That summarizes The Bell Curve’s predictions. While you’ve been lied to endlessly about how Herrnstein and Murray were bad people for writing The Bell Curve, the reality is that they weren’t cynical enough.
In summary, the worldview that Palo Alto’s early 20th-century IQ testers and eugenicists developed explains part of the basis for the American economy’s most productive sector in the 21st century.
Murray concludes, “a significant and growing proportion of the American population is losing the virtues required to be functioning members of a free society.” This slow erosion is seldom discussed, however, because on the other side of the class chasm, the upper reaches “have become so isolated that they are often oblivious to the nature of the problems that exist elsewhere.” Murray has ranked every zip code in the country by class, and one of his more informative findings is that vast swathes of the greater Washington D.C. area, which increasingly monopolizes public discourse, rank at the 95th percentile or higher.
As coauthor Flynn famously pointed out, raw scores on IQ tests all over the world have been rising for generations (what Herrnstein and Murray approvingly named the “Flynn Effect”). For example, US Army psychometricians were shocked at WWI draftees’ dimness but were happier with WWII’s more on-the-ball conscripts. Was this due to more schooling, better nutrition, less hookworm and cretinism, more mental stimulation from radio, movies, and automobiles, more scientific conceptual models in common circulation, something else, or all of the above? As the Ameliorists admit, there’s no consensus on the Flynn Effect’s causes.
"Nisbett misrepresents much of the available information using highly selective reviews of the literature. Especially egregious are his many errors of omission."
Abstract: Smart fraction theory supposes that gifted and talented persons are especially
relevant for societal development. Using results for the 95th percentile from TIMSS 1995-
2007, PISA 2000-2006 and PIRLS 2001-2006 we calculated an ability sum value (N=90
countries) for the upper level group (equivalent to a within country IQ-threshold of 125 or
a student assessment score of 667) and compared its influence with the mean ability and
the 5th percentile ability on wealth (GDP), patent rates, Nobel Prizes, numbers of scientists,
political variables (government effectiveness, democracy, rule of law, political liberty), HIV,
AIDS and homicide. Additionally, using information on school and professional education,
we estimated the cognitive competence of political leaders in N=90 countries. Results of
correlations, regression and path analyses generally show a larger impact of the smart
fractions’ ability on positively valued outcomes than of the mean result or the 5th percentile
fraction. The influence of the 5th percentile fraction on HIV, AIDS and homicide, however,
was stronger. The intelligence of politicians was less important, a longitudinal crosslagged
analysis could show a positive influence on the cognitive development of nations.
Bazelon’s ultimate objection to New Haven’s discarded 2003 testing process is that it wasn’t subjective and arbitrary enough to promote as many minorities as she’s like.
Therefore, assuming this tiny study is correct, society could eliminate roughly 75 percent of the IQ gaps caused by genetic differences. All it would take is for the government to make parents in the upper and lower sectors of society exchange their children.
We are living in an extraordinary time. Nothing like this has ever occurred in human history. Mass immigration of non-Europeans will inevitably result in the European peoples becoming minorities and then increasingly small minorities in their own countries, as they are in most of Latin America and the Caribbean islands. Throughout the Western world the European peoples are allowing themselves to be replaced in their own homelands by non-Europeans.
Ashkenazi Jews have a higher rate of some deadly genetic diseases -- and of high IQs. Scientists Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending say that's no coincidence.
a crash course on the importance of IQ and the g factor
Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence
1,800 genes have been under varying selection pressure in Africa, Europe, or East Asia over no more than the last 50,000 years.
1,800 genes have been under varying selection pressure in Africa, Europe, or East Asia over no more than the last 50,000 years.