Charles Murray’s the Bell Curve About Race and IQ Has Bad Policy Ideas
Matthew Yglesias, vox.com: Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve about Race and IQ has bad policy ideas
Though he tends to back away from it under pressure, Murray is admirably clear in the conclusion to The Bell Curve and elsewhere about why he thinks it’s important to discuss IQ and heredity — he believes that focusing on this issue will build political support for restricting immigration from poor countries and reducing economic assistance to poor families. As a bonus, he hopes that throwing in specific hypotheses about group differences will build political support for eliminating race-conscious policymaking and curbing efforts to address race-specific disadvantage. The truth, however, is that these are not underrated policy ideas that are in need of amplification in the public arena.
They are, rather, terrible policy ideas that currently exert more influence over policymaking than they deserve and ought to be rebutted.