Criticizes claims in "The Bell Curve" that a high value for heritability of intelligence constrains the extent to which environmental changes can increase intelligence. Cites adoption studies and the increasing intelligence of successive cohorts of U.S. children as evidence that intelligence can increase substantially without heroic…

A Canadian study compared the rate of cognitive disabilities in 156 relatives of 49 individuals with autism to that found in 55 relatives of 18 individuals with mental retardation. No differences were found; however, female and low IQ individuals were found to have higher family histories of cognitive disabilities. (Author/CR)

Genetic effects on specific cognitive abilities as distinct from those on general cognitive ability were studied in 302 pairs of twins (some reared together, some apart) from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. Overall, results showed significant genetic influence on specific abilities independent of influence on general ability. (SLD)

Few books have generated as much controversy as the recently published "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life." The tremendous polarization on the issue of the relationship between intelligence quotient (IQ) to race and social class, reinforced by the book, and the potential this book has for undermining…

The history of the study of human mental ability is an example of the dialectic in social science between those who interpret data within the framework of existing social inequities and those who look for perspectives that might eventually dissolve inequities. The dedication of Henry Herbert Goddard to a belief in the scientific proof of…

Neutral summary of "The Bell Curve" (Herrnstein and Murray) by a former student of Herrnstein. Focuses on the emergence of a cognitive elite in the United States; relationships between IQ and poverty, educational attainment, unemployment, divorce, illegitimacy, welfare dependency, parenting competence, criminal behaviors, and voting;…

Once again intelligence tests are being used as the major basis to establish the genetically determined limitations of minority and economically disadvantaged groups. By reviewing the arguments regarding the I.Q. test and the hereditability of intelligence, the author compares these with two sets of phenomena: the I.Q. test scores and the…

Reviews the current theories concerning individual differences in cognitive functioning. While some argue that heredity places a genetic cap on intellectual development, others emphasize the dynamic interrelationship between cultural and environmental factors. Concludes that intelligence is more complex than the heredity advocates allow. (MJP)

Swedish longitudinal studies of twins support Scarr-Salapatek's explanation of nature-nurture influences on intelligence. This model predicts more genetic variance in test results for advantaged than disadvantaged groups. Jensen's work, however, suggests equal amounts of variance among different social classes. (Author/CP)

Psychologists and a few sociologists have provided the academic respectability for the political rationale that the American body politic's civil rights indigestion needs a resurrected, separate but equal diet. Today, it is intellectually respectable to question the genetic equality of whites and blacks, to assert the cognitive incapacities of…

This final report reviews the second phase of a life-span study of boys with fragile X syndrome (FSX), the most common known inherited cause of mental retardation. Males with the syndrome are more severely affected than females and in males, delays are usually evident in all the developmental domains, although cognitive and communication skills…