Charles Murray in the NY Times

Charles Murray, in an interview with the NY Times, says that 80% of college students aren’t smart enough “to deal with college-level material, traditionally understood.” I agree with that.

Murray, however, says two things I disagree with.

(1) Murray says that college-bound 18-year-olds should instead strive to become first-rate electricians.

I think that the demand for these types of often-cited high-paying blue collar trades are relatively limited. If I looked carefully at the situation, I’d probably find that in most cases there are barriers to entry behind the relatively high salaries.

This doesn't mean there aren't too many people going to college. It only means that without college, they'd wind up in the same jobs anyway, but without a boatload of student loan debt and four lost years of savings.

(2) Murray gives his unqualified endorsement to McCain/Palin, saying that “intellectuals” make lousy presidents. It’s hard to believe that the guy who says that IQ is correlated with everything good makes a single exception for the President of the United States.

Comments

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"Murray says that college-bound 18-year-olds should instead strive to become first-rate electricians."

Why not just bring back apprenticeships? 14 year olds who are not going to college (and many who are) should just skip college and go straight into the workforce as an intern/apprentice for a business.

PS:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26803840

Poll: Racial views steer some away from Obama

One-third of polled white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks

[J]

Your final point assumes facts that may not be in evidence.

1. An intellectual doesn't necessarily have a higher IQ than a non-intellectual. Of course we've all come across people who consider themselves intellectuals who clearly aren't (going by the OED definition); "intellectual" is commonly confused with "highly educated".

2. I believe someone on this blog conceded that the value of a higher IQ diminishes rapidly above a certain level; in a sense, IQ my have a "bell curve" itself in terms of actual utility that Murray acknowledges.

"I think that the demand for these types of often-cited high-paying blue collar trades are relatively limited"

Also, the people making the highest pay would probably have been quite competitive at any university. As someone in a high paying job that shouldn't require a college degree, I'd point out that a degree is frequently used as a filter. My employer gets roughly 50,000 applications for every opening they have in my job category, about 3000-4000 of whom are probably qualified. They won't talk to people who lack a college degree. As I side note, I've also never seen anyone hired into my job who smokes.

[Tom]

That interview derails pretty weirdly at the end.

[Dan]

After Charles Murray writes a book claiming that IQ is relevant is to all job performance, including jobs as mindless as washing dishes, he now wants us to believe that IQ is not relevant to a job as complex and constantly changing as the presidency of the world's sole superpower. And all because of his conservative politics (which themselves are a sign of low IQ). Murray is losing credibility fast.

And I think he's also wrong about college students. Because of the Flynn Effect performance on IQ tests have increased by over 20 points over the 20th century, just as better nutrition has caused height to increase by over 70 milimeters. Young people today are smarter than ever, which is why they all support Obama, as do people with graduate degrees.

[anonymous 1]

i don't like either candidate much. however, i am leaning toward obama for three reasons:

1) i thought jason malloy recently in the comments on gnxp gave a compelling argument for why obama would be better than mccain.
2) i think mccain is too much like bush (90% of the time he votes with him), and bush is the worst president we've ever had. ron paul or romney would have been ideal. mccain is too similar. we need to lessen the influence of neocons. they've been a complete disaster for america and the world.
3) i respect gc's main argument on the effect of obama theoretically on hbd research. however, i think this type of research will go on, if only in china. once one country with the means does voluntary eugenics, everybody around the world will be forced to follow suit. i don't really care if it starts in this country or another in the broad scheme of things. plus, the absurdly intelligent greg cochran wasn't especially moved by this argument, and he probably applies for grants as much as gc.

[dan]

John mccain was in the bottom 0.5% of his class. Was this school exceptionally smart or is mccain just really dumb, lazy, or both?

