Paroxysms of Denial. (cover story)

BELL Curve: Intelligence & Class Structure in American Life, The (Book); MURRAY, Charles, 1943-; HERRNSTEIN, Richard; INDIVIDUAL differences; DIFFERENTIAL psychology; INTELLIGENCE tests; COGNITIVE ability; INTELLECT & genetics; BLACK white differences

This article presents an opinion on the book "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. One well-established fact presented by the book is the idea that individual differences in general cognitive ability are reliably measured by intelligence quotient (IQ) tests. It is found that individual differences in adult IQ are largely genetic, with a heritability of about 70 percent. The IQ distribution between blacks and whites is represented by two bell curves with their means separated by about 15 points.