The Bell Curve: The most controversial book ever in science | Richard Haier and Lex Fridman
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ค. 2022
- Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Richard Haier: IQ Test...
Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Calm: calm.com/lex to get 40% off
- Linode: linode.com/lex to get $100 free credit
- BiOptimizers: www.magbreakthrough.com/lex to get 10% off
- SimpliSafe: simplisafe.com/lex and use code LEX
- MasterClass: masterclass.com/lex to get 15% off
GUEST BIO:
Richard Haier is a psychologist specializing in the science of human intelligence.
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast
Clips playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
SOCIAL:
- Twitter: / lexfridman
- LinkedIn: / lexfridman
- Facebook: / lexfridman
- Instagram: / lexfridman
- Medium: / lexfridman
- Reddit: / lexfridman
- Support on Patreon: / lexfridman - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The idea that group genetics can manifest differences in physical appearance, musculature, and immune system traits yet has no bearing on psychological traits seems pretty ridiculous.
IQ is not a psychological trait.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 yes it is, it is a trait of your psychological capabilities
@@default2826 No, it unfortunately is not. It is a test, like any other, which people learn to ace. That's how you have a Mensa composed entirely of average people.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 🤣
@@annaclarafenyo8185 Isn't the Mensa test available for free on their website for people to take as many times as they want? Pretty sure a proper IQ test has to be conducted under the supervision of a licensed psychologist where you don't get the opportunity to prepare for the exam. I've had two of these administered, one as a child and one as a young adult. Neither time was I even aware that I was going to be receiving such an exam. Obviously it's because it needs to be conducted spontaneously to yield useful results.
its crazy to me that some people actually think everyone has the same potential
Potential for what is the question
@@user-lb8bg6kj9m success
Nobody in power does. They promulgate the myth to keep the populace pacified.
I know right? Are these people too dumb to think everybody is like them or are they too smart to think everybody has to be like them?
@@user-lb8bg6kj9m intelligence, critical thinking creativity, self discipline
I was a research scientist in geology for my entire career. When a geological event occurred and any geologist in our department was interviewed about it, it was always incorrectly intertpreted by the media. They got it wrong every time!
Journalism and law (government) are the most innumerate occupations on the planet.
Once you realize Gell-Mann amnesia is a thing you will never look at journalists the same.
@@matt291 Well, they're JOUNALISTS, after all! They didn't study STEM subjects in university. Were not inclined to do so. I too have experienced the media getting just about everything wrong in my areas of expertise. But, more today then in the past, we DO see journalists seeking out actual expertise in their subject matter rather than going it on their own. While not putting myself on the level of a Gell-Mann, I quite independently "discovered" this "amnesia" effect concerning the media several decades ago all on my own! LOL!
Purposely misinterpreted*
@@terrydanks what if they get everything wrong not just the subjects you are familiar with?
"It's become fashionable to find racism in any discussion like this" actually nowadays it's become fashionable to find racism in any discussion period.
Found yours
@@ChristopherGeorge-jt6ryI don't think you did. Actually you're just trying to be fashioned within your own mind
It's tactless.
@@mlcmxbldbbqsauc1685 no
It’s western society. It’s built and sustained by racism. So yeah, it’s gonna be hard to weed out. Without it, the west collapses.
The problem with hiding a potentially painful truth that can be misused, is that the lie can also be misused. So you end up in the worst of all places. 1. You dont address the actual problem or challenge, since you don't have the truth.and 2. You create solutions that do harm., Like eliminating advanced programs because "math is not a talent".
What is this current talk going around about math being "wrong" or not that important??
Furst off = there are many branches of math, not just arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, number theory, statistics, modeling ,etc
MATHEMATICS IS NEEDED to grow and learn people!❤️😉
Math is a talent I don't have , Higher mathematics that is. But if I have $5 and I spend it, I know enough of basic math to know I don't have the $5 anymore. That's a basic truth that isn't taught in any of the schools , from Kindergarten through Harvard.
My oldest daughter had her math education poisoned by a curriculum change that was supposed to address and math education gap between girls and boys. She only recovered in community college.
And that is the fruit of the propaganda tree, no? but the lie is so delicious, may I have another?
@edwardadams9358 I am Interested where she went to school and when?
Something does not sound right about what you state here.
Thank you
There was another female researcher on an episode of "Through the wormhole with Morgan Freeman" who studied the differences with IQ and race and she came to the same conclusion. No surprise she was shunned from the academic "community". Can you imagine doing research and presenting your findings only to realize that these other "researchers" aren't researchers but political and ideological activists.
Imagine becoming literally anything, then act perfectly antithetical to who you supposedly are. Anti-science scientists are like anti-fence fence installers
Science isn't perfect. There are never any purely dispassionate, empirical, results achieved. The researchers assumptions will always influence the results.
Even our best theories - such as natural selection and general relativity, theories that have been observationally confirmed thousands upon thousands of times - are still only ever one result away from being falsified. Indeed, both Darwin and Einstein fully expected their theories to be superceded at so
Moreover, personal conflicts, hidden assumptions, politics, confirmation bias, culture, normative judgements, and ultimately the evolutionary biology that has shaped the lens through which we all can't help but see the world through, all go to influencing the results of scientific inquiry into the world around us.
We like to think that science is a purely empirical domain, that experimental results and theoretical conclusions are _objective_ rather than _subjective,_ but this just isn't true. Within any one small corner of physics there are considerable differences of opinion as to what constitutes the truth of the world - there is almost never anything like a concensus. Look at our most succesful theory of reality ever, quantum mechanics. There are almost as many interpretations of what quantum theory is telling us about the world as there are possible locations that we could find an electron within a hydrogen atom... Namely, an infinite number! There's different schools championing the Copenhagen interpretation, many worlds theory, Bohmian mechanics, hidden variables, Q'bism, Orch-Or, and M-theory, to name just a few! We can accurately predict the results of experiments to sixteen decimal places, yet we can't even agree if the wave function actually exists or not! And if you want to keep recieving that grant money then you would be better off just quietly dropping any references to Bohmian mechanics - it still carries that whiff of communism about it! (David Bohm was ostracised by the mainstream scientific community after Neils Bohr launched a vicious PR campaign against his theory. He ended up being unable to find work in the US, and had to take a position at a university in Brazil - which was then a communist country. This quickly led to the CIA putting Bohm on a 'watch list'. It destroyed his career, and neither he, nor his theory, have ever fully recovered their credibility! Politics. In quantum mechanics!
Moreover, most science is conducted within, and funded by, educational institutions, all of which vie for limited governmental funding and have close links to 'sponsors' and investors from the private sector. So, to simply pretend that scientific inquiry is somehow above the day-to-day intrigues, and thus influences, of life is to have one's head buried in the sand. humans are deeply social. Humans do science. Science is deeply affected by society. Simple the culture, popular opinions, jealousies, intrigues, and of course the _filthy lucre_ is to plead an ignorance o surroundings that simply cannot be justified.
Humans are a deeply social animal, indeed, this empathically driven aspect of homo sapiens sapiens is _the_ main reason that the human project has been able to get as far as it has. We have achieved triumphs of intellectual understanding such as general relativity precisely _because of our ability to syntactically communicate information with each other!_ We experiment, we share our knowledge, and then we build upon it. That we have an agreed upon scientific syntax - a procedural manual for doing science - is a remarkable achievement in and of itself. Science has been an incredible success - from any perspective - but we should remember that science is a human invention - and that humans are fallible creatures.
For better or worse everything that we have ever done, and everything that we will likely _ever_ do, is going to be informed by sociology, politics, money, personality, assumptions, beliefs, morality, philosophy, culture, history, identity, our biology, and an infinite number of other factors too... This is only natural, it couldn't be any other way. And 'doing' science is no exception!
Physics, and more generally all of science, is at best a *model* of the world. A representation. An approximation. An abstraction. *_"The map is not the territory!"_*
@@simesaid QED
I would wager that affluence and nutrition are the primary drivers here. Any "lowest" affluence area black or white or Indian would net lower IQ's.
@@ajjones7068 Exacly
I was amazed to learn that the term intelligence is never used in educational materials among instructors in public schools. That really says a lot about how incendiary the topic of intelligence is.
Group differences create resentments
@@timrichardson518 no they dont they make everybody special and thats whaat people want to be right? Special, one of a kind...
It's not "incendiary", it's not measurable in a reliable way. All tests can be (and are) gamed. Non-linear progress is a reality in all areas of development. Race difference is simply too big a venn diagram to be useful. If there's anything to this, it's economic and cultural differences.
Intelligent workers are undesirable for the neo capitalistic elite so they use all of their power to keep workers misinformed and badly educated.
And it saves government spending as well.
Two purchases for the price of one.
Nowadays, when describing the impact of intelligence on ability to master material, educators speak of age: "Students are ready to grasp topic X at different ages." In essence, the reticence is not merely about race, it's about refusing to label individual differences as manifestations of ... shhh ... intelligence. Ironically, differences in musical talent and athletic ability are not handled so tentatively.
I'm white and have no remarkable intellectual talents and i'm not offended by that. I'm just glad someone is smart enough to make my life better.
IQ is only part of it. Time preference and impulse control also impact greatly what one is able to do in life.
@@pete5691definitely, as do social and emotional IQ in a broad sense, self awareness, emotional regulation beyond mere impulse control, ability to interpret and act on those emotions or to read others, etc. Some of these can be trained as well, impulse control included and they can be greatly affected by environmental factors. Like Red food coloring being linked to ADHD.