[Half Sigma]

Dan, the Flynn Effect is bogus, I've written about it before if you are to search my blog.

dan, high grades prove that you were capable of getting high grades (which is why Obama's magna cum laude at Harvard is very impressive), but low grades don't disprove that you are capable of getting high grades. Indeed, maybe McCain was too busy drinking beer. Still, I think that someone capable of graduating in the top 10% would have done better than bottom 5, even with a lot of beer drinking and goofing off.

[Jack]

I waffle in this election but in the end I will hold my nose with a firm grip and vote McCain. The "Born Alive Protection Act" is really the dealbreaker for me. Obama literally voted against health care for newborn babies. And if Repubs are smart, they will own him on that.

[Hubbard]

A few thoughts and observations.

First, this interview appeared in The New York Times, which led the inquisition against Murray and Herrnstein for The Bell Curve all those years ago. It seems plausible to me that the qualifiers Murray probably threw have been edited out.

Second, I think Murray understands that high IQ doesn't make people better. In fact, a high IQ person might spend time developing intellectual justifications for his mistakes. If high IQ made for good presidents, then Nixon would have done better than Reagan and John Quincy Adams better than George Washington.

Third, one of the peculiar things about the military academies is the barbell shape of distribution of talent. The people at the top of the class are traditional high IQ go-getters. There's a countervailing tradition of men who fight the system and try to be the lowest man in the class, West Point's Goat or Annapolis's Anchorman. One has to work at it to get down to the bottom. The mediocrities are in the middle rather than at the ends. In John McCain, we can see a certain continuity to his character: the midshipman who wore his demerits as badges of honor became the P.O.W. who gloried in offending his Vietnamese captors despite the additional tortures and then became the maverick who delighted in giving party leaders heartburn despite hurting his chances at advancement. McCain's will be a high-risk presidency: great potential pay-offs and great potential disasters. I can see why the maverick Murray would like the maverick McCain; both made careers of sticking it to establishments. What makes for a good thinktanker, however, might not make for a good president.

[Dan]

"Dan, the Flynn Effect is bogus, I've written about it before if you are to search my blog."

If better nutrition can cause a 70 milimeter rise in height, there's no reason to deny it caused a massive increase in real biological intelligence, especially when you consider that the Flynn Effect is very pronounced on culture reduced tests, and also when you consider the obvious rise in real world intelligence (people today are technically skilled, science is proceeding at rapid pace, organized religion is in decline, the fact that whites today are willing to vote for a black man as liberal as Obama shows how open-minded we've become). Now a small part of the Flynn Effect may be a result of better schooling, media etc, but this type of coaching has narrow transfer. The fact that IQ gains are seen on tasks as novel as solving matrix problems and spatial analysis tells me these are biological gains in the mind's adaptability have occured.

Also, on your blog you mention that SAT scores have declined, but in fact SAT scores have gone up when you consider the entire high school population (not just those taking the SAT). Charles Murray even writes about this in the Bell Curve. Also, tests like vocabulary are biased to the new generation because language is constantly changing.

"dan, high grades prove that you were capable of getting high grades (which is why Obama's magna cum laude at Harvard is very impressive), but low grades don't disprove that you are capable of getting high grades."

The key point is that there's a correlation between IQ and grades which means that the lower your grades, the less likely it is that you are brilliant. Of course there are always exceptions, but these exceptions become less and less common, the lower the grades one recieves. I could understand a brilliant person getting in the bottom 10% of his class by slacking off, but it's hard to get in the bottom 0.5% without a fundamental lack of intelligence. Unless the school itself is full of exceptionally brilliant students.

[Jim Beam]

"Deeply in love" with Sarah Palin? I know that's hyperbole, but he could've used a better choice of words instead of looking like a complete dork.

And why didn't Charles Murray pursue skilled labor?

[APH]

DS:
Why would a self-declared libertarian, the party that glorifies individualism, spend his career on the dole?

CM:
But I am not spending my career on the dole. People are voluntarily giving money to A.E.I. — there is no government money — because they think the work we do is valuable.

