“Breaking the Last Taboo [Review of the Book The Bell Curve: Intelligence And Class Structure In American Life, by R. J. Herrnstein & C. Murray]”, 1995 (; similar):
The reviewer notes that this book has a simple but powerful thesis: There are substantial individual and group differences in intelligence; these differences profoundly influence the social structure and organization of work in modern industrial societies, and they defy easy remediation. In the current political milieu this book’s message is not merely controversial, it is incendiary. Commentators from across the political spectrum have documented the profound social changes that all industrialized societies are undergoing at the end of the 20th century—erosion of the middle class, loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs, and an emerging information age in which individual success will depend on brains not brawn.
This book differs from other works by focusing on intelligence, rather than education or social class, as a causal variable. The authors argue that general cognitive ability is a major determiner of social status and that variance in general mental ability is largely attributable to genetic factors—propositions that are certainly endorsed by many experts in the field.
The book explicitly disclaims, however, that general mental ability is the only determinant of social status.