Behind the Curve
Behind the Curve
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落后于曲线
DOI：
10.1038/scientificamerican0295-99
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发表时间：
1995
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
L. Kamin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
L. Kamin
这本书在出版两个月后就印了40万册，引起了巨大的轰动。作者毫不掩饰地断言，科学证据表明，社会阶层和种族之间存在着基于基因的智力差异。他们进一步认为，来自社会科学和生物科学的大约1,000份出版物的数据表明，诸如就业、收入、福利依赖、离婚和父母行为质量等属性是由个人的智力决定的。这些主张“渗透在智商测试历史上的粗暴生物决定论的又一次爆发”导致赫恩斯坦和默里提出了一些社会政策建议。即使引用的证据是有效的，这些政策也不是必要的，也不是人道的。但是，在许多关键点上，《钟形曲线》中的数据口径是可悲的。此外，作者一再未能区分相关性和因果关系，从而得出许多不适当的结论。首先，我将讨论一个关于赫恩斯坦和默里所依赖的数据质量的特别令人不安的例子。他们会问，...在认知测试中，非洲裔美国人与非洲黑人相比如何？他们的理由是，非洲裔美国人的低智商可能是奴隶制和歧视历史或遗传因素的结果。赫恩斯坦和默里显然认为，在非洲殖民地长大的黑人没有受到歧视。在他们看来，如果非洲裔美国人的低智商是歧视的产物，而不是基因，那么非洲黑人的智商应该比非洲裔美国人高。为了回答他们提出的问题，赫恩斯坦和默里求助于爱尔兰的阿尔斯特大学的权威学者理查德林恩，他被描述为.他们指出，林恩，谁在1991年审查11 Af-
Lhis book, with 400,000 copies in print just two months after its publication, has created an enormous stir. The authors unabashedly assert that scienti ‘c evidence demonstrates the existence of genetically based differences in intelligence among social classes and races. They maintain further that data from some 1,000 publications in the social and biological sciences show that attributes such as employment, income, welfare dependency, divorce and quality of parental behavior are determined by an individualÃs intelligence. These claims» another eruption of the crude biological determinism that permeates the history of IQ testing» lead Herrnstein and Murray to a number of social policy recommendations. The policies would not be necessary, or humane, even if the cited evidence were valid. But the caliber of the data in The Bell Curve is, at many critical points, pathetic. Further, the authors repeatedly fail to distinguish between correlation and causation and thus draw many inappropriate conclusions. I will deal ‘rst with an especially troubling example of the quality of the data on which Herrnstein and Murray rely. They ask,… How do African-Americans compare with blacks in Africa on cognitive tests? They reason that low African-American IQ scores might be the result either of a history of slavery and discrimination or of genetic factors. Herrnstein and Murray evidently assume that blacks reared in colonial Africa have not been subjected to discrimination. In their view, if low IQ scores of African-Americans are a product of discrimination, rather than genes, black Africans should have higher IQs than African-Americans. To answer the question they have posed, Herrnstein and Murray call on the authority of Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster in Ireland, described as… a leading scholar of racial and ethnic di” erences, from whose advice they have… bene ‘ted especially. They state that Lynn, who in 1991 reviewed 11 Af-