Ha! But really, Deborah Solomon is totally insufferable. Her snarky tone and dumb questions are just too much sometimes - Wish I could get paid to ask questions without having to think beforehand.

[abe]

Funny how Murray responds with "so what?" to the fact that Palin attended five colleges in six years.

[abe]

Hey Undiscovered Jew--I just came across this somewhere (but I can't remember exactly where) but what you link to might be BS, as part of the polling they considered responding in the affirmative to the question "are blacks responsible for their own troubles" to be racist! =D

[mnjohn]

"If better nutrition can cause a 70 milimeter rise in height, there's no reason to deny it caused a massive increase in real biological intelligence"

If the flynn effect is real then 200 years ago our IQ's would have averaged around 60 making the accomplishments we had at the time virtually impossible and leaving most of us virtually without function(imagine what someone with an IQ of 60 is capable of). Our IQ's have gone up on paper only. The flynn effect is totally bogus and Mr Flynn himself is not a race realist proving he doesn't know about about intelligence anyhow.

[abe]

"And why didn't Charles Murray pursue skilled labor?"

One often gets the feeling that Murray's obsession with IQ is just a way he can indirectly brag about his own high SAT scores.

[Dan Morgan]

There are intellectuals with an IQ of 115. And there are people who are not intellectuals with an IQ of 150.

An intellectual is drawn to fundamental ideas and likes pursuing variants of them. There are plenty of high IQ people who have little interest in that pursuit. There are so many other options to amuse the mind.

How many US presidents would be classified as intellectuals? Not Washington, FDR, LBJ, Truman, Nixon, ...

Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson I guess were intellectuals.

[JewishAtheist]

(2) Murray gives his unqualified endorsement to McCain/Palin, saying that “intellectuals” make lousy presidents. It’s hard to believe that the guy who says that IQ is correlated with everything good makes a single exception for the President of the United States.

Politics is the mind-killer. If the Republicans had an intellectual (yeah right) and the Dems didn't, he'd be arguing that the President must be an intellectual.

[JewishAtheist]

And also, I would bet that skilled electricians are pretty intelligent and would be capable of college-level work. Although they could have high IQs with an LD that made reading difficult, for example.

[whiskey]

The "intellectuals" as Presidents have been very bad: Nixon, Carter, Wilson, John Adams.

Great Presidents: Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Polk, TR, FDR, Reagan, Ike, have been non-intellectual.

The only exception: Jefferson.

Moreover, the challenges to the US, particularly with nuclear proliferation and iffy control in Pakistan, selling to anyone in North Korea, and Iran, means that "playing it safe" is likely to get America nuked. Just as playing it safe would have been disastrous for the US in 1939-1940. Or deciding to go after the Japanese first instead of Hitler 1941-45.

McCain is your better bet because the existential threat to US cities is nuclear proliferation. Obama is not only not very smart (there's an interview where he uuuuhhhhms and ahhhhhs for 45 seconds when questioned) but also without any background to press back on the nuclear proliferation threat. He'll hug Pakistani and Iranian leaders after say, NYC gets nuked.

Even if you don't have anyone you care about there, nuking of a US city will: end the global container trade; create isolationism in all trade links; require a massive police state control in most everything. Since the cost of not doing so is losing Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, DC, etc.

[whiskey]

A follow up on "IQ."

High IQ Presidents have tended to have rigid belief systems that because they viewed themselves as "smart" did not adjust to changing circumstances.

Wilson could not understand the domestic political opposition to his international involvement. Carter could not understand his "human rights" agenda meant undermining critical allies and the nature of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, or Khomeni. Nixon could not understand that going for a landslide over McGovern carried it's own risks, and would not take a victory when offered.

At it's worst, this sort of high-IQ in leadership leads to Carter scheduling the White House Tennis Courts, as opposed to Lincoln or Reagan running through various cabinet officers or generals until they get someone who can execute.

