THE PSEUDOSCIENCE OF PSYCHOMETRY AND THE BELL-CURVE

This article claims The Bell Curve merely reiterates the fallacious ar gument long embraced by psychometricians: that intelligence can be red uced to a single ordinal measure (g) that is the primary factor for de termining group or individual social-class status. The book's policy r ecommendations, particularly its call to dismantle initiatives designe d to ameliorate social inequality, are shown to have evolved from pseu doscientific theories about the distribution of cognitive abilities ac ross racial/ethnic groups. Evidence from the biological sciences and q uantitative genetics is presented, pointing to the significance of env ironmental and physiological factors neglected by the psychometric pro gram. These data reveal that social inequality is not a symptom of imm utable biological inequalities but rather the result of longstanding b iases and differential opportunity structures.