For this blog post I read the first 50 pages of the bell curve wars. This included several articles highly critical of the bell curve. The first two articles I read were highly critical of the book. Articles authors attacked almost every conclusion present in the bell curve, from the basic assumptions (the heritability of IQ, the viability of IQ as measure of intelligence) upon which the book was based to the recommendations in its authors came to. The article’s authors Howard Gardner and Stephen Gould, both respected academics then proceed to launch personal attacks against Hernstein and Murray, the bell curve’s authors. Both articles argue that the data in the bell curve was either falsified or used in intellectually dishonest manner. They claim that Hernstein and especially Murray were advancing racist political agendas instead of focusing on a scientific and impartial reading of the true facts. My reaction to these first two articles was one of shock. Initially I was surprised that academic articles rose to such a level of personal vitriol directed against two fellow academics, especially one who is recently deceased. However, while reading the two articles I believe that there is a lot of marriage in their arguments and while their personal attacks are unwarranted there is substantial evidence to believe that the bell curve’s authors specifically Murray were advancing personal political agendas. Furthermore Gould and Gardner’s arguments about the erroneous use of data in the bell curve were very persuasive. They made the case that first of all, the data sets used by Hernstein and Murray were incomplete, contained too small sample sizes, and/or based upon faulty assumptions. Secondly, they argue that even if you accept the data at face value the assumption that IQ can be accurately used as a measure of heritable intelligence, cannot be changed after birth, and cannot be affected by environmental factors is ridiculous. I tend to agree with them and they are correct in that the failure of any one of these criteria to be true would discount a large part of the bell curve. Nonetheless, Hernstein and Murray repeatedly made a similar point themselves, they presented their work as a theory.