How Does IQ Impact Social Mobility?

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In summary, Charles Murray's book, The Bell Curve, which argues that differences in IQ are primarily responsible for differences in socioeconomic success, has been thoroughly debunked. A number of books have been written on the topic since then, most of which criticize the book.
  • #1
Niels Bohr
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IQ Will Put You In Your Place

By Charles Murray

Imagine several hundred families which face few of the usual problems that plague modern society. Unemployment is zero. Illegitimacy is zero. Divorce is rare and occurs only after the children's most formative years. Poverty is absent - indeed, none of the families is anywhere near the poverty level. Many are affluent and all have enough income to live in decent neighbourhoods with good schools and a low crime rate. If you have the good fortune to come from such a background, you will expect a bright future for your children. You will certainly have provided them with all the advantages society has to offer. But suppose we follow the children of these families into adulthood. How will they actually fare?

A few years ago the late Richard Herrnstein and I published a controversial book about IQ, The Bell Curve, in which we said that much would depend on IQ. On average, the bright children from such families will do well in life - and the dull children will do poorly. Unemployment, poverty and illegitimacy will be almost as great among the children from even these fortunate families as they are in society at large - not quite as great, because a positive family background does have some good effect, but almost, because IQ is such an important factor.

Complete text at http://www.eugenics.net/papers/murray.html
 
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  • #2
Despite the soft tone of that article, the book was written as a scientific basis for racism. It has been pretty thoroughly debunked. http://www.sfu.ca/~wwwpsyb/issues/1996/winter/keenan.htm [Broken] is a pretty decent critique.

I find it highly ironic that the author feels the need to misrepresent his own book.
 
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  • #3
The so-called debunking was actually a politically motivated smear campaign. The research in The Bell Curve was never successfully refuted, although there were many attempts, including Richard Lewontin in SciAm.

For a better view on The Bell Curve see this http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/bell-curve/sowell.html [Broken] by the distinguished social theorist Thomas Sowell. Sowell, if it matters, is Black.
 
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  • #4
Originally posted by selfAdjoint
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/bell-curve/sowell.html [Broken]
Dead link.
 
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  • #5
I just worked it successfully from your quote. The URL is "http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/bell-curve/sowell.html". [Broken]
 
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  • #6
Ok, it works for me now. The most ironic quote in the review is this one:
Contrary to much hysteria in the media, this is not a book about race, nor is it trying to prove that blacks are capable only of being hewers of wood and drawers of water. The first 12 chapters of the book deal solely with data from all-white samples...
Thats in the 4th paragraph. The remaining 32 paragraphs are about race.

I also consider it important where that review finds its audience. From the home page:
These pages are a home for the intellectually heterodox, the politically incorrect and other independent thinkers. A home for outlaws.
By their own admission, this review does not represent the views of mainstream scientists.
 
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  • #7
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wsj_main.html [Broken]

BTW, don't bother to criticize the place where I found this. The original statesment, as the site says, appeared in the NYT and the WSJ. But the online resources in this controversy, like every other aspect of it, are highly polarized. I just want you to see that there is another point of view, and those who hold it are not necessarily racist knuckle draggers.
 
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  • #8
I only skimmed it, but I didn't have any problem with what I saw. It didn't say the same things as the book said - the book went much further.
 
  • #9
Just to be fair, here is an impressive http://reason.com/9503/dept.bk.HECKMAN.text.shtml [Broken] by James Heckman, the Nobel Prize winning statistician. I'm still digesting it, and I don't think all his points are of equal quality, but it is certainly the most effective criticism of the book I have seen, and I thought I had seen them all.
 
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  • #10
After looking at behaviors of various ethnic groups/races, I see that each race has their own strengths and weaknesses; no one race is perfect by themselves. The best thing to do would be for the best specimens of each race to carry out the founder effect: that is, these specimens would form their own sub-society and interbreed in a eugenic way. We can have the best Asians, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc. come together and mix their genes up. This new population would then go on to explore the universe and advance to the Omega Point/Singularity. This project has already started at http://www.prometheism.net/

On a second note, most people think that The Bell Curve was the last book written on racial differences. But there have been many more books on the topic since then. The following is what I have found:

Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective, by Professor Rushton, see his university campus website at http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushton.html Here is his personal site: http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/ Here is a free abridged version of his book: http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/JP_Rushton/Race.htm Here is the full book at Amazon.com:
___________________________________

Here is Professor Kevin MacDonald's university site on racial differences: http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/
_________________________________

Here is Professor Richard Lynn's website: http://www.rlynn.247e.info/index.html He has written 3 books on racial differences since The Bell Curve.

