[ExI] Protected Elites

[Lee Corbin]

Mirco writes

>> ("Oh, no no no, this is not bigoted shit, this is *balanced
>> even-handedness*")
> 
> I was commenting of the graphics, not endorsing any other stuff in other 
> pages or in the page.
> 
>> This Graph is © 1994, TheBell Curve, Simon and Schuster, Inc., p. 279

That statement alone, without argument, is supposed
to automatically discredit the information.

> The graph is false? Wrong?
> 
> If you prefer we could substitute the graph with this from Indiana 
> University
> 
> http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/bellcurve.shtml

That old book, written in 1994, has been superseded
so far as the most recent research goes, by many, many
more explicit and equally (if not more so) blunt
presentations of the facts and the best evolutionary
theories, i.e., "Race" by Sarich and Miele (Sarich
is a highly regarded Berkeley professor emeritus),
"IQ and the Wealth of Nations" by Richard Lynn and
Tatu Vanhanen, and Rushton's unrelenting "Race,
Evolution, and Behavior".

Today, "The Bell Curve" is pretty mild stuff indeed.

On the other side, to be fair, is Flynn's own fine
book "What is Intelligence?", (Flynn is the discoverer
of the famous Flynn effect). But even Flynn, who
strongly "believes in IQ", doesn't contest the
statistics, but rather hypothesizes certain possible
milder interpretations. Given the intellectual climate
(no publishing house dares touch books that go as
far as Rushton's; he had to publish it himself, even
though it's obviously of at least the same quality
that many other technical books have), it's a small
miracle that these books are being published at all.

Even Jensen's magnum opus "The G Factor" (1998)
has a story told in part by

     Arthur Jensen of Berkeley, the dean of
     psychometricians with 400 scientific
     papers published in refereed journals,
     struggled merely to find a publisher
     for his version of The g Factor, this
     heroically comprehensive summing up of
     his life's work. Finally, the small mail
     order imprint Praeger released Jensen's
     magnum opus … to shameful neglect. Even
     today, the only sure source for this
     fascinating (if dauntingly rigorous)
     landmark in the science of human nature
     remains the publisher (203-226-3571).
     [Since then, it's become reliably available
     through Amazon.com.]

http://www.isteve.com/jensen.htm

(although about that last line, I must add that
it's only periodically available from Amazon).

Three criticisms of "The Bell Curve" given
in the link you originally supplied are by
Stephen Jay Gould (deceased), and Leon J. Kamin,
coauthor of "Not In Our Genes", and old book
that (today) laughably dismisses genetic
effects on intelligence, and (the most respectable)
Howard Gardner, who writes in part

    Why is this [book, The Bell Curve] so singularly
    off-putting? I would have thought it unnecessary
    to say, but if people as psychometrically smart
    as Messrs. Herrnstein and Murray did not "get it,"
    it is safer to be explicit. High IQ doesn't make
    a person one whit better than anybody else. And
    if we are to have any chance of a civil and humane
    society, we had better avoid the smug
    self-satisfaction of an elite that reeks
    of arrogance and condescension. (p. 71)

where he cannot bring himself to actually deny the facts,
just, rather, to dismiss the appropriateness of discussing
them openly, and the arrogance of anyone who would.

Lee