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140-437: The book has been, and remains, highly controversial, especially where the authors discussed purported connections between race and intelligence and suggested policy implications based on these purported connections. The authors claimed that average intelligence quotient (IQ) differences between racial and ethnic groups are at least partly genetic in origin, a view that is now considered discredited by mainstream science. Many of

280-449: A 12 to 18 point gain in IQ relative to children who remain in low SES homes. A 2015 study found that environmental factors (namely, family income, maternal education, maternal verbal ability/knowledge, learning materials in the home, parenting factors, child birth order, and child birth weight) accounted for the black–white gap in cognitive ability test scores. A number of studies have reached

420-535: A 1995 interview with Frank Miele of Skeptic , Murray denied making each of these four assumptions. The Nobel Memorial Prize -winning economist James Heckman considers two assumptions made in the book to be questionable: that g accounts for correlation across test scores and performance in society, and that g cannot be manipulated. Heckman's reanalysis of the evidence used in The Bell Curve found contradictions: In response, Murray argued that this

560-550: A 2.39% increase from 2020. Additionally, researchers found that the White fertility rate increased from 1.551 in 2020 to 1.598 in 2021, the first substantial rise since 2014. Although the exact reason of why the number of births rose in 2021 is unknown, a study showed that the uptick in births came among college-educated women and native-born Americans. Despite the increase, it is still below the replacement level of 2.100. According to an analysis released in 2023 by William H. Frey ,

700-465: A 2012 study of tests of different components of intelligence, Hampshire et al. expressed disagreement with the view of Jensen and Rushton that genetic factors must play a role in IQ differences between races, stating that "it remains unclear ... whether population differences in intelligence test scores are driven by heritable factors or by other correlated demographic variables such as socioeconomic status, education level, and motivation. More relevantly, it

840-479: A better predictor of life outcomes than social class background. Similarly, after statistically controlling for differences in IQ, they argued that many outcome differences between racial-ethnic groups disappeared. Values are the percentage of each IQ sub-population, among non-Hispanic whites only, fitting each descriptor. This part of the book discusses ethnic differences in cognitive ability and social behavior. Herrnstein and Murray report that Asian Americans have

980-518: A cognitive elite is being formed in America. They argue that this elite is getting richer and progressively more segregated from the rest of society. The second part describes how cognitive ability is related to social behaviors: high ability predicts socially desirable behavior, low ability undesirable behavior. The argument is made that group differences in social outcomes are better explained by intelligence differences rather than socioeconomic status,

1120-492: A combination of traditional European ones. Today, the majority of White Americans are Protestants , although there are also large groups of Catholics and Jews throughout the population. Many Europeans often Anglicized their names and over time most Europeans adopted English as their primary language and intermarried with other white groups. Non-Hispanic Whites are the largest racial and ethnic group in America , being

1260-462: A critical overview of affirmative action policies in colleges and workplaces, arguing that their goal should be equality of opportunity rather than equal outcomes. Herrnstein and Murray offer a pessimistic portrait of America's future. They predict that a cognitive elite will further isolate itself from the rest of society, while the quality of life deteriorates for those at the bottom of the cognitive scale. As an antidote to this prognosis, they offer

1400-437: A decline , on average, of 12 IQ points. Such impairments may sometimes be permanent, but in some cases they be partially or wholly compensated for by later growth. The first two years of life are critical for malnutrition, the consequences of which are often irreversible and include poor cognitive development, educability, and future economic productivity. Mackintosh points out that, for American black people, infant mortality

1540-424: A genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups. Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, explain the racial IQ gap. Geneticist Alan R. Templeton argued that the question about the possible genetic effects on the test score gap is muddled by the general focus on "race" rather than on populations defined by gene frequency or by geographical proximity, and by

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1680-476: A group of African Americans in this type of tasks before taking an IQ test. The researchers found that there was no subsequent difference in performance between the African-Americans and white test takers. Daley and Onwuegbuzie conclude that Fagan and Holland demonstrate that "differences in knowledge between black people and white people for intelligence test items can be erased when equal opportunity

1820-479: A group with which one identifies or by which one is defined; this fear may in turn lead to an impairment of performance. Testing situations that highlight the fact that intelligence is being measured tend to lower the scores of individuals from racial-ethnic groups who already score lower on average or are expected to score lower. Stereotype threat conditions cause larger than expected IQ differences among groups. Psychometrician Nicholas Mackintosh considers that there

1960-432: A higher mean IQ than white Americans, who in turn outscore black Americans. The book argues that the black-white gap is not due to test bias, noting that IQ tests do not tend to underpredict the school or job performance of black individuals and that the gap is larger on apparently culturally neutral test items than on more culturally loaded items. The authors also note that adjusting for socioeconomic status does not eliminate

2100-638: A minority. Also, because this does not apply to Latino origin (one is either Latino or not, but cannot be both Latino and non-Latino), the offspring of Latinos and non-Latinos are usually counted as Latino. In 2017, the Pew Research Center reported that high intermarriage rates and declining Latin American immigration has led to 11% of US adults with Latino ancestry (5.0 million people) to no longer identify as Latino. First-generation immigrants from Latin America identify themselves as "Latino" at

2240-572: A perspective, the authors argue, that has been neglected in research. The analyses reported in this part of the book were done using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth (NLSY), a study conducted by the United States Department of Labor 's Bureau of Labor Statistics tracking thousands of Americans starting in the 1980s. Only non-Hispanic whites are included in

2380-577: A powerful eugenics and segregation lobby funded largely by textile-magnate Wickliffe Draper continued to use intelligence studies as an argument for eugenics, segregation, and anti-immigration legislation. As the desegregation of the American South gained traction in the 1950s, debate about black intelligence resurfaced. Audrey Shuey , funded by Draper's Pioneer Fund , published a new analysis of Yerkes' tests, concluding that black people really were of inferior intellect to white people. This study

2520-410: A result Murray's work is methodologically flawed. Claude S. Fischer , Michael Hout , Martín Sánchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler , and Kim Voss in the book Inequality by Design recalculated the effect of socioeconomic status, using the same variables as The Bell Curve , but weighting them differently. They found that if IQ scores are adjusted, as Herrnstein and Murray did, to eliminate

