Cracks in the bell curve

Public anthropology addresses important topics beyond the academia realm, applying an anthropological lens to real world circumstances.  Mark’s “Anthropology and The Bell Curve” is a piece of writing that showcases the application of anthropological view refuting the “scientific research” that was published as “The Bell Curve”.  The “Bell Curve” publication attempted to establish the knowledge of human’s IQ as genetic and shift the current social order.

Mark analyzes R. Herrnstein and C. Murray’s publication that took IQ scores of all individuals and formed a central argument that intelligence was something that was passed biologically and could be measured.  The two scientists determined that some groups of people have more intelligence than others, and a person’s social and economic statuses are correlated to their IQ score.  Thus, insinuating that a person from a wealthy, well-off family will score higher on the IQ test than say someone near the poverty line.  Their argument continues by stating that the differences between status and income are a result of the innate intellectual abilities of one group versus another.  The further implication of this statement is that the level of IQ was inherited and thus perpetuated the “natural hierarchy” of beings (a product of Social Darwinism).   Herrnstein and Murray concluded their argument by saying that social/welfare programs are useless and should be disbanded because a lower classes’ low IQ is genetic and cannot be prevented or changed. 

The two significant points that Marks criticizes The Bell Curve for is one, the use of using a written intelligence test on foreigners, especially non-Westerners.  Any test that questions how a person approaches questions involving “streets smart” will be culturally biased and accept answers that reflect that country’s view of “higher” intelligence.  The second important point is that “heritability is not a measure of the innateness of a trait.”  Heretability is understood to be the link between genetics and a trait (in this case IQ).  But the authors of “The Bell Curve” fail to acknowledge social influences and expectations that affect the results of an individual’s score.  Marks uses examples to demonstrate that the cultural context can have a significant impact on an individual’s score.  In Japan, Koreans are discriminated against and score poorly on the test, yet in America both Koreans and Japanese place in the “elite” for the IQ exam.  But most of important, Mark explicitly states that there is no possible way to measure cognitive ability.  An exam cannot fully measure the intelligence of a person, and whether levels of intelligence are an inherited trait.

“The Bell Curve” had a deliberate and clear political agenda that was refuted by many scholars, especially those in anthropology.  The research called into question what constituted as science because Herrnstein and Murray were attempting to establish an innate or natural order among people that was arbitrary and does not exist.   Mark does an excellent job for public anthropology by pointing out the many faults of “The Bell Curve”, disproving a popular research that had the ability to significantly alter our world.