1.)Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations:

2.) Eugenics: A Reassessment:

3.) IQ and the Wealth of Nations, which Lynn co-authored with professor Tatu Vanhanen:
___________________________________________

The g Factor: General Intelligence and its Implications (1996) by Professor Christopher Brand. His book is available for free at http://www.douance.org/qi/brandtgf.htm
_____________________________________________

Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and why we're Afraid to Talk About It, by Jon Entine: Here is a good review of the book: http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/tab.htm
_________________________________________________

The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability, by Berkeley Professor Arthur Jensen:
__________________________________________

Why Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean, by professor Michael Levin:
_________________________________________

And finally, the Pioneer Fund: http://www.pioneerfund.org/ and http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/pioneer.htm

Carlos Hernandez
 
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  • #11
Originally posted by Carlos Hernandez
We can have the best Asians, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc. come together and mix their genes up. This new population would then go on to explore the universe and advance to the Omega Point/Singularity.

Do you even have any idea what people mean by the Omega Point and Singularity? (And that they're very different things, assuming you mean a technological rather than physical Singularity and Tipler's version of the Omega Point rather than Teilhard's?)

Tipler's version of the Omega Point is about transferring our minds to a different substrate and obtaining infinite computing power during the Big Crunch. (This theory is not as crazy as it sounds, but it's still crazy, and it's probably wrong too, not least because it looks like there will be no Crunch.) Do you really think having good genes will help you in surviving all the way to the final (physical) singularity as all molecules collapse? :wink:

The (technological) Singularity (as discussed by e.g. Vinge) has to do with transhuman intelligence modifying itself beyond what humans can understand. There are excellent reasons to think the intelligence of posthuman beings can dwarf any difference in intelligence you could ever achieve by choosing who you breed with (for example, the slowness of neurons, and the inability of the human brain to directly modify itself).

Even if your ideas about IQ and race were valid, what would tell you they're not just tiny side issues compared to the possibilities and dangers created by advanced technology? You seem to be at least somewhat aware of these, but what on Earth do they have to do with all the bizarre eugenics plans?
 
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  • #12
Originally posted by Ontoplankton

I agree with you, if the Singularity can be reached any time soon, then the rest of my ideas become irrelevant. But, Transhumanism is mostly speculation and I don't believe in putting off any current selective breeding program simply based on the speculation that a Singularity MAY be created pretty soon and save all of mankind, or at least those who want to be saved.

You seem very concerned though that I am tainting the image of Transhumanism. So I am letting everyone know that if you want a politically correct version of Transhumanism that has nothing to do with my ideas, check out the World Transhumanist Association, who consider my ideas anathema. Or check out Extropy.org or the Immortality Institute, they have nothing to do with my politically incorrect ideas. I only support Transtopia.org and Plausiblefutures.com which is a unique movement that incorporates eugenics, eccentric politics, and futurism, such as the types of technologies promoted by Transhumanism.

Carlos Hernandez
 
  • #13
Your program seems not to be racist, but I worry about some of the forums you link to in another board here. Some of the discussions on those sites didn't take very long to get down to passionate antisemitism. I personally wouldn't want to frequent a discussion like that. what is your view?
 
  • #14
Originally posted by Carlos Hernandez
But, Transhumanism is mostly speculation

Though this isn't really the place/time to argue about that, I think the possibility of many technologies predicted by (among others) transhumanists is fairly well-grounded in science, and important enough to focus on even if speculative. Whether they can be developed in the foreseeable future is something you can argue about. I recommend reading Kurzweil's writings on this (he has his flaws, but makes a good case for expecting this sort of thing somewhere in the next century).

You seem very concerned though that I am tainting the image of Transhumanism.

A few people are trying to fit it into an ideology which includes racialism and eugenics. I certainly wouldn't want to see it associated with either of those (that's as good a way to kill off a good idea as any).

