Bell Curve

764 Notes to Pages 50 1-5 12 Notes to pages 5 1 2-525 765appropriate to assume that there is no good reason for it. This is bad logic.Not knowing a good reason for a difference is not the same as knowing thatthere is no good reason.38. We understand the argument that, in the long term, and taking the broadestpossible view, if all businesses were to behave in "socially responsihle"ways, there would result a better society that would provide a healthy climatefor the businesses themselves. Our argument is somewhat more direct:Can a university president, thinking realistically about the foreseeable filture,see that his university will be better qua university by admitting somestudents who are academically less qualified than their competitors? Generally,yes. Can theowner ofa business, thinking realistically ahout the foreseeablefuture, see that his business will be better qua business hy hiringpeople who are less productive than their competitors? Generally, no.39. D. Pitt, "Despite revisions, few blacks passed police sergeant test," NewYork Times, January 13, 1989, p. 1.40. See Taylor 1992, pp. 129-137, for an account of some of the more egregiousexamples.41. The largest difference, 1.6 SDs, was for persons with advanced dek~ees. ForLatinos, the gap with whites ranged from .6 to 1 .O SDs.42. Other approaches for contending with affirmative action constraints havesurfaced. For example, New York's Sanitation Department used a test onwhich 23,078 applicants out of 24,000 got perfect scores, and its Fire L)epartmentused a test with multiple choice questions for which a point ofcredit was given if the first choice is correct, a half-point if the secondchoice is correct, or a quarter-point if the third choice is correct, therebyinflating the grades for people who get lots of items wrong (Taylor 1992).43. Hartigan and Wigdor 1989; Hunter and Hunter 1984.44. For an account, see Hartigan and Wigdor 1989.45. E. F. Wonderlic & Associates, 1983, Table 18, p. 25. The scores of Asiansare lower than the national mean (in contrast to results of IQ studies) prohablyhecause the Wonderlic, a pencil-and-paper test, is language sensitiveand is widely used for lower-level jobs. It seems likely that suhstantial proportionsof Asians who take the Wonderlic are recent immigrants for whomEnglish is a second and often newly acquired language.46. Summarized in Lynch 1991. See also Detlefsen 1991.Chapter 211. Kaus 1992. Kaus's analysis runs parallel with our own in many respectsamongother things, in his use of the Hermstein syllogism (Herrnstein1971, 1973) to think about the stratifying influence of intelligence.2. The remark appeared in the manuscript of The End of Equality. It is usedhere with permission of the author.3. Quoted in Novak 1992, p. 24.4. Surveys by the Roper Organization (Roper Reports 92-5), as reported inAmerican Enterprise (May-June 1993): 86.5. U.S. Bureau of the Census 1992, Table B-6, 1975.6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1991, Table R.3. All data are based on pretaxincome, so the tax reforms of the 1980s are not implicated.7. Reich 1991.8. Voting estimated from Jennings 1991, Tables 7, 10, 13.9. Overall, 19.2 percent of children born to NLSY women from themid-1970s through 1990 were horn to unmarried mothers with belowaverageIQs. The national illegitimacy ratio grew steadily throughout thatperiod.10. "White" includes births to Caucasian Latinos. The National Center forHealth Statistics has provided Latinolnon-Latino breakdowns only since1986. During that period, the non-Latino white illegitimacy ratio increasedfrom 13.2 percent to 18.0 percent in 1991, the latest figures as wewrite.11. Data refer to poverty in the year prior to birth, and to non-Latino andLatino whites comhined, to be consistent with the use of "white" in thisdiscussion. The proportions for nun-Latino white women above and belowthe poverty line were quite similar, however: 6 percent and 44 percentrespectively.12. Unpublished detailed tables for Bachu 1993, available from the Rureau ofthe Census.1 3. These continue to be figures for Latino and non-latino whites comhined.The figures for non-Latino whites may be found in Chapter 8. They arenot so different (because non-Latino whites so dominate the total).Seventy-two percent of illegitimate children of non-Latino white mothersin the NLSY had IQs below 100, and 39 percent had 1Qs helow 90.14. Wilson 1987. For a complementary view, see Massey and Denton 1993.15. In the NLSY, blacks from the lowest quartile ofsocioeconomic backgroundhad a mean IQ equivalent of 82.16. For an early statement of this argument, see Murray 1988a.17. Jencks and Peterson 1991.18. Chapter 16 discussed some of these efforts with regard to intelligence. Forhroader-ranging assessments, see Murray 1984; Stromsdorfer 1987; Rossi1987; Glazer 1988.