Unlike most of those who discuss the Bell Curve, I've actually read it, and I found it fascinating and well-written. It is regrettable that Murray and Herrnstein were known to have racial views, and even more regrettable that race was mentioned in the book. This turned debate about the book's main ideas to discussions of race, which are nearly always emotional and unproductive.

By far the most important idea in the book was independent of race entirely - the strong and strongly researched link between intelligence and social behaviour. (Most of the book analyzes data from a long-term study of Caucasians.) The fact that low intelligence is a leading indicator of criminality, violence, lack of civility, and poor parenting was suspected before but has now been clearly shown. The implications are significant for policymakers, philosophers, pundits, and thoughtful people everywhere, particularly in a world where the average intelligence level is steadily dropping.

I urge anyone interested in these issues to actually read the book, it is well worth your time even if you are unconvinced by or opposed to the authors' views.

Ole

P.S. I am personally so concerned about the unfortunate combination of dropping intelligence with the correlation of low intelligence to poor social behavior that I'm writing a book about it, to be called Unnatural Selection. Please see http://w-uh.com/ if you're interested...

As a Caltech alum I'm pleased they have stayed out of this. Caltech's entering freshman class is only 260 people, so unlike larger schools like MIT and Stanford they can't squander places on people who are not qualified, regardless of their race or anything else. How can "race-conscious admissions policies" be considered anything but racist?

It is also notable that the grade inflation infecting The Ivies has not hit Caltech; a B is still good and an A is still rare.

This sort of issue exists because there is no selective pressure in present-day human populations. If there were, unhealthy behavior would be selected out (whether genetic or behavioral, or both). Successful mates would choose healthy mates, etc. Being overweight is statistically unhealthy, but there is no pressure for change.

In addition to health, there is mating preference. Human standards of beauty are rooted in survival. There may be extreme exceptions (due the "green beard" effect, for example) but for the most part trim, athletic bodies are attractive because they have been more successful at reproducing over time. But this no longer matters. The evidence indicates that heavy people contribute more kids to the next generation than fit people.

Ole

Seems to me charter schools are doing something important; they're allowing some of the kids to get a good education. Among all of the bad things in Joshua's article, the thing that stood out for me was the way the system permits a few bad apples to ruin the educational opportunity for all the kids in the class.

I'm sure it's a question of degree, but throwing the worst kid in each class out of school entirely would surely have influenced the rest to behave. That's the way the system worked in the old days, before "social promotion".

Ole