‘The Bell Curve’ 20 years later: A Q&A with Charles Murray

This argument rests on the assumption that IQ tests are good at measuring anything. Which, given recent understanding of intelligence and IQ, is very highly questionable. Establishing a single metric for intelligence is close to impossible. We know so little about how the brain works. To think that we can dilute intelligence down to a single number is IMO absurd.

If anything the mean difference between whites and blacks in IQ tests is the proof that IQ tests are essentially meaningless. Either we assume a definition of intelligence where the mean of blacks vs the mean of whites is more or less equal, or we assume IQ actually measures intelligence. We can't have both.

To me, it seems much more plausible that some quantitative metric is biased, than to assume that two groups of people have different levels of intelligence. Given that a) social science has a history of developing biased metrics, b) white people have a history of justifying racism with scientific models, c) racial distinctions are largely arbitrary. Anyone remember phrenology?

"Synthesizing evidence from nearly a century of empirical studies, Schmidt and Hunter established that general mental ability—the psychological trait that IQ scores reflect—is the single best predictor of job training success, and that it accounts for differences in job performance even in workers with more than a decade of experience. It’s more predictive than interests, personality, reference checks, and interview performance. Smart people don’t just make better mathematicians, as Brooks observed—they make better managers, clerks, salespeople, service workers, vehicle operators, and soldiers."

It is truly miraculous that racist white people managed to come up with so many tests that confirm the black/white cognitive gap while simultaneously screwing them all up and biasing them in favor of east Asians.