Re: BELL CURVE CRITIC EXPOSED?--ALAS NOT

Arun Gupta (gupta@mrspock.mt.att.com)
Tue, 31 Jan 1995 04:40:09 GMT

In article <D38s98.4o5@ssbunews.ih.att.com>,
-Mammel,L.H. <lew@usgp3.ih.att.com> wrote:
>
>BTW, I think this is a silly example, being no different in
>principle from forming groups out of people who score in
>given ranges.
>
>Lew Mammel, Jr.

The example, in question, of course, is the drawing of pairs at
random, from a normally distributed population, and separating each
pair into one of two groups depending on whether they were the high
or low IQ in the pair.

Silly ? Yes. The point simply was that surely this two populations
of higher and lower IQs has as much genetic difference in whatever
genes govern intelligence as do "blacks" and "whites" : the same
standard deviation separates the two groups. The other point was
that if the genes that govern intelligence number more than around
10 (which is said to be the number of genes that govern skin color,
eye color and hair) then this genetic difference is as large as the
"racial" difference, which many posters say is real. What I thought
neat about the example was the way it gave long tails to the
distributions, unlike dividing people into groups who score in ranges.

-arun gupta