book) by Steven Fraser
This is actually an interesting reaction to the findings of the Bell Curve and
I enjoyed reading the articles to see how they would attack the foundations
of Hernstein and Murray's thinking. I think it's good to read several
viewpoints on a subject and then make up an informed opinion from there.

The arguments presented against The Bell Curve's conclusions will have
to be answered by more scientific testing. I do agree that none of these
people who disagree with the book are running their own scientific tests
and coming up with factual conclusions that contradict The Bell Curve
findings. --Who has the pseudo-science? Only time will tell.
Egalitarians have emotional reasons for accepting the conclusions that
they do. They do not want to accept a rigid determinism that would suggest
that improving the environment of a group of deficient learners is futile and
will not improve IQs. They do not want to accept the tag of permanent
inferiority. On the other hand, determinists may have emotional reasons for
accepting their conclusions; they do not want to accept the conclusions
that if some group has a low IQ, it is the result of white racism that whites
are guilty of.
Although egalitarians speak evil against determinists, egalitarian
viewpoints on race have their own detrimental results by loading whites
down with guilt and shame that may not be their fault and filling blacks with
resentment against whites for problems that may be their own
responsibility.
One effective argument against The Bell Curve was a mentioning
ofHernstein and Murray's hasty dismissal of counter-evidence against their
theories such as the testing of black and white children of white mothers in
Germany that ended up with the same IQ scores. Another argument
suggests that there really is no rising of a cognitive elite in America. Others
give anecdotal evidence of people who did brilliantly in school but ended
up in mediocre careers suggesting that high IQ does not spell success.
(The Bell Curve authors agree with this conclusion.) It is also mentioned
that H and M could have focused on white differences in IQ, such as white
ethnic group differences in completion of college graduation, or IQ
differences between southern and northern American whites. H and M are
accused of not confronting these white differences as much because that
would be too politically divisive.
One argument says that the H and M's conclusions are pseudo-science
and that such "science" has occurred before in history, suggesting the
inferiority of blacks to justify the unequal status quo and that this pseudo-
science is actually hate literature. (I'm generally against defining
conclusions as hate speech because it censors free inquiry. It's too easy to
define heretical ideas that someone doesn't like as 'hate" and then get the
government to censor them.) Hernstein and Murray are also portrayed as
neo-social Darwinists in one essay; they present ideas that give credence
to the belief in the survival of the fittest ethnic group and the inability to
raise up a lower ethnic group to a higher level.
Another argument was that there are multiple intelligences that can't be
measured by just taking a test. Some wondered what was being measured
in an IQ test. What is this mysterious "G" (general intelligence) that H and

M talk about? Some said that the historically bad environment that blacks
have lived in has lead them to be culturally deprived and more money must
be invested to improve deficient IQs. There is also some evidence the
black/white gap in IQ is closing. Blacks are improving and whites are
staying the same. Of course, one could argue that the whites should be
improving also and something is wrong with the education system if it is
not. Some of the argumentation is dauntingly technical and although a
layman can get the gist of the argument, the details may go over his head.
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