It's disappointing to read someone reference Murray as authoritative on anything outside his chosen field of statistics. While his statistics in
The Bell Curve are accurate, his conclusions are nothing more than the promotion of the meme that 'nothing can be done to improve the lives of the poor, so why spend money on welfare and public housing programs?'
One cannot fairly discuss his 1994 book,
The Bell Curve, without taking into consideration his entire body of published work, in the field of statistics and
his authorship of several other books. Surprisingly, in discussions about
The Bell Curve, most focus upon Murray solely, and remain oblivious to his co-author,
Richard J. Herrnstein.
Herrnstein, like
Murray are old school Malthusians.
And that's where the
Pioneer Fund enters the picture. Need I say more?
One must examine the content of Murray's books in the context of the times they were written, especially with regard to the then present political agenda. (perhaps ever-present), with regard to controlling society's movement, not of the elite, but of their
"burden," the poor.
Classic cases all, of victimizing the victims as the cause for our social ills.
Ten years before he wrote
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, Murray authored
Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980. Theresa Funnicello and I, along with several welfare recipients of Theresa's choosing, were invited by the
Phil Donahue Show to debate with Murray his conclusions in
Losing Ground. We, on the nationally televised network broadcast stage of the Donahue long ago (1985) debunked and proved false his book's "conclusions." We chose not to raise the issue of
who his employer then was while he wrote his book of lies.
One example on stage was a white woman welfare recipient. She had 4 or 5 children and was from Cape Cod. She was a sixth generation Yankee and proud of her heritage. Her husband had been a minister before he abandoned her and his kids, throwing them into an entirely different social class and onto the ranks of those in need of public assistance.
Supposedly, I'm a borderline genius, (an obsolete term), or was when I was tested around the age of 25 and again at 30, (147 and 152 respectively), who hails from rather lily white roots who was brought up in comfort and have lived my entire adult life in poverty. My unmet needs were psychological in nature. Both of my children were raised in public housing. Both of my kids were very smart. My son's IQ was off the chart and he excelled, mastering French at an early age and later, Chinese, but my daughter at 15 was swallowed by the streets. She eventually became a nurse, though today she remains impoverished. To my great surprise, I learned after his death that before he had turned 30 my son was more accomplished than I. Today I'm sure my IQ is average, around 100. I feel IQ is irrelevant and a creation of Malthusians. They really only test one's
exposure to knowledge.
Oddly, Murray rarely if ever mentions "privilege." By this I mean the assistance of familial relationships within the egalitarian class, which is what allows so many to remain privileged by removing obstacles to achievement for members of their class while creating obstacles for any potential challengers. (door openers; a hand up, red tape cutters, etc.)
Lastly, Murray does not discuss the negative impacts of early childhood mental development from poor nutrition a very great many of those who are impoverished experience.
If we make it through this century without incinerating ourselves and into the next, we eventually see come about the blending of races to finally become one people of Earth. There will then still be Neanderthals, small enclaves of those unwilling to "taint" their whiteness, their redness, their yellowness, their blackness. Perhaps only then will we realize we are all the same, just humans with common needs.
Yes, the Bell Curve was
disproved long ago.
The Bell Curve Is A Myth — Most People Are Actually Underperformershttp://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-debunks-idea-that-human-performance-fits-on-a-bell-curve-2012-5What Do IQ Tests Test?: Interview with Psychologist W. Joel Schneiderhttp://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/what-do-iq-tests-test-interview-with-psychologist-w-joel-schneider/It seems obvious that when we are faced with a decision between doing The Wrong Thing based on false information from an IQ test and doing The Right Thing by ignoring the IQ test when it is wrong, we should do the right thing. Unfortunately, we do not live in that universe, the one in which we always know what The Right Thing is.
Welfare As We Don't Know Ithttp://www.welfareacademy.org/pubs/welfare/welfare-0793.shtml That took me 3 hours to write edit and re-edit. I must be an idiot!