2660-504: A scholarly text. Nicholas Lemann noted that the book was not circulated in galley proofs , a common practice to allow potential reviewers and media professionals an opportunity to prepare for the book's arrival. An opinion statement endorsing a number of the views presented in The Bell Curve called " Mainstream Science on Intelligence " was published in The Wall Street Journal in 1994 and subsequently reprinted in

2800-480: A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, only 47 percent of American children are non-Hispanic white. In 2014, the religious majority among Whites were Christians at 70%, more specifically, Protestants at 48%. However, there are also large groups of Catholics and Jews. Furthermore, 34% of White Americans go to religious services weekly, and an additional 32% go to religious services once or twice

2940-419: A slightly higher IQ than the grandparents of today's average white American." Flynn himself argued that the dramatic changes having taken place between one just generation and the next pointed strongly at an environmental explanation, and that it is highly unlikely that genetic factors could have accounted for the increasing scores. The Flynn effect, along with Flynn's analysis, continues to hold significance in

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3080-541: A special task force chaired by Ulric Neisser to publish an investigative report focusing solely on the research presented in the book, not the policy recommendations that it made. The report, " Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns ", was first released in 1995 and published in American Psychologist in 1996. Regarding explanations for racial differences, the APA task force stated: The cause of that differential

3220-445: A study by Tang et al. (2005) . Sternberg and Grigorenko disputed Hunt and Carlson's interpretation of Tang's results as supporting the view that racial divisions are biological; rather, "Tang et al.'s point was that ancient geographic ancestry rather than current residence is associated with self-identification and not that such self-identification provides evidence for the existence of biological race." The study of human intelligence

3360-492: A very high rate (97%), which slowly falls in each succeeding generation (in the second generation, to 92%; in the third, to 77%; and in the fourth, to 50%). 4. Attrition . Minority populations are younger than non-Latino Whites. The national median age in 2011 was 37.3 years, with non-Latino Whites having the oldest median age (42.3); by contrast, Latinos had the youngest median age (27.6). Non-Latino Blacks (32.9) and non-Latino Asians (35.9) also are younger than whites. In 2013,

3500-476: A vision of society where differences in ability are recognized and everybody can have a valued place, stressing the role of local communities and clear moral rules that apply to everybody. Herrnstein and Murray argued the average genetic IQ of the United States is declining, owing to the tendency of the more intelligent having fewer children than the less intelligent, the generation length to be shorter for

3640-447: Is a natural taxonomy of the human species, because multiple other genetic patterns can be found in human populations that crosscut racial distinctions. Moreover, the genomic data underdetermines whether one wishes to see subdivisions (i.e., splitters) or a continuum (i.e., lumpers) . Under Kaplan and Winther's view, racial groupings are objective social constructions (see Mills 1998 ) that have conventional biological reality only insofar as

3780-550: Is about twice as high as for white people, and low birth weight is twice as prevalent. At the same time, white mothers are twice as likely to breastfeed their infants, and breastfeeding is directly correlated with IQ for low-birth-weight infants. In this way, a wide number of health-related factors which influence IQ are unequally distributed between the two groups. The Copenhagen consensus in 2004 stated that lack of both iodine and iron has been implicated in impaired brain development, and this can affect enormous numbers of people: it

3920-525: Is also notable. The classification is also typically used to refer to an English -speaking American, in distinction to Spanish speakers . In some parts of the country, the term Anglo-American is used to refer to non-Hispanic white English speakers as distinct from Spanish (and Portuguese or Italian) speakers, although the term is more frequently used to refer to people of perceived British or English descent. The first Europeans who came to present United States or Canada were Norse explorers around

4060-444: Is due to racial differences in test motivation. Some researchers have suggested that stereotype threat should not be interpreted as a factor in real-life performance gaps, and have raised the possibility of publication bias . Other critics have focused on correcting what they claim are misconceptions of early studies showing a large effect. However, numerous meta-analyses and systematic reviews have shown significant evidence for

4200-489: Is estimated that one-third of the total global population is affected by iodine deficiency . In developing countries, it is estimated that 40% of children aged four and under have anaemia because of insufficient iron in their diets. Other scholars have found that simply the standard of nutrition has a significant effect on population intelligence, and that the Flynn effect may be caused by increasing nutrition standards across

4340-498: Is even less empirical support for a genetic interpretation. In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available. American Psychologist subsequently published eleven critical responses in January 1997. Stephen Jay Gould wrote that the "entire argument" of the authors of The Bell Curve rests on four unsupported, and mostly false, assumptions about intelligence: In

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4480-596: Is little doubt that the effects of stereotype threat contribute to the IQ gap between black people and white people. A large number of studies have shown that systemically disadvantaged minorities, such as the African American minority of the United States, generally perform worse in the educational system and in intelligence tests than the majority groups or less disadvantaged minorities such as immigrant or "voluntary" minorities. The explanation of these findings may be that children of caste-like minorities, due to

4620-497: Is necessary to preserve the mansions on the hills from the menace of the slums below." Moreover, they fear that increasing welfare will create a "custodial state" in "a high-tech and more lavish version of the Indian reservation for some substantial minority of the nation's population." They also predict increasing totalitarianism : "It is difficult to imagine the United States preserving its heritage of individualism, equal rights before

4760-444: Is no genetic material shared by all Africans or by all Europeans. Mackintosh (2011) , on the other hand, argued that by using genetic cluster analysis to correlate gene frequencies with continental populations it might be possible to show that African populations have a higher frequency of certain genetic variants that contribute to differences in average intelligence. Such a hypothetical situation could hold without all Africans carrying

4900-507: Is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves. The Flynn effect shows that environmental factors can produce differences of at least this magnitude, but that effect is mysterious in its own right. Several culturally based explanations of the Black/White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported. There

5040-525: Is one of the most controversial topics in psychology, in part because of difficulty reaching agreement about the meaning of intelligence and objections to the assumption that intelligence can be meaningfully measured by IQ tests. Claims that there are innate differences in intelligence between racial and ethnic groups—which go back at least to the 19th century—have been criticized for relying on specious assumptions and research methods and for serving as an ideological framework for discrimination and racism. In

