The magnitude of single parent homes with parents that are not involved in the education process only magnifies the problem.
~~~
Magnifies, or just creates.
To play devil’s advocate, how much does his research prove that that differences in IQ are not social and cultural, rather than genetic. It’s the old nature versus nurture argument, and I assume it’s been tackled by his work, but asside from arguing that IQ tests themselves are culturally biased, one could also argue that differences in intelligence are not necessarily intrinsic, but a matter of causation.
The IQ test is administered at age 16 or 17. It measures how much one has learned at that age and then is divided by the age. Trying to test beyond those ages is difficult because even though one’s knowledge will grow, it is divided by a higher age and so the IQ is unlikely to grow.
Asians and Jews, who score the highest, have highly motivated parents who keep their children’s scholastic noses to the grindstone.
White who generally score in the middle range have a mix of serious students and those who goof off a lot.
In the black culture, book learning is considered acting white so there are many black students who have learned little by the time the test is administered.
Of course there are many brilliant blacks whose parents took their studies seriously, e.g., Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice and others, but the blacks who are not learning in junior high and high school will score poorly and bring the averages down.
“but asside from arguing that IQ tests themselves are culturally biased, one could also argue that differences in intelligence are not necessarily intrinsic, but a matter of causation.”
Stupid people actually believe that.
And that’s part of the problem.
Don’t take my word for it, but I dimly recall the bell curve made some use of identical twins raised in different households with differing levels of support and income. I guess the idea was to see if it made much actual difference.
FReegards
Murray didn’t invent this issue, he in fact has come late to the party, but he is articulate and well qualified, and apparently fearless.
BTW his work The Bell Curve is primarily about intelligence and class structure in the United States. The section which addresses ethnic differences in cognition is fairly short and tangential to the book’s main thesis.
My line of thinking was the same. It isn’t likely to be race that causes this demographic to score lower overall on IQ tests, but rather the climate in inner-cities and their schools, not to mention homes. Living in Chicagoland, I can’t imagine the gangbangers which own the streets in most of this city have a particularly high IQ.
Of course, the way leftists react to the book title has more to do with them than the author.