The Bell Curve

[_Analytics]

"Is This What We Want For America?" would actually be a great title for The Bell Curve. The main thesis for the book--at least through Chapter 1--is that the stratification of America across cognitive ability is happening and is a bad thing. It is bad for the poor and less intelligent who are prone to find themselves living and working together after the brainiacs have left town to become software engineers, and it is bad for the "cognitive elites":

[Harvard] Dean Bender explained why, vocing his fears that Harvard would "become such an intellectual hot-house that the unfortunate aspects of a self-conscious 'intellectualism' would become dominant and the precious, the brittle, and the neurotic take over." He asked a very good question indeed: "In other words, would being part of a super-elite in a high prestige institution be good for the healthy development of the ablest 10- to 22-year-olds, or would it tend to be a warping and narrowing experience?"...

When people live in encapsulated worlds, it becomes difficult for them, even with the best of intentions, to grasp the realities of worlds with which they have little experience but over which they also have great influence, both public and private.

I find it amazing that this book was written in the early 90's in the days before the Internet boom--his predictions about social stratification seem to be playing out just as he predicted. So far, the book reads as something you would expect to be written now to explain the intellectual and economic divide in America, populism, and the rise of Trump.

I am fascinated by the book so far. I'm passionate about economics, the sociological effects of economic inequality, intelligence, learning, and statistics. This book brings all of these things together in a way that seems more relevant now than it did when written.

The main point of chapter 1 is that 100 years ago, very few people went to college. Because of that, there were highly intelligent people scattered through all towns and professions. That was a good thing for the fabric of America. Beginning in the 1950's however, most smart people went off to college, and the elite colleges began only accepted the super-smart, with few exceptions. This causes the intelligent to congregate in some circles, and others to concentrate elsewhere. The chapter ends by foreshadowing Chapter 2, about how the stratification along intelligence in education leads to a stratification along intelligence in employment.

Of course these are just my impressions through the first chapter--I haven't got to the alleged "real point" of the book yet. But so far, I really like it. I think Karl Marx would like it too--like Das Kapital, this book is an illuminating view of real and potential problems in the world regarding economic inequality. My hypothesis at this point is that this book will ultimately prove parallel to Marxism--an insightful analysis of the actual problem, but with ineffective proposal for solving it.

[_Analytics]

Chapter 2

The main thrust of this chapter continues what was in the previous--the way high-IQ people are distributed in society is changing. In 1900, there were relatively few jobs in "high IQ professions" (the book lists accountants, architects, chemists, college teachers, dentists, engineers, lawyers, and physicians as the "high IQ professions"). Because there were few jobs in those professions, most people with high IQs did other things. In addition to the high-IQ professions, the book talks bout business examples. He speculates that in 1900 CEOs weren't necessarily that bright. In this whole chapter, he delimitates the high-IQ crowd as the 10% of the population with an IQ of 120 or higher.

Many CEOs in the first half of the century had their jobs because their family's name was on the sign above the factory door; many had reached their eminent positions only because they did not have to compete against more able people who were excluded from the competition for lack of the right religion, skin color, national origin, or family connections.

That is a distinctly non-racist argument.

By the end of the 20th century, the number high-IQ jobs has grown tremendously, and it also became difficult to rise into senior management without having a high IQ.

On the question of whether intelligence is inherited, he notes that your IQ as a kid is highly predictive of what kind of job you'll end up getting. He also notes that siblings usually (not always, but quite often), end up on the same or adjacent rungs on the hierarchy of job status. He breaches into controversy here by saying,

Such commonplace findings have many possible explanations, but an obvious one that is not mentioned or tested often by social scientists is that since intelligence runs in families and intelligence predicts status, status must run in families. In fact, this explanation somehow manages to be both obvious and controversial.

(He refers the reader to a book called IQ in the Meritocracy by one R.J. Herrnstein to learn about this argument and controversy.)

But is the economic similarity among siblings because of nature or nurture? He cites a study where they looked at what kind of jobs people had relative to their siblings. The twist is they looked at kids that were adopted as babies:

The biologically related siblings resembled each other in job status, even though they grew up in different homes. And among them, the full siblings had more similar job status than the half siblings. Meanwhile, adoptive siblings were not significantly correlated with each other in job status.

