Investigates three types of bad science: (1) cultural prejudice based on scientific errors (polygenism, phrenology, reification through intelligence testing); (2) unethical science (Tuskegee syphilis experiments, tobacco companies and research); and (3) unwitting errors (pesticides, chlorofluorocarbons). (Contains 50 references.) (SK)

This paper focuses on the use of the variable race in educational research. Researchers are clearly considered to have the right to choose their variables. But, the use of race in a nonscholarly fashion is held to be professionally inadequate and often detrimental to black Americans. For years, researchers using race to make comparison s between…

Criticizes and examines the motives behind Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve." Murray's book claimed that many social problems, including crime and poverty among blacks, could be explained by African Americans' lack of intelligence as evidenced by testing. Reveals the book's skewed methodology as well as its interest-guided financial…