So I am letting everyone know that if you want a politically correct version of Transhumanism that has nothing to do with my ideas, check out (etc)

Thanks.
 
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  • #15
Originally posted by Ontoplankton
Though this isn't really the place/time to argue about that, I think the possibility of many technologies predicted by (among others) transhumanists is fairly well-grounded in science, and important enough to focus on even if speculative. Whether they can be developed in the foreseeable future is something you can argue about. I recommend reading Kurzweil's writings on this (he has his flaws, but makes a good case for expecting this sort of thing somewhere in the next century).

I support research into transhuman related technologies, after all, it is in my self-interest to become immortal. All I am saying is that I don't believe in "placing all my eggs in the same basket," I think is what the proverb goes like, or "counting my chickens until they hatch."

Carlos Hernandez
 
  • #16
Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Your program seems not to be racist, but I worry about some of the forums you link to in another board here. Some of the discussions on those sites didn't take very long to get down to passionate antisemitism. I personally wouldn't want to frequent a discussion like that. what is your view?

I agree with you. I believe that irrational intolerance for any ethnic group, such as Jews, is unfair/unethical. There are various American racial groups, such as the National Alliance, Stormfront.org, Ku Klux Klan, Creativity Movement, European-American Unity and Rights Organization, American Renaissance, etc. that are radically intollerant, where they not just wish to stop any further immigration, but actually wish to deport all non-White citizens. Though I am for closing our borders to any further immigration, I don't wish to throw out good law-abiding productive citizens who happen to be non-White (such as myself). But, I believe that if we really want to help people, we need to understand the genetics which are behind undesirable conditions. If poverty, crime, and dygenerousy is the result of genetics, we need to improve genes, not environment.

Carlos Hernandez
 
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  • #17
Have you ever seen the Identical twins experiment? Its conclusion contracts what you are saying!

basically a pair of twins with identical DNA are separated at birth one is brought up in a "rich" enviorment and one is brought up in a "poor" one. The end result was that the INDIVIDUALS behaved differently, and thus proved that enviorment has as much or more to do with behaviour than DNA make up!

We should NOT build walls we should build bridges and understand other races better and through understanding one another we can build better socities without Right wing ideals and dominance. If you better someones environment you can better there life, and through education you can better everyones!
 
  • #18
Originally posted by Anttech
Have you ever seen the Identical twins experiment? Its conclusion contracts what you are saying!

basically a pair of twins with identical DNA are separated at birth one is brought up in a "rich" enviorment and one is brought up in a "poor" one. The end result was that the INDIVIDUALS behaved differently, and thus proved that enviorment has as much or more to do with behaviour than DNA make up!

Who did the research?

The American Psychological Association, as well as mainstream psychology accept IQ to be 80% heritable and personality to be 50% heritable. But, if you have any data that they are wrong, I would consider it.

The most publicized twin study, the University of Minnesota twin study lead by professor Thomas J. Bouchard Jr showed that identical twins raised appart were more similar than non twin siblings raised in the same family. Here is a summary of his research: http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/tjbouc01.html [Broken] And MIT Professor Steven Pinker in his latest book "The Blank Slate: the modern denial of human nature" show how genetics plays the biggest role in intelligence and 50% of personality. Search my posts, I have posted ample research validating my argument.

carlos hernandez
 
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  • #19
You're absolutely right about this one Carlos. Not only the Minnesota study, but many other twin studies over the years have confirmed the high heritability (over 50% in some cases) of many personality traits.

The idea that they show the opposite must be one of those defensive myths that people on the losing side of a discussion develop. Cognitive dissonance.
 
  • #20
"If poverty, crime, and dygenerousy is the result of genetics, we need to improve genes, not environment. "

This is what I disagree with! According to Carlos all we need to do is create a master race and all enviromental problems will be resolved!

The twin study does disprove this as its outcome clearly implies that environment has as much to do with DNA on how an individual will behave!

If you we to create the perfect genetic human and lock him up in a cell and beat him etc etc, do you think he will be a well adjusted human or not!
 
  • #21
Though I am for closing our borders to any further immigration
Why?
 