Most of the IQ stuff is just status-mongering. My candidate is smarter than yours. BS. What matters is since, all Candidates are likely to meet a floor of IQ, is how well can they adapt to circumstances that were unforeseeable. Something no one could expect. As no one expected in 1976 that Iran would have an Islamic Revolution and that would challenge Americans for ever after.

[dan kurt]

re: " And there are people who are not intellectuals with an IQ of 150."

Good point. Three members of my family have IQs in excess of 150 and are proof of this.
1) Sister. Won city wide scholarship for prep high school that was IQ test based, top 1% GREs, Medical School Professor. Reads Time mag and SiFi novels.
2) Wife. Ivy League Ph.D.(natural science). Hobby sewing (high level fiber arts), walls covered with ribbons, at County Fair yesterday won blue ribbon and best of show art quilt. Reads Velo News.
3) Son. Finishing Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering at a top 20 in the world University. Has three patents so far and two more papers in gestation since early July. Hobby competitive pistol shooting. Reads Front Sight magazine. Watches sports on TV and Sig Forum on the internet.

Dan Kurt

[mnjohn]

"Moreover, the challenges to the US, particularly with nuclear proliferation and iffy control in Pakistan, selling to anyone in North Korea, and Iran, means that "playing it safe" is likely to get America nuked. "

The neoconservative propaganda on this site is disturbing. The overwhelming amount of Iranians under thirty don't even like their regime, the idea that this is some incredible threat that needs to be dealt with in a military fashion shows your incredible ignorance. Read Steve Sailer's blog, Pat Buchanan's articles, and Paul Craig Roberts articles over at vdare.

[ResidentCynic]

This guy is a joke, arguing out of both sides of his mouth.

He argues that educational achievement is impossible through "acts of will", but argues McCain would have done better in school if he just focused harder (instead of graduating almost last)?

On the one hand he argues intelligence is correlated to ability, but he argues that "intellectuals" don't make good presidents.

Anyone care to follow the trail of funding for the "American Enterprise Institute"?

[The Griffyn]

"(2) Murray gives his unqualified endorsement to McCain/Palin, saying that “intellectuals” make lousy presidents. It’s hard to believe that the guy who says that IQ is correlated with everything good makes a single exception for the President of the United States."

HS, good job applying critical thinking skills and sniffing out Murray's BS.

Now, why do you think Murray would make such a glaring mistake in his analysis?

a. Is it because he's a partisan hack?
b. Is it because he's a bigot?
c. Is it because he's a partisan hack and a bigot?
d. Is it because of something else? What is that something else?

[Spungen]

"I agree with that. "

HS, what evidence have you seen for the 80 percent estimate? I would bet you didn't meet *anyone* at UPenn who you didn't think had the intellect for college.

I, of course, met plenty of people at CSUN who could not have handled UPenn or even UCLA. Many of them, however, were in nonacademic majors such as kinesiology (trains people to be coaches) or physical therapy. Another major I've never heard of anywhere else was "child development." These all seemed to be a clearcut path to jobs.

I knew a number of journalism students who fit that mold. Not 80 percent; maybe half. They probably could not have handled a liberal arts education at any school without open admissions. Some of them would never be able to get jobs in anything requiring a college degree. Others did get jobs that perhaps should not require degrees, but did involve words, such as in promotions or trade magazines. They were low-paying jobs and not all that secure, but jobs nonetheless. And no one from "real" colleges ever seemed to hold those jobs.

In the old days, you didn't need a degree in photography to be a newspaper or magazine photographer. Nowadays you do. That seems sort of silly to me.

[Spungen]

But P.S., those people were definitely not people I could imagine being electricians, you know? They did seem well-suited for desk jobs. Nowadays, it seems any desk job requires a college degree.

