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57-441: Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci ) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience . While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written by professional science journalists or by scientists themselves. It is presented in many forms, including books, film and television documentaries, magazine articles, and web pages. Before

114-529: A 1995 interview with Frank Miele of Skeptic , Murray denied making each of these four assumptions. The Nobel Memorial Prize -winning economist James Heckman considers two assumptions made in the book to be questionable: that g accounts for correlation across test scores and performance in society, and that g cannot be manipulated. Heckman's reanalysis of the evidence used in The Bell Curve found contradictions: In response, Murray argued that this

171-463: A critical overview of affirmative action policies in colleges and workplaces, arguing that their goal should be equality of opportunity rather than equal outcomes. Herrnstein and Murray offer a pessimistic portrait of America's future. They predict that a cognitive elite will further isolate itself from the rest of society, while the quality of life deteriorates for those at the bottom of the cognitive scale. As an antidote to this prognosis, they offer

228-508: A letter to philosopher William Whewell , he wrote that the general public needed "digests of what is actually known in each particular branch of science... to give a connected view of what has been done, and what remains to be accomplished." Indeed, as the British population became not just increasingly literate but also well-educated, there was growing demand for science titles. Mary Somerville became an early and highly successful science writer of

285-411: A result Murray's work is methodologically flawed. Claude S. Fischer , Michael Hout , Martín Sánchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler , and Kim Voss in the book Inequality by Design recalculated the effect of socioeconomic status, using the same variables as The Bell Curve , but weighting them differently. They found that if IQ scores are adjusted, as Herrnstein and Murray did, to eliminate

342-498: A scholarly text. Nicholas Lemann noted that the book was not circulated in galley proofs , a common practice to allow potential reviewers and media professionals an opportunity to prepare for the book's arrival. An opinion statement endorsing a number of the views presented in The Bell Curve called " Mainstream Science on Intelligence " was published in The Wall Street Journal in 1994 and subsequently reprinted in

399-530: A special task force chaired by Ulric Neisser to publish an investigative report focusing solely on the research presented in the book, not the policy recommendations that it made. The report, " Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns ", was first released in 1995 and published in American Psychologist in 1996. Regarding explanations for racial differences, the APA task force stated: The cause of that differential

456-470: A vision of society where differences in ability are recognized and everybody can have a valued place, stressing the role of local communities and clear moral rules that apply to everybody. Herrnstein and Murray argued the average genetic IQ of the United States is declining, owing to the tendency of the more intelligent having fewer children than the less intelligent, the generation length to be shorter for

513-562: Is discussed. They maintain that cognitive ability is the best predictor of worker productivity. Herrnstein and Murray argue that due to increasing returns to cognitive ability, a cognitive elite is being formed in America. They argue that this elite is getting richer and progressively more segregated from the rest of society. The second part describes how cognitive ability is related to social behaviors: high ability predicts socially desirable behavior, low ability undesirable behavior. The argument

570-541: Is even less empirical support for a genetic interpretation. In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available. American Psychologist subsequently published eleven critical responses in January 1997. Stephen Jay Gould wrote that the "entire argument" of the authors of The Bell Curve rests on four unsupported, and mostly false, assumptions about intelligence: In

627-630: Is made that group differences in social outcomes are better explained by intelligence differences rather than socioeconomic status, a perspective, the authors argue, that has been neglected in research. The analyses reported in this part of the book were done using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth (NLSY), a study conducted by the United States Department of Labor 's Bureau of Labor Statistics tracking thousands of Americans starting in

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684-494: Is necessary to preserve the mansions on the hills from the menace of the slums below." Moreover, they fear that increasing welfare will create a "custodial state" in "a high-tech and more lavish version of the Indian reservation for some substantial minority of the nation's population." They also predict increasing totalitarianism : "It is difficult to imagine the United States preserving its heritage of individualism, equal rights before

741-500: Is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves. The Flynn effect shows that environmental factors can produce differences of at least this magnitude, but that effect is mysterious in its own right. Several culturally based explanations of the Black/White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported. There

798-422: Is one such trait that is heritable but not genetically determined. Finally, Block contends that utilizing twin studies to randomize the environment automatically fail: Black twins will always bring a part of their environment with them as they are both Black and will be treated as such. Canadian psychologist Sidney Segalowitz concurs with Block that twin studies fail to draw conclusions about heritability, and as

855-541: Is overrated. In the first part of the book Herrnstein and Murray chart how American society was transformed in the 20th century. They argue that America evolved from a society where social origin largely determined one's social status to one where cognitive ability is the leading determinant of status. The growth in college attendance, a more efficient recruitment of cognitive ability, and the sorting of cognitive ability by selective colleges are identified as important drivers of this evolution. Herrnstein and Murray propose that