@@fromthefire4176 The three i mentioned are the basic outline. Yes they can be refined further. They can also be shaped by our parents but again their genetics and behaviors determines ours.
Only Lex would have a 'clip' 45 mins long. Absolute legend
Indeed : )))))))))
We are not allowed to tell the truth about race and gender.
Yes, and this one is quite refreshing from his fake AI and alien podcasts.
Joe Rogan has an hour long clip posted on his main JRE with Firas Zahabi, an Arab MMA fighter, discussing scientific truth
Why does that make him a “legend?”
These things aren’t difficult to talk about among people who are after the truth. Once other people get involved it gets difficult.
only white people care about this bs well... they came up with this fcking lie after all
Right...other people who are _not_ after the truth. They make any conversation difficult.
But IQ is subjective.
I haven’t watched this video yet. I came to comments first because the title intrigued me. I am most definitely after the raw truth without bias in the most rational fashion. I am a realist. Your comment brings me some excitement. I’ll be back.
Alright. So. I don’t think it’s accurate. Because I believe that naturally, black and white people are no different to one another’s intelligence (IQ). The reason I state the test is inaccurate is because this test was done at a sensitive time in African American lives which was historically closer to the impacts of slavery and civil rights and those reverberations for a long time after even to this day. Therefore, if this test was done to black people who were not at disadvantages in any way shape or form on the same level as white people. Meaning, same problems, disadvantages, and same advantages and opportunities then there would be no difference. They would be equal.
Now, is it wrong to do this study ? No. Of course not. This is my unbiased feelings of it. I think to understand all sorts of humans is a good thing. To learn more about all types of humans. All under the assumption this study was taken unbiased to racially tension at the time.
But there is no difference in intellectual capacity between me (w) and my neighbor (b) or any of my black friends. But it is not wrong or morally wrong or scientifically wrong or racially wrong to do this study. Science is unbiased. Science has created, understood, and discovered itself to our world we live in today which has historically come a very long long way.
If you have to make this about race, then you are intellectually immature to speak on it.
Fascinating now let’s all go to the comments to see what all the experts have to say
WORD
Charles Murray is brilliant. The reaction to the Bell Curve shines a light on how off our society is. No one has any courage.
It demonstrates the issue with democracy. The avg person wasn't meant to understand, confront, and agree on every hard truth and controversial issue. Most people should never even worry about these kinds of things, but we associate participation in things like politics with individual value (bc we lack a serious identity narrative in modernity) so we insist everyone takes part even tho it's obviously torture for many
Serious you can't be 🤣🤣🤣
Oh but, contrair
Liberal, seem to equate with brainless or courage less. Or both. Fringe is the norm. @@diztrustful
The IQ tests are based on certain variables that are deterministic towards economic factors that we share and value in the west . Who is better at building a engine the engineer or the mechanic? Then there are individuals who are mentally impaired, there are "idiot savants" who have very low cognition in some areas but are geniuses in others.
@@TheSunship777 "deterministic towards economic factors".. In what way, exactly? Problem solving with squares and numbers are deterministic towards economic factors???? Sounds like you learned this meaningless term in a course at Berkley.
There are military entrance exams in the US, no doubt in other countries. The findings in the book have been known in government for awhile.
If your iq high enough it’s common sense really .. 16% of the population yet 60% of violent crimes speaks for itself.
I’d push back and say that the people from each demographic that join the military are not randomly selected. There is potential that intelligence is related to the likelihood of joining the military.
I did research on the first military intelligence tests (US) years ago. And it was very interesting. It was marketed to the brass as a way to save time by channeling the proper people into the jobs they are most capable if doing. I took them multiple times in the early seventies. And its well proven. But that's measured over a large number if people: there will be out liers.
IQ tests are part of the institutional racism dominating non-black countries.
The ASVAB tests knowledge not just intelligence.
I remember how harshly this book was treated in book stores and grocery stores as they tried to eliminate all copies in a type of book burning. My friends didn't even want to borrow the book to read it despite their strong opinions on the content of the book
It’s a terrible book. If you read through it critically, it’s not hard to see.
@@eldenfindley186 I thought it was fantastic!
Read the mismeadure of man - a book that precedes Murray’s work by 10 years that entirely undermines the thesis
@@OhHeyification Did you watch the video you are commenting below at all? Lex and Dr. Haier spent almost half of it taking the mismeasure of man apart.
@@kerimzunic anyone "taking mismeasure of man apart" (lmaoooooo) in favor of bell curve is either (a) profoundly ignorant of what they're endorsing or (b) an open racist. it doesn't make a difference whether its (a) or (b) if we're determining whether or not you're a piece of shit (you are either way)
Hearing the story about Jensen, what stands out is that the rage directed at him was obviously caused by the fact that people actually thought he was right, bit didn't want him to be..
But not bit
If bit , shake it off.
I find it interesting that Head Start presumed kids needed more mental stimulation, because we're seeing that kids aren't reading as well today from an overabundance of audio/visual stumuli. I know my childhood was different from many of my peers (though we would've scaled the same on metrics of race and socioeconomic conditions) largely because my immediate family didn't have a television (by conscious decision of my parents). As a result, we read for entertainment. We had long stretches of quiet periods (in church and at home). Peace and quiet are essential for concentration, and concentration is essential for reading and thinking snd engrossed play.
Yes.
Both heritage and cultivation of virtue are important and effect the development of individual competence.
Nature vs Nurture
100%- 100%
Individual differences are real.
The group dynamics effect the individual.
The individual effects the group.
Most do not define the terms so that we all have the same comprehension of the facts discussed.
Definition of intelligence?
Anyone?
Definition of illusion?
Anyone?
Thank you
I think you're right. The ability to concentrate is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. Distraction is the opposite of concentration, and that is also a muscle that can be exercised. Unfortunately I see many people constantly in a state of distraction, without the ability to concentrate for any given period. Personally, I never read a book in my life until I spent five years in prison, during that time I read over a thousand books. At first I found it difficult, and I was amazed at other long time prisoner's abilities to finish books quickly, these guys were reading a book in a day easily. I followed the example and I can now finish a book in one sitting if I wanted to. I can concentrate much better now than I ever could before. I can also remember more in detail than I could before. Concentration is a super power.
@@RaidZeroTV Thanks so much for sharing your experience! Yes, I 💯 agree: concentration IS a superpower!
Inconvenient truths are often condemned by the establishment.
Its more about social stability, which is part of the social contract to be upheld
Well, imagine being a bricklayer on the same, walking into a briefing for electricians.
While the electrician MAY have some experience laying bricks,
The bricklayer is assumed less likely to know a comparable amount of electrical terms and info.
They are both on the same job doing different things and don't actually need to know about echothers crafts in detail.
All things with secrets share this in common.
It's a shame that some minds are locked shut... from the inside😢
@@Canadian_Eh_I That sounds like in a multiethnic society we have to lie in an attempt to keep harmony.
@@RichardEnglander It looks like in addition to being unable to comprehend science, you are also entirely ignorant of history. Name one point in history in which Europeans were not at war with each other, and point out when Europeans *didn't* engage in the most destructive wars the world has ever seen.
@@NanakiRowan what are you jabbering about now?
Again nothing to do with this thread either. Why are you stalking me?
You conflate war with social stability, a fallacious non sequitur.
Your logic is terrible.
I won't be replying again.
Avid reader here with degrees in biology and neuroscience. The Bell Curve is the single most impressive piece of academic work I have ever come across. It essentially summarized everything that was known about IQ, how it varies among populations, and how it affects all sorts of things in life like income, teen pregnancy, crime rates, etc. Most of book wasn't even about race at all. I would strongly encourage everyone to actually READ IT before forming an opinion on it. Just because some truths are uncomfortable doesn't mean they're false.
Correlation doesn’t equal causality
Western views on intelligence are biased, as are IQ tests.
@@DunningKrugerJnr nice but irrelevant point
ABSOLUTELY!!! Don't let others form your opinion of this book. Read it yourself. It's one of the most important books I've read.
@@mfpears 🤦♂️
I (33) have a learning disability. My IQ is approx 80. I got tested twice in school. It is mainly due to the fact that my mother drunk alcohol during her pregnancy (FASD spectrum/Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)
Everything is harder in my life. No matter how hard I try, I always fail. I needed to visit special ed class till 18, I never had many friends, I never had the ability to visit college or achive high education, I only work at sign holder jobs...or fast food...I also never had a girlfriend. A low intelligenc is a severe punishment for your whole life, which affects every aspect of your life negatively.
Maybe you should stop listening to those people that told you you have a learning disability because you texted a pretty good legible comment.
My friend, you may consider yourself lesser in your intelligence than many others, but there are options! Unfortunately, they are not well known. Perhaps that's the way it's meant to be, for now.
The most reliable option that I understand, is a nutrient available in a fungus known commonly as Lion's Mane. This nutrient promotes neurogenesis.
I am no expert, and I do not know your health details, but as far as I know, Lion's Mane could very well be your answer.
Life success isnt measured by your IQ. We have to take the hand weve been dealt & make the most of it.
It’s clear from your writing ability that you’re not as low in IQ as your test results indicate. It’s very possible that the learning disability is falsely lowering your IQ score.
You are amazing and wonderful.