Remember Spanky's dad in "The Little Rascals?" He was a shipping clerk. It was presented as a genuine middle-class job for which he dressed up professionally every day. Although Spany did hang out with lower-rent characters such as Butchie and Buckwheat ...

[Markku]

organized religion is in decline

Proof? Christianity is spreading rapidly in China, Korea, Taiwan, and South America (evangelical movements).

[gilbert]

"the value of a higher IQ diminishes rapidly above a certain level"

I doubt this.

"he probably applies for grants as much as gc."

Nope. I do interesting work and then wait for money to fall from the sky (fellowships, book deals, etc). Plus some consulting. It works for me. GC is, in my opinion, wrong mainly because he doesn't understand other people very well. I keep telling him to read more history.

"There's a countervailing tradition of men who fight the system and try to be the lowest man in the class"

Like Custer.

"conservative politics .. a sign of low IQ."

Nope.

"the existential threat to US cities is nuclear proliferation. "

Horseshit.

As for Murray, he comes across as quite the fool in this interview.

He's sometimes insightful, other times a waste of space. I'm not sure why.

[Dan]

"If the flynn effect is real then 200 years ago our IQ's would have averaged around 60 making the accomplishments we had at the time virtually impossible and leaving most of us virtually without function(imagine what someone with an IQ of 60 is capable of)."

What makes you think that the Flynn Effect extends that far back in time? If it's caused by nutrition, as Richard Lynn believes, then it doesn't extend back any further than the recent increase in height that took place through the developed world. And btw there are third world countries right now that have IQ's of 60.

"Our IQ's have gone up on paper only. The flynn effect is totally bogus and Mr Flynn himself is not a race realist proving he doesn't know about about intelligence anyhow."

That would explain why he agrees with you. Flynn is the first to say that the effect he documented proves IQ tests don't measure intelligence. Richard Lynn (a race realist) thinks it is mostly real. Jensen (another race realist) thinks the Flynn Effect is 50% real, 50% the reflection of schooling, media, test sophistication etc.

[dearieme]

"One-third of polled white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks ", and the other two-thirds lied about it. But voting against a particular black man just because you view other black men negatively is what used to be called "racist", before that word's meaning was inflated away.

"Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles."

Why are they "harboring" these views? Is MSNBC saying that the correct empirical view is that someone else is responsible for their troubles? Or that black culture isnt violent?

[Rain And]

"There are very few unemployed first-rate electricians. I can get a good doctor in a minute and a half. "

And only electricians with high IQs will be "first rate". At least someone with an IQ of 100 who goes to college will get some marginal white collar job that won't electrocute them to death!

"I believe that given the opportunity, most people could do most anything. "

Well you're a fucking idiot, congrats. Here's your Pulitzer. You probably also look down on those Krazy Kreationists for believing in fairy tales instead of science.

"Why would a self-declared libertarian, the party that glorifies individualism, spend his career on the dole?"

Srsly?? Do you even know what "the dole" is, you insufferable nit wit?

"Aren’t think tanks basically welfare for intellectuals?"

Aren't universities, which are, in part, subsided by my tax dollars, **literally** welfare for intellectuals?

"I like to think that the reason he ranked so low is that he was out drinking beer, as opposed to just unable to learn stuff. "

As I showed in a previous thread, John McCain explicitly denies this in his own biography. What he says is that he had a lot of difficulty comprehending his course load, especially subjects like math and science. He was also the bottom of his class in high school.

"The last thing we need are more pointy-headed intellectuals running the government."

The study I've linked to a number of times showing IQ and presidential performance are highly correlated was done by a scientist Charles Murray is well aware of.

[Her?]

"I’m in love. Truly and deeply in love."