5180-421: Is one such trait that is heritable but not genetically determined. Finally, Block contends that utilizing twin studies to randomize the environment automatically fail: Black twins will always bring a part of their environment with them as they are both Black and will be treated as such. Canadian psychologist Sidney Segalowitz concurs with Block that twin studies fail to draw conclusions about heritability, and as

5320-427: Is provided for exposure to the information to be tested". A similar argument is made by David Marks who argues that IQ differences correlate well with differences in literacy suggesting that developing literacy skills through education causes an increase in IQ test performance. A 2003 study found that two variables— stereotype threat and the degree of educational attainment of children's fathers—partially explained

5460-453: Is questionable whether [population differences in intelligence test scores] relate to a unitary intelligence factor, as opposed to a bias in testing paradigms toward particular components of a more complex intelligence construct." According to Jackson and Weidman, There are a number of reasons why the genetic argument for race differences in intelligence has not won many adherents in the scientific community. First, even taken on its own terms,

5600-447: Is reinforced by Nicholas Mackintosh in his 1998 book IQ and Human Intelligence , and by a 1999 literature review by Brown, Reynolds & Whitaker (1999) . James R. Flynn, surveying studies on the topic, notes that the weight and presence of many test questions depends on what sorts of information and modes of thinking are culturally valued. Stereotype threat is the fear that one's behavior will confirm an existing stereotype of

5740-439: Is supposed to be innate. Another proponent of this view is Arthur Jensen . This view, however, has been contradicted by a number of studies showing that education and changes in environment can significantly improve IQ test results. Other psychometricians have argued that, whether or not there is such a thing as a general intelligence factor, performance on tests relies crucially on knowledge acquired through prior exposure to

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5880-509: Is that race is a social construction based on folk ideologies that construct groups based on social disparities and superficial physical characteristics. A 2023 consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine stated: "In humans, race is a socially constructed designation, a misleading and harmful surrogate for population genetic differences, and has a long history of being incorrectly identified as

6020-497: Is the book's principal authority on the intellectual inferiority of blacks." The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Pioneer Fund as a hate group , citing the fund's history, its funding of race and intelligence research, and its connections with racist individuals. Other researchers have criticized the Pioneer Fund for promoting scientific racism , eugenics and white supremacy . The concept of intelligence and

6160-503: Is the leading determinant of status. The growth in college attendance, a more efficient recruitment of cognitive ability, and the sorting of cognitive ability by selective colleges are identified as important drivers of this evolution. Herrnstein and Murray propose that the cognitive elite has been produced by a more technological society which offers enough high skill jobs for those with a higher intelligence to fill. They also propose that by removing race , gender or class as criteria (via

6300-404: Is the preferred method for racial classification in studies of racial differences because classification based on genetic markers alone ignore the "cultural, behavioral, sociological, psychological, and epidemiological variables" that distinguish racial groups. Hunt and Carlson disagreed, writing that "Nevertheless, self-identification is a surprisingly reliable guide to genetic composition," citing

6440-416: The 1920s . Many of the newcomers were Catholics of Irish, Italian, and Polish descent which lead to a nativist backlash. Some Americans worried about the growing Catholic population and wanted to maintain the United States as an Anglo Saxon Protestant nation. Over the course of the 19th century, European mass emigration to the United States and high birthrates grew the white population. After

6580-480: The American Association of Physical Anthropologists (2019) declares that "Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters." Anthropologists such as C. Loring Brace ,

6720-513: The American Psychological Association states that intelligence can be difficult to compare across cultures, and notes that differing familiarity with test materials can produce substantial differences in test results; it also says that tests are accurate predictors of future achievement for black and white Americans, and are in that sense unbiased. The view that tests accurately predict future educational attainment

6860-533: The Netherlands , France , as well as Poland , Russia , Lithuania , Norway , Sweden , Finland , the Czech Republic , the countries that were a part of the former Ottoman Empire ( Turkey , Lebanon , and Syria ), Portugal , Serbia , Croatia , Hungary , Ukraine , Armenia , and Iran . Significant migration of Jews of European, North African, and Middle Eastern descent into the United States

7000-443: The U.S. population . The United States Census Bureau defines white to include European Americans , Middle Eastern Americans , and North African Americans . Americans of European ancestry are divided into various ethnic groups. More than half of the white population are German , Irish , English , Italian , French and Polish Americans. Many Americans are also the product of other European groups that migrated to parts of

7140-418: The majority of America's population at 58.4%. Although the percentage has been declining in the last few decades, from 89.5% in 1950 to 59.3% in 2022. According to generational data from the 2020 census, the racial diversity of each age group is increasing. White non-Hispanics make up 77% of the population over the age of 75, 67% of the population between the ages of 55 and 64, 55% of the population between

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7280-493: The validity of IQ testing as a metric for human intelligence is disputed. Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between groups, and that observed differences are environmental in origin. Pseudoscientific claims of inherent differences in intelligence between races have played a central role in the history of scientific racism . The first tests showing differences in IQ scores between different population groups in

7420-443: The 17th century (see History of the United States ). Population growth since the early 19th century to the end of the 20th century is attributed to sustained high birth rates alongside relatively low death rates among settlers and natives alike. Population growth has slowed in the 21st century. There has also been periodic massive immigration from European and West Asian countries, especially Germany , Ireland , Italy , Greece ,

7560-460: The 1960s, 20% in the 1970s, 11% in the 1980s, 14% in the 1990s, and 13% in the 2000s. In 2009, approximately 90% of all immigrants came from non-European countries. The United States does receive a small number of non-Latino White immigrants, mainly from countries such as Canada, Poland, Russia, and the UK. 2. Intermarriage . The United States is seeing an unprecedented increase in intermarriage between

7700-465: The 2000 Census, people were allowed to check more than one race in addition to choosing "Latino". There was strong opposition to this from some civil rights activists who feared that this would reduce the size of various racial minorities. The government responded by counting those who are white and of one minority race or ethnicity as minorities for the purposes of civil-rights monitoring and enforcement. Hence one could be 1/8th Black and still be counted as

