The Inequality Taboo by Charles Murray

commentary ^ | September 2005 | Charles Murray

[dennisw]

FULL ARTICLE AT---->>>>

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/production/files/murray0905.html

[dennisw]

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.23075/pub_detail.asp

[mmercier]

>> The premise that is supposed to undergird all of our social policy, the founders’ assertion of an unalienable right to liberty, is not a falsifiable hypothesis.

That is what sets America apart, we grant rewards based on ability and not a scientific notion. No test of the hypothesis that we all start off as equals is necessary or permitted. We allow every individual the opportunity to prove to all or self that they are a star or a twit..

Eugenics, dysgenics, Nazis come into my mind after reading the post.

Good post BTW, something to ponder.

[Rodney King]

I once had drinks with Charles Murray at the Amsterdam Cafe at 119th street and Amsterdam in NYC. It was right before the Bell Curve came out. As I recall, he ordered a double bourbon with a beer chaser. Anyway, he told a great story about how he became a semi-libertarian.

He had been a hippie, and was in the peace corps. He went to a remote area of Thailand, where society functioned very well, and he noticed that it did so without any government. It was that experience that led him to discount the view that government tentacles are neccessary to constantly try to improve society.

[Wicket]

Interesting. Thanks for posting. I'm a capable, self assured female. However, I have observed a lot of the differences in male and female capability in spatial types of math - and in figuring out which way is North . . .

So, although not politically correct to say so - as poor Mr. Summers found out - well, duh!!!

[Citizen Tom Paine]

No glass renders a man so true as his speech.

[Cicero]

An excellent article. Needless to say, government and academia will ignore it. But I like what he says in the first footnote. Men and women, blacks and whites and Asians, are different, but that doesn't mean that one group is better than another. An elephant is stronger than a man, but few men would want to be elephants. Each group has strengths, each has weaknesses--along a bell curve, of course.

[Zeppo]

But this is just one more of the ways in which science is demonstrating that men and women are really and truly different, a fact so obvious that only intellectuals could ever have thought otherwise.

A very memorable quote from an article that is overflowing with them...

[secretagent]

...a few minutes of conversation with individuals you meet will tell you much more about them than their group membership does.

Yes.

[GSlob]

Thank you for the posting.

[Map Kernow]

Thanks very much indeed for this post. Like Mr. Murray, you have cojones. :)

[Redbob]

"Men and women, blacks and whites and Asians, are different, but that doesn't mean that one group is better than another."

And were all the various stages of prehistoric man equal to all the current variations?

Or would you suggest that evolution has reached its pinnacle for all these groups - Asian, African, White, Cro-Magnon - and therefore all are equal?

As warm and touch-feely as that sounds, it just doesn't make a bit of sense.

[truthpls]

I like your literary style. There are some questions I would like to ask you. Which country, Thailand, or the United States, has done more to further civilization; in the realm of protecting people from the horrible diseases of the world, or protecting people from the insanity of a leader who thinks they should be killed because of certain ideas they have developed, or; made their life more enjoyable, and less work intensive because of the scientific developments that a free society produces? Produced people who try to solve their problems by communication, rather than brute force, torture, and death.

[SteveMcKing]

We already knew all of that, but it's nice to hear a certified academic and a liberal (in the CLASSICAL sense) say it.

[vox humana]

I have observed a lot of the differences in male and female capability in spatial types of math - and in figuring out which way is North . . .

I once read an article that examined the difference between males and females to follow directions to a destination. It said to never tell a female to go North on a certain road or turn West, etc. Apparently many females do not know cardinal directions when outside.

[Huber]

Ping!

[Shawndell Green]

"So Spearman’s basic conjecture was correct—the size of the black-white difference and g-loadings are correlated—and g represents a biologically grounded and highly heritable cognitive resource. When those two observations are put together, a number of characteristics of the black-white difference become predictable, correspond with phenomena we have observed in data, and give us reason to think that not much will change in the years to come."

The money quote.

Liberals will be playing the blame game for the foreseeable future.

[Shawndell Green]

"So Spearman’s basic conjecture was correct—the size of the black-white difference and g-loadings are correlated—and g represents a biologically grounded and highly heritable cognitive resource. When those two observations are put together, a number of characteristics of the black-white difference become predictable, correspond with phenomena we have observed in data, and give us reason to think that not much will change in the years to come."

The money quote.

Liberals will be playing the blame game for the foreseeable future.

[dennisw]

Great story!