Discussion Week ６ - Friday the 12th and Sunday the 14th of May

 - Discussion Week 6 -

 

- Friday the 12th of May -

- The Bell Curve - 

 

This week we'll talk about intelligence, race, and social morals.

 

The book "The Bell Curve"(1994) is about the measurement of I.Q. of people from different races, social backgrounds and walks of life.

The authors of this book have been harshly criticised as racists and that they didn't submit their work for peer review before publishing.

 

There were possible measurement errors, group biases etc. but the authors haven't said their research was conclusive.

 

Rather than criticise the book or the authors or the methods they used, I want to talk about the social morals, whether or not its really a good idea to try to see if there is a difference in intelligence across races, social backgrounds etc.

 

Do you think it's a bad idea to try to see if certain people are smarter than others?

The book also mentions that those who have high I.Q. (cognitive elite) were becoming further and further separate from people with lower intelligence in society by using their smarts to get richer, do you think that is a fair statement?

 

Here are some links about this topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

 

 

Let's talk about that.