The+Bell+Curve

Originally prepared by: Brian Beatty Revised:

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The Bell Curve begins with fundamental and important assumptions, makes assertions (supported by the author’s evidence), draws conclusions based on statistical analysis of the evidentiary data, and concludes with wide-ranging recommendations for national policy-makers to follow. The authors state that their main motive is, " the quest for human dignity." (p. 551). Their concluding paragraph seems to support this motive: > "Inequality of endowments, including intelligence, is a reality. Trying to pretend that inequality does not really exist has led to disaster. Trying to eradicate inequality with artificially manufactured outcomes has led to disaster. It is time for America once again to try living with inequality, as life is lived: understanding that each human being has strengths and weaknesses, qualities we admire and qualities we do not admire, competencies and incompetencies, assets and debits; that the success of each human life is not measured externally but internally; that all of the rewards we can confer on each other, the most precious is a place as a valued fellow citizen." (pp 551-552) The Bell Curve, in its introduction, begins with a brief description of the history of intelligence theory and recent developments in intelligence thought and testing, through the eyes of the authors. The introduction concludes with six important assumptions that the authors build much of the Bell Curve's case upon. These six assumptions regarding the validity of "classical" cognitive testing techniques include: The authors proceed to explain, using classical cognitive test results primarily, to explain how lower levels of measured intelligence impact an individual's, or indeed an entire class or group of individual's life in American society.
 * 1) There is such a difference as a general factor of cognitive ability on which human beings differ.
 * 2) All standardized test of academic aptitude or achievement measure this general factor to some degree, but IQ tests expressly designed for that purpose measure it most accurately.
 * 3) IQ scores match, to a first degree, whatever it is that people mean when they use the word intelligent, or smart in ordinary language.
 * 4) IQ scores are stable, although not perfectly so, over much of a person's life.
 * 5) Properly administered IQ tests are not demonstrably biased against social, economic, ethnic, or racial groups.
 * 6) Cognitive ability is substantially heritable, apparently no less than 40 percent and no more than 80 percent.

__The Bell Curve__, published in 1994, was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray