SOCI 395 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: The Bell Curve, Color Blindness, Scatter Plot
16 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCI 495
March 12, 2018
Final: all MCQ 50; not on readings about environment; no small details no literature review no
findings – ONLY about main findings and class discussions
Racial inequalities
• Herrnstein main findings
o IQ is destiny virtually immobile
o Rejecting theories of culture and motivation
o IQ is the best predictor of life success
• Political policy implications and recommendations
o Focus resources on those with higher IQ
o Shift more funds toward plans for the gifted
o Color blind affirmative action programs
o Encourage families with low cognitive abilities to give up babies for adoption
The Bell Curve - Critiques
• 1. Confusion of terms: genes and ethnic group differences (second after Freud, well read
and very popular)
o Contention 1: Relationship between genetics and intelligence
▪ Most researchers do agree
▪ Children of more intelligence parents are more likely to be intelligent
themselves
▪ Between 40% to 80%: most researchers believe lower than (~30%)
• 13 IQ difference between siblings
o Real point of contention: Genetics can explain ethnic and racial groups
▪ APA investigative report: no serious evidence that racial differences are
anyway genetic
• 2. Methodological issues
o Selective bias – subsequent analyses reached to different results
o Lied about statistics: conveniently ignored data → data massaging
o Regression curve, no scatterplot
o Weak relationships
o R-square 0.1
o Confusing correlation and causation
o Promote an agenda
• 3. Biased sources
o IQ is not a result of SES but a cause of SES – subsequent research showed that it
is not the case
o SES actually showed a lot o people’s IQ
o Adoption studies: deprived families to affluent household can raise 20 points of
IQ
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