Review of “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life”
“The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life”, a highly controversial book, was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in the last decade of the twentieth century. A portion of it focused upon the role of inheritance in the human intelligence. Besides the discussion, defensively, there was only one sentence in the book that got the most of criticism from the opponents, human rights activists and non-white community. It was a suggestion to the USA government to change its priorities while designing different welfare schemes. One of the authors has defended the arguments by claiming: “We have a single sentence in Chapter 22 in which we talk about the ways government should get out of the business of encouraging any group of women to have babies, whether they be smart or dumb. And we generally urge that policies that subsidize birth be ended. It is one sentence. A single sentence. And one does not follow from the other.” Ref. You may take it as a lame excuse but it is still a reference book, containing a lot of data, tables and conclusions. But the controversy starts when the authors start explaining the statistics. “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life” has made a real impact upon the psychometrics. It is the most widely read book on the subject of the intelligence. So many years have gone but the people are still searching it. Format of Bell Curve Book
You may call “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life” a technical book for its laboriously collected and analyzed data. However, the portion which explains these figures is the most interested. The book is comprised of the following format: Part 1: It focuses upon the question; what is role of intelligence in the human society? Part 2: This part beings into light their concept of intelligence and influence of the environment upon it. Part 3: It is the most controversial part of “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life”. The role of intelligence in poverty, success, failures, races, etc is the general area of discussion. The difference between black-white intelligence also takes a place in the part. Part 4: This part of “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life” discusses role of IQ scores on the education and social policies of the United States. It generated a lot of meat for the political parties of the America to support their own objectives. The Bell Curve Book and IntelligenceThe psychologists are still looking for a single definition of intelligence which appeals their individual dramatic observations in the field of human perceptions. “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life” has caused more schism. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray exposed their strong observations and supported their arguments with the relevant data to prove that:
• The psychological tests can measure your intelligence accurately. • Intelligence can be measured in all races, languages and geographical units. • Intelligence plays a vital role in your failure or success. • Intelligence is genetically heritable. • Some intelligence features can’t be explained without admitting the role of inheritance. • The role of environment for development of your intelligence is very little. The Bell Curve Book and the Welfare Programs
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life speaks loudly against welfare programs. The authors say that welfare programs and policies of the governments have been encouraging the low IQ parents to have more children which result in low IQ generations. They claim: “If the United States did as much to encourage high-IQ women to have babies as it now does to encourage low-IQ women, it would rightly be described as engaging in aggressive manipulation of fertility.” They argue that the governments should not support the poor people through their welfare programs because poverty has direct link with the low intelligence. This way, they say, the governments are wasting public exchequer for wrong ends. The statistics and claims given in “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life” had got a lot of respect and support from the media. Newsweek, The Time, The NewYork Times, Forbes and other media wings had given a lot of support in early days. However, the critics were not behind. The third part of the book has invited a lot of people to purchase and read the book.
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