7840-685: The American Revolution, white Americans settled the entire nation west of Appalachian Mountains, ultimately displacing the Natives and populating the entire country by the late 19th century. All immigration to the United States declined markedly between the mid-1920s until the 1960s due to a combination of immigration laws, the Great Depression , and World War II . Waves of Jewish, Syrian, and Lebanese immigration also occurred around this time. Since 1965 white migration to

7980-1088: The Army tests had not adequately controlled for environmental factors, such as socioeconomic and educational inequality between the groups . Later observations of phenomena such as the Flynn effect and disparities in access to prenatal care highlighted ways in which environmental factors affect group IQ differences. In recent decades, as understanding of human genetics has advanced, claims of inherent differences in intelligence between races have been broadly rejected by scientists on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Claims of differences in intelligence between races have been used to justify colonialism , slavery , racism , social Darwinism , and racial eugenics . Claims of intellectual inferiority were used to justify British wars and colonial campaigns in Asia. Racial thinkers such as Arthur de Gobineau in France relied crucially on

8120-528: The Census Bureau reported that for the first time, due to the more advanced age profile of the non-Latino White population, non-Latino Whites died at a faster rate than non-Latino White births. In 2011, for the first time in American history , Non-Hispanic Whites accounted for fewer than half of the births in the country, accounting for 49.6% of total births. This increased to 51.5% in 2021, regaining

8260-600: The Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, and Amhara having averages above 90% (N = 2,071). In 2017–2018, the percentage of pupils getting a strong pass (grade 5 or above) in the English and maths GCSE (in Key Stage 4 ) was 42.7% for whites (N = 396,680) and 44.3% for Black-Africans (N = 18,358). The ' Flynn effect ' — a term coined after researcher James R. Flynn — refers to the substantial rise in raw IQ test scores observed in many parts of

8400-519: The Nordic countries, and that black Americans were less intelligent than white Americans. The results were widely publicized by a lobby of anti-immigration activists, including the conservationist and theorist of scientific racism Madison Grant , who considered the so-called Nordic race to be superior, but under threat because of immigration by "inferior breeds." In his influential work, A Study of American Intelligence, psychologist Carl Brigham used

8540-763: The US in the 19th and 20th centuries, as the bulk of immigrants from various countries in Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as the Caucasus region, migrated to the United States. The Non-Hispanic White population was heavily derived from British , as well as French settlement of the Americas, in addition to settlement by other Europeans such as the Germans (see Pennsylvania Dutch ), Swiss , Belgians , Dutch , Austrians , and Swedes that began in

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8680-888: The US, among low SES groups, genetic differences account for a smaller proportion of the variance in IQ than among high SES populations. Such effects are predicted by the bioecological hypothesis—that genotypes are transformed into phenotypes through nonadditive synergistic effects of the environment. Nisbett et al. (2012a) suggest that high SES individuals are more likely to be able to develop their full biological potential, whereas low SES individuals are likely to be hindered in their development by adverse environmental conditions. The same review also points out that adoption studies generally are biased towards including only high and high middle SES adoptive families, meaning that they will tend to overestimate average genetic effects. They also note that studies of adoption from lower-class homes to middle-class homes have shown that such children experience

8820-659: The United States has been relatively minor compared to other racial and ethnic groups. During the 1990s there was a moderate increase from former communist countries of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union . At the same time birthrates amongst Whites have fallen below replacement level. In 1980, non-Hispanic whites made up about 80 percent of the U.S. population, but that number has declined sharply in recent years. White Americans have developed their own music, art, cuisine, fashion, and political economy largely based on

8960-554: The United States were the tests of United States Army recruits in World War I . In the 1920s, groups of eugenics lobbyists argued that these results demonstrated that African Americans and certain immigrant groups were of inferior intellect to Anglo-Saxon white people , and that this was due to innate biological differences. In turn, they used such beliefs to justify policies of racial segregation . However, other studies soon appeared, contesting these conclusions and arguing that

9100-550: The ages of 35 and 44, and just 50% of the population between the ages of 18 and 24. In actuality, Non-Hispanic whites have still been growing. Between 2000 and 2010, the Non-Hispanic White population grew from 194,552,774 to 196,817,552. This was a growth of 1.2% over the 10-year period, due to population momentum . The population continued to grow to 196,817,552 in 2010 to 197,639,521 in 2022. The reason for falling percentage of non-Latino/Hispanic white Americans in

9240-436: The aggregate data presented in the book. They also assert that intelligence is just one of many valuable human attributes and one whose importance among human virtues is overrated. In the first part of the book Herrnstein and Murray chart how American society was transformed in the 20th century. They argue that America evolved from a society where social origin largely determined one's social status to one where cognitive ability

9380-614: The analyses so as to demonstrate that the relationships between cognitive ability and social behavior are not driven by race or ethnicity. Herrnstein and Murray argue that intelligence is a better predictor of individuals' outcomes than parental socioeconomic status. This argument is based on analyses where individuals' IQ scores are shown to better predict their outcomes as adults than the socioeconomic status of their parents. Such results are reported for many outcomes, including poverty, dropping out of school, unemployment, marriage, divorce, illegitimacy, welfare dependency, criminal offending, and

9520-433: The assumption that black people were innately inferior to white people in developing their ideologies of white supremacy . Even Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson , a slave owner, believed black people to be innately inferior to white people in physique and intellect. At the same time in the United States, prominent examples of African-American genius such the autodidact and abolitionist Frederick Douglass ,

9660-613: The authors proposing genetic explanations for group differences have received funding from the Pioneer Fund , which was headed by J. Philippe Rushton until his death in 2012. Arthur Jensen, who jointly with Rushton published a 2005 review article arguing that the difference in average IQs between blacks and whites is partly due to genetics, received $ 1.1 million in grants from the Pioneer Fund. According to Ashley Montagu , "The University of California's Arthur Jensen, cited twenty-three times in The Bell Curve ' s bibliography,

9800-468: The black-white IQ gap. However, they argue that the gap is narrowing. According to Herrnstein and Murray, the high heritability of IQ within races does not necessarily mean that the cause of differences between races is genetic. On the other hand, they discuss lines of evidence that have been used to support the thesis that the black-white gap is at least partly genetic, such as Spearman's hypothesis . They also discuss possible environmental explanations of