00:00:00 - The Controversy of "The Bell Curve"
00:03:26 - Race Differences and Intelligence
00:05:21 - The Failure of Compensatory Education
00:07:14 - The Controversial Paper on Genetic Influence
00:09:00 - The Controversy Surrounding the Bell Curve and the Nixon White House
00:10:42 - The Bell Curve and the Role of Intelligence in Society
00:12:20 - The Truth of Genetic Differences
00:14:14 - The Elimination of Environmental Toxins and Race Differences
00:15:57 - The Scientific Method and Racial Bias
00:17:38 - The Responsibility of Anticipating Misinterpretations
00:19:18 - The Interpretation of Data and the Role of Scientists
00:21:01 - Publishing Controversial Science Papers
00:22:49 - The Science of Intelligence and Group Differences
00:24:38 - Achievement Gaps in Schools and the Absence of Intelligence Data
00:26:20 - The Impact of School and Teacher Variables on Academic Achievement
00:28:04 - The Truth and Successful Relationships
00:29:46 - The Concern of Misallocating Resources
00:31:41 - Criticisms of the Bell Curve and Intelligence
00:33:26 - The Controversy Surrounding "The Mismeasure of Man"
00:35:02 - Nietzsche and Hitler
00:36:41 - The Difficulty of the G Factor
00:38:21 - Molecular Biology of Learning and Memory
00:40:10 - Measuring Individual Differences
I feel we have an unhealthy relationship with diversity when our coping strategy is to pretend our differences don't exist. Regardless of intentions, obfuscating the truth doesn't free us from dealing with reality as it is. Ideally we should be able to have candid conversations about differences without being assholes about them or prejudging people. But we're not working on that.
Because the real "differences" are completely different from the imagined differences you think you perceive because of your racist conditioning.
whos "we" and "our?"
@@aslkdjfzxcv9779 I think he's referring to humanity.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 What about your anti-racist conditioning?
Unfortunately, our tribal instincts persist into get in the way of the best of us.
Separated Twins studies show IQ is genetic. Not only IQ, but majority of personality.
How else do you explain twins separated at birth, living separate lives with different families, but end up so similar? Similar clothes style, hobbies, interests, mannerisms, beliefs etc.
It would be interesting to see how the twins would end up if one grew up in a very rich family and one with a very poor family. How similar would they end up then?
IQ cannot be genetic, because if you study for IQ tests, your IQ becomes astronomical. You can get as high a score as you want, by training a little. This means that IQ is not any more a property of an individual than "maximum weight you can lift". In addition, group IQ averages rise by 20 points every 50 years, this is called "The Flynn Effect", and this is an astronomical change, it dwarfs any statistical difference between groups of people that the book talks about. Any large group of people today, on average, scores so much better than any group of 40 years ago, no matter which group you take, that it makes no more sense to say those people are defective than to say your parents are defective. It further means that all the data in the book is wrong, because all the scores are out of date in the 30 years since the book was published. These enormous problems with IQ tests are why people don't take IQ score analysis like in "The Bell Curve" any more seriously than phrenology. It's not political correctness, this is junk science.
What IQ is good for is detecting the effect of lead poisoning on large cohorts, identifying mental retardation and learning disabilities, and identifying attention problems like adhd. It is useless for large-group differences, because it is not an immutable characteristic, it varies with training.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 twin studies showed you are wrong.
@@vandpiben Those twin studies are fraudulent. The number of separated twins can be counted on one hand, and nearly all of them are 'separated' as in one lives with the mother, and the other lives with the father across town. That's exactly the type of 'separated twin' that the studies used, purposefully fraudulently, because they couldn't find any actual separated twins.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 "if you study for IQ tests, your IQ becomes astronomical. You can get as high a score as you want, by training a little. "
This is straight up bologna. And I say this as someone with quite a low opinion of Charles Murray.
" In addition, group IQ averages rise by 20 points every 50 years, this is called "The Flynn Effect" "
IQ scores are periodoically re-normalized for precisely this reason.
I agree: figuring out why some people have better memories than others would be very helpful.
As a scientist, I really think everyone missed the most important point of the Whole book. I also think we are seeing it acted out in real life now. There are entire swaths of people who lack significant cognitive intelligences that are critical for logic, science, and STEM. Yet, all of these people vote, work, and breed. I think there are 2 key real variable hierarchies that are at the heart of societal unrest ... financial and intelligence/competence. And, DEI is trying to assure that the worst answer for society becomes the policy. DEI wants people who have no skillset to make and retain money to get equal money ... and they want all positions of importance that require intelligence to be equally doled out. It's the recipe for disaster, as we are promoting incompetence and punishing competence.
Democracy has always led to tyranny. Part of the reason is simple envy, the motive for much political opinion.
Thats why slavery and casts existed since birth of humanity, its so new that majority of global slavery is abolished as we know it, yet still its a thing on various degrees on various places
Prove you’re a scientist, science has been wrong about so many things, that is proven by the changes in the way we view so many things. James web telescope latest example. This is true across the board in all the sciences. This only serves for discussion not truth.
The book gives me an almost visceral response. Back when it came out, it was touted just about everywhere as being fringe science. It made a big initial splash that seemed to settle out. During the years that followed, most of my reading was pretty strict; either I was reading 'hard' empiricist canon, or else classic literature. Rarely did the book come up in college discussions (and not at all out in the polite public world), so to my embarrassment, it didn't hit my radar at all until about seven or eight years ago, when I found a pristine copy for three bucks in a used book bin. I'd just assumed it was hateful garbage, but for the sake of fair expression, I wanted to hear its claims.
Don't you dare form an opinion without reading it. The soft sciences have now become polluted with Relativistic thinking, and so _The Bell Curve_ had to be sacrificed at the altar of fairness. At no point is the book anything less than a cogent, considerate statistical argument noting the dangers of redistributing intelligence. Perhaps ironically, now that every barely-smart kid out there abandons hometown to pursue a dream of an overpriced degree and its entitlements, the new IQ disparity has hit many communities like a tsunami of unfairness. Shame on us for neglecting to see the relevant point for the sake of avoiding some discomfort.
Now I'm disgusted at myself for ever having fallen victim to a mass dismissal of what was a really prescient argument. Like LeVar Buton used to say: _but you don't have to take my word for it._
Read it for yourself. You won't believe that _this_ is what has become so "controversial."
It is complete pseudo science with hundreds of basic errors. See Shauns video titled "the bell curve" for a detailed explanation of the most important problems with the methodology and conclusions
@@Nick-gx4oc Rather than citing somebody else's detailed explanation, maybe you could pick one single erroneous point and show it to me.
I'd like to think that I can notice problematic methodology & conclusions for myself when I see them. Ever try it? This is what I like to call 'being rational.'
@@pocket83squared why would you listen to a youtube comment instead of an in depth analysis that took hundreds of hours of work to create with numerous citations from pier reviewed studies? Doesn't seem very rational to me...
@@Nick-gx4oc Imagine how easy it would be for me to here refer you to an exhaustively large catalogue of information that's in support of whatever position I might choose to take.
Argument is about presenting a point and defending it. It's _not_ about making sweepingly non-falsifiable generalizations or outlandish claims. Try reading the entire _Encyclopædia Britannica_ first, and then maybe you'll understand my point.
At the risk of being tiresome, I must ask: did you actually read the book in question, or are you just using somebody else's opinion?
@@pocket83squared Please do refer me to whatever exhaustively large catalogue of information that supports the idea that the bell curve isnt complete pseudo science. I refered you to the shaun video because he researched and explains it better than I ever would care to. My goal isn't to argument but spread the truth
Lex completely fumbled this. His guest was finishing up his answer with a really profound statement and he not only cut him off but he blew right past this and continued on towards cancel culture and what look to be his own struggles related to operating social media as a widely known figure.
It's clear that's this man has thought deeply on this over the course of many many years. Instead of asking about solutions he took the conversation in a direction that seemed oddly political. I'm a fan of Lex and don't mean to be harsh! But it just seems like missed the plot here
Agreed. I thought the same.
Yup. Then again, if it wasn't for lex, I wouldn't even know about him and this topic
Ridiculous. Same with some fuckjut named Ferrari
Lex is bad at this. He isn't great at compsci either. He boasts about how he thinks so much about things but that isn't the case. He doesn't give things a lot of thought. He confuses his mind chatter for useful thoughts. His ability to construct sentences seems to get worse every podcast
@@jkim8282I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but you could try meeting new friends who enjoy intellectual pursuits. I say this because, I hadn’t heard of this book either until I started hanging out with a friend who we all nick-named “Guru”, because the guy is so flipping smart. I’ve learned more by hanging out with Guru and reading the books he recommended, than just about anything else.
You can't fix stupid. No matter what, where, who, when, or why. You can only educate those who have a desire to learn.
The awareness of differences in intelligence test results based upon economic conditions paved the way for much needed research in education.
💫💫
When I was still on twitter I had a great chat with Charles about the current state of the social sciences, and I explained that seeing how they treated him, was the turning point for me and I got the hell out. The humanities and social sciences have been rotted out by ideology, in no small part due to postmodernism.
This is complete nonsense. In my own field (international relations, which is often placed within political science departments), the vast majority of scholars are positivist (though post-positivist/post-modern viewpoints are tolerated and heard). Moreover, an increasing proportion of scholars are moving away from the old "grand theories," such as neorealism, liberalism, constructivism, etc., and towards paradigm-less research that applies theories as they are relevant. In other words, polisci is becoming more and more empirical over time (this is associated with the similar quant-ificiation of the field and the gradual, increasing importance of quantitative methods in social science research. In fact, the subfield of American politics--that is, the one most often bemoaned by laymen as being plagued by ideology and postmodernism--is the MOST math-heavy subfield of all the five major ones other than political methodology (the other three being international relations, comparative politics, political theory).
