The Bell Curve

 

I’ve started another book.  I’m now reading “The Bell Curve” by the boys listed above.

Stats that struck me tonight:

Think of your twelve closest friends or colleagues.  For most readers of this book, a large majority of them will be college graduates.  Does it surprise you to learn that the odds of having even half of them be college graduates are only six in a thousand, if people are randomly paired off?  Many of you will not think it odd half or more of the dozen have advanced degrees.  But the odds against finding such a result among a randomly chosen group of twelve Americans are actually more than a million to one.

I am going to love this book!

4 responses to “The Bell Curve

  1. The book has been widely discredited for most of its “juicy” bits. Make sure you read the criticisms first, in particular the hidden assumptions, so that when you read the book you can spot them (if you still actually want to read the book). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Criticisms

    • The book has been widely discredited for most of its “juicy” bits. Make sure you read the criticisms first, in particular the hidden assumptions, so that when you read the book you can spot them (if you still actually want to read the book).

      Have you read it?

      • Nope. I also haven’t read a thousand other books that people have already digested, summarized, and criticized. There’s too many books to read them all, so unless I’m actually interested in processing a book myself, I often will read what is written about it instead. If it seems like there’s a genuine debate over what it means, then I’ll dig in.

        I’m certainly not saying that you shouldn’t read it or that it’s not worth reading. I just wanted to draw attention to a context that seems helpful when analyzing it.

        • I’m certainly not saying that you shouldn’t read it or that it’s not worth reading. I just wanted to draw attention to a context that seems helpful when analyzing it.

          Yeah, so I was at the book store looking for a book on raising chickens. I decided to look through the sociology section and saw this. It gathered dust in my stacks. Then I heard Boortz talk about it during one of his bits.

          I looked around and found that the book was criticized for making a claim that race and IQ were linked. I immediately was skeptical and sad that I bought the book. Then I came across the authors new book, “Coming Apart.” An attempt to validate his findings without the cloud of race; he only studied white folk.

          I started this, his first book, and was struck by the readability and the stats.

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