9940-460: The black–white IQ gap by more than a third, and that differences in education are thus unlikely to be its only cause. A series of studies by Joseph Fagan and Cynthia Holland measured the effect of prior exposure to the kind of cognitive tasks posed in IQ tests on test performance. Assuming that the IQ gap was the result of lower exposure to tasks using the cognitive functions usually found in IQ tests among African American test takers, they prepared

10080-644: The black–white IQ gap can be explained by black–white disparities in low birth weight. Several studies have proposed that a large part of the gap in IQ test performance can be attributed to differences in quality of education. Racial discrimination in education has been proposed as one possible cause of differences in educational quality between races. According to a paper by Hala Elhoweris, Kagendo Mutua, Negmeldin Alsheikh and Pauline Holloway, teachers' referral decisions for students to participate in gifted and talented educational programs were influenced in part by

10220-468: The black–white IQ gap was decreasing among children, but that it was remaining constant among adults. Similarly, a 2006 study by Dickens and Flynn estimated that the difference between mean scores of black people and white people closed by about 5 or 6 IQ points between 1972 and 2002, a reduction of about one-third. In the same period, the educational achievement disparity also diminished. Reviews by Flynn and Dickens, Mackintosh, and Nisbett et al. accept

10360-552: The black–white gap in cognitive ability test scores, undermining the hereditarian view that they stemmed from immutable genetic factors. Different aspects of the socioeconomic environment in which children are raised have been shown to correlate with part of the IQ gap, but they do not account for the entire gap. According to a 2006 review, these factors account for slightly less than half of one standard deviation. Other research has focused on different causes of variation within low socioeconomic status (SES) and high SES groups. In

10500-465: The book was "full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors." Lemann said that "Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis." Many criticisms were collected in the book The Bell Curve Debate . Herrnstein and Murray did not submit their work to peer review before publication, an omission many have seen as incompatible with their presentation of it as

10640-533: The book, but added that "the book may have fared even worse had the discussion of race and genetics not distracted attention from some serious problems of analysis and logic in its main arguments. There are indeed some useful messages in the book. But there is also much wrong with it." After reviewers had more time to review the book's research and conclusions, more significant criticisms began to appear. Nicholas Lemann , writing in Slate , said that later reviews showed

10780-597: The case made by Jensen and his followers did not hold up to scrutiny. Second, the rise of population genetics undercut the claims for a genetic cause of intelligence. Third, the new understanding of institutional racism offered a better explanation for the existence of differences in IQ scores between the races. In the United States, Asians on average score higher than White people, who tend to score higher than Hispanics, who tend to score higher than African Americans. Much greater variation in IQ scores exists within each ethnic group than between them. A 2001 meta-analysis of

10920-439: The categories are chosen and constructed for pragmatic scientific reasons. Sternberg, Grigorenko & Kidd (2005) argue that the social construction of race derives not from any valid scientific basis but rather "from people's desire to classify." In studies of human intelligence, race is almost always determined using self-reports rather than analyses of genetic characteristics. According to psychologist David Rowe, self-report

11060-442: The clustering would be different. Weiss and Fullerton have noted that if one sampled only Icelanders, Mayans and Maoris, three distinct clusters would form and all other populations could be described as being clinally composed of admixtures of Maori, Icelandic and Mayan genetic materials. Kaplan and Winther conclude that while racial groups are characterized by different allele frequencies, this does not mean that racial classification

11200-444: The coastal regions developing a commercial economy. Between one-half and two-thirds of White immigrants to the American colonies between the 1630s and American Revolution had come as indentured servants . The total number of European immigrants to all 13 colonies before 1775 was about 500,000; of these 55,000 were involuntary prisoners. Of the 450,000 or so European arrivals who came voluntarily, an estimated 48% were indentured. By

11340-432: The conclusion that IQ tests may be biased against certain groups. The validity and reliability of IQ scores obtained from outside the United States and Europe have been questioned, in part because of the inherent difficulty of comparing IQ scores between cultures. Several researchers have argued that cultural differences limit the appropriateness of standard IQ tests in non-industrialized communities. A 1996 report by

11480-487: The context of the black/white IQ gap debate, demonstrating the potential for environmental factors to influence IQ test scores by as much as 1 standard deviation, a scale of change that had previously been doubted. A distinct but related observation has been the gradual narrowing of the American black-white IQ gap in the last decades of the 20th century, as black test-takers increased their average scores relative to white test-takers. For instance, Vincent reported in 1991 that

11620-431: The contribution of environment (such as speaking English as a second language) to test results. By the mid-1930s, many psychologists in the US had adopted the view that environmental and cultural factors played a dominant role in IQ test results. The psychologist Carl Brigham repudiated his own earlier arguments, explaining that he had come to realize that the tests were not a measure of innate intelligence. Discussions of

11760-495: The correlation between breastfeeding status and WISC IQ scores by nearly a third, but further find the relationship between breastfeeding duration and WISC IQ scores to be insignificant. They suggest that "much of the beneficial long-term effects typically attributed to breastfeeding, per se, may primarily be due to selection pressures into infant feeding practices along key demographic characteristics such as race and socioeconomic status." Reichman estimates that no more than 3 to 4% of

11900-422: The degree to which intelligence is measurable are matters of debate. There is no consensus about how to define intelligence; nor is it universally accepted that it is something that can be meaningfully measured by a single figure. A recurring criticism is that different societies value and promote different kinds of skills and that the concept of intelligence is therefore culturally variable and cannot be measured by

12040-577: The effect of education , the ability of IQ to predict poverty can become dramatically larger, by as much as 61 percent for whites and 74 percent for blacks. According to the authors, Herrnstein and Murray's finding that IQ predicts poverty much better than socioeconomic status is substantially a result of the way they handled the statistics. Race and intelligence Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically regarding claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since

12180-660: The effects of stereotype threat, though the phenomenon defies over-simplistic characterization. For instance, one meta-analysis found that with female subjects "subtle threat-activating cues produced the largest effect, followed by blatant and moderately explicit cues" while with minorities "moderately explicit stereotype threat-activating cues produced the largest effect, followed by blatant and subtle cues". Some researchers have argued that studies of stereotype threat may in fact systematically under-represent its effects, since such studies measure "only that portion of psychological threat that research has identified and remedied. To