Charles got more hate than he deserved, but I'd take anything he says about the state of academia with a pinch of salt because he has a very large axe to grind and no shortage of "enemies." Frankly, Charles reminds me of Mark J. Ramseyer, a Harvard professor specializing in Japanese legal studies. Ramseyer published a highly controversial article in a non-specialist journal asserting that "comfort women" during the Pacific War were actually volunteers and not coerced into sexual slavery; when faced with the eventual, overwhelming backlash from the international historical community, he decried his critics as "Stalinists" who didn't actually read his article despite his academic critics providing entire manuscripts picking apart his work.
It's just all a victim complex.
lol not surprised. the most intellectually bankrupt reactionary takes and you connected over your shared grievance about academia. the race science revivalist wasn't welcome among people he despises and seethes about to this day. how sad for him. keep nursing those wounds believing you're the victim instead of engaging with ideas you find objectionable, like any intellectually curious person would do instead. you're unfamiliar with the scholarship because you gave up trying to understand.
As a special education teacher I gave I.Q.. tests, under direction of our school psychologist! We were taught they were biased and very limited, because they're 30 area's of intelligence but school's teach to 7-9 of those! Also national tests were found to be culturally biased, but it, is what there is! Corporations develop testing, huge profits!
As a special education teacher I gave I.Q.. tests, under direction of our school psychologist! We were taught they were biased and very limited, because they're 30 area's of intelligence but school's teach to 7-9 of those! Also national tests were found to be culturally biased, but it, is what there is! Corporations develop testing, huge profits! (When tested, Australian natives blew away European kids, on textures and color recognition, extremely important in survival in their environment!) 😮
I left academia twenty years ago. I thought science was supposed to be about observing things as they are and then trying to figure out how it was happening. Even then, though, too many seemed to think it was about finding something you didn’t like and describing why it was happening…
Subtle but profound shift in focus, driven by a legion of PhDs who never learned how knowledge works. As a consequence, they are doing the work of priests and rabble-rousers and don’t even know it.
It’s helped produce a whole lot of bad ideas.
In my long life, one thing is clear. Scientists, researchers are afraid to research this topic because they all sense that they will come up with the same hypothesis. If I am wrong, then hundreds of researchers would dive head first into this arena to discredit the Bell Curve, once and for all. They don't. Can someone come up with another reason?
Good point
none. Google IQ Map.
It has been fully discredited by innumerable authors.
@@okay8136 What exactly is a race denier?
@@369pendulum a race deiner is someone who deines the existence of races and racial differences.
Great guest very well spoken!
Speaking truth should never be a moral dilemma. Lying is always ethically wrong. Lowering all of society to accommodate the lowest common denominator is always ethically wrong.
Knowledge is built on science and the core of science is peer-reviewed empirical evidence. The reason murray put it in a book and didnt submit it to a journal is because the data in it is terrible and is not statistically significant. The bell curve is not a science book, its propaganda for race realism.
Where does the idea of “lying” show up in this?
@@dandavis749 Gould, among many, lying about the evidence, as the obvious example.
You guys should have talked about separated twin studies, including the Thomas Bouchard twins study in Minnesota showing IQ correlation for twins separated at birth. There are studies even showing a stronger intelligence correlation between adopted children and their birth mother compared to the parents who actually raised them.
Isn't that completely obvious?
@@Goriaas apparently not to everyone (see other reply comment haha)
@@oasisneko1 if it's totally irrelevant how do you explain the studies I just referenced in this comment? And interestingly the people who did those studies so badly wanted those findings not to be the case that they held back from releasing that data for a long time. It's by far the most comprehensive study of its kind and I've never found another that refutes it with any similar size or scope. Read about that whole thing, it's very interesting.
Monozygotic versus dizygotic twins. A split embryo gives identical twins, genetically. Such twins are rare but essential in these studies. It’s only at this level of nature controlled that raised nurture is evident, if they’re separated. I believe EQ took precedence but that’s socially nurtured so it’s a poor choice but HR seems to favour it. We’ve abandoned IQ in favour of EQ. No wonder society is so problematic. Social fit isn’t as sound a selection tool as intelligence.
@@brynleytalbot778 EQ is completely useless. Whatever limited value IQ has is still a heck of a lot more than that EQ bogus which essentially means nothing
It really baffles me that some people just don’t want too or can’t understand that there might be a difference in intelligence, on average, between groups!
Because envy and the denial they’re aren’t as intelligent. That’s all it is. The problem is we’re allowing them to rot us from within and openly hate us without retaliation.
You cant quantify intelligence and there is no intelligence gene. This author and his paper have been entirely discredited for decades
Just because there's a social stigma against the claim doesn't mean the matter is settled. The general public isn't mature or responsible enough to appreciate that fact.
@Cheesesteakfreak racial groups are too diverse. Real science doesnt divide groups on racial grounds. Its not measurable or definable
If your IQ is below 80, you truly might not be capable of understanding.
Sometimes it’s important to ask why you’re asking a certain question
You’re being vague. But I think you’re making an accusation.
I think society is wasting a massive amount of time and money pushing individuals into things they’re very unlikely to contribute in.
I personally know people with obviously low IQs that have spent long periods of time in college and never used their degrees.
Just direct people the best we possibly can.
A big strong man with a lower IQ should consider doing something physical. Most females shouldn’t be street cops of firemen. These things are obvious but a very loud vocal minority (not racial) has convinced society to ignore common sense.
I will not be bullied into ignoring my own thoughts and beliefs. Group think, isn’t necessarily wrong but it often is.
JMNSHO.
We in Australia have problems with "FAS" fetal alcohol syndrome, which shows life long problems, for children whose mothers drink alcohol. Nutrition is paramount to healthy growth of all organisms.
Attitude of students belief in themselves can make a major impact as well.
0:16 Its A Fascinating Book I Know Charles Murray
0:24 What The Bell Curve Is About The Importance Of Intelligence Is Everyday Life
1:00 Controversy One Chapter Difference Between Black And White Americans
1:44 Academic Mental Ability IQ Test
2:01 They Don't Care Whether Its Genetic Or Cultural Its True
2:45 People Took Away That Blacks Were Genetically Less Intellectually Inferior
3:38 It Is Psychology Most Taboo Subject
4:05 Very Little Research Since Black Curve
4:26 Arthur Jensen
4:53 Study On Great Society Programs To Raise Intellectual Capabilities Results 5:04 Before Heart Start
5:22 Stimulate Cognitive Provide Nutrition 5:44 Its All Society Fault 6:02 Compensatory Education
6:16 Marginal Improvements 6:34 When U Love Humanity Too Much 6:50 Opening Statement On Article 6:57 It Was A Complete Failure
7:20 Its Not Nurture Its Nature
7:46 Most Infamous Paper In Whole Of Psychology
8:05 Book Of Neuroscience Of Intelligence
8:12 Threats On Body And Limb
8;52 All Intelligence Research Become Taboo
9:15 Jensen Nixon White House
9:57 When They Wanted To Publish This Chapter
10:17 Producer From Nightline 10:42 Good Book 10:56 Tactful Answer 11:25 I Am Glad Its Genetic 11:38 Genetic Means Biological Thus Can Improve 11:50 You Dare Make This Public
13:38 Cultural 14:14 Environment
14:53 No One Wants To Do Research On Nature VS Nurture 15:02 Tenured Professor Don't Want To Do It Let Alone Students
15:13 Jensen Stupid Answer 15;37 He Is Probably Asperger Syndrome
16:16 He Is A Scientist At Heart 16:45 If He Is Wrong Other Scientist Will Prove Him Wrong
17:25 Love And Hate Relationship With Mass Media
20:31 Why I Participate In Mass Media To 20:56 Taboo Subjects
21:23 I Am Editor Of A Magazine Called Intelligence
21:52 Even In Scientific Community I Must Be Careful Might Be Syndicated
22:24 Even BBC Wants To Have Ratings
23:18 There Are Still Studies That Show Bell Curve Is Correct
24:10 What We Can Do With This Bell Curve
24:27 Educational Papers Don't Discuss Intelligence 24:53 California
If your minutes are correct (I cba to watch another interview about the validity of race science) then this guy is a grafter. There is plenty of science that challenges the claims made in this book, and we've done plenty of research into intelligence and genetics since the nineties. He is encouraging conspiracy theorists and making viewers feel as if they have discovered some hidden sector of the science world- but they haven't. Intelligence, race, genetics aren't feared subjects in science. We have very good explanations for why it once seemed that one race is more intelligent than the other, and very good explanations for how we know that isn't true. Adam Rutherford writes extensively about the subject for laymen.
@@laurenaroha8957 Show any research you can find that debunks the claims in The Bell Curve about IQ and socioeconomic status and the relationship between the two.
Thank you, friend. You are a friend.
Steven Pinker wrote the Blank Slate and describes how his work was opposed by mainstream biologists such as Steven J Gould because to even raise a question of whether we all start from scratch ie a blank slate, upon which nurture writes, was anathema to the scientific community
Why would a Jewish descendant of Immigrants oppose this opinion?
The idea that humans aren't perfectible through state control is anathema to all leftists.
