A Charles Murray Reader

Charles Murray has another execrable article in the Wall Street Journal arguing that most children aren't genetically capable of reading well (it's possible these inferiors can, with great persistence and dedication, learn to sound words out), and so we should stop trying to teach them. Indeed, Murray argues that, "It would be nice if we knew how [to raise intelligence], but we do not. It has been shown that some intensive interventions temporarily raise IQ scores by amounts ranging up to seven or eight points...There is no reason to believe that raising intelligence significantly and permanently is a current policy option, no matter how much money we are willing to spend." But here's Howard Gardner, summarizing portions of The Bell Curve:

[Murray and Herrnstein] note that IQ has gone up consistently around the world during this century--15 points, as great as the current difference between blacks and whites. Certainly this spurt cannot be explained by genes! They note that when blacks move from rural southern to urban northern areas, their intelligence scores also rise; that black youngsters adopted in households of higher socioeconomic status demonstrate improved performance on aptitude and achievement tests; and that differences between the performances of black and white students have declined on tests ranging from the Scholastic Aptitute Test to the National Assessment of Educational Practice.

The mendaciousness amazes. Murray not only knows better, he's said so publicly. Anyway, the fine folks over at Cognitive Daily offer a quick slap at Murray's ignorance of cognitive development research, the very field he professes expertise in, but we should probably go a bit farther. Murray comes up every once in awhile, and I'd hate to begin each rebuttal from scratch, so here's a quick resource for readers trying to get a grasp on a debate that's now decades old:

• The Bell Curve Flattened: As Nicholas Lemann points out, "The Bell Curve [Murray's most famous work] was not circulated in galleys before publication. The effect was, first, to increase the allure of the book (There must be something really hot in there!), and second, to ensure that no one inclined to be skeptical would be able to weigh in at the moment of publication. The people who had galley proofs were handpicked by Murray and his publisher...The result was what you'd expect: The first wave of publicity was either credulous or angry, but short on evidence, because nobody had had time to digest and evaluate the book carefully." Lemann, helpfully, returns to the tome a few years after publication, and looks into the peer-review of its claims: "The Bell Curve, it turns out, is full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors. Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis."

• Does IQ Matter?: Not nearly so much as Murray wants you to think. The best research shows that IQ is a relatively weak predictor of future success. In this article, two top authorities on cognitive development show that standard measures of self-discipline are much more important than raw IQ numbers. "Duckworth and Seligman conducted a two-year study of eighth graders, combining several measures of self-discipline for a more reliable measure, and also assessing IQ, achievement test scores, grades, and several other measures of academic performance. Using this better measure of self-discipline, they found that self-discipline was a significantly better predictor of academic performance 7 months later than IQ."

Cracking Open the IQ Box: Howard Gardner, reviewing The Bell Curve not long after its publication, explains: "the links between genetic inheritance and IQ, and then between IQ and social class, are much too weak to draw the inference that genes determine an individual's ultimate status in society. Nearly all of the reported correlations between measured intelligence and societal outcomes explain at most 20 percent of the variance. In other words, over 80 percent (and perhaps over 90 percent) of the factors contributing to socioeconomic status lie beyond measured intelligence. One's ultimate niche in society is overwhelmingly determined by non-IQ factors, ranging from initial social class to luck. And since close to half of one's IQ is due to factors unrelated to heredity, well over 90 percent of one's fate does not lie in one's genes."

Uncontroversial? Duncan and Digby explain the rhetorical mendaciousness used to buttress the scientific malpractice.

Not Just From The Left: To make sure these criticisms -- most of which are methodological -- aren't dismissed as mere defensives from PC lefties, here's Thomas Sowell eviscerating the book.

Wired: Katherine has a good suggestion on what Murray should be consuming in order to correct some of his addled assumptions.

• David Brooks Gets Into Trouble Trusting Murray: Another example of Murray's inability to do math.

The 99th Percentile of Dishonest: Kevin Carey details Murray's habit of asserting that no one has answered question X, then pretending that he, in fact, has. He also notes Murray's condescending glorification of craftsmen occupations.

Murray's Appeal: Rob Farlyey explains, The successful in any position like to believe that they win because they are good. The less capable are left behind because they are, well, less capable. Accepting that racism and misogyny corrupt our institutions means abandoning this meritocratic fantasy...If our institutions are not meritocratic, then our presence at the top of those institutions may not be evidence of our merit. It is far easier, of course, to simply shake our heads and accept that women and people of color, with the exceptions of some prominent individuals, just aren't quite as good as the rest of us, the rest of us being white men."

Return of Murray: And lastly, here are some more recent comments on Murray from me, focusing on why journalists take him seriously and what sort of ideas he actually pushes. "Murray discovered and skillfully exploited a fairly foundational flaw among journalists -- their generalist nature. Most commentators are not wonks, and they're definitely not statisticians. Therefore, when faced with one of Murray's opuses, they're dazzled by the array of statistics, multivariate regression analyses, and other impressive techniques he uses, the flaws of which the reviewers are often ill-equipped to assess. Murray incapacitates them by talking over them, and few writers want to risk a humiliating display of ignorance by engaging his dense substance. So there’s a lot of ambivalence as to his conclusions, but much enthusiasm for his boldness and intellectual courage, virtues that self-important commentators feel well-equipped to identify. "