12320-427: The establishment of free primary education and the prohibition of discrimination) the main criteria of success in academic and professional life is becoming primarily based on cognitive ability. Increased occupational sorting by cognitive ability is discussed. They maintain that cognitive ability is the best predictor of worker productivity. Herrnstein and Murray argue that due to increasing returns to cognitive ability,

12460-419: The example of women wearing earrings : To borrow an example from Ned Block , "some years ago when only women wore earrings, the heritability of having an earring was high because differences in whether a person had an earring was due to a chromosomal difference, XX vs. XY." No one has yet suggested that wearing earrings, or ties, is "in our genes," an inescapable fate that environment cannot influence, "dooming

12600-414: The extent that unidentified or unremedied psychological threats further undermine performance, the results underestimate the bias." Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that mean group-level disparities (between-group differences) in IQ necessarily have a genetic basis. The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for

12740-469: The frequency of social problems increases. In this final chapter, the authors discuss the relevance of cognitive ability for understanding major social issues in America. Evidence for experimental attempts to raise intelligence is reviewed. The authors conclude that currently there are no means to boost intelligence by more than a modest degree. The authors criticize the "levelling" of general and secondary education and defend gifted education . They offer

12880-474: The gap, such as the observed generational increases in IQ, for which they coin the term Flynn effect . At the close of this discussion, they write: If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion 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 environment have something to do with racial differences. What might

13020-430: The general insistence on phrasing the question in terms of heritability. Templeton pointed out that racial groups neither represent sub-species nor distinct evolutionary lineages , and that therefore there is no basis for making claims about the general intelligence of races. He argued that, for these reasons, the search for possible genetic influences on the black–white test score gap is a priori flawed, because there

13160-686: The gradual closing of the gap as a fact. Flynn and Dickens summarize this trend, stating, "The constancy of the Black-White IQ gap is a myth and therefore cannot be cited as evidence that the racial IQ gap is genetic in origin." Environmental factors including childhood lead exposure , low rates of breast feeding , and poor nutrition are significantly correlated with poor cognitive development and functioning. For example, childhood exposure to lead   —   associated with homes in poorer areas  —   correlates with an average IQ drop of 7 points, and iodine deficiency causes

13300-425: The history of the concept of intelligence from Francis Galton to modern times. Spearman's introduction of the general factor of intelligence and other early advances in research on intelligence are discussed along with a consideration of links between intelligence testing and racial politics. The 1960s are identified as the period in American history when social problems were increasingly attributed to forces outside

13440-407: The individual. This egalitarian ethos, Herrnstein and Murray argue, cannot accommodate biologically based individual differences. The introduction states six of the authors' assumptions, which they claim to be "beyond significant technical dispute": At the close of the introduction, the authors warn the reader against committing the ecological fallacy of inferring things about individuals based on

13580-547: The issue in the United States, especially in the writings of Madison Grant, influenced German Nazi claims that the "Nordics" were a " master race ." As American public sentiment shifted against the Germans, claims of racial differences in intelligence increasingly came to be regarded as problematic. Anthropologists such as Franz Boas , Ruth Benedict , and Gene Weltfish did much to demonstrate that claims about racial hierarchies of intelligence were unscientific. Nonetheless,

13720-675: The journal Intelligence . The statement was drafted by Linda Gottfredson , a professor of educational psychology at the University of Delaware . It was sent to 131 researchers whom Gottfredsen described as "experts in intelligence and allied fields". Of these, 52 signed the statement, 48 returned the request with an explicit refusal to sign, and 31 ignored the request. According to a 1996 response by former American Psychological Association president Donald Campbell , only ten of those who signed were actual experts in intelligence measurement. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that 20 of

13860-450: The last century is due to multiple factors: 1. Non-European Immigration . The United States has the largest number of immigrants in the world, with the vast majority coming from countries where the population is of non-White and/or Latin American origin. Immigration to the United States from European countries has been in a steady decline since World War II averaging 56% of all immigrants in the 1950s and declining to 35% of all immigrants in

14000-438: The law, free people running their own lives, once it is accepted that a significant part of the population must be made permanent wards of the states." The authors recommended the elimination of welfare policies which they claim encourage poor women to have babies. The Bell Curve received a great deal of media attention. The book was not distributed in advance to the media, except for a few select reviewers picked by Murray and

14140-507: The less intelligent, and the large-scale immigration to the United States of those with low intelligence. Discussing a possible future political outcome of an intellectually stratified society, the authors stated that they "fear that a new kind of conservatism is becoming the dominant ideology of the affluent—not in the social tradition of an Edmund Burke or in the economic tradition of an Adam Smith but 'conservatism' along Latin American lines, where to be conservative has often meant doing whatever

14280-473: The liberal notion." He goes on to say there is almost no evidence of a genetic link, and greater evidence that environmental issues are what determine IQ differences. Philosopher Ned Block argues that The Bell Curve misleads about intelligence as it conflates genetic determination with heritability . Genetic determination and heritability are not interchangeable as there are traits that are genetically determined but not heritable, and vice versa. For example,

14420-548: The likelihood was 21.8% above average for those of Nigerian origin, 5.5% above average for those of Ghanaian origin, and 1.4% above average for those of Sierra Leonian origin. For the two other African ethnic groups on which data was available, the likelihood was 23.7% below average for those of Somali origin and 35.3% below average for those of Congolese origin. In 2014, Black-African pupils of 11 language groups were more likely to pass Key Stage 2 Maths 4+ in England than

14560-725: The major genetic reason for phenotypic differences between groups." The concept of human "races" as natural and separate divisions within the human species has also been rejected by the American Anthropological Association . The official position of the AAA, adopted in 1998, is that advances in scientific knowledge have made it "clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups" and that "any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations [is] both arbitrary and subjective." A more recent statement from