I once mentioned Pinker's book "The Better Angels of Our Nature" to someone in passing and they came back at me "Isn't that guy all tangled up with E p stein?" (I had to write it like that because google censors that word, yikes). This is what happens when you publish science that doesn't support the political-religions, they start trying to take you out. It's like the 1950's McCarthyites all over again.
Anyone who has raised children to adulthood recognizes that those kids come into the world with very different Slates already written.
Great convo
I was a member of Mensa for a while, and I even studied to be tester. It is a part of my life that I can not discuss or mention in the company family and friends because everyone becomes uncomfortable at the mere mention of intelligence. The one thing they might ask me about is if there is any difference in IQ scores between races and between women and men (according to Mensas study material for testers). Mensa has conducted millions of IQ tests and have the most data on the subject.
Do low intelligence people deserve less rights?
Being in Mensa is super cringe dude. Imagine being so insecure about your intellect that you join a club to certify how smart you are.
@@Joker22593 That is not why most people join Mensa. We talked a lot about this and there has been actual books written on the subject. To become a member in Mensa you have o have an IQ of 132 or above. The average IQ (or median) is 100. People who are diagnosed with mental retardation have an IQ of 75 and below. A base level Mensa member is walking around in a world where the IQ-gap between them and the majority of humanity is bigger then that of a normal human and someone with mental retardation. It is not hard to understand why they would prefer to hang out with other Mensa-members.
@@dsjoakim35 Having a high IQ is a curse. The smarter you are, the dumber the rest of the world becomes. Imagine being the smartest man in the world. You're literally surrounded by dumbasses everywhere you turn. I can totally understand why smart people would want to hang out with one another. A chance to share experiences, theories, concepts, ideas. You just can't do some people Half of the population mostly talks about sports scores and the weather like they're broadcasting the local news.
@@Joker22593 I find it fascinating that you would assume that they are all insecure.
The fact that we as a society are aware of these findings and instead of finding a way to live with it harmoniously we instead lie and say it’s crap and everybody is just as smart but a small minority has to be given an easy route through life like a helping hand and still told there victims while everybody else has to work twice as hard . That’s a recipe for hate
They’re*
*they're @@angogablogian2168
One word.... and you STILL misspelt it !@@angogablogian2168
seems you’ve baked that recipe already
It's literally Harrison Bergeron come to life. These people haven't changed, and they push "equity" as a means of keeping the competition shackled.
Superb discussion. The point the host makes about "unspeakable " truths is spot on.
Why do you think they created affirmative action. An artificial leveling of the playing fiekd. But it still wont stop the one side from scoring more goals.
So you're not against Affirmative Action?
More research on this subject matter is highly important and needed
In the north of Ireland there was a test called the 11+. You took this test at age 11 and it often determined the course of your life. If you passed you went to a grammar school, and then usually on to university after that. If you failed you went to a comprehensive school, and were done with education by age 16. For the two years leading up to this exam, we did nothing but train for it. 100 mensa-style puzzle questions, that you had 40 minutes to answer. We learned all the quick methods for breaking down a question and answering it. There wasn't a sentence to be written on the entire thing. All multiple choice answers. Your capacity to train to do lateral thinking puzzles, and your ability to be tested under pressure at a young age, determined the future of your education. Savage.
Normally the test consists of 3 parts...math, verbal, and problem solving. Much like an SAT test. The SAT is an excellent predictor of how well a student can perform in school. The SAT is heavily g-loaded, more than some versions of IQ tests. The test does not directly measure effort, and effort also is a good predictor of academic success.
I took the 11+ exam in sunny silly Sussx on the south coast of Plde England .. still a load of $£it, though... :-)
@@BassGoBomb you had to pay to take it?
@@billjames4771 my sister is one of many who failed the 11+. She has excelled at everything else since.
I passed because I had good nerves and was trained to solve these specific problems. This ultimately worked against me though. I never learned the mental discipline that's required for real academic success. A much more relevant, and accessible, skill than training to solve mensa style puzzles. There is something deeply flawed with this whole approach. If you tell an 11 year old child that their abilities are limited, then this has every likelihood of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just as if you tell a child who scores well they are the cream of the crop. When in fact all they've actually done is retain a few methods for quickly solving puzzles.
Having read the book, back when it came out, I noted that little attention by the authors was given to culture. AND having attended 3 different primary and secondary schools in the US that were primarily Black: I am of the opinion that home culture values are paramount. Quite frankly, the kids in those schools didn't study much. They didn't aspire, value, becoming doctors, scientists, engineers. But they did spend a lot of time in sports.
Observation matches hypothesis..
Yet again.
IM AM BLACK AND YES IT A CULTURE THING.
I saw the same retarded values regarding education in certain parts of white American South. But that is fading out. Unfortunately, the damage ing culture failure isn't in black inner city America.
Yes teach me math and science by rapping and dancing
NBA star Charles Barkley said that when he talks in classrooms 90% of black boys raise their hand when he asks about who wants to be a pro athlete. Barkley said that he will know that black students are making progress when 10% raise their hand
Ive always felt that fundamentally, the differences between groups of people, were relatively small when compared to the huge potential differences between individuals.
I remember hearing this around 25 years ago on the radio. Of course I found this incredibly interesting and controversial subject I’ve ever heard. As he says “treat each individual as an individual “
Good God Lex 👏👏 I finally got the time to watch this amazing episode, and WHILE I’m watching this amazing episode-you drop the Martin Rees episode 😱 There is more amazing content on your channel than there is free time in the day sometimes, and that is a fantastic problem to have. Thank you good sir
Perhaps someone ought to tell you that if you use those asinine and infantile little yellow symbols you declare to all the world that you are an imbecile child do you really wish to do that? - Whether you wish it or not that is exactly what you do you abuse them as if you were imbecile child
I was in graduate school at the time of its release, in the college of education. I had a professor talking the book down in class. I asked her if she had read the book. She said no, but had read several critiques of it. So I bought the book the next day and read it. It was well laid out and logically presented. It also addressed potential controversy. I remember that the college of education basically refused to acknowledge IQ as an actual thing. It’s still largely ignored except in special education and psychometry.
Academic narratives can be so toxic they manipulate even supposedly "enlightened" academics.
When I was studying philosophy in college much of the department had the same visceral reactions to the topic of evolutionary psychology. I would cite books like "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker and they would react with disgust and, of course, not s single faculty member had actually read it.
The book is bunk. That doesn't mean that the published 'refutations' aren't also problematic. Most of the refutations at the time didn't understand the fundamental problem with IQ tests, as the Flynn effect had not been discovered yet, and people took IQ a lot more seriously as a result of decades of propaganda making it look valid.
Progressivism is a fundamentalist religion that requires its flock to reject reality in favor of aesthetics. Higher education is now overwhelmingly progressive, and dissent is ironically not tolerated. Lots of 19th and 20th century Marxists called for the infiltration of academia, so it's not surprising that investigation into race & IQ is immediately dismissed or squashed entirely.
Can't go against liberalism in the college of education. It'll drop your GPA by 2 points.
Lex helps me relax and sleep, thanks man
No, the message of that chapter, and Murray had reiterated this on camera in interviews, was that it is useless to waste money on social programs for Black Americans, a position that many of us found hateful and brutish.
I took several Psychology courses at a Canadian University in the late 2000's and the professors taught us all about twin studies and we were taught that most psychological differences, including IQ, were partially or mostly genetic. I find it very strange that this is considered controversial today, is psychology being taught differently now?? This wasn't that long ago, this was 2007/2008 in British Columbia, Canada.
Clearly there are lineages of people with very high and very low intelligence. Inbred groups have high intelligence members and mongoloid members, so both extremes occur. But jumping to ethnic groups which are slang definitions does not work.
@@donaldkasper8346 agreed
@@donaldkasper8346 but what do you mean by ethnic groups are slang terms? Don’t think I’m following
@@donaldkasper8346 also what does “monogloid members” mean ?
@@nicholassmythe5274 I think that by mongoloid he means idiot, and by referring to ethnic groups as slang terms, he means that the broad categories we use to divide by race - white, black, Asian, etc, - are so large and genetically diverse even within those populations that you cannot make accurate generalisations about the genetic capacities of those groups.
You would need to study a relatively small and genetically undiverse group to get useful results. One example would be Ashkenazi Jews, who consistently demonstrate substantially higher than average intelligence levels (at least as measured by IQ, which while an imperfect measurement is still useful despite some ignorant comments in this video) but also a higher propensity for certain diseases like Tay-Sachs.
One of the conclusions of the book is that it's relatively easy to reduce the intelligence potential of children, but it's damned near impossible to *raise* one's potential.
One of the beautiful aspects of life. It’s a hell of a lot easier to make things worse than it is to make things better.
That does no chime with the modern understand of neuroscience where early childhood development is now recognized to play a fundamental role in forming neural connections in the brain that sustain the potential of said brain for the rest of the person's life.
@@secullenable Then it should be easy to support your argument, because it's not so. If a child is isolated during early childhood or if they live in a violent/abusive environment, they can be horribly stunted developmentally. There's no question about this. However, if a child gets reasonable human interaction as an infant and normal toddler/pre-school age simulation, there are zero long-term gains to be had by early schooling. The only advantage the very early schooling has is when compared to neglect.