912-532: The general factor of intelligence and other early advances in research on intelligence are discussed along with a consideration of links between intelligence testing and racial politics. The 1960s are identified as the period in American history when social problems were increasingly attributed to forces outside the individual. This egalitarian ethos, Herrnstein and Murray argue, cannot accommodate biologically based individual differences. The introduction states six of

969-453: The general reader is the target audience consisting of those without a specialized knowledge of a particular subject. The American writer Brander Matthews described the general reader as "the average man and woman of average intelligence and of average education." In the Victorian era , the increase in scientific writing for general readers began as access to formal education spread among

1026-447: The 1980s. Only non-Hispanic whites are included in the analyses so as to demonstrate that the relationships between cognitive ability and social behavior are not driven by race or ethnicity. Herrnstein and Murray argue that intelligence is a better predictor of individuals' outcomes than parental socioeconomic status. This argument is based on analyses where individuals' IQ scores are shown to better predict their outcomes as adults than

1083-492: The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin . Popular science is a bridge between scientific literature as a professional medium of scientific research, and the realms of popular political and cultural discourse. The goal of the genre is often to capture the methods and accuracy of science while making the language more accessible. Many science-related controversies are discussed in popular science books and publications, such as

1140-613: The armed services. (Some had taken an IQ test in high school, and the median correlation of the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores and those IQ test scores was .81). Participants were later evaluated for social and economic outcomes. In general, Herrnstein and Murray argued, IQ/AFQT scores were a better predictor of life outcomes than social class background. Similarly, after statistically controlling for differences in IQ, they argued that many outcome differences between racial-ethnic groups disappeared. Values are

1197-404: The authors discussed purported connections between race and intelligence and suggested policy implications based on these purported connections. The authors claimed that average intelligence quotient (IQ) differences between racial and ethnic groups are at least partly genetic in origin, a view that is now considered discredited by mainstream science. Many of the references and sources used in

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1254-412: The authors' assumptions, which they claim to be "beyond significant technical dispute": At the close of the introduction, the authors warn the reader against committing the ecological fallacy of inferring things about individuals based on the aggregate data presented in the book. They also assert that intelligence is just one of many valuable human attributes and one whose importance among human virtues

1311-467: The book was "full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors." Lemann said that "Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis." Many criticisms were collected in the book The Bell Curve Debate . Herrnstein and Murray did not submit their work to peer review before publication, an omission many have seen as incompatible with their presentation of it as

1368-462: The book were advocates for racial hygiene , whose research was funded by the white supremacist organization Pioneer Fund . Shortly after its publication, many people rallied both in criticism and in defense of the book. A number of critical texts were written in response to it. Several criticisms were collected in the book The Bell Curve Debate . The Bell Curve , published in 1994, was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray to explain

1425-531: The book, but added that "the book may have fared even worse had the discussion of race and genetics not distracted attention from some serious problems of analysis and logic in its main arguments. There are indeed some useful messages in the book. But there is also much wrong with it." After reviewers had more time to review the book's research and conclusions, more significant criticisms began to appear. Nicholas Lemann , writing in Slate , said that later reviews showed

1482-441: The cause of differences between races is genetic. On the other hand, they discuss lines of evidence that have been used to support the thesis that the black-white gap is at least partly genetic, such as Spearman's hypothesis . They also discuss possible environmental explanations of the gap, such as the observed generational increases in IQ, for which they coin the term Flynn effect . At the close of this discussion, they write: If

1539-479: The cognitive elite has been produced by a more technological society which offers enough high skill jobs for those with a higher intelligence to fill. They also propose that by removing race , gender or class as criteria (via the establishment of free primary education and the prohibition of discrimination) the main criteria of success in academic and professional life is becoming primarily based on cognitive ability. Increased occupational sorting by cognitive ability

1596-414: The didactic poem Phenomena written a century later and commented on by Hipparchus . Explaining science in poetic form was not uncommon, and as recently as 1791, Erasmus Darwin wrote The Botanic Garden , two long poems intended to interest and educate readers in botany. Many Greek and Roman scientific handbooks were written for the lay audience, and this "handbook" tradition continued right through to

1653-478: The evidence does not yet justify an estimate. The authors also stress that regardless of the causes of differences, people should be treated no differently. In Part III, the authors also repeat many of the analyses from Part II, but now compare whites to blacks and Hispanics in the NLSY dataset. They find that after controlling for IQ, many differences in social outcomes between races are diminished. The authors discuss