[_Analytics]

One more note on Chapter 2. He says that your IQ test when you are 7 or 8 does a great job of predicting what kind of job you end up with. Personally, I am an outlier to that alleged trend. When I was 7 or 8 I was near the bottom 10% of my class--my 2nd grade teacher thought I was so dumb I needed to be in what they called "resource"--a special class for the bottom 10% or so. I kept on barely getting enough points on the test to stay out of it. My teacher wanted to put me in resource anyway but my mom was furious and said no way in hell. I then gradually drifted up to somewhere in the 30th percentile until something clicked. I went from the 30th percentile to the 97th percentile in math over one summer. Something just clicked. Maybe it is because my brain is naturally good at algebra but terrible at arithmetic. Also, I have some sort of a mild learning disorder and a terrible short-term memory. I can work through a relatively complicated math problem pretty intuitively, but I need study flash cards for a week to learn a phone number.

I'm just saying all this because although I now see myself among the "cognitive elite," it didn't happen to me in the typical way the book describes. If Murray saw my elementary school test results, he would have predicted I'd now be honorably employed as a garbage truck driver or something. But I am certain he would agree that there are outliers and this stuff shouldn't be read as being fatalistic--we are all individuals. That said, I'm sure this material would have killed my ambition if I would have been exposed to it as a kid.

Didn't somebody once say that not everything that is true is useful?

[_Gadianton]

Was this book written in the 80's? If so, what a blast from the past. I remember an episode of Geraldo where the authors of a book by that title faced off against Geraldo and the crowd. The authors of the book I'm thinking of made arguments about Asians being more intelligent than whites and whites more than blacks; also, discussion over which race is the "biggest". The authors defended themselves by saying over and over we have to acknowledge our differences.

The other thing is this made me thought of this book I (partially) read as a TBM that Cleon Skousen was a big fan of, Tragedy and Hope by carroll quigley. I thought about this book also on the BYU and ethics thread in the other forum earlier in the week. Quigley makes a point similar to your chapter 1 point that Ivy League schools had gone downhill because of the focus on competition and he laments the declining aristocracy and brotherhood among elites. It's the exact same point from what I can tell.

[_EAllusion]

I find it amazing that this book was written in the early 90's in the days before the Internet boom--his predictions about social stratification seem to be playing out just as he predicted.

To be fair, the prediction is actually wrapped up with the idea that compensatory interventions by government cannot halt social stratification along the lines of intelligence and that class stratification is primarily caused by intelligence stratification. The idea of worsening class stratification is such a generic prediction to make, especially in its time and place, that's of no use. That social mobility will be on the decline is not a sexy prediction to make in the early 90's. And it is well explained by political and economic changes that are not related to intelligence. If, on the other hand, you could prove that social uplift interventions are useless because the problem is IQ and IQ is not all that malleable, as they argue, then there's more there.

If I recall, they also argue that life on the bottom rung is going to keep getting worse and worse as poor populations are relatively stupider and stupider. There's all sorts of social ills they discuss: Laziness, divorce rates, low political participation, etc. that they are are associated with low IQ with the prediction that this is just going to get worse and worse in the lower castes as cognitive sorting occurs. An important part of the book is the argument that low IQ causes social incompetence which leads to crime and, naturally, jail. Crime among the impoverished is only going to get worse is the prediction. (Stated or implied. I cannot recall.) Again, this was a safe thing to say if you're writing a book in the early 90's when crime seemed to be getting worse and worse and had, in fact, been the worst it's ever been in modern America. But then a funny thing happened. The trend reversed and gradually got better and better with each passing year to the point that we live in one of the most crime free eras of our country's history.

[_EAllusion]

One more note on Chapter 2. He says that your IQ test when you are 7 or 8 does a great job of predicting what kind of job you end up with. Personally, I am an outlier to that alleged trend. When I was 7 or 8 I was near the bottom 10% of my class--my 2nd grade teacher thought I was so dumb I needed to be in what they called "resource"--a special class for the bottom 10% or so. I kept on barely getting enough points on the test to stay out of it. My teacher wanted to put me in resource anyway but my mom was furious and said no way in hell. I then gradually drifted up to somewhere in the 30th percentile until something clicked. I went from the 30th percentile to the 97th percentile in math over one summer. Something just clicked. Maybe it is because my brain is naturally good at algebra but terrible at arithmetic. Also, I have some sort of a mild learning disorder and a terrible short-term memory. I can work through a relatively complicated math problem pretty intuitively, but I need study flash cards for a week to learn a phone number.

