Posted on 03/24/2006 11:10:04 AM PST by JZelle
A lecturer at Britain's Leeds University has been suspended for allegedly saying white people are intellectually superior. Frank Ellis, who teaches Russian studies, will also face disciplinary proceedings, reports the Guardian newspaper. Ellis reportedly told the Leeds student newspaper he supported the theory of Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their 1994 book "The Bell Curve" that white people are more intelligent than black people. He also said that women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men, the report said. A university official said the disciplinary proceedings could take months to complete and that Ellis would remain an employee during that time. Ellis had earlier told the Guardian he would not be silenced even though the university had gagged him. David Williams with the anti-fascist group Searchlight says Ellis is well known on the far-right circuit. "He has been putting these ideas forward for around 15 years. These sort of opinions are very dangerous if unchallenged because they provide a veneer of respectability for outright racism and intimidation," he told the newspaper.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
he supported the theory of Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their 1994 book "The Bell Curve" that white people are more intelligent than black people.
If he'd actually bothered to read the book, he might know that's not what it says. But that's a pretty good summation of what other people who haven't read the book think it says.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Actually, I've read it, and that's essentially what it does say with respect to the averages for those two racial groups (at least if you equate IQ with intelligence), and the point is quite well documented. However, Ellis is unlikely to be able stomach other aspects of the book, especially the part about how Jews have on average higher IQs than non-Jewish "white" people, due to centuries of their best and brightest, who tended to become rabbis, having boatloads of children, while several centuries worth of Christians were relegating their brightest minds to the theoretically celibate and actually very low-reproducing priesthood.
He'd have been promoted to dept chair, probably.
Not if he said it in a "Chocolate City".
You're right in that they did thoroughly document a higher IQ for whites than blacks and latinos, but they also made a fairly convincing argument (to me anyway) that uncoupled IQ with intelligence.
[Side note, I was surprised that they let slide the assertion that Chi Com citizens have the highest IQ. Sounds about as accurate as the all Cubans are functionally literate ruse to me.]
I'd say The Bell Curve is number two on the list of "Books Quoted by People Who've Never Read Them" right behind The Bible.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Sounds like the same things the guys pushing for ebonics are saying.
I don't remember The Bell Curve putting forward anything like this. Might you be thinking of something by Kevin McDonald?
What you gotta love about all of these idiots who attack anyone who references Herrnstein and Murray's work is how they conveniently ignore that all H&M did was rely on the military entrance exam. They didn't make up the numbers.
The critics aren't intellectually honest enough to admit that the data come from the U.S. government and allow the U.S. military to be the most incredible fighting force in the world.
I thought I remembered it from the Bell Curve, but it's been quite a while since I read it. It might have been something that one of the Bell Curve authors published later. I don't think is was a big part of whatever I read it in, since it's not the sort of thing that lends itself to empirical research of the sort that these authors do -- I think it was just cited as a possible explanation for the differing IQ stats.
The Bell Curve is number two on the list of "Books Quoted by People Who've Never Read Them" right behind The Bible.
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