Do you agree with the "Bell Curve"?

[philosopher8659_PREV (deleted)]

Personally, I am want to start at the beginning. If one does not know the principles of predication, know the art of language itself, I hardly think that they are literate at all. Pre-literate is man.

Now the principles of predication are not difficult at all, Plato tried to get his readers to abstract them from his meditational pieces, called dialogs, however, that failed--even Aristotle only got part of a piece of it, and then much of that wrong.

One cannot convince me that if they know not what the standard is that they can measure with that which they have not got. j.c.

[spiralguy_PREV (deleted)]

`I work in education, and I can tell you that no single bell curve tells the whole story about people in general. I can also tell you there is a conflict between competitive groups and the masses who want everything fed to them. Efforts have been made, at least in the education system, to circumvent the competitive process and that leaves people unprepared for the real world. It would be better to simply better prepare the average person for the competitive world.
Just take a look at the sparse postings on this site and compare to a site like Adult Friendfinder. Case closed.

[elvely_PREV (deleted)]

"oneyoucanthave"

Thank you, for writing this, you have said everything I would have said and more. There are so many more factors that play into intellectual capacity than race. But I have found that usually when the "research" is in one's favor. One is more inclined to agree with it. Wow.

[leigh123]

`Has anyone else heard of the teacher/researcher who divided her class into two groups--the blue eyed kids and the brown eyed kids--and told them one of the groups was superior to the other? The "inferior" group quickly developed behavior problems and did poorly in their school work, while the "superior" group did as well as they had before or better. The same teacher would then switch the inferior and superior groups and would get the same results.

It is my opinion that such behavioral research might hold the answer to the disparities of "intelligence" we see in different people groups, especially minorities vs. the majority.

[pyramorte (deleted)]

We can finally extrapolate that there are too many factors involved in cognitive development to be discussing this using syllogistic or deductive reasoning. Perhaps it would be best to first understand the basics of neuroscience and its abstract foundations to neural development. Either way, there are no 'perfect' solutions on measuring intelligence. Simply because measure itself is rooted on personal opinion. cl

[wilhelm8474 (deleted)]

`I agree with leigh123 in that how we treat certain groups of people has a tremendous effect on the progress that those groups make in their education, or life in general. The experiment that Jane Elliot did with her class (discriminating against blue-eyed and brown-eyed kids) proves that when groups are discriminated against, they take on a sense of despair and begin to lose interest. The American social structure has treated everyone who isn't of WASP descent as a second class citizen, and that trend has created the traits in certain racial groups that are described in the Bell Curve book as being what these cultures are taught to do. Simply saying that 'Asians are good at math because that's what their culture does' (I'm loosely quoting what was said about the Bell Curve book, as I've never read it myself) is a very shallow, Durkheimian social view. To discern the true cause of a disparity in educational success rates, one must look at the source of the problem, not just the surface. That source seems to be the inequality that is so ingrained in our system. If we do away with the discrimination, we do away with the discrepancy. Unfortunately, it's easier said than done. A good book to read about this sort of thing is 'Rigging the Game' by Michael Schwalbe. It's an excellent overview of how racial, class-based, and gender-based inequalities are propagated in our system. I'm done with my rant now. Carry on.

[(deleted)]

`I consider it a moot point, since, in my opinion, we have not yet come up with an accurate means of measuring intelligence to begin with. However, if you want to attempt to appraise the intellectual potency of a given people, you're far better off looking to the distant past, before mankind mixed up the powders in the beaker, so to speak. This would abrogate any factors or concerns of societal inequality based on race/culture/religion/language.

[deyna]

I think, intellectual laziness can be sometimes interpreted as a biproduct of technology (could be processes, techniques or any innovation), technology being there to take care of day to day inefficiencies. As Einstein puts it "Why should I have to remember a phone number, when you know where to find it".

[theinquisitor]

`I don't agree with the "Bell Curve" at all. "Studies" like these only take into account a select group of people in the population- it's not really representative of the population as a whole. The author of the book is very biased in her reasearch and leads you to believe that people are becoming more "stupid" as time progresses- which is not the case. The testing methods that are used to generate this curve are out of date discriminatory toward minority groups. Deyna, I completely agree about the "intellectual laziness" statment. It can be interpreted much of the time as a biproduct of technology, but again people are thinking in terms of old methods and old ideas. They only show you one viewpoint of intelligence instead of encompassing a multidimensional perspective. Any good study requires this. The key word in Deyna's statement was "interpret". If anything, in my opinion people today are much more advanced intellectually than they were 20 years ago. At least when it comes to technology- it blows my mind that younger kids (4 and 5 year olds) are using computers REGULARLY to play games that will teach them math or spelling without even realizing that they're learning. I go to the library frequently and see kids there ALL the time doing just that. The kids know basic navigation of the internet, how to email someone, how to use a CD-ROM. They click around and learn how to use a program based on general logic even though they have no prior knowledge of it (meaning they haven't read the manual). That's pretty smart. Most kids today will have a basic understanding of physics- how the planets orbit and how many there are. They learn how to do logic puzzles in 5th and 6th grade. Most jobs today don't even require that you do that advanced higher level thinking like what the kid is doing in 5th and 6th grade. Maybe computer programming, mathematics, or being a doctor (the whole logic tree and complex problem solving stuff). That's pretty advanced stuff comparatively speaking (to 50 years ago). If for any reason people are becoming "dumber" it is due to the fact that they CHOOSE to become that way by not continuing their education and expanding their knowlege after highschool or college or graduate school. Some get stuck in the corporate ladder rut- the rat race- and their life and actions become repetitive. They learn to accept it, get comfortable and don't want to change and grow. That's their choice. Not our society. Not our government. Not our schools. Not our parents. It's individual choice. There's a concept in developmental psychology on the topic of fluid and crystallized intelligence...fluidity is basicly the intelligence that will allow people to solve novel problems without prior knowledge of the subject at hand- which people tend to be really great at until about 25 or so (possibly because their brain is constantly being stimulated in academic settings). After that crystallized intelligence kicks in- the intelligence of learned subjects- experience- using information that you've already learned to solve problems. So after 25 (again which is when most people graduate college or start graduate school) they'll lose that fluidity because their brain is not being stimulated as much and they're not forming new synaptic connections and apply what they've already learned to new problems instead of looking outside of the box and finding solutions to novel problems without any prior knowlege. so what happens if people continue to apply themselves after school and stimulate their brains just as if they were in the land of academia? we get even smarter people...increased fluidity...advancement as a society, a culture, a race...and once again prove books like Bell Curve wrong...

[fossils]

I don't believe in Bell Curve, I can prove it wrong. Thats a different topic though, let me tell you what I believe in. I believe in Bell Pepper. Its delicious, nutricious and may be few more cious's. But the idea is that unlike bell curve it doesn't try to fit data but fits everyones dietry needs. And I believe that if you start to eat a lot of Bell Peppers, you will stop believing in Bell Curve like me.

[mountainwizard]

I remember when this book came out. It seemed to suggest that people from upper middle class backgrounds were doing better than people of other backgrounds because they were simply smarter. This idea was very comforting to upper middle class people and they bought read and quoted the book in droves.
But there was another study released in response to the Bell Curve conclusions. It said that if one controled for the effect of environmental toxins including lead in water and fetal alcohol effects, the intelligence differences between classes disappeared completely. That suggests the only reason upper middle class people are so smart is they are not forced to raise their children in a toxic environment. So maybe culture and heredity have less to say about who the 'winners' are than who is forced to live with the toxic waste that isn't profitable to clean up. And that's entirely a question of public policy. So in effect the 'leaders' of this generation decide deliberately who of the next generation will get decent water, shelter, medical care, and who of the next generation will grow in poison and squalor, denied health care and education. Naturally this will result in one group being mainly smart and successful, and the other sadly just not quite measuring up.
But somebody will always be able to get rich writing a book that claims the poor are just stupid.
[/url]