I'm just saying all this because although I now see myself among the "cognitive elite," it didn't happen to me in the typical way the book describes. If Murray saw my elementary school test results, he would have predicted I'd now be honorably employed as a garbage truck driver or something. But I am certain he would agree that there are outliers and this stuff shouldn't be read as being fatalistic--we are all individuals. That said, I'm sure this material would have killed my ambition if I would have been exposed to it as a kid.

Didn't somebody once say that not everything that is true is useful?

You appear to be confusing IQ here with academic performance here. It's possible that you were an intelligent person who was a poor academic performer. They're not the same thing. Raw IQ tests can predict outcomes independent of aptitude tests like the SAT's. However, IQ very strongly correlates with academic opportunity with various theories as to why. Simply expecting more of a student causes them to perform better in testing. It's part of what's called the "observer-expectancy effect." The reverse, darkly, is also true. So you might've been spared a much worse outcome for your ability by avoiding lowering the cognitive demands on you. Contrary to what Hernstein and Murray are going to tell you, practice reading and calculating ever more demanding things does, in fact, impact your IQ score.

[_EAllusion]

Was this book written in the 80's? If so, what a blast from the past. I remember an episode of Geraldo where the authors of a book by that title faced off against Geraldo and the crowd. The authors of the book I'm thinking of made arguments about Asians being more intelligent than whites and whites more than blacks; also, discussion over which race is the "biggest". The authors defended themselves by saying over and over we have to acknowledge our differences.

The other thing is this made me thought of this book I (partially) read as a TBM that Cleon Skousen was a big fan of, Tragedy and Hope by carroll quigley. I thought about this book also on the BYU and ethics thread in the other forum earlier in the week. Quigley makes a point similar to your chapter 1 point that Ivy League schools had gone downhill because of the focus on competition and he laments the declining aristocracy and brotherhood among elites. It's the exact same point from what I can tell.

Published in 1994. Caused a huge stir, then disappeared around the end of the decade. It's recently resurgent as alt-right media platforms are ascendant in the age of Trump. Murray has gotten some publicity recently for mass protests of his invited appearances on college campuses.

Here's a well written letter by Columbia Law School's faculty on one such event:

http://www.law.columbia.edu/open-univer ... -statement

This thread was started because in another thread where I discussed my intense dislike for Sam Harris, I pointed out that he just a few weeks ago had Charles Murray on his podcast where he more or less promoted Murray as a hero sharing settled, but uncomfortable science in the face of a PC witchhunt. Sam Harris sucks, you see.

[_Analytics]

I find it amazing that this book was written in the early 90's in the days before the Internet boom--his predictions about social stratification seem to be playing out just as he predicted.

To be fair, the prediction is actually wrapped up with the idea that compensatory interventions by government cannot halt social stratification along the lines of intelligence and that class stratification is primarily caused by intelligence stratification. The idea of worsening class stratification is such a generic prediction to make, especially in its time and place, that's of no use. That social mobility will be on the decline is not a sexy prediction to make in the early 90's. And it is well explained by political and economic changes that are not related to intelligence. If, on the other hand, you could prove that social uplift interventions are useless because the problem is IQ and IQ is not all that malleable, as they argue, then there's more there.

If I recall, they also argue that life on the bottom rung is going to keep getting worse and worse as poor populations are relatively stupider and stupider. There's all sorts of social ills they discuss: Laziness, divorce rates, low political participation, etc. that they are are associated with low IQ with the prediction that this is just going to get worse and worse in the lower castes as cognitive sorting occurs. An important part of the book is the argument that low IQ causes social incompetence which leads to crime and, naturally, jail. Crime among the impoverished is only going to get worse is the prediction. (Stated or implied. I cannot recall.) Again, this was a safe thing to say if you're writing a book in the early 90's when crime seemed to be getting worse and worse and had, in fact, been the worst it's ever been in modern America. But then a funny thing happened. The trend reversed and gradually got better and better with each passing year to the point that we live in one of the most crime free eras of our country's history.

