Small Words

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by sociologist Charles A. Murray and psychologist Richard Herrnstein

I remember hearing about this book – many times – but never as a debunked work. It was presented as a work of science. It has popularized the term “bell curve” in statistics for gosh darn sakes. Sorry Karl Friedrich Gauss I have never heard a “normal distribution” called a “Gaussian Curve.” Not even once.

Now, not that many years after their 1996 work was published, Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein’s book just seems

…a little racist, right? And as it turns out it is not a peer-reviewed work, and widely panned by scientists today.

The Bell Curve’s paraphrased summary below includes some concerning language.

“Breaking new ground and old taboos — among them, IQ’s relationship to crime, poverty, ethnic differences in intelligence; and what policy can do — and cannot do”

This summary is pitching the book as a maverick taboo-crusher with cutting-edge insight, just getting on in there and “telling it like it is.” It says: People are just dumb – and (gee, what can ya do) race is a delineator.

Doesn’t sound very unbiased, methodical, or scientific. And also, like very racist. Maybe this should have tipped off some of its 1996 readership but I’m not here to judge the past.

I’m wondering why I’ve never heard negative things about this book.