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“Mainstream Science” and Intelligence

By  Ellen K. Coughlin
January 6, 1995

More than 50 researchers went on the offensive last month to correct what they see as misconceptions about intelligence that surfaced in the heat of debate over The Bell Curve.

The book, by Charles Murray and the late Richard J. Herrnstein, published in October by the Free Press, argues that social class in America is increasingly determined by intelligence. The work drew an extraordinary amount of fire for its treatment of such issues as the heritability of intelligence and racial and ethnic differences in I.Q.

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More than 50 researchers went on the offensive last month to correct what they see as misconceptions about intelligence that surfaced in the heat of debate over The Bell Curve.

The book, by Charles Murray and the late Richard J. Herrnstein, published in October by the Free Press, argues that social class in America is increasingly determined by intelligence. The work drew an extraordinary amount of fire for its treatment of such issues as the heritability of intelligence and racial and ethnic differences in I.Q.

In response, 52 specialists in the field of intelligence signed a statement, published in the December 13 Wall Street Journal, outlining what they called “mainstream science” on the topic -- much of it in accord with what Mr. Herrnstein and Mr. Murray presented.

“The things in the statement really are, among most experts in the field, basic, fundamental, and, for many, non-controversial,” said Linda S. Gottfredson, a sociologist at the University of Delaware who drafted the statement.

The 25-point outline asserted that intelligence is a general mental ability that can be reliably measured and is substantially inherited; that it is strongly linked to certain educational and social outcomes; and that, for reasons scientists do not fully understand, the distribution of I.Q. scores (the “bell curve”) differs among different racial and ethnic groups, with American blacks scoring, on average, significantly lower than whites and whites lower than Asians.

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Signers of the statement included such key scholars in the field as John B. Carroll, considered the dean of cognitive psychology, and Douglas K. Detterman, editor of the journal Intelligence, as well as such controversial names as Arthur Jensen and J. Phillipe Rushton, both of whom have been involved in public skirmishes over their views on the links between race and intelligence.

Ms. Gottfredson said she had circulated the statement to 100 recognized experts in intelligence. The 48 who declined to sign, she said, did so for a variety of reasons, including disagreement with some or all of the statement or discomfort at the method of presentation.

Even some who did sign the statement acknowledged that virtually every point in it had been challenged in some quarters. Some well-known scholars outside the strict confines of intelligence research, such as Stephen Jay Gould, have attacked the very concept of intelligence testing. Others inside the field take issue with certain points; some, for example, view intelligence as more multifaceted than the statement suggests.

One person who signed the statement characterized the group of signers as representative of “the classical g camp” -- or those who accept the notion of a measurable general intelligence, or g.

Some experts agreed to sign despite certain reservations. Sandra Scarr, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, said she believed the statement did not emphasize strongly enough all that scholars do not know about intelligence -- including the reasons why certain ethnic groups consistently score lower than others on I.Q. tests.

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“It could have been slightly softer,” Ms. Scarr said. “But it’s a very clear statement, and I think the research supports it.”

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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