"Section 1" of the book goes through their arguments about what is happening with the cognitive elites. So far, I think the book is nailing it. Section 2 will describe what he thinks is going on in the politely-unnamed other end of the bell curve.

On your first point, so far the book is only talking about intelligence per se. There has been not even a subtle hint of "intelligent" being a euphemism for "white." Rather, he is talking about what life is like for people in the top 10% of intelligence, regardless of race. If he is right, individuals in the top 10% should be the ones doing great. That is the question. What has become incredibly clear since this book was written is that people in the "top" have had huge increases in their income, while everybody else has been barely keeping up with inflation, if that. The middle class has been shrinking. So who are the winners? Is it the people who are in the top 10% in intelligence?

If that is the basic landscape, is it just a coincidence that the stratification is happening across intelligence level, while other "political and economic changes not related to intelligence" are driving it? That seems unlikely, but I'm open to the argument.

[_Analytics]

You appear to be confusing IQ here with academic performance here. It's possible that you were an intelligent person who was a poor academic performer. They're not the same thing. Raw IQ tests can predict outcomes independent of aptitude tests like the SAT's. However, IQ very strongly correlates with academic opportunity with various theories as to why. Simply expecting more of a student causes them to perform better in testing. It's part of what's called the "observer-expectancy effect." The reverse, darkly, is also true. So you might've been spared a much worse outcome for your ability by avoiding lowering the cognitive demands on you. Contrary to what Hernstein and Murray are going to tell you, practice reading and calculating ever more demanding things does, in fact, impact your IQ score.

I might be confusing the two concepts a little, but I'm thinking specifically of "The Iowa Tests" which we took in Utah back then. I suppose those are geared towards academic achievement, but there must be an intelligence component. When I was in the second grade and the teacher was trying to justify putting me in resource, it must have been a more general intelligence test, right? Reflecting upon it, I've always had a really good ability to focus on something that really captures my attention, but I've always found it incredibly difficult to focus on what other people tell me to or on something that just isn't turning my brain on. When little I was notorious for intensely daydreaming. Looking back at it, maybe I really was smart (my mom always thought I was, lol), but when I sat down to take tests I spaced out and looked like I should be placed in resource. As I got older I slowly learned how to concentrate, somewhat. A friend who is a doctor heard about these struggles and said he thought I might have ADD. I saw a psychologist about it, took a test, and was diagnosed with it.

My middle school had this single math placement test they gave every student at the beginning and end of every year. Some of the questions depended on whether you'd been exposed to specific math concepts of course, but some of it clearly tested for g. I still remember one of the questions I got right that stumped most of the seventh graders in the "smart" class. The question was "150% of 12 =". Nobody knew how to approach that. Explaining the solution, Mr. Carrier said, "'of' means multiply and 150% means 1.5. So you multiply 1.5 by 12." We didn't have calculators of course and 1.5 wasn't on the multiplication table, so he calculated that out the long way. Everybody stared at the board collectively thinking WTF. I didn't get what he was doing either. One of the smart popular kids looked over at my sheet and saw that I got it right. He asked me how I did it. I said, "Well, 100% of 12 is 12 at 50% of 12 is 6, and 12 + 6 is 18." The kid yelled out, "Mr. Carrier! I like Analytic's solution better!"

I totally hear you on the observer-expectancy thing. I went to a fairly large middle school, and after being in the top of the advanced class for two years, I walked into Geometry on the first day of the 9th grade and sat down. One of the "smart" kids saw me and was sure I was in the wrong place. "This is GEOMETRY Analytics! This class is for the SMART kids. NOT YOU! Let me see your schedule printout and I'll tell you what class you should head to."

[_Gadianton]

A friend of mine says that next-gen robots will take the jobs of most working class people. He does not necessarily relegate the "less intelligent" to the underclass, as many smart people have no motivation. We had been arguing about video games sucking up the lives of today's kids, with me saying it's a problem, while he countered saying that since robots will be putting so many out, then it's a good thing for a large section of the population to find amusement and somewhat blissful existence playing video games and that it's wrong to believe the idle should suffer for their idleness. What do you guys think?