REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION 35either the genetic or environmental explanations have won out to the exclu-
sion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting
one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the
environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the
mix be?"
Don't you get it yet, Mr. Murray? I did not state that you attribute
all difference to genetics—no person with an iota of knowledge
would say such a foolish thing. My quoted line does not so charge
you; my sentence states accurately that you advocate "permanent
and heritable differences"—not that you attribute all disparity to
genetics. Your own defense shows that you don't grasp the major
point. Your statement still portrays the issue as a battle of two sides,
with exclusive victory potentially available to one. No one believes
such a thing; everyone accepts interaction. You then portray your-
self as a brave apostle of modernity and scholarly caution for pro-
claiming it "highly likely... that both genes and the environment
have something to do with racial differences." You have only stated
a truism entirely outside the real issue. When you make the proper
distinction between heritability and flexibility of behavioral expres-
sion, then we might have a real debate beyond the rhetoric of
phrasing.
I shall not pursue my critique of The Bell Curve here, for I present
this effort in the first two essays of the concluding section. I only
wish to state that I decided to produce this revised version of The
Mismeasure of Man as a response to this latest cyclic episode of biode-
terminism. It might seem odd that a book written fifteen years ago
could serve as a rebuttal to a manifesto issued in 1994—more than
odd, in fact, since our basic notions of causality may be thereby
inverted! And yet, as I reread The Mismeasure of Man, and made so
few changes beyond correcting typographical errors and excising
the few references entirely topical to 1981, 1 realized that my fifteen
year old book is written as a rebuttal to The Bell Curve. (Lest this
statement seem absurdly anachronistic, I hasten to point out that
Herrnstein's 1971 Atlantic Monthly article, a point by point epitome
of The Bell Curve, did form an important part of the context for The
Mismeasure of Man.) But my claim is not absurdly anachronistic for
another more important reason. The Bell Curve presents nothing
new. This eight hundred page manifesto is little more than a long
brief for the hard-line version of Spearman's g—the theory of intel-