Bell Curve, the

The Bell Curve was published in 1994 by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. This book reviewed the research on group differences in standardized intelligence tests and made some startling social policy recommendations. Given the persistent pattern of differential performance between minority groups and European Americans on intelligence tests, the authors concluded that social programs to increase the intelligence of minority group members are ineffective, that intelligence is genetically transferred and not amenable to intervention, and that we need to accept that our society has a cognitive elite (i.e., European Americans and a few representatives from minority groups) and a permanent working class (most minority members and a few representative European Americans). These conclusions led them to make social policy recommendations that included discontinuing all social programs designed to assist disenfranchised citizens from minority groups. These are not novel concepts, but The Bell Curve lent to them an unusual amount of visibility and seeming credibility. The attention paid to the book by both the political Right and Left marked an unprecedented politicization of the use and interpretation of intelligence tests and the validity of cross-racial comparison.

Many of the conclusions presented by Herrnstein and Murray have been present for a century. In the 1920s, the eugenics movement in the United States made similar claims about the inheritability of intelligence and the need to “clean up” the genetic pool through involuntary sterilization of individuals. The Third Reich explicitly based its scientific rationale for Aryan supremacy on the eugenics movement's arguments. Following World War II, the concepts received little attention, except as they related to individuals with disabilities.

One of the primary proponents of related concepts is J. Philippe Rushton. Rushton made the argument that the three main racial groups are at different stages of evolution. His conclusions were based on reviewing research on racial differences, on such divergent topics as size of cranium, age at which infants walk, age at first intercourse, aggressiveness, impulsivity, frequency of intercourse, and size of genitalia. According to Rushton, across these domains, there is a linear pattern: Asians > Caucasians > Negroid groups. He concluded that these patterns show that the three racial groups are at different evolutionary stages, with Asians having evolved to the highest degree, followed by Caucasians and the “Negroid” groups. Rushton's research is seen as being of questionable quality (relying on inadequate source data) and is widely ignored, if not ridiculed, by social scientists.

Herrnstein and Murray explicitly credited Rushton and cited his work in support of their contentions. The most significant aspect of The Bell Curve was its widespread acceptance among journalists and politicians of the political Right, as compared with Rushton's relative obscurity.

The conclusions and research approaches used by Herrnstein and Murray were widely criticized by many social scientists. The first criticism was the use of g as a global measure of intelligence. Advocates of intelligence research argue that it is possible to measure a single factor that is related to an individual's intelligence (g). Many researchers suggest that intelligence is a multifaceted construct and that there are multiple intelligences. A second [Page 66]criticism of the use of g is that it explains a small amount of variance in school or work success. Other criticisms attacked the authors' use of statistical techniques as inappropriate.

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