A brief historical background of discriminant analysis is given, with a description of the variety of roles that discriminant analysis can perform. Focus is on the classification role of discriminant analysis and how it can be performed by using Fisher's classification functions or the canonical discriminant functions. A small hypothetical data…

Comments on some methodological limitations of the research base of "The Bell Curve": blind use of the normal distribution (bell curve); avoidance of nonnormal statistical distributions, which are more appropriate for some social and economic characteristics; copious use of percentiles and quintiles, inappropriate with nonnormal…