Kyle Belanger PSY-100 30 September 2012 Paper #2 The Bell Curve The web link takes a look at the

book, The Bell Curve which was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. The article is divided into five parts; all of which are short synapses of the major points and arguments made by the authors of The Bell Curve. The point that Herrnstein and Murray tried to convey to the reader is that race, gender, fiscal resource, etc. are the largest reasons as to why someone can have a high or low IQ. At first glance these would not seem like coherent factors to one another, but the authors assert that a lower IQ can have social implications on society, i.e. low birth rates from women with high IQs and high birth rates from women with low IQs, the average IQ of immigrants has been on the decline, and society is focusing on the average to low average IQs so much so that the cognitive can get by and not reach their full potential. The major criticisms of the book were not the topic the authors chose to write about, that is actually one of the best supported pieces of the book, but the way the authors handled the

information they collected. The book supports claims such as Social Darwinism (traits being passed down genetically), race can dictate whether someone will be intellectually high or low, and the general factor can be easily measure by standardized scores and IQ tests. After reading the article, my mindset on how an individuals mind matures is still based on the belief of us being a product of the environment in which we live in. Nature has always been the mother of any species on Earth, and as humans we are just another student of nature. One of the biggest variables though is technology and how much that impacts us nowadays as a society because of how simple it makes our lives. SATs and other standardized tests do not really mean much to me because of how they test education and are not a true measure of anyones intelligence, although it can be to some people. I have never been exposed to an IQ test, nor have I ever done any research in what a score from one can mean. I really believe that we take in the most knowledge through nature and how natural instinct is the greatest tool mankind has. Yes, education is an important factor in developing a childs and teenagers mind to reach a higher level of learning, but to me race means little when it comes to that and genetics as well. Race is really a title given to someone based on their phenotype

more than anything else associated with them, and there will always be the believers of genetics having an impact on the mind which can possibly be true because from the disorders and diseases associated with it, but the environment and the nurture that we receive will trump genetics and race any day in my mind when it comes to intellect and the cognitive elite because no species will last forever on Earth and like Darwin said, survival of the fittest. For the short time we have been on Earth, humans are coming to the exponential peak of how many humans the Earth can support, and soon the only way to survive will be natural and that is where the real intellect will come in handy, after all we are just a bunch of animals.