{"id":21175,"date":"2026-01-20T02:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=21175"},"modified":"2026-01-20T02:04:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:04:51","slug":"bad-science-revisited-the-bell-curve-turns-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=21175","title":{"rendered":"Bad Science Revisited: \u201cThe Bell Curve\u201d Turns 30"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;we concluded that Herrnstein and Murray produced no valid evidence that genes influence&nbsp;<em>within-group<\/em>&nbsp;IQ score differences. The key evidence they cited consisted of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/freeassociations.org.uk\/FA_New\/OJS\/index.php\/fa\/article\/view\/458\/719\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">twins reared apart<\/a>\u201d studies and, to a lesser extent, family correlations, reared-together twin studies, and adoption studies. Aided by concepts developed in science\u2019s ongoing \u201creplication crisis,\u201d we argued that the genetic findings reported in these studies do not hold up under critical examination due to environmental confounding, a reliance on uncertain or false assumptions and concepts, the use of questionable research practices (<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/0956797611430953\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">QRPs<\/a>), and other problem areas. In the language of psychometrics and behavioral genetics, we argued that Herrnstein and Murray presented no valid evidence in support of above-zero IQ heritability. This conclusion, of course, automatically invalidates claims about genetic group differences.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-mad-in-america wp-block-embed-mad-in-america\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"TkAE7KJIhd\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.madinamerica.com\/2024\/03\/bad-science-bell-curve\/\">Bad Science Revisited: &#8220;The Bell Curve&#8221; Turns 30<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Bad Science Revisited: &#8220;The Bell Curve&#8221; Turns 30&#8221; &#8212; Mad In America\" src=\"https:\/\/www.madinamerica.com\/2024\/03\/bad-science-bell-curve\/embed\/#?secret=Wd337AZETJ#?secret=TkAE7KJIhd\" data-secret=\"TkAE7KJIhd\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;we concluded that Herrnstein and Murray produced no valid evidence that genes influence within-group IQ score differences. The key evidence they cited consisted of \u201ctwins reared apart\u201d studies and, to a lesser extent, family correlations, reared-together twin studies, and adoption studies. Aided by concepts developed in science\u2019s ongoing \u201creplication crisis,\u201d we argued that the genetic findings reported in these studies do not hold up under critical examination due to environmental confounding, a reliance on uncertain or false assumptions and concepts, the use of questionable research practices (QRPs), and other problem areas. In the language of psychometrics and behavioral genetics, we argued that Herrnstein and Murray presented no valid evidence in support of above-zero IQ heritability. This conclusion, of course, automatically invalidates claims about genetic group differences.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.madinamerica.com\/2024\/03\/bad-science-bell-curve\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1503,460,1644,323,1330,642,811,300],"class_list":["post-21175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-evidence","tag-intelligence","tag-iq","tag-misleading","tag-psychology","tag-race","tag-science","tag-statistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21176,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175\/revisions\/21176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}