Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined

by Joe L. Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg (Editor), Aaron D. Gresson (Editor)

In Measures Lies, the first thoughtful and reasoned reading of The Bell Curve, the editors have assembled a group of the most well-respected educators and social theorists writing today to provide responses to Hernstein and Murray's racial and intellectual agenda.

Genres: Nonfiction

468 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

Joe Lyons Kincheloe (December 14, 1950 – December 19, 2008) was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and founder of The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban studies, cognition, curriculum, and cultural studies.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS CRITIQUING "THE BELL CURVE”

The editors note in their introductory chapter, "One does not have to read far to discover ['The Bell Curve'] is obsessed with differences in intelligence between different races and classes of people... 239 of the book's 552 pages (43 percent) explicitly concern comparisons of black, Latino and white intelligence and its effects. Indeed, even when African Americans and Latinos are not specifically mentioned, The Bell Curve is hard at work justifying the genetic arguments which support the contention that Whites are innately superior. To argue that the book is not primarily about race is duplicitous." (Pg. 5)

They add, "A sizable number of the sources utilized by Herrnstein and Murray were produced by Pioneer Fund recipients... The `scholarship' supported by the Pioneer Fund is uniformly racist... Besides the Pioneer Fund another cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment is `Mankind Quarterly'---a white supremacist journal... [Herrnstein and Murray] used five articles published in `Mankind Quarterly' and seventeen scholars who had published in it as their sources in The Bell Curve..." (Pg. 39)

Another notes, "According to contemporaries, New York's `Hell's Kitchen' in the 1860s was full of atavistic Irishmen who made the streets unsafe. They too were seen literally as a race apart and were accused of reproducing at an uncomfortably high rate... Such myths about the relationship between `low intelligence' and `race' are basic to Western science at least since the mid-eighteenth century..." (Pg. 268)

An essayist states, "'In The Mismeasure of Man,' [Stephen Jay] Gould concludes, that the average difference between the scores of Whites and Blacks might still only reflect the environmental disadvantages of Blacks. Since then, there have been no new advances in the argument that race determines intelligence. In the face of this, Herrnstein and Murray only offer vague disclaimers: `Foreign-born blacks score about five IQ points higher than native-born blacks, for reasons we do not know.'" (Pg. 304)

This book is another of the best commentaries on 'The Bell Curve,' along with 'The Bell Curve Debate, 'The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America,' and 'Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve.'

[Graham Seibert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Time has not been kind to "Measured Lies".

Since its publication a number of important books have been written substantiating the Bell Curve hypothesis. The most direct arguments are given in "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" and "Race Differences in Intelligence," and "The g Factor." Authors who pussyfoot around the factor of race in the heritability of intelligence, but whose work generally supports the thesis, are "The Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells, "World on Fire" by Amy Chua, and at the pinnacle, "The Blank Slate" by Stephen Pinker. I add in 2012, Earl Hunt's "Human Intelligence" offers a good, evenhanded survey of the field.

There is a marked difference in the tone of "Measured Lies" from these others. "Lies" is strident; the others have the measured calm of scientific works. While the others project scientific objectivity, "Lies" is insistently moralistically.

The argument does belong in the realm of morality. Lies' authors find it "hurtful" and "unutterable" even to discuss the possibility that there are differences among the average abilities of different races. On the other hand, observing the vast difference in the accomplishments of different races, not only in the U.S. but between and within countries throughout the world, a great many observers have come to one of two moral conclusions:

1) Certain peoples do not achieve because they are morally deficient: lazy, given to drugs, oversexed or whatever, or,

2) "Hegemonists" such as European nations or Caucausian people systematically and immorally frustrate the aspirations of other peoples through subtle racism.

Either way it is a blame game. And profoundly immoral, if the blame is not deserved.

The gauntlet is down. There are so many scientific, statistical studies supporting the hypothesis that there are systematic differences in group abilities that egalitarianists must fight fire with fire. It is time to come up with some valid science to refute these claims, or gulp and accept the findings.