Overview

Straightening the Bell Curve offers a new way of looking at the distressingly persistent subject of intelligence research as it relates to race and gender. Constance Hilliard's premise—that researchers preoccupied with proving racial hierarchies often sacrifice scientific truth to masculine insecurities—rests on her examination of works of historical and contemporary figures in the field of racial research. Based on this thesis, Straightening the Bell Curve explores the emotional fixations concealed behind the presumably rational ones that propel otherwise clearheaded researchers to ignore elemental flaws in their conceptions as they set out to prove the cognitive inferiority of African Americans.The tendency to justify racial and cultural stereotypes on the grounds that they reflect underlying biological differences has a long and controversial history in America. As far back as the eighteenth century, new areas of scientific research employed craniology and craniometry in an attempt to ""document"" black inferiority. This scholarly preoccupation with measuring skull sizes emerged concomitant with two important developments: the solidifying of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the deep-seated fear among Europeans that Africans possessed larger sexual organs than they. Thus, craniologists came to the rescue of their anxious male patrons, insisting that the price Africa's ""oversexed savages"" paid for being well endowed was cognitive underdevelopment, confirmed through bogus skull measurement experiments.Constance Hilliard's compelling argument aims to change forever the way American society sees research purporting to identify racial differences in cognition and will alter irrevocably the way we view individuals who insist on believing such pseudo-scientific conclusions. This book detonates a debate that will weaken the last barriers standing between America's fractured racial past and its future promise.

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9781612341910

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Reviews

[A] short but important book...

[A] short but important book... Choice , December 2012

Straightening the Bell Curve is far more than a critique of pseudoscientific claims regarding intelligence and race. It is an intriguing examination of the centuries-old obsession with 'racial' intelligence by a small subset of the scientific community. Hilliard deftly turns the lens from the claims themselves, which have been thoroughly discredited by the vast majority of the scientific community who debunk 'race' as a major human variable, and instead analyzes the mindset of those who still embrace such claims in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In doing so, she provides a fascinating account of why race still matters to men considered some of the best minds of the contemporary age and how such theories are employed in the service of specific social and political agendas. --Dr. Quintard Taylor, professor of American history, University of Washington; author of In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 --Dr. Quintard Taylor

<i>Straightening the Bell Curve</i> is far more than a critique of pseudoscientific claims regarding intelligence and race. It is an intriguing examination of the centuries-old obsession with racial intelligence by a small subset of the scientific community. Hilliard deftly turns the lens from the claims themselves, which have been thoroughly discredited by the vast majority of the scientific community who debunk race as a major human variable, and instead analyzes the mindset of those who still embrace such claims in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In doing so, she provides a fascinating account of why race still matters to men considered some of the best minds of the contemporary age and how such theories are employed in the service of specific social and political agendas. Dr. Quintard Taylor, professor of American history, University of Washington; author of <i>In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528 1990</i>--Dr. Quintard Taylor

-Straightening the Bell Curve is far more than a critique of pseudoscientific claims regarding intelligence and race. It is an intriguing examination of the centuries-old obsession with 'racial' intelligence by a small subset of the scientific community. Hilliard deftly turns the lens from the claims themselves, which have been thoroughly discredited by the vast majority of the scientific community who debunk 'race' as a major human variable, and instead analyzes the mindset of those who still embrace such claims in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In doing so, she provides a fascinating account of why race still matters to men considered some of the best minds of the contemporary age and how such theories are employed in the service of specific social and political agendas.---Dr. Quintard Taylor, professor of American history, University of Washington; author of In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990--Dr. Quintard Taylor

Author Information

CONSTANCE HILLIARD is an associate professor of history at the University of North Texas, specializing in the history of race science in addition to teaching courses on the Middle East and Africa. She lives with her husband and son outside of Dallas, Texas.

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