On Wed, 3 Feb 1999 MScoleman at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 99-02-03 19:46:43 EST, you write:
>
> << Gould reviewed the Bell Curve for the New Yorker, and pointed out that even
> by Murray & Herrnstein's own evidence, IQ explains only about 2-3% of
> social outcomes. That is, they claimed that IQ explained 50% of social
> outcomes and their regressions had r^2's of around .05 (the only time I've
> ever seen an r^2 quoted in the New Yorker!). So 5% of 50% = 2.5%. It's no
> wonder they presented only the regression trendlines in their texts, since
> if they'd shown the full scattergrams they'd have looked only slightly less
> than random. And that, of course, is on the basis of their own crackpot
> models.
>
> Doug >>
>
> hmmmm, could it be that murray isn't intelligent enough to understand
> statistical regressions???? maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com
>
It's pretty clear he doesn't. In the book tour for Bell Curve, he stated a number of times that a hereditability ratio for intelligence of .60 means that 60% of a person's intelligence is due to genetics and 40% is due to the environment. This is incorrect. The hered. ratio is a group level statistic that estimates the percentage of group level variation in a characteristic that can be accounted for by genetic variation. The percentage of a person's intelligence that is due to genetics cannot be quantified in any meaningful way.
--And this doesn't even get into the debate about whether or not IQ tests are valid measures of intelligence! Most psychologists I interact with as a researcher agree that the Bell Curve would never, ever have survived any sort of rigorous peer review. When it comes to statistics and psychology, it's pretty clear that Murray doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
Miles Jackson cqmv at odin.cc.pdx.edu