 What is the problem with using IQ to predict economic success?
Most works containing fresh regression analysis and historical argument from primary sources would be published in academic quarterlies that send manuscripts out for elaborate, lengthy evaluation before deciding whether to publish them. Herrnstein and Murray didn't do this, so it wasn't until a full year or more after The Bell Curve was published that the leading experts on its subject had a chance to go through the underlying data with care. Therefore, as time went on, the knowledgeability of the Bell Curve discussion grew, but the attention paid to that discussion inevitably shrank. The debate on publication day was conducted in the mass media by people with no independent ability to assess the book. IQ tests, according to Murray and Herrnstein, measure an essential human quality, general intelligence. Because intelligence is substantially inherited, nothing is likely to reverse this process. Any efforts government might make to improve the economic opportunities of poor people, especially poor black people, are likely to fail, because their poverty is so much the result of inherited low intelligence. Herrnstein and Murray begin by telling us that the liberal position on IQ--namely, "Intelligence is a bankrupt concept"--has been discredited, and that "a scholarly consensus has been reached" around their position. Thus, by the end of their introduction, they have arranged matters so that if intelligence has any meaning at all, the idiotic liberals stand discredited; and meanwhile, extremely broad claims for intelligence have the cover of "consensus." The notion that IQ tests are completely useless never prevailed in liberal academia to nearly the extent that Herrnstein and Murray say. A more accurate rendering of the liberal position would be that rather than a single "general intelligence," there are a handful of crucial--and separate--mental abilities; that none of these abilities is important enough to obviate the role of family background and education; and that native ability (and economic success independent of native ability) can be enhanced by improving education, training, and public health. These men are well known within the field as representing its right wing, not a mainstream consensus. The next problem with The Bell Curve 's thesis is in the idea of the rise to dominance of the cognitive elite. But the larger premise--that intelligent people used to be scattered throughout the class structure, and are now concentrated at the top--is almost impossible to prove, simply because the mass administration of mental tests is such a recent phenomenon.
 IQ tests are impacted by the amount of education a person has had
 IQ tests are not aimed at people of all races  IQ tests are impacted by the amount of education a person has had  IQ tests aren't all the same, so it's not a fair control  IQ tests only test inherited intelligence