question:  How long did it take for damaging criticism of the book to come out?
context: Virtually all ambitious trade hardcover books are preceded by an edition of 100 to 200 flimsy "galley proofs." There is an ethos of letting the chips fall where they may about the sending out of galleys: Now the book will begin to receive uncontrolled reaction. The effect was, first, to increase the allure of the book (There must be something really hot in there!), and second, to ensure that no one inclined to be skeptical would be able to weigh in at the moment of publication. The people who had galley proofs were handpicked by Murray and his publisher. Another handpicked group was flown to Washington at the expense of the American Enterprise Institute and given a weekend-long personal briefing on the book's contents by Murray himself (Herrnstein had died very recently), just before publication. The result was what you'd expect: The first wave of publicity was either credulous or angry, but short on evidence, because nobody had had time to digest and evaluate the book carefully. It is gotten up as a work of original scholarly research. Most works containing fresh regression analysis and historical argument from primary sources would be published in academic quarterlies that send manuscripts out for elaborate, lengthy evaluation before deciding whether to publish them. Herrnstein and Murray didn't do this, so it wasn't until a full year or more after The Bell Curve was published that the leading experts on its subject had a chance to go through the underlying data with care. The debate on publication day was conducted in the mass media by people with no independent ability to assess the book. Over the next few months, intellectuals took some pretty good shots at it in smaller publications like the New Republic and the New York Review of Books . It wasn't until late 1995 that the most damaging criticism of The Bell Curve began to appear, in tiny academic journals. During the second half of the 20 th century, this quality has risen to supreme importance, because society has become increasingly complex.
output:  A full year
options:  There has never been criticism leveled at the book.  Five years  Six months  A full year