14700-452: The majority in the process. This is likely due to the birth rate declining among people of color. For example, between 1990 and 2010, the birth rate declined 29% among Blacks, 25 percent among Asians, 21% among Hispanics, but only 5% among White people. If this trend continues the White birth rate will surpass the Black birth rate in a few years. A total of 1,887,656 babies were born in 2021,

14840-507: The media response, saying that "While many of these discussions included sharp criticisms of the book, media accounts showed a disturbing tendency to accept Murray and Herrnstein's premises and evidence even while debating their conclusions". A 1995 article by the Brookings Institution argued that critics had narrowly focused their attention on the book's arguments regarding race and intelligence while ignoring other contents of

14980-590: The military (N = 0.4 million). In response to the controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve , the American Psychological Association (APA) formed a task-force of eleven experts, which issued a report " Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns " in 1996. Regarding group differences, the report reaffirmed the consensus that differences within groups are much wider than differences between groups, and that claims of ethnic differences in intelligence should be scrutinized carefully, as such claims had been used to justify racial discrimination. The report also acknowledged problems with

15120-562: The mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate. The authors also stress that regardless of the causes of differences, people should be treated no differently. In Part III, the authors also repeat many of the analyses from Part II, but now compare whites to blacks and Hispanics in the NLSY dataset. They find that after controlling for IQ, many differences in social outcomes between races are diminished. The authors discuss

15260-501: The modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups have been observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Complicating the issue, modern science has concluded that race is a socially constructed phenomenon rather than a biological reality, and there exist various conflicting definitions of intelligence . In particular,

15400-632: The name Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales . In 1916 Terman wrote that Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, and Native Americans have a mental "dullness [that] seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come." The US Army used a different set of tests developed by Robert Yerkes to evaluate draftees for World War I. Based on the Army's data, prominent psychologists and eugenicists such as Henry H. Goddard , Harry H. Laughlin , and Princeton professor Carl Brigham wrote that people from southern and eastern Europe were less intelligent than native-born Americans or immigrants from

15540-428: The national average. Overall, the average pass rate by ethnicity was 86.5% for white British (N = 395,787), whereas it was 85.6% for Black-Africans (N = 18,497). Nevertheless, several Black-African language groups, including Yoruba , Igbo , Hausa , Akan , Ga , Swahili , Edo , Ewe , Amharic speakers, and English-speaking Africans, each had an average pass rate above the white British average (total N = 9,314), with

15680-491: The number of fingers on a human hand are genetically determined as genes code for five fingers in nearly everybody. However, the heritability of the number of fingers is very low, as variations in numbers of fingers are usually environmentally caused. The aforementioned earring example quoted by Chomsky is an instance where the opposite is true: high heritability, but not genetic determination. Given that genetic determination and heritability are not equivalent, Block contends that IQ

15820-399: The philosophers Jonathan Kaplan and Rasmus Winther, and the geneticist Joseph Graves , have argued that the cluster structure of genetic data is dependent on the initial hypotheses of the researcher and the influence of these hypotheses on the choice of populations to sample. When one samples continental groups, the clusters become continental, but if one had chosen other sampling patterns,

15960-556: The pioneering sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois , and the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar stood as high-profile counterexamples to widespread stereotypes of black intellectual inferiority. In Britain, Japan's military victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War began to reverse negative stereotypes of "oriental" inferiority. The first practical intelligence test, the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test ,

16100-436: The possibility that high birth rates among those with lower IQs may exert a downward pressure on the national distribution of cognitive ability. They argue that immigration may also have a similar effect. At the close of Part III, Herrnstein and Murray discuss the relation of IQ to social problems. Using the NLSY data, they argue that social problems are a monotonically decreasing function of IQ, in other words at lower IQ scores

16240-690: The probability of voting in elections. All participants in the NLSY took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a battery of ten tests taken by all who apply for entry into the armed services. (Some had taken an IQ test in high school, and the median correlation of the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores and those IQ test scores was .81). Participants were later evaluated for social and economic outcomes. In general, Herrnstein and Murray argued, IQ/AFQT scores were

16380-631: The publisher, which delayed more detailed critiques for months and years after the book's release. Stephen Jay Gould , reviewing the book in The New Yorker , said that the book "contains no new arguments and presents no compelling data to support its anachronistic social Darwinism " and said that the "authors omit facts, misuse statistical methods, and seem unwilling to admit the consequence of their own words." A 1995 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting writer Jim Naureckas criticized

16520-418: The racial categories used, as these categories are neither consistently applied, nor homogeneous (see Race and ethnicity in the United States ) . In the UK, some African groups have higher average educational attainment and standardized test scores than the overall population. In 2010–2011, white British pupils were 2.3% less likely to have gained 5 A*–C grades at GCSE than the national average, whereas

16660-432: The references and sources used in the book were advocates for racial hygiene , whose research was funded by the white supremacist organization Pioneer Fund . Shortly after its publication, many people rallied both in criticism and in defense of the book. A number of critical texts were written in response to it. Several criticisms were collected in the book The Bell Curve Debate . The Bell Curve , published in 1994,

16800-530: The results of 6,246,729 participants tested for cognitive ability or aptitude found a difference in average scores between black people and white people of 1.1 standard deviations . Consistent results were found for college and university application tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (N = 2.4 million) and Graduate Record Examination (N = 2.3 million), as well as for tests of job applicants in corporate settings (N = 0.5 million) and in

16940-464: The results of the Army tests to argue for a stricter immigration policy, limiting immigration to countries considered to belong to the "Nordic race". In the 1920s, some US states enacted eugenic laws, such as Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act , which established the one-drop rule (of ' racial purity ') as law. Many scientists reacted negatively to eugenicist claims linking abilities and moral character to racial or genetic ancestry. They pointed to

17080-400: The same criteria in different societies. Consequently, some critics argue that it makes no sense to propose relationships between intelligence and other variables. Correlations between scores on various types of IQ tests led English psychologist Charles Spearman to propose in 1904 the existence of an underlying factor, which he referred to as " g " or " general intelligence ", a trait which

17220-640: The same genes or belonging to a single evolutionary lineage. According to Mackintosh, a biological basis for the observed gap in IQ test performance thus cannot be ruled out on a priori grounds. Non-Hispanic white Non-Hispanic Whites or Non-Latino Whites are White Americans classified by the United States census as "white" and not Hispanic . According to the United States Census Bureau yearly estimates, as of July 1, 2023, Non-Hispanic whites make up about 58.4% of

