In The Bell Curve, Murray and Herrnstein argue that intelligence, as measured by an IQ score, is a crucial determinant of success in modern society. They also argue that a person’s intelligence is substantially determined by genetics, leading to the establishment of “cognitive elites” as intelligent people select one another for reproduction.
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A decade after The Bell Curve’s publication, the Human Genome Project made human DNA available to scientists on a large scale, and researchers anticipated that they would figure out what was going on with genes and human behavior. But all of the most direct methods of searching for IQ genes were unsuccessful.
In fact, the more researchers have learned about associations between DNA and IQ, the more complex and less deterministic this relationship looks.
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The world would be a different place if scientists understood intelligence at the genetic level. But right now, like wealth and health, IQ remains a node in the uncontrolled matrix of human development, causing some things and being caused by others, as genes and environment interact in the background.