@@MrTL3wis so in other words, the way society is going, we are actually stepping away from out true potential and dumbing down ? regardless of children ?
the foundation of the argument "IQ scores matter". Einstein could not spell because there are no rules. If Einstein was in today's schools they would have put him in special ed like myself and told his parents that he would probably never learn to read write or handle basic math and then the school system would have thrown him in the corner and taught him nothing like I. Luckily for me my dad was a disabled veteran so I went to ten years of college used a spell checker and learned how to write complex some extremely complex government automation: Law, Medical Database, Mental Health. I am also a philosopher and understand Economics, Philosophy and massive reduction of government processes through automation. I can tear apart the bible because I it was written by lawyers who clearly and obviously did not site their source "God" and they the authors made it clear to anyone with a dictionary that they did this. Which is a nice little trick let the audience know that your dogma comes from "inspiration of god" Inspiration definition: "The excitement of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity." and then allow people drop god's name in judgment based on the word's that you labeled clearly man. Anyway I am low IQ and you can judge for yourself.
Lex asked whether a scientist should concern himself with the nature of his research and the content of his messaging?
For the sake of science,a scientist should only concern himself with doing good science. Always amenable to opposing findings,regardless of personal cost .
In reality, not only do scientists have to worry about hostile reception of their work, but more importantly, they need to weigh the risks of not getting published altogether,or worse yet, not getting funded in the first place.
Science today has been fatally captured by very powerful governmental and corporate interests, motivated almost entirely on advancing their own interests at the expense of the common good.
Long gone is the golden age of independent citizen scientists advancing the field in the pursuit of truth.
"all research became radioactive", so we went to "politicly correct research" instead.
Well, he specifed intelligence research. He said elsewhere that intelligence research was "dead on the water" for 30 years. You are correct about politically correct research.
Lex your ability to oh so carefully step through your questions made me think of a man dancing in a minefield
Great analogy haha
More like the night fox in oceans 12
That's a brilliant way to put it.
It’s easy when your naturally unbiased and respectful.
I had a colleague named Charles Murray, who wrote for an electronics design magazine, who got lots of hate because people thought he was the "other" Charles Murray. This continued years after the book was published.
Oh, man. That poor guy 😂
You would just change your name.
This just further evidences to me how stupid and ignorant people are generally.
That kinda proves that it is a political response not an intellectual debate.
@@jurybery Good point!
Resources are finite. People are not equal, even in royalty. Forcing equality by means of discriminatory distribution of wealth is a waste of resources.
America is heading in a very dangerous direction by moving away from the emphasis on merit. A capitalistic democracy absolutely depends on allowing the very best to succeed. The overall driving force that enabled America's incredible economic success and dominance has been merit based empowerment. The reason the Soviet Union failed is because decision-making was based on bureaucratic cronyism. We need the very best to be the best and to have the most influence.
I was a graduate student in a top sociology program when the The Bell Curve came out. I had done comparative politics in my undergraduate studies and focused on East Asia. However, I had no sociology classes before entering the graduate program, so I was naïve.
There was a particular theory seminar required for all Ph.D. students, and during the seminar, each of the eight students was required to review one work or author and lead a class discussion.
I approached the professor with whom I was on good terms and told him I would review the Bell Curve. He said, “No way.” It was at a state university, so the first amendment still applied, and my proposal met the requirements laid out in the syllabus. I said I am not backing down. It was an important work worthy of critical discussion. We agreed that I could write a one-page summary of the book and hand that one page out. I could not discuss it. I took the compromise, knowing that there was no stopping what would happen once on the table. I remember that table clearly and that day as if yesterday.
By the time I reviewed it, I had little illusion that there much interest in honest intellectual inquiry among the students. It was a quantitative-focused graduate program, but students and many professors were selectively interested in an empirical understanding of the world.
So my day to present came, and I handed out the summary. Immediately there was agitation. The other Ph.D. students explained what the authors said and were angry. I pointed out that I did not see what they were upset about in the book. When I asked them if they had read any part of the book, they said, “No.” But they were righteously indignant that I had read the book.
One person said the book should not be allowed to be read. So I asked, “Should it be allowed to be sold?” A couple of them said, “No.” So I asked each in the seminar one by one if they agreed with that statement that it should not be allowed to be read. They all said they did.
That day I realized there was no future for me working with colleagues that absolutely did not accept the concepts of liberty and free speech. From that cohort, some of us left the academic career track. More disturbing is that some of those in that seminar are now tenured professors at major universities.
If you have a mind and any personal integrity, read the book with honest skepticism as you should any book and make your critical interpretations.
In my view, it is one of the few, and perhaps best, works of science in the social sciences in the last 50 years. I have not seen any evidence presented that it is not. Of course, it is difficult in its implications, but a responsible citizen would do well to see what it says, then work on solving the complex problem it presents.
Thank you for having the courage and integrity to discus The Bell Curve and the authors for doing the hard work to produce it.
Thick in pages thin in content. Essentially, you didn't read the book, otherwise you would discuss its ideas, not your experience with controversy surrounding it. Get a life. you fraud.
I don’t know too much on the context of your situation let alone the book but I do know that politics or opinions have invaded our pursuit of knowledge for longer than we should’ve allowed and it’s magnificent that your willing to read AND even discuss it even if others would crucified you for just reading a damn book made by a well educated author. It is a shame that someone like you, someone who is willing to understand and dissect most things ISN’T continuing your studies and sharing the knowledge you would accumulate, but the destruction of knowledge, no matter how hard we try accumulate, preserve and make accessible is some what doomed to time and our preferences.
Because If I believe in something whole heartedly and my people do as much as I, then you come with evidence that what I believe is false, I’m likely to attempt every method to prevent the spread of that knowledge, burn every page you have on it, degrade, discredit and shame your evidence on the basis of it doesn’t correlate with what I believe my world revolves around and makes sense to me than it’s wrong, it’s evil, it’s inaccurate, over supported and biased and I can’t allow such blasphemy to be spread, after all, I’m right, I’m justified in my opinion, I believe with my gut and soul this is wrong, so, it is! no matter what! (All agree, and those that don’t, will, if it pleases them or not)
Either way, I hope you have a good day and aren’t too discouraged to keep learning, documenting and don’t mind my comment being lacking in knowledge and understanding, because I’d be lying if I’m a bit out of my depth speaking about such complex concepts, A.K.A please don’t bully me, I’m not smart enough for this.😭
@Ziplokk Great decision. We don't need anymore Nazis.
@Ziplokk I would still recommend advanced training. Notwithstanding the problems I encountered above, my training has served me well in my career and made my life richer. In addition, being around people that did not agree with me or were even hostile to other views that were not their own, while tiresome, did make me a better thinker. What you say is true of many, but there is also occasional brilliance in the academy.
@@theyoungfool.1895 Thank you for your response and encouragement.
I have gone on to continue to learn and teach occasionally, so I was not wholly discouraged. I am now in my late 50s and have returned to medical school to pursue a different career and new study area. I have always loved learning and doing something useful with what I learn. I hope you can find that too.
Do not worry about being bullied; state what you think, listen to good feedback or criticism and work on learning to ignore the rest. It is the ever-persistent challenge, to use an old American idiom, of distinguishing between shite and Shinola.
The greatest thinkers of every age were wrong about most things they held to be true. You will be in good company if you make mistakes and are wrong about many things.
I remember after reading this book many years ago that the most important trait common among successful people wasn't IQ - it was a long planning horizon. I seem to remember he linked this to class. I would think that good results would be gained by teaching young people how to use long planning horizons.
Dr. Peterson said it best in his 2017 Personality class lectures on TH-cam. "If you have a high IQ, are high in conscientiousness, and can use a computer, you are deadly!" Conscientiousness on The Big 5 Personality metrics is divided into 2 subcomponents: orderliness and industriousness. Conscientiousness is the ability to plan and work, essentially. People high in conscientiousness have an easier time forgoing short term pleasures for long term gain. Also, people with higher IQs have a much easier time planning and thinking ahead than people with below average IQs.
The problem is that only rich people have that luxury.
@@proudatheist2042 Peterson also said that creativity is inversely correlated with success; while by "conscientiousness" he means the ability to follow rules and instructions accurately.
As a special education teacher I gave I.Q.. tests, under direction of our school psychologist! We were taught they were biased and very limited, because they're 30 area's of intelligence but school's teach to 7-9 of those! Also national tests were found to be culturally biased, but it, is what there is! Corporations develop testing, huge profits!
@@SovereignStatesmanThat is not quite right. Creativity is a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Most fail and a small number succeed spectacularly.
It would be very interesting a study of mental health in different groups like the bell proposal.
I administered IQ tests as a licensed psychologist. It was amazing how stable IQ test scores are across the years. The cognitive or IQ tests definitely measure a behavioral trait related to memory and problem solving that is stable over time despite educational enrichment and positive changes in the students home life etc.
Former special education and reading remediation teacher here. When I reflect back to my career and one of my former school psych colleagues, it was as if she herself didn't understand that IQ differences vary between people. She didn't seem to understand that some students struggle to master the most basic skills while some of their peers came to school knowing it.
I remember reading an article, which was written in the 1950s, that 100 years earlier (1850s) most people were living on farms, and people who had an IQ of less than 80 could be employed in a useful way, they did not even had to know to read and write. Today (1950s) most of those people can not be employed.
and you cant simply give them welfare money bc otherwise they will keep breeding.
I honestly only found out about that from Jordan Peterson's talks on IQ back around 2017. It is a *SHOCKING* stat and one that most people will not even remotely talk about.