1710-419: The example of women wearing earrings : To borrow an example from Ned Block , "some years ago when only women wore earrings, the heritability of having an earring was high because differences in whether a person had an earring was due to a chromosomal difference, XX vs. XY." No one has yet suggested that wearing earrings, or ties, is "in our genes," an inescapable fate that environment cannot influence, "dooming

1767-471: The frequency of social problems increases. In this final chapter, the authors discuss the relevance of cognitive ability for understanding major social issues in America. Evidence for experimental attempts to raise intelligence is reviewed. The authors conclude that currently there are no means to boost intelligence by more than a modest degree. The authors criticize the "levelling" of general and secondary education and defend gifted education . They offer

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1824-445: The general public, leading to the genre known as pop science . The idea of targeting books for general readers has been criticized by academics Alison Jones and Leah Tether, who both consider the concept to be ill-defined and unhelpful for reaching audiences. Tether notes the widespread usage of the term by 1931, with the American librarian Douglas Waples using the term to understand the genres of books which would be most useful to

1881-471: The invention of the printing press, with much later examples including books of secrets such as Giambattista Della Porta 's Magia Naturalis (1558) and Isabella Cortese 's Secreti (1561). The 17th century saw the beginnings of the modern scientific revolution and the consequent need for explicit popular science writing. Although works such as Galileo 's The Assayer (1632) and Robert Hooke 's Micrographia (1665) were read by both scientists and

1938-672: The journal Intelligence . The statement was drafted by Linda Gottfredson , a professor of educational psychology at the University of Delaware . It was sent to 131 researchers whom Gottfredsen described as "experts in intelligence and allied fields". Of these, 52 signed the statement, 48 returned the request with an explicit refusal to sign, and 31 ignored the request. According to a 1996 response by former American Psychological Association president Donald Campbell , only ten of those who signed were actual experts in intelligence measurement. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that 20 of

1995-440: The law, free people running their own lives, once it is accepted that a significant part of the population must be made permanent wards of the states." The authors recommended the elimination of welfare policies which they claim encourage poor women to have babies. The Bell Curve received a great deal of media attention. The book was not distributed in advance to the media, except for a few select reviewers picked by Murray and

2052-507: The less intelligent, and the large-scale immigration to the United States of those with low intelligence. Discussing a possible future political outcome of an intellectually stratified society, the authors stated that they "fear that a new kind of conservatism is becoming the dominant ideology of the affluent—not in the social tradition of an Edmund Burke or in the economic tradition of an Adam Smith but 'conservatism' along Latin American lines, where to be conservative has often meant doing whatever

2109-475: The liberal notion." He goes on to say there is almost no evidence of a genetic link, and greater evidence that environmental issues are what determine IQ differences. Philosopher Ned Block argues that The Bell Curve misleads about intelligence as it conflates genetic determination with heritability . Genetic determination and heritability are not interchangeable as there are traits that are genetically determined but not heritable, and vice versa. For example,

2166-472: The long-running debates over biological determinism and the biological components of intelligence, stirred by popular books such as The Mismeasure of Man and The Bell Curve . The purpose of scientific literature is to inform and persuade peers regarding the validity of observations and conclusions and the forensic efficacy of methods. Popular science attempts to inform and convince scientific outsiders (sometimes along with scientists in other fields) of

2223-499: The media response, saying that "While many of these discussions included sharp criticisms of the book, media accounts showed a disturbing tendency to accept Murray and Herrnstein's premises and evidence even while debating their conclusions". A 1995 article by the Brookings Institution argued that critics had narrowly focused their attention on the book's arguments regarding race and intelligence while ignoring other contents of

2280-559: The modern specialization and professionalization of science, there was often little distinction between "science" and "popular science", and works intended to share scientific knowledge with a general reader existed as far back as Greek and Roman antiquity. Without these popular works, much of the scientific knowledge of the era might have been lost. For example, none of the original works of the Greek astronomer Eudoxus (4th century BC) have survived, but his contributions were largely preserved due to

2337-526: The nineteenth century. Her On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), intended for the mass audience, sold quite well. Arguably one of the first books in modern popular science, it contained few diagrams and very little mathematics. Ten editions of the book were published, and it was translated into multiple languages. It was the most popular science title from the publisher John Murray until On

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2394-492: The number of fingers on a human hand are genetically determined as genes code for five fingers in nearly everybody. However, the heritability of the number of fingers is very low, as variations in numbers of fingers are usually environmentally caused. The aforementioned earring example quoted by Chomsky is an instance where the opposite is true: high heritability, but not genetic determination. Given that genetic determination and heritability are not equivalent, Block contends that IQ

