Dividing up into teams on "The Bell Curve" is easy.

Post #397,637 by Another Scott 12/29/14 3:23:54 PM Reply	Dividing up into teams on "The Bell Curve" is easy. I've not read it myself. My dad is a voracious reader and has a copy of it with about 7 dozen bookmarks sticking out of it... :-( There are some excellent takedowns of it out there - e.g. this one mentioned in a comment by jl in a Balloon-Juice thread a few days ago: Sad. From what I have seen, most people who are impressed with the Bell,Curve are innumerate (that would include Sullivan), or are not familiar with the econometric statistical methods. The Bell Curve is a conceptual, methodological and statistical mess. But, don’t take my word for it. Link below is a review of the book by Charles Manski and the late Arthur Goldberger. Good to read even if you don’t know much statistics, since they do a good job of laying out the conceptual messes of the book. I hate to impugn motives, but their (edit: Bell Curve’s) literature review (and resulting assumptions they used for their statistics) was quite skimpy, selective and biased, suspiciously so We know that the way kids are brought up in their first few years can make a huge difference in their performance in schools, on standardized tests, etc. I think we've all seen that. Genetics plays a role, sure, but my gut tells me other things play a much larger role. A recent review article seems to confirm that (based upon the abstract, anyway). Coates' Twitterstorm responses to Sullivan was on 12/23. He has some good links there, too. tldr; Don't think that Murray has a sensible argument. People who have done actual good science don't see a strong genetic component to "intelligence" or "IQ". HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #397,641 by rcareaga 12/29/14 3:51:49 PM 12/29/14 3:58:13 PM Reply	Not defending Murray But is haplogroup L3 without significance? Can we simply dismiss the deplorable condition vis-a-vis most of the rest of the world of the pre-L3 population? I don't find the implied conclusion agreeable, but I think it merits investigation. cordially, Edited by rcareaga Dec. 29, 2014, 03:58:13 PM EST Expand All History
Post #397,672 by rcareaga 12/30/14 12:30:23 AM Reply	I'm certainly not climbing aboard the "Bell Curve" bandwagon ...merely suggesting that the premise, however disagreeable to our enlightened liberal sensibilities, ought not be excluded from dispassionate evaluation. I admit that daily exposure to my city's black criminal lumpenproletariat may perhaps predispose me to, ah. broadmindedness on this point. cordially,
Post #397,673 by Another Scott 12/30/14 1:04:11 AM Reply	My poking around scholar.google.com hasn't turned up anything. E.g. looking for "L3 mtDNA intelligence" or "L3 mtDNA culture" and the like didn't turn up anything. Mitocondrial DNA seems too far removed from things like intelligence for there to be any sensible scientific literature on it. Now it may be that 70,000 years ago L3 Eve had some magical characteristics and was extremely fruitful and had daughters that were passed around as prizes outside of Africa. It's hard for me to believe that her magical characteristics were in her L3 mtDNA though... Happy hunting. ;-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #397,687 by boxley 12/30/14 11:25:55 AM Reply	that L3Eve was one good looking monkey Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep

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