Also because our world is requiring higher IQs, not less, it maybe the case the actual cutoff is higher, maybe not by much (And thank god if its not much or at all!) but it is still something that is VERY concerning. And yet we seem hell bent to not only do nothing but make it worse.
10% of the us population has an iQ at or less than 83. The army determined that these people are not competent enough to perform menial tasks. They are too dumb to work. 33 million Americans.
@@CmoIsDaNam3i the world does not really require higher iqs. Humans just need to get along better. Also human hybris about their intelligence will be crushed by the abilities of ai. Even the most intelligent human ist still a pretty mentally restricted animal.
@@MaxMustermann-zr6kf So let me ask you this. Do you think anyone of any intelligence can do high level programming? And by high level I mean complex.
Enjoyed that. Learned a lot and am inspired to hear more in the line of “what can we do to improve …”
Their intelligence stops at moral values... they judge success through materialistic things.
We need brown n black authors ...not nazi studies
I've read some interesting studies about the impact of 1:1 or small group (2-3 people) learning vs large group learning as well. The impact of learning something 1:1 or in a small group is FAR greater than a typical classroom model. If you wanted to make schools impactful, kids need strong, cooperative relationships with people who *like* them, and want to help them grow. You can't have relationships with 25 - 30 kids, it doesn't really work that way. It might not impact IQ, but it could impact skills, retention of knowledge, and hopefully overall achievement.
Go visit a few East Asia country school, they have classes of ~50 students, they produce the best students….
The content of a persons character is most important to me.
agreed
I'm mostly Mesoamerican or INCA descent. I go out with my American friends hiking all the time, mostly white. I always found it intriguing that every 100 feet or so, my eyes point to tiny insects on the leaves. My friends always get amazed to how Im able to do that effortlessly. 😮 I can't help but theorize in my head that environments create or sharpen different skills for survival depending on the geography. This may be an obvious example of these differences and would like to know more about them. It wouldn't make much sense to me that religion, food, music, skin color, accent, demeanor, language, bone structure(to name a few) gets diversified BUT our cognitive abilities. 😅
May not be the case for most, but I'd embrace and love my differences with other groups rather than living in denial.
Your statement here is what is called an Anecdotal Fallacy. "I'm mostly Mesoamerican and my eyes are drawn to insects more than most people, so ALL Mesoamericans must do the same, and I am able to do this BECAUSE I'm of Mesoamerican descent". Give me a break. Start seeing people as what they are. Individuals. That said, your little "superpower" is most likely just a simple manifestation of the autism spectrum, not some type of "racial superpower".
Very observant and thoughtful. Thank you. I have long known that Native Americans in New York City frequently are hired (or should I write "highered"?) to work on skyscrapers because of their superior sense of balance. I have known people whose families have done this kind of work for generations. In fact, it is a blessing to them because they make much higher salaries tha I could when I was active. Going on a steel beam atop a skyscraper isn't something I would consider even for $300K.
If it were a social intelligence test, I believe white people would loose that one 😅
This is a good perspective.
If your point is that all generalizations about groups are fallacious, you are wrong. YacuMiraq may know enough fellow Mesoamericans to generalize. Another example is that I am Jewish, and I realized at a young age, in the 1960s, that Jews tended to be affiliated with left-wing political causes. That is a statistically valid generalization, and I can provide you with reams of data to demonstrate that it is factually true. Assuming that characteristics are not affiliated with groups is not scientific, and it is not true. As another example, and just to illustrate the absurdity of your claim, left-wing extremists frequently use the phrase "white privilege" to suggst that whites in America were not discriminated against while other minorities were. Is your point that phrase "white privilege" reflects bigotry because each member of the white race needs to be treated as an individual? Conversely, is your point that Blacks cannot be said to have been discriminated against because some Blacks were in fact not discriminated against? @@NanakiRowan
@YacuMiraq
Great conversation. Haier is careful to express nuance while still being clear and straight-forward about the data available. I would have liked to hear more of his thoughts on The Bell Curve's warning of a "cognitive elite" developing in modern society, where higher-IQ individuals can handle increasingly complex systems, while many others will be unable to do so. I think this was well ahead of its time for current issues we face like working with AI, financial institutions, and job automation. For me this was the most fascinating part of the book, but since the book was vilified for that one chapter, it is rarely part of these discussions (or part of any discussion at all 😅).
Hi, just wanted to let you know the the book is in reality racist bullshit and has been thoroughly debunked: th-cam.com/video/UBc7qBS1Ujo/w-d-xo.html if you are actually interested in why no one takes the book seriously. Btw It’s not because the left wing Marxist academics can’t accept the hard truth, it’s because the authors don’t understand the topic, make bad arguments based on bad data, and do so while being funded and supported by actual nazis.
We're already there, the vast majority are unable to master complex physics or the skills needed to design microchips, etc etc. I'd wager not 1 in 10,000 people understands all the technology in a cellphone, probably more like 1 in 100,000.
Higher elite? What about the hypothesis: the ones who make to the top are the ones with a personality disorder that in a pathological manner forces them to keep climbing to the top. And, the ones that don't make to the top are peaceful minds that are happy where they are.
@michaelrose93 ok. Maybe these people can't have meaningful familiar relationships. Are they really the top. ? People are so certain to fataly define " intelligence ". I've seen chimps perform memory tests better than the majority of human beings would. Does that make human beings less intelligent than chimps.
@@michaelrose93 While you're right that most people (myself included) don't understand things like how cellphones or microchips work (or airplanes, or skyscrapers, etc.) but these aren't necessarily a problem. Technology and culture allow us to live in a world that is too complicated for any one person to understand and this is good because our accumulated knowledge is far greater than any individual's intellectual capacity. We are all stupid in comparison to the complexity of the world we live in and we generally benefit from this.
The problem with a cognitive elite is when higher IQ individuals design how we interact with this complex world, and create systems which ignore the challenges that lower IQ individuals will face. So we end up with bureaucratic banking, tax, legal systems, etc. that can ensnare (and often take advantage of) lower-IQ individuals.
Consider something like making some changes to an online account, which may involve other steps like enabling 2-factor identification linked to a phone number, logging in to another platform, selecting several options from an automated call service before being able to speak with another person, and perhaps preparing some additional information related to government paperwork.
If you have an average-or-better IQ this process will be annoying and unpleasant, and may even require several attempts before you've gotten everything in order. But now imagine you had an IQ of 85 or so and you might realize that this task has essentially become impossible for you to complete. And in the meantime you're being charged fees for terms you didn't understand, which may precipitate an even larger bureaucratic challenge you will be similarly-unsuited to solve. Then imagine that this type of scenario starts occurring in nearly every area of your life, including in a job you were previously just barely able to manage, and you can see how quickly life gets even more difficult than it already was.
What Herrnstein and Murray pointed out was that the "cognitive elite" were increasingly isolated; rather than starting with others and gradually rising, they were attending separate schools from a younger age, then universities, internships, and early job positions alongside a similarly gifted cohort. This isolation may mean these cognitive elite aren't even aware of the challenges their policies and systems create for those with lower IQs, because they have very little interaction with those outside their high-IQ networks.
Unfortunately We live in an era where feelings matter more than facts.
What factors were taken into consideration while compounding data?
Regarding whether the author was a 'racist' or not, Sir Isaac Newton was fanatical about alchemy and theology, but no-one questions his science or his methods in the areas where he got it right, or his motivations for doing so.
The kind of "people" screeching about racism have no understanding of principles or work separated from the author. It's why they commonly think it's a contradiction that a right wing person enjoys something a left winger has produced.
Alchemy was the chemistry of Newton's day, and theology was the main province of all major western collegiate education up until the early 20th century and Newton was rigorous in both. It's not about whether they study something others find trivial or silly or too abstract for practicality, it's about rigorous methodology and sound reasoning and Newton had both in spades.
@@eellss333 Im going to respond with a copy and paste from another post i made on this topic, actually, im going to slightly alter it to fit your post better.
Its kind of a shame people didnt pay more attention to the peer review and their criticisms of the studies and reasoning as to why the studies and conclusion failed said peer reviews.
And i do want to address your last sentence quickly.
Ive never heard this from anyone, ever and i think you might be getting the criticism wrong. Hey, i could be wrong myself, but ive never seen anyone say what you're suggesting but i have seen people (myself included) speak on right wingers and art.
One thing ive regularly had to address is right wingers crying about left wing politics or social issues in art, movies, books, etc. They will generally think this is a new "problem" and (falsely) think the stuff they like or could cite, is void of these left wing ideals. There are a couple other similar criticisms from right wingers ive seen, but are not as common as that one. The above criticism is something you will find by the thousands on basically every single movie trailer or review on youtube, you can think of.
And of course the criticism here is not "omg, its a contradiction for a right winger to like the art of a left winger", its about the fictional reality created by the right winger that is at the core of their criticism.
Actually people contrastes newton, this is science
Alchemy is real. Humans have developed methods for transmuting elements into other elements by changing the nucleus.
I wish there was 1% of the caution and hand-wringing over viral gain-of-function research as there is over IQ research. 🙄
I’m pretty sure being a vaccine conspiracist puts you pretty low on the bell curve
Why?
I read this book in HS, my desk was near the teachers desk and his bookshelf. At the time I had no idea it was controversial, it was just a really interesting read and I learned a lot from it.
Looking back I realize how based my teacher was. Probably wouldn’t even be allowed to have it on his bookshelf today.