  • #22
The remaining 32 chapters are about race.
Do you mean "the remaining 32 paragraphs of Sowell's discussion are about race?" The Bell Curve has only got 22 chapters total. Two of them - 13 and 14 - deal with race.

the book went much further.
Exactly what did The Bell Curve say that went so much further? The Bell Curve was an extremely moderate book. It said that IQ was anywhere from 40-80% genetic, and it stated no position on the source of ethnic differences in IQ. Entry level psychology textbooks will tell you as much.

The only really controversial thing about The Bell Curve was that, rather than saying that racial differences in IQ exist, and then immediately explaining them away, the authors wrote quite honestly "we don't know why there are IQ differences between races."

(At the time when The Bell Curve was written, this was quite true; when psychometricians and other experts in the field of intelligence were polled in 1990 by Snyderman and Rothman, those who felt the 15 point black/white IQ gap was entirely environmental were outnumbered by those who felt it was partially genetic.)


The American Psychological Association, as well as mainstream psychology accept IQ to be 80% heritable and personality to be 50% heritable.
As I understand it, the heritability of IQ rises towards 80% in old age; the figure usually given for adults is 70%. (Although psychometric g is somewhere near 85% heritable.) So I'm curious - where did the APA claim that the heritability of IQ was 80%? The only article I read of theirs was the APA Task Force Report which says the same wishy-washy stuff Herrnstein & Murray report in The Bell Curve about IQ being anywhere from 40-80% heritable.



--Mark
 
  • #23
Originally posted by Nachtwolf
So I'm curious - where did the APA claim that the heritability of IQ was 80%? The only article I read of theirs was the APA Task Force Report which says the same wishy-washy stuff Herrnstein & Murray report in The Bell Curve about IQ being anywhere from 40-80% heritable.--Mark

I believe it was their new book "Behavioral Genetics in the Post Genomic Era."
 
  • #24
Ah; that wouldn't surprise me.
 
  • #25
The main new thing in the Bell Curve was the research that showed that IQ was much more significant in predicting many sociological variables, including income, than thos old favorites class and wealth. Class and wealth were surrogated in the study by family SES (Socioeconomic status, based on answers to a questionaaire) and father's income. This research, I believe, shot down the purely economic method for remediating low IQ. Simply moving poor families into the middle class won't raise IQs as a block. And indeed this conclusion was confirmed by IQ studies on middle class Blacks.

The part of The Bell Curve that set off the opposition was not new, but old. The authors simply repeated the many times confirmed finding that US Blacks, as a population, have a distribution of IQ with a mean about one stndard deviation (~15 IQ points) below that of the non-hispanic white population. And the equally old conclusion from twin studies that heritabilitly of IQ is somewhere between 50 and 70 percent. I don't believe they quoted 80%, which was Cyril Burt's old number.

It wasn't that these statements were new that infurated the left. It was that they thought they had scotched those very ideas to the point where they could not be uttered in public. The key item in that earlier propaganda campaign was the the book "Not in our Genes", by Gould and Lewontin. This is not the place to comment on that book, which has formed part of the education of a whole generation of Americans, except to say that its conclusions are invalidated by unquestioned scientific results.

So when the Bell Curve appeared, cooly asserting the forbidden doctrine, all the old warriors turned out. Both Gould and Lewontin contributed essays, and the whole PC wing of the scientific community was mobilized to attack Murray (his coauthor had conveniently died). You can still find knee jerk insults agains Murray in the comments of leftist blogs, every time his name comes before the public.

You can see a rerun of this campaign in the smearing of Lomborg, the "ecology skeptic". One part of that smear, by the Danish Scientific Society, has just been severely criticised by a special panel of the Danish government. Time wounds all heels.
 
  • #26
Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Do you mean "the remaining 32 paragraphs of Sowell's discussion are about race?"
Yeah, typo. Fixed now.
 
  • #27
Originally posted by Carlos Hernadez
After looking at behaviors of various ethnic groups/races, I see that each race has their own strengths and weaknesses; no one race is perfect by themselves. The best thing to do would be for the best specimens of each race to carry out the founder effect: that is, these specimens would form their own sub-society and interbreed in a eugenic way. We can have the best Asians, Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc. come together and mix their genes up. This new population would then go on to explore the universe and advance to the Omega Point/Singularity.
I find this a bit disturbing. What traits would be desirable and who would make this decision? What constitutes "best"? What makes you think that the "results" of this selective breeding would have the same desires and goals as the "creators? Will you be breeding free will out of them?