What is the deal Charles, Too much MILF hunter? I guess this might just be a case putting his politics before his knowledge of IQ and performance, he has
been similarly dismissive before when IQ correlations reflect negatively on his inclinations, such as with IQ and religion (I recall Jason Malloy recounting an email list exchange to this effect a few years back). I think it's totally legitimate to say something like "I believe the set of assumptions that the democrats work out of is so bad that we would be better of with even a not too bright person with republican assumptions than a bright person with democratic assumptions." But just gushing enthusiasm for Palin with no reservations, that is a little disturbing. Then again, these dumb Solomon interviews are notoriously edited down for concision to such an extent the interviewee's points can get totally lost.

"Mr Flynn himself is not a race realist proving he doesn't know about about intelligence anyhow."

A little circular don't you think, to have a correct acount of race differences in intelligence you first have to be a race realist? Flynn has conducted himself pretty admirably as an opponent to racial differences in IQ, as opposed to the blatant dishonesty of Gould, actually doing research and finding a generational rise in IQ. What relevance the effect has is debatable, and I don't think the evidence on the whole favors him, but atleast the guy has conducted himself in a honorable way, and in one that has produced a net gain in understanding IQ.

"That would explain why he agrees with you. Flynn is the first to say that the effect he documented proves IQ tests don't measure intelligence."

He used to believe this, his more recent positions is that in some respects that people are actually getting more intelligent.

[gcochran]

'gilbert' above was me, for some strange reason.

[The Griffyn]

Universities are welfare for intellectuals.

Think tanks are welfare for ideologues.

There's a difference.

[Steve Johnson]

Re: Obama, McCain and IQ as addressed by several of the progressive commentators of this blog.

Obama sees the job of the president as one of "advancing social justice" and bringing America closer to it's ideal as a proposition nation dedicated to the universal brotherhood of man. Because of his high IQ he is likely to do a better job of achieving these ends than someone with a lower IQ.

McCain does not view the job of the president in that way. He likely has some sort of incoherent view of what he'd like to accomplish (outside of getting those damn kids off of his lawn). His lower IQ means he is less likely to achieve whatever the hell it is he'd like to achieve as president.

Frankly, the lower IQ the better if you're going to have an ideology that causes huge amounts of damage to cover up it's discord with reality. Obama's superior IQ is not an advantage.

[Half Smart]

Wow is this site getting dumber every day.

There's no contradiction between what Murray writes about IQ's normal predictive power and the fact that high IQ individuals often don't perform well in the political sphere.

Success in politics is very different from success as an engineer or tradesman or even a writer. You aren't building on work that came before you, there is no means of objective assessment, you are just shopping a persona--which hopefully will fit the zeitgeist--and attracting (often much higher IQ) followers who will evangelize you and implement your policies. Remember, Barry lost his first state senate race to a candidate who was almost certainly dumber than he was.

I expect most successful con men are very smart, but I wouldn't conclude from that that the best con men are those with the highest IQ. Or that a talented 25 year old con man could pull off a con better than a wizened master with less native talent.

It's startling to see so many people express the idea that the benefit of high IQ applies equally to all professions, this is such a dumb thing to believe.

[Dan]

"There's no contradiction between what Murray writes about IQ's normal predictive power and the fact that high IQ individuals often don't perform well in the political sphere."

If IQ is relevant to something as mindless as being a dishwasher according to Murray, why wouldn't it be relevant to something as complex as politics? And we're not even talking about success in getting elected, we're talking about how good a job one does as president once elected. Do you not feel that running the world's sole superpower is a g loaded task?

[Markku]

Do you not feel that running the world's sole superpower is a g loaded task?

I agree. But I'd say running a small country in deep trouble is an even more g-loaded task.

[Steve Johnson]

"If IQ is relevant to something as mindless as being a dishwasher according to Murray, why wouldn't it be relevant to something as complex as politics?"

IQ is relevant to any job with a measurable result. When you're president you get to decide what your own goals are. That's why IQ isn't relevant above some floor; being better at meeting goals that people see as a bad thing makes you worse as president.