Black Man here: PharmD, 8 Years US Army (68R, 68W) and CCNA 💪
there is a difference between Africans and Afro-Americans
So what, the book talks about the average of black population. Of course there's genius black but that is not the majority
The Bell Curve was one of the most influential books I have ever read on the way I view the world, not only because of what it claimed but in then seeing what others said it claimed, and how different those two things were. It also has stood up remarkably well to the test of time. So much of what we see in today's societies can be explained by the theory presented in it.
It is pseudo-science which doesn't stand up to basic criticism
and what basic criticism is that?
@@christopherstewart3998 You should tell either Richard Haier or Lex Fridman, neither of them seem to be aware of it, despite talking extensively about the criticism that was leveled at it.
Kmba I say!
@@christopherstewart3998 I think Randy Dixon already mentioned your point of view in his comment. You're probably just a BOT anyway.
The author Charles Murray is still around, have him on the show.
Pretty sure youtube would not allow it
Yes, living people would make good guests.
Yea why not.
@@schwarg forget them...
Nothing has given me reason to think Lex has the guts for such a thing. He's nicey-nice.
It was nice topic to see someone discussing about people potential, IQ. This things should be researched intensively.👍👍👍
Interesting. As a history major, there is one major criticism and that’s historical context of all IQ tests in the twentieth century. It was called “Eugenics” and was a decades long multi-national movement pushed by elites only exposed after WW2 with the Nazis. So the “I don’t care” answer is concerning imo. I see a possible reason for the data: 1) Overall education and upbringing to that educational method available (not just the school system) to the testing groups. Tests in themselves are geared for test takers, so a 4th generation college student will have better odds/upbringing than a 1st immigrant. So there’s that bias. I think there needs to be more context given on both the study and takers. Last thing I’ll say is IQ is overrated to an extent. It’s important but there are several aspects that match or even more important. I think a larger test done in current environment with modern technology might deem different results. The 90s was very much still an quieter echo of racism from the 60s from what I studied. The internet changed everything
Agree with Dr. Haier about what we should do with the current data (@38:02). Neurosciences research is incredibly important - not only in terms of intelligence but also, and perhaps even more importantly, to debilitating disorders/diseases that occur (quite frequently) to people of all demographic types.
I was living in Cambridge, Mass. after the book came out. Charles Murray was invited to speak at the Forum at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. I'm sure that they wouldn't even consider it today. He was greeted with protests and picketing outside. The audience was restricted to the Harvard community only. Murray was subjected to pennies being thrown at him by some of the open-minded young scholars; yet the year before Palestinian guerilla leader Yasser Arafat had been warmly welcomed. Wokeness had already reared it's ugly head.
It's incendiary because it's true. If it wasn't true they'd do the research and put the matter to rest once and for all.
Are we sure about the difference being a standard deviation? I don't think that's true for raw scores and the standardized scores (on the WAIS at least) are set to an equivalent value, so there's no numerical difference.
I'm sorry if I'm nitpicking or misunderstanding, but I think that point (regarding the degree of difference) is overstated. WAIS norms usually have it at just a few points relative to age-matched peers and certainly much less than a standard deviation.
Some things are just self-evident.
You’re the reason we can’t discuss these things.
If you are referring to anecdotal experiences, that is not a good way to go about this
While watching this with dinner I ate a fortune cookie. "Even the smartest person can learn something from the dumbest." Freaky!
@King Mob I live in the twitlight zone, but it's a tragic epic horror story.
That’s why those Chinese restauranteurs moved to America 😁
great aphorism
It makes me think of my great grandmother. I only wish I had taken more time to learn what she knew. She lived off the land. She gardened, canned, foraged, and made home products from the earth. She knew how to find water, build an outhouse, and take care of a sick child. She had not one book in her home.
You can learn what not to do.
Truth has always been an inconvenient or even dangerous thing to say
This is propaganda
Lex, a conversation with Richard Haier and Howard Gardener (the varied intelligences guy) would be interesting.
In his Great Courses lecture on TH-cam, Dr. Haier mentioned talking to Dr. Gardner at a professional event. Dr. Gardner seems to be a lazy hack who made a name for himself pleasing people's feelings without putting any objective, repeeatable to his work.
Thanks for this. Its important to discuss
13:00 to 15:00.. What an intellectual powerhouse. Thanks for the great interview Lex.
28:40 certain truths may not help a relationship flourish in the short term, but falsehood or deception will ALWAYS damage a relationship in the long run without exception
My thoughts are that nutrition during early life has a tremendous effect on an individual's intelligence. However environmental exposure early in life factors into the development (or non-development) of intelligence in an individual. If you grow up around people that are intelligent you likely have a high probability of turning out intelligent. The other side of the spectrum is most likely true also. There are likely many other factors that play a role in the development of intelligence, (i.e. mother's nutritional state while baby is in there womb, oxygenation of brain cells during the early stages of growth before and after birth), and perhaps genetic make up).
As in the discussion above, Jensen's examination of compensatory education programs that included nutrition had no measurable effect.
This is extremely interesting. Everything I’ve heard from psychologists and in studying psychology has been centered around focusing on nurture because we can use psychology to fix the nurture gaps, but we can’t do anything about nature. This man literally said the opposite which is fascinating!
th-cam.com/video/UBc7qBS1Ujo/w-d-xo.html
They focus on nurture because they don’t like that nature can’t be changed. Nurture also doesn’t do much and the empirical data proves it. They must disparage it to make their profession seem legit
@@darbyohara Not sure if you seen my reply, but if you look I posted a link which is a 2 hour debunking of all the claims of this bullshit racist book. Would highly encourage you to watch that if you are actually interested in engaging in the reality of race iq (ie a relationship doesn't exist).
Obviously the nature is J@#s are GOOD and bl@ck people are bad duuuuuh. Get back in line pe@sant.
I know what we can do about the biology at the present moment but with gene editing advancement we might be able to make progress. They didn't know about gene editing potential as recently as the late 80s, so it's understandable that people would want to focus on things we can control in the present like nurture. But if it doesn't work its time to consider other avenues of progressing.
The book that exposed, that to some people feelings are more important than facts.
Just to be clear, it was the book's vociferous critics who exposed that.
just to be clear the author did not say the differences were caused by genetics...
That's because it's been broadly criticized for selective use of data, focusing on studies that support its thesis while disregarding a vast array of research suggesting the significant impact of environmental and socio-economic factors on intelligence. This approach not only skews the analysis but fundamentally undermines its scientific integrity. But people tend to believe whatever makes them feel good
@@diztrustful Whether there is a genetic component to intelligence or not, it's better to focus on matters that can be controlled. Like don't drink water contaminated with lead, make sure young kids are not deficient in the nutrition required for fully developing the brain.
He seems to be saying moving students in poor neighborhoods from a public school to a charter public school has no impact on academic outcomes. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary.
I have a hypothesis… when it comes to the bell curve on certain dimensions (intelligence, conscientiousness, empathy, work ethic) there is a bar, below which a group cannot build a thriving advanced society. Some human genetic pools have barely passed this threshold, others are below it, none are far above it. It is only when you assign good or bad, right or wrong, to a groups overall measurements that the term racism begins to apply. This is also a comment regarding group dynamics, not individual dynamics.
I'm not sure of that because there have been striking exceptions such as Athens, in which 20,000 free Athenians produced most of Western culture. There have been other exceptions. When I read the biography of Genghis Khan, I was struck by an amazing parallel between how Genghis Khan reconstituted Mongolian society and how Cleisthenes reconstituted Athenian society a few generations before Athens's great democratic flowering in the late fourth and third centuries BCE from the age of Pericles through Alexander's imperial conquests. A similar process was by definition here in the US, and it occurred naturally in Great Britain before its industrialization. In all four societies there was a breaking down of established hierarchical structures and a reassignment of roles with greater emphasis on freedom and merit and less emphasis on authoritarian power structures before massive achievements. In Greece (Alexander was actually from Macedonia, not Athens) and Mongolia it was world conquest, in England and America the industrial and technological revolutions. The public choice theorist Mancur Olson writes about this in his book "The Rise and Decline of Nations," and he attributes this to the power of special interest groups in traditional societies. In centralized societies such as Russia and China, innovation is difficult to achieve because Socratic questioning is prohibited. China now offers a test of this theory: Can it become a great power without a period of freedom? It indeed permitted copying and what Toynbee called mimesis, imitation, for several decades. Toynbee argued that civilizations rise when they copy other civilizations, but they fall when they become rooted in their pasts. This is linked to the power of special interests, which aim to preserve their power. Was this period of copying enough for China to become a great historical power, or is its suppressive slave state too dampening on the innovative spirit? We are witnessing that occurring in the US as the nation declines, and I suspect China will also falter.
A wise man once said "There's no fixing this, just get the hell away"."
Nubhuman Siggers. yes he is right.
Dilbert?
Nice episode, Lex. To bring up this book again with historical perspective. Nice job.
Yes, he also missed the studu was done in the 1960s when racism still existed, meaning black people and women wouldnt be smarter based on standardized testing.
@@mattk8810 "when racism still existed"
🤣
depends an the level and type of culture of the social group the individual is sensitive to.
This proves that throwing money at a problem won't fix it or make it better!
Why can't we just agree that all of us are different, and we have to accept that, instead of fighting it???
IQ's shouldn't be the determining factor of what makes a "better" person!!!