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
The main new thing in the Bell Curve was the research that showed that IQ was much more significant in predicting many sociological variables, including income, than thos old favorites class and wealth. Class and wealth were surrogated in the study by family SES (Socioeconomic status, based on answers to a questionaaire) and father's income. This research, I believe, shot down the purely economic method for remediating low IQ. Simply moving poor families into the middle class won't raise IQs as a block. And indeed this conclusion was confirmed by IQ studies on middle class Blacks.
I agree that IQ is not influenced by income. I would like to hear opinions on something I just posted in another thread on IQ.

Here is my post:

You can't equate IQ to success.

Yes, a person with a high IQ will normally have greater reasoning abilities and may comprehend, retain and utilize information easier than a person with a lower IQ, but, in my opinion, it is motivation, not IQ that determines how successful a person becomes academically or professionally.

A highly motivated person with a normal IQ may have to put more time and effort into learning, but they can still achieve as much or more than a person with a high IQ that is not motivated.

Years ago the TV show "60 Minutes" did a report on special schools for the "Academically Able", (elementary school age children with IQ's in excess of 140).

Although a few of these students went on to be doctors or lawyers, (nothing notable) most never achieved anything significant. Some were housewives, one was a belly dancer, another a short order cook, and so on.

Although they had high IQ's, they had no motivation.
 
  • #28
My response is twofold.

First the correlation of success and IQ in the statistics is high, but not 100% (Hackman makes this point in defending intervention in poor communities). So there is plenty of room for other factors like motivation. Remember the Bell Curve results only covered papa's income and social status.

Second, people tend to overevaluate the anecdotes in their own lives, and misevaluate the actual mean and standard deviation that is measured. I would trust measured statistics over anybody's theory, if they couldn't be reconciled. Of course there are bad statistics too, every tool has to be evaluated when you use it. I am talking about clear statistics from good data.
 
  • #29
Originally posted by selfAdjoint
My response is twofold.

First the correlation of success and IQ in the statistics is high, but not 100% (Hackman makes this point in defending intervention in poor communities). So there is plenty of room for other factors like motivation. Remember the Bell Curve results only covered papa's income and social status.

Second, people tend to overevaluate the anecdotes in their own lives, and misevaluate the actual mean and standard deviation that is measured. I would trust measured statistics over anybody's theory, if they couldn't be reconciled. Of course there are bad statistics too, every tool has to be evaluated when you use it. I am talking about clear statistics from good data.

I totally agree. You might like this link. I found it refreshingly objective.

http://psych.colorado.edu/hgss/hgsschapters/HGSS_Chapter21.pdf
 
  • #30
What an excellent overview! Thank you for the link. Since you admire it, and I accept its conclusions too,it might follow that we agree on this contentious issue.

I particularly liked his putdown of the "stratification" fear. And his clever analysis of the two extreme positions, the one saying that IQ is driving us into a caste system, and the other that we are already in a caste system which is driving IQ.
 
  • #31
I'm glad you liked it. I often have problems expressing what I mean and therefore creating the wrong impression.

Yes, I thought he did an excellent job overall.
 
  • #32
I often have problems expressing what I mean and therefore creating the wrong impression.
It's quite common for anyone involved in Physics to have disproportionally high visuospatial ability for their verbal ability. Thus while they have good mathimatical and reasoning skills which give us a good understanding of the world we live in, we tend to have trouble expressing what we know.

Physics majors are also more Field Independent, thus proving beyond any shadow of doubt that we are cooler than Humanities majors.

--Mark
 
  • #33
Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Physics majors are also more Field Independent

--Mark

What does that mean?
 
  • #35
The text that Evo linked to, a couple of posts up in this thread, says that although the lower IQ people have more children per individual, fewer of them tend to have children at all, which keeps the position in rough balance.

The Clinton era welfare reform, the centerpiece of which was jobs for the very poor, even at the cost of subsidy, was found to have greatly reduced the rate of illegitimate births among the poorest women.
 

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