I just read Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve. It was first published back in 1994. Reading it was an epiphany. The truth poured off those pages, and tied in perfectly with what I've observed in my life about race. What they posit is:

• IQ is real, and it matters enormously in what we can accomplish in life. It matters far more than any other factor, including education, wealth, or parenting.
• Arguments that racial IQ differences are the result of cultural bias are specious and provably false
• The mean IQ of the black population is about 15 points lower than the mean white IQ, or more than one standard deviation. That difference between the black and white populations is massive.
• IQ is largely inherited, and Herrnstein and Murray showed emphatically that education can do little to change it.
• In the present time, the cognitive elite are the new ruling class, unlike in the past, when class or wealth determined who would lead.

Accordingly, affirmative action only serves to admit incompetents to the ranks of the cognitive elite, where they cannot prosper. Affirmative action is, at best, a waste of resources, and, in fact, is an injustice to both minorities and to those who are unjustly treated, who otherwise would have been selected for jobs or college admissions. Affirmative action is a failed policy, but it is liberal dogma, and politically incorrect to criticize it.

-- Mad Engineer

nice little piece of racist trash

thanks so much

I'd like to know where he got his data from. I too believe there may be mean intelligence differences if not between the races, between individual Ethnicities. Just like height, hair color, skin color and other evolved differences. Some people might have evolved more ability to do certain tasks better than others depending on their environment. And this is a much larger than just a White or Black discussion.

Come on Mr. Engineer, let's see if you can discuss this without going postal.

Here's my first submission that has other reasons for ethnic differences.
Some ethnic groups have genetically inferior IQ’s

Of course we all know that black people have bigger dicks and can play basketball better than whites.

IQ is measured with TESTS. If you aren't educated to the questions on the test, you can't get an accurate measure to a person's IQ.

What a joke.

Of course, if this was something you agreed with then you would saying. that it must be true because it is backed-up with a scientific study. SInce this is something you disagree with, the study must be flawed.

OK, fxashun, much of the data comes from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which is a very large national survey of young Americans, started in 1979, and which continues to this day. The original size of the group was nearly 13,000. It is conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. It covers persons of all races and income levels. It measures IQ's, and tracks the participants as they move from public schools to college, jobs, prison, military, and other life outcomes. It tracks their incomes, marital status, and just about anything else worth measuring. It is a monumental sociological study. Herrnstein and Murray mined this extensive database, along with other published studies in the course of their own research.

To answer another writer's question about test bias, my answer is that Herrnstein & Murray examined this issue extensively in The Bell Curve. They argued that IQ, SAT, and other tests of cognitive ability were not racially biased, for, among other arguments:

• Research by numerous independent investigators failed to find any material evidence of cultural bias in mainline tests.
• Researchers who looked at individual test questions found that the population of black test takers did better on questions that appeared to be culturally loaded than on questions that appeared to be culturally neutral.
• If standardized tests are culturally biased against blacks, then they are, by definition, under-predicting future black performance. However, comparisons of scores with later performance (such as college grades, graduation rates, income level, etc.) showed that the tests were over-predicting black performance, instead.

I'm not sure what your comment means about going postal. Actually, I think what's missing regarding the topic of affirmative action, as well as racial IQ differences, is rational discourse. Sadly, the political correctness movement seeks to quash anyone who questions their established dogma. Ironically, liberals loudly proclaim their love of free speech, but only to the extent that they agree with the speaker.

I'm gonna apologize first because I really thought you might have been a hit em and leave poster or just a troll. So again, you have my apologies.

I actually agree with you that AA has it's issues. It is reverse discrimination and should be phased out. But then again, there are individuals that are still decidedly prejudiced and simply would not hire any minorities of any kind. And while if it is YOUR OWn company, I have no problem with that, if you are a representative for a major corporation, that's a different story. You do know that White women have gained the most from AA.

As far as the intelligence tests...
I always question when people say that "African-Americans are less intelligent than Whites". I mean damn, why is it always a White/Black issue? Where do the other races fit in to this? What about differing ethnicities of each? Early Americans would tell you that a German might be smarter than an Irishman. Aren't they both "White". Not to mention the Asian people. Where do they figure in to this. They are kicking ass in most of our most prestigious learning institutions. Not that I doubt it or anything, I really don't know, and there's bound to be a hierarchy among the races/ethnicities. I just question the Black/White-ness of the comparisons.

I think it's a bigger issue than "Whites are smarter than Blacks". There are simple cultural differences that place a higher priority on certain things in certain households. Or it could even be the mere fact that the son of a doctor would feel like a failure if he turned out to be a McDonalds manager. So he would try harder in school. Whereas the son of a McDonalds employee would find making manager a big deal.

It's all a matter of perspective IMHO.

Here's another perspective on the data you base your post on.
The black/white IQ gap is 15 points and growing.

This whole discussion regarding race and IQ is flawed on a basic premise, that is that all individuals can be judged by their association with a identifiable group. Let us look at what the averages say about the different groups, whites average IQ is 100, blacks average IQ is 85, and asians average IQ is 106. These stats have nothing to do with any individual. I am white my IQ should therefore be 100. However, on IQ tests I score 132. My Best friend Rosslyn is black, therefore her IQ should be 85, yet on IQ tests she scored 142. For some strange reason in our high school we took an IQ test every year. Go figure, the scores never changed.

Like everything else, I am sure that genetics and environement play a part in IQ. However, the genetics I think about have3 nothing to do with race but rather with family. I do not know my fathers IQ score, nor does he, however, we do have a comparison to make with our scores on the ASVAB test administered by the military, I scored a 124, my father scored a 128. Rosslyn can compare her IQ score with that of her mothers, hers was 142, mom's 139.

A Thomas Sowell article shows a valid question and point. In blacks who have scored over 140 on their IQ test why is it that 5 times as many are women than men?????? Same race shouldn't the test results be the same????

This agains just goes to prove what you allow when you decided to judge someone by their inclusion in a defined group instead of judging them as an individual.

dmk