Take Bush for example. One of the things that progressives say as criticism of him is that he wanted to invade Iraq from the day he became president and that he used 9/11 to help make it happen. He then bullied the CIA into manipulating evidence to favor the invasion, etc. All this argues against wanting a high IQ person as president if he's your political opponent. A lower IQ president would botch that phase and - no war.

I expect you'll ignore this a second time because you seem to be a troll.

[Half Smart]

Dan, you should probably go back and do your homework. Actually this applies to Half Sig as well. The idea that Murray is contradicting himself has already been disproven for you. Three possibilities: you're uninformed, unintelligent, or trying to think through a haze of emotion (politics does that to people).

Even were politics a highly g-loaded profession (it isn't), the predictive power of IQ tests are evident at the group level, not necessarily at individual cases, as should be plainly obvious since IQ doesn't change much with age (if anything it declines) yet good politicians become better with experience and that would be reason enough to dismiss Barry as an untested and risky choice.

Also, the success forecast by having a high IQ as a politician would not necessarily apply to the republic, but only to the politician (e.g., Nixon managed to get elected finally--not good for us, though).

[Larry]

"Take Bush for example. One of the things that progressives say as criticism of him is that he wanted to invade Iraq from the day he became president and that he used 9/11 to help make it happen. He then bullied the CIA into manipulating evidence to favor the invasion, etc. All this argues against wanting a high IQ person as president if he's your political opponent. A lower IQ president would botch that phase and - no war."

It was not Bush who wanted the war in Iraq. It was the high IQ Ashkanazi Jews who dominate the media and Bush's inner circle that wanted the war. They wanted the war because Sadam Hussein was a threat to Israel (and thus their Ashkenazi gene pool)but in order to get the war, they used their high IQ's to dupe the president (and millions of others) into thinking he was a threat to America. This is why you need a high IQ president who knows when he's being manipulated.

[SFG]

I agree with JA. Murray's a Republican. Of course they'd never nominate an intellectual. But if it had been Romney against Edwards (which isn't totally impossible), you can bet we'd be hearing from him about Edwards' lack of academic prestige reflecting a lower IQ.

[dan kurt]

re: High IQ helps with success in politics

To those of you wiling to read a book on this topic see the following book:

Greatness: Who Makes History and Why
by Dean Keith Simonton, 502 pages
Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (May 20, 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0898623707
ISBN-13: 978-0898623703

One point made is that a great leader seems to be no more than one SD higher than the mean IQ of his followers. One of his examples was JFK who had an IQ of 118 or so.

Dan Kurt

[Michael T]

Dan, whites being willing to vote for a black isn't much as a sign of open-mindedness as it is moral posturing (and it's only "moral" because that's the view liberal institutions have been shoving down whites' throats for decades). Few will ever choose to live around large numbers of blacks or send their children to school with them, which shows what they really believe, when it comes to the crunch.

[Michael T]

And also, I would bet that skilled electricians are pretty intelligent and would be capable of college-level work. Although they could have high IQs with an LD that made reading difficult, for example.

The type of work an electrician does can be complex but even lower IQ people can learn complex tasks given enough time. The sort of problems an electrician is required to solve in the real world don't vary greatly and apprentice will see most of them in his time. The most complex electrical work, one imagines, will still be performed by the smartest electricians.

[Captain Beefheart]

Here's a link to Murray giving a lecture at AEI on education. Its from September 8th 2008.

http://www.aei.org/events/f.video,eventID.1771,filter.all/event_detail.asp

[Half Sigma]

"Few will ever choose to live around large numbers of blacks or send their children to school with them, which shows what they really believe"

They would actually have no problems doing this if blacks behaved like middle class whites.

[Cpt. Beefheart]

I just watched the Murray lecture I posted earlier. I would recommend it to everyone. He doesn't spend much time on IQ, but does make it clear that most students in college aren't really ready for it. He talks about some schools that should rightfully be called "diploma mills," as they don't even have a math requirement. You guys/gals should watch it.