When Michael Feuer Attacks!
NRC’s Michael Feuer takes a look at Charles Murray’s recent book:
One wonders what motivates someone supposedly trained as a social scientist to so willfully ignore large quantities of evidence and to declare categorically that the dream of uplifting children from impoverished intellectual and economic environments is just a lot of romantic nonsense. I leave that question to psychologists better equipped to address it. Meanwhile, I expect that Murray’s book will spur debate and cause people to focus on real research, for which I suppose we should be grateful. It’s the minimum we should demand for enduring Murray’s mean-spirited rhetoric and faulty science.
Don’t worry, he also tells you what he really thinks about the book…
Update: Mike Petrilli is easily convinced…
March 24th, 2009 at 9:04 am
It’s hard to know where to start on Murray’s book. He clearly didn’t look at any research, even the work that might support his claims. But, hey, this kind of shocking writing will certainly make him money when people buy the book.
Yeah, half the kids are below average. Because statisticians decide what average is using normally distributed results of IQ tests. You can’t move what is average using norm-referenced IQ tests that don’t move the average score. Besides, IQ is not static, it changes throughout one’s life and as one’s circumstances change.
A few years ago a prisoner labeled mentally challenged discovered his IQ had risen to near average while in prison, largely people speculated from his study of law books as he prepared reports to try to get himself out of prison.
Go Michael Feuer
March 24th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Sara wrote about Murray’s book back in January: http://eduoptimists.blogspot.com/2009/01/ensuring-real-education.html
Also worth reading…
March 25th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Hey give the guy a break! Maybe he is speaking from his fustration. Remember those who can’t write about it! My mom always told me don’t argue with a rock the rock will win.