17360-423: The signers were recipients of funding from the white-supremacist organization the Pioneer Fund , including Gottfredson herself. In subsequent years, both the substance and the interpretation of this letter have received widespread criticism from the scientific community. In response to the controversy surrounding The Bell Curve , the American Psychological Association 's Board of Scientific Affairs established

17500-526: The students' ethnicity. The Abecedarian Early Intervention Project , an intensive early childhood education project, was also able to bring about an average IQ gain of 4.4 points at age 21 in the black children who participated in it compared to controls. Arthur Jensen agreed that the Abecedarian project demonstrated that education can have a significant effect on IQ, but also declared his view that no educational program thus far had been able to reduce

17640-441: The systemic limitations of their prospects of social advancement, do not have " effort optimism ", i.e. they do not have the confidence that acquiring the skills valued by majority society, such as those skills measured by IQ tests, is worthwhile. They may even deliberately reject certain behaviors that are seen as " acting white ." Research published in 1997 indicates that part of the black–white gap in cognitive ability test scores

17780-411: The time of American Revolution there were about 2.5 million Whites in the colonies. The white population was largely of English, Irish, Scotch-Irish, Scottish, German, Dutch and French Huguenot descent at the time. Between the revolution and the 1820s there was relatively little immigration to the United States. Starting after the 1820s large scale migration to the United States began and lasted until

17920-441: The types of tasks that such tests contain. This means that comparisons of test scores between persons with widely different life experiences and cognitive habits do not reveal their relative innate potentials. The consensus view among geneticists, biologists and anthropologists is that race is a sociopolitical phenomenon rather than a biological one, a view supported by considerable genetics research. The current mainstream view

18060-527: The value of compensatory education for African-American children. He suggested that poor educational performance in such cases reflected an underlying genetic cause rather than lack of stimulation at home or other environmental factors. Another revival of public debate followed the appearance of The Bell Curve (1994), a book by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray that supported the general viewpoint of Jensen. A statement in support of Herrnstein and Murray titled " Mainstream Science on Intelligence ,"

18200-741: The various racial and ethnic groups. In 2008, a record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another. 9% of non-Latino whites who married in 2008 married either a non-White or Latino. Among all newlyweds in 2008, intermarried pairings were primarily white-Latino of any race (41%) as compared to white-Asian (15%), white-black (11%), and other combinations (33%). Other combinations consists of pairings between different minority groups, multi-racial people, and Native Indigenous Americans. The children of such unions would not automatically be classified as white non-Latino. One self-identifies his or her racial and/or ethnic category. 3. Methodology . In

18340-445: The world during the 20th century. In the United States, the increase was continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to about 1998 when the gains stopped and some tests even showed decreasing test scores. For example, the average scores of black people on some IQ tests in 1995 were the same as the scores of white people in 1945. As one pair of academics phrased it, "the typical African American today probably has

18480-429: The world. James Flynn has himself argued against this view. Some recent research has argued that the retardation caused in brain development by infectious diseases , many of which are more prevalent in non-white populations, may be an important factor in explaining the differences in IQ between different regions of the world. The findings of this research, showing the correlation between IQ, race and infectious diseases

18620-465: The year 1000; however, they were ultimately absorbed or killed off, leaving no permanent settlements behind. In the 1500s, Spain founded several settlements in the contiguous United States, like San Agustín . Later, Pilgrims and colonists came in the 1600s along the East Coast , mainly from England, in search of economic opportunities and religious freedom. Over time emigrants from Europe settled

18760-479: Was "a bigger fan of [ The Bell Curve ] than you might think." However, he also maintained that Herrnstein and Murray overestimated the role of heredity in determining intelligence differences. In 1995, Noam Chomsky , a founder in the field of cognitive science , criticized the book and its assumptions on IQ. He takes issue with the idea that IQ is 60% heritable, arguing that the "statement is meaningless" because heritability does not have to be genetic. Chomsky gives

18900-430: Was a straw man and that the book does not argue that g or IQ are totally immutable or the only factors affecting outcomes. In a 2005 interview, Heckman praised The Bell Curve for breaking "a taboo by showing that differences in ability existed and predicted a variety of socioeconomic outcomes" and for playing "a very important role in raising the issue of differences in ability and their importance" and stated that he

19040-875: Was also shown to apply to the IQ gap in the US, suggesting that this may be an important environmental factor. A 2013 meta-analysis by the World Health Organization found that, after controlling for maternal IQ, breastfeeding was associated with IQ gains of 2.19 points. The authors suggest that this relationship is causal but state that the practical significance of this gain is debatable; however, they highlight one study suggesting an association between breastfeeding and academic performance in Brazil, where "breastfeeding duration does not present marked variability by socioeconomic position." Colen and Ramey (2014) similarly find that controlling for sibling comparisons within families, rather than between families, reduces

19180-402: Was developed between 1905 and 1908 by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon in France for school placement of children. Binet warned that results from his test should not be assumed to measure innate intelligence or used to label individuals permanently. Binet's test was translated into English and revised in 1916 by Lewis Terman (who introduced IQ scoring for the test results) and published under

19320-496: Was published in The Wall Street Journal with 52 signatures. The Bell Curve also led to critical responses in a statement titled " Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns " of the American Psychological Association and in several books, including The Bell Curve Debate (1995), Inequality by Design (1996) and a second edition of The Mismeasure of Man (1996) by Stephen Jay Gould . Some of

19460-475: Was used by segregationists to argue that it was to the advantage of black children to be educated separately from the superior white children. In the 1960s, the debate was revived when William Shockley publicly defended the view that black children were innately unable to learn as well as white children. Arthur Jensen expressed similar opinions in his Harvard Educational Review article, " How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? ," which questioned

19600-410: Was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray to explain the variations in intelligence in American society, warn of some consequences of that variation, and propose social policies for mitigating the worst of the consequences. The book's title comes from the bell-shaped normal distribution of intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in a population. The book starts with an introduction that appraises

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