2451-441: The percentage of each IQ sub-population, among non-Hispanic whites only, fitting each descriptor. This part of the book discusses ethnic differences in cognitive ability and social behavior. Herrnstein and Murray report that Asian Americans have a higher mean IQ than white Americans, who in turn outscore black Americans. The book argues that the black-white gap is not due to test bias, noting that IQ tests do not tend to underpredict

2508-438: The possibility that high birth rates among those with lower IQs may exert a downward pressure on the national distribution of cognitive ability. They argue that immigration may also have a similar effect. At the close of Part III, Herrnstein and Murray discuss the relation of IQ to social problems. Using the NLSY data, they argue that social problems are a monotonically decreasing function of IQ, in other words at lower IQ scores

2565-460: The public, Newton's Principia (1687) was incomprehensible for most readers, so popularizations of Newton's ideas soon followed. Popular science writing surged in countries such as France, where books such as Fontenelle 's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686) were best-sellers. By 1830, astronomer John Herschel had recognized the need for the specific genre of popular science. In

2622-621: The publisher, which delayed more detailed critiques for months and years after the book's release. Stephen Jay Gould , reviewing the book in The New Yorker , said that the book "contains no new arguments and presents no compelling data to support its anachronistic social Darwinism " and said that the "authors omit facts, misuse statistical methods, and seem unwilling to admit the consequence of their own words." A 1995 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting writer Jim Naureckas criticized

2679-401: The reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine,

2736-646: The results. Statements in the scientific literature are often qualified and tentative, emphasizing that new observations and results are consistent with and similar to established knowledge wherein qualified scientists are assumed to recognize the relevance. By contrast, popular science often emphasizes uniqueness and generality and may have a tone of factual authority absent from the scientific literature. Comparisons between original scientific reports, derivative science journalism, and popular science typically reveals at least some level of distortion and oversimplification . General reader In nonfictional literature ,

2793-424: The school or job performance of black individuals and that the gap is larger on apparently culturally neutral test items than on more culturally loaded items. The authors also note that adjusting for socioeconomic status does not eliminate the black-white IQ gap. However, they argue that the gap is narrowing. According to Herrnstein and Murray, the high heritability of IQ within races does not necessarily mean that

2850-434: The scientific literature. Some usual features of popular science productions include: The purpose of scientific literature is to inform and persuade peers regarding the validity of observations and conclusions and the forensic efficacy of methods. Popular science attempts to inform and convince scientific outsiders (sometimes along with scientists in other fields) of the significance of data and conclusions and to celebrate

2907-560: The signers were recipients of funding from the white-supremacist organization the Pioneer Fund , including Gottfredson herself. In subsequent years, both the substance and the interpretation of this letter have received widespread criticism from the scientific community. In response to the controversy surrounding The Bell Curve , the American Psychological Association 's Board of Scientific Affairs established

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2964-431: The significance of data and conclusions and to celebrate the results. Statements in the scientific literature are often qualified and tentative, emphasizing that new observations and results are consistent with and similar to established knowledge wherein qualified scientists are assumed to recognize the relevance. By contrast, popular science emphasizes uniqueness and generality, taking a tone of factual authority absent from

3021-501: The socioeconomic status of their parents. Such results are reported for many outcomes, including poverty, dropping out of school, unemployment, marriage, divorce, illegitimacy, welfare dependency, criminal offending, and the probability of voting in elections. All participants in the NLSY took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a battery of ten tests taken by all who apply for entry into

3078-456: The variations in intelligence in American society, warn of some consequences of that variation, and propose social policies for mitigating the worst of the consequences. The book's title comes from the bell-shaped normal distribution of intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in a population. The book starts with an introduction that appraises the history of the concept of intelligence from Francis Galton to modern times. Spearman's introduction of

3135-478: The visitors of a library. In his article "What Subjects Appeal to the General Reader?", Waples explains the difficulty of figuring out the appropriate books to purchase in consideration of the divergent interests of most readers. This literature -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . The Bell Curve The book has been, and remains, highly controversial, especially where

3192-480: Was "a bigger fan of [ The Bell Curve ] than you might think." However, he also maintained that Herrnstein and Murray overestimated the role of heredity in determining intelligence differences. In 1995, Noam Chomsky , a founder in the field of cognitive science , criticized the book and its assumptions on IQ. He takes issue with the idea that IQ is 60% heritable, arguing that the "statement is meaningless" because heritability does not have to be genetic. Chomsky gives

3249-431: Was a straw man and that the book does not argue that g or IQ are totally immutable or the only factors affecting outcomes. In a 2005 interview, Heckman praised The Bell Curve for breaking "a taboo by showing that differences in ability existed and predicted a variety of socioeconomic outcomes" and for playing "a very important role in raising the issue of differences in